Firefox 3 Hits Release Candidate 2

Barence noted that Firefox has announced release candidate 2 of their highly popular web browser. You can read the release notes while you download. And since my copy just finished downloading, I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any

Old Look?

[0100010001010011]

Are there any themes or settings where we can set everything back to the way it was? I'd love to look into the new back end features but I hate the new UI.

(I'm one of those guys that still has the single close tab in the upper right corner rather than on each tab).

Until they bother fixing critical bugs...

[Viol8]

..that have been around for years such as this one:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=235853 [mozilla.org]

Then I won't hold my breath for this release to me any more reliable or stable than any other from the last N years. Its about time they stopped doing a Microsoft and dicking about with "coooo , its so preeetty" UI stuff and bloatware functionalty that no one needs and starting fixing bloody bugs!

Yeah mod me down fanboys, see if I care, I'm just a user ,what do I know.

ext3 system freeze bug fixed

[Anonymous Coward]

RC2 fixes the really annoying bug 421482 (Firefox 3 uses fsync excessively) [mozilla.org] which however is arguably not Firefox 3's fault [off.net].

PLUGIN AUTHORS Listen up!

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be great if the plugin authors would get on the bandwagon and update their own code, so many of us can upgrade to 3.x. Hint hint.

Re:Firefox is starting to give me the shits

[JustinOpinion]

Huh? Are you using the same "Firefox" as me?

1. What do you mean? Yes, Firefox 3 isn't compatible with (some) Firefox 2 extensions. But then again, Firefox 3 is a whole new version... and it's still at release-candidate level. I've never had extensions break during an incremental upgrade, for instance. (If they become marked as incompatible, that's the fault of the extension author, who should have set compatibility as 2.* or whatever.)

2. I've never seen that. Normally it just downloads the incremental update and applies it on the next restart.

3. Well many of us happen to like the new functionality of the combined address-bar/search-bar. However, it's trivial to return to the old-style behavior if that's what you want (e.g. this [mozilla.org]). The same is true of most other changes. Firefox is very customizable.

4. Sorry to hear that it's unstable on your system. On the systems I use, Firefox 3 has been decidedly more stable than Firefox 2. Faster, too. From various things I've read, it sounds like the typical experience is that Firefox 3 is faster, more stable, and more robust than Firefox 2. But, as always, your mileage may vary.

5. Huh? When you try to exit, there is a single confirmation box, which can be disabled. It doesn't pop up "a thousand confirmations". Exaggerate much?

6. Huh? I've never had to re-download extensions when upgrading Firefox (even when installing a whole new version). The only time extensions re-download is when a new version of the extension is available. But... how exactly do you propose to get the new version without downloading it?

I'm sorry that you seem to be having troubles with Firefox. From what I can tell, this isn't a typical experience. Also, note that you're most welcome to keep using older versions if they suit you better.

Theres a difference between..

[Viol8]

.. a bug fix not making a release and sitting on a major bug for *4 YEARS*

Re:Firefox is starting to give me the shits

[junglee_iitk]

Listen, if you don't use oldbar, don't suggest it. Because anyone who has used oldbar even ONCE knows that it is nothing but a UI hogwash - the awesomebar's aweful features still remain - they just don't look fancy.

Re:"I Hope I Don't Have Any"

[Bertie]

I think it was his little joke, Jerry.

Re:Actual Release Notes

[Rysc]

Remember the good-old days when Mozilla (and Firefox) release notes actually talked about bugs fixed, features introduced, and interesting things? When each version actually informed you about what had changed?

Ever since Mozilla went corporate things have gone down hill. Going to mozilla.org (or .com) and trying to find betas is now impossible. No, really... there are no links to non-release versions.

I miss the time when Mozilla was a user-friendly organization, when everything was public and *easy to find*.

Re:Actual Release Notes

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Sure, but I'd like to know what those bugfixes are - the firefox release notes page hasn't changed significantly (that I've seen) since Beta 1. Kind of frustrating when you want to see what's actually in the release, and not a sales pitch.

Re:Firefox is starting to give me the shits

[Fri13]

Why you should have all possible options and possibilities on Tools > Options? Why we cant keep the browser itself small and add those features as addons, even the old features what are OLD features. At least you can have the old feature with add-on, and you dont need to take source code and start coding to get it...

Re:Until they bother fixing critical bugs...

[B3ryllium]

It's not a major bug. It's just a bug.

Re:Theres a difference between..

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know about this bug, but it does explain why FF is so slow for me, sometimes.

I use a local .pac file to determine which proxy server to use to access TOR, depending on the network my laptop is on. I use TOR for googling, and along with selected FF extensions and settings they pretty much can't trend on me.

I also like to consume plants that are illegal where I am, so it is best that when communicating over the internet about these plants I can do so anonymously, and I use TOR for this.

You are right to a degree, pac files aren't the nicest way to manage proxys, but in most controlled corporate environment it doesn't matter if the clients choose the proxy or the servers do.

But either way, the bug shouldn't be outstanding for so long. PAC files must be reasonably widely used, else the feature would have been pulled from FF.... so they should get it working properly before adding things like the awful bar.

Re:Old Look?

[HTH NE1]

If you use the middle mouse button (scroll wheel) on a link it opens it in a new tab - so there one click :) ... Unless you are using a mac

Or unless you are using Linux and you miss the link because trying to click the scroll wheel caused the link to scroll away, so instead you've pasted your clipboard contents (often what you most recently had highlighted, even accidentally) to the current tab, and if the clipboard contained something Firefox could interpret as a valid URL or deduce a domain it will take you somewhere you likely didn't want to go and away from where you wanted to stay in that tab, instead of opening a new tab to the place you wanted to go.

On my Logitech mouse, clicking the scroll wheel toggles it between smooth and ratchety scrolling. Middle-click is one of the side buttons. I wish I had better drivers for it that enabled more of its buttons, but I don't have administrative permissions on my work machine.

Re:Actual Release Notes

[GarfBond]

User-friendly means not inundating the AOL/myspace crowd with bugzilla links and technical jargon. User-friendly means presenting those users with the officially supported release versions instead of the developer targeted nightlies, alphas, betas, or RCs.

I don't think your perception of user-friendly means what you think it does. Perhaps what you're looking for is "developer-friendly" or "obsessive geek friendly," in which case you might be better off going to http://developer.mozilla.org [mozilla.org]

Re:Actual Release Notes

[el americano]

Beta should be feature complete. RC should be solid. In fact, in most cases RC will be the release when a serious bug is not found.

Re:To late?

[joeman3429]

You're right, it's more of a spelling mistake then a grammatical mistake. But it all depends on his intent. If he didn't know to use the correct word, then it's grammar. If he knew the right word, but for whatever reason forgot the extra letter, then it's spelling.

*sigh* I guess we'll never know

Re:Actual Release Notes

[Minwee]

Sadly, those days are as gone as the days when you could freely check out the source code from CVS [mozilla.org], check the status of up-to-the-minute builds [mozilla.org] and build the complete application on your own [mozilla.org].

Which is to say they're not gone at all.