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Mozilla The Internet

Firefox 3 Hits Release Candidate 2 395

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
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Firefox 3 Hits Release Candidate 2

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  • Actual Release Notes (Score:5, Informative)

    by MankyD ( 567984 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @08:39AM (#23666493) Homepage
    Anyone have the actual RC2 release notes instead of just the Ffx3 general release notes?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rysc ( 136391 ) *
      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*
      • by GarfBond ( 565331 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @12:57PM (#23670117)
        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]

      • by rklrkl ( 554527 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @04:32PM (#23673697) Homepage

        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?
        http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0rc2/releasenotes/ [mozilla.com] seems fairly reasonable to me. Granted, the differences between RC1 and RC2 aren't flagged (because virtually nothing but some blocker bugs were the changes between the two), but they *did* flag "Improved in Beta 5" in the equivalent Beta 5 release notes [mozilla.com].

        Going to mozilla.org (or .com) and trying to find betas is now impossible. No, really... there are no links to non-release versions.
        Oh come on! How hard did you bother reading the home page [mozilla.com]? What's New on the right hand side has a "Firefox 3 Sneak Peak" link [mozilla.com] for goodness' sake! And even if you drifted to mozilla.org's home page [mozilla.org] instead, guess what? Developer News on the right hand side announces [mozilla.org] the RC2 release as I speak. You sir, are either one lazy so-and-so or just a total troll!

        I miss the time when Mozilla was a user-friendly organization, when everything was public and *easy to find*.
        I miss the time when people actually made the effort to check the current state of Web sites before slagging them off. Everything related to Mozilla (bar a few closed security bugs, which are opened once the fix is published) is very public and trivially easy to find. It's a shame that some people just don't think before they post.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Minwee ( 522556 )

        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.

  • Old Look? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @08:41AM (#23666523)
    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).
    • Re:Old Look? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Brian Gordon ( 987471 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @08:53AM (#23666629)
      Firefox 2.0 Classic theme [mozilla.org] works great but to use it you have to:
      -Register and log in to Firefox Addons
      -Attempt to override the version check and install the theme
      -Go to your %appdata% just after it fails and look for the temp XPI that it downloaded
      -Copy it to the desktop and extract it with winrar
      -Change the RDF file's <maxversion> to * or 3.0RC2 or something
      -Zip the files back up, normal compression, rename to xpi
      -Drag the file off the desktop into your firefox window to install!
  • by qwertphobia ( 825473 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @08:45AM (#23666555)

    Wow, the update retroactively screwed up the story submission? That's slick!

    I was just thinking, I will have just upgraded by the time I am done reading this po

  • by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @08:50AM (#23666597)

    I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any
    Taco wants us to complete his post. My suggestions:

    I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any weasels in my trousers.

    I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any eels in my hovercraft.

    I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any embarrassing mistakes visible to the entire world, or at least as much of the world as comes here when bored.
  • by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @08:55AM (#23666649) Homepage
    ..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.
    • Your linky doesn't go anywhere.
      • by Viol8 ( 599362 )
        Works fine for me.
      • A critical hang bug:

        Defer proxy resolution for HTTP and HTTPS PAC to avoid blocking main thread during DNS resolution

        User-Agent:
        Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7b) Gecko/20040225

        This bug has been split from #224447 as the symptoms are different. I will copy
        relevant comments from #224447 into this bug report.

        Reproducible: Always
        Steps to Reproduce:
        1. Go to Preferences, Advanced, Proxies
        2. Select "Automatic Proxy Configuration URL"
        3. Enter a URL to a valid PAC file
        4. Click OK
        5. B
    • Mozilla developers did try to fix it, but the patch failed a regression test and didn't make it for Gecko 1.9 (Firefox 3). I'm sure that for every release of Firefox, you can find some serious bug fix that didn't make the release. Likewise, I'm sure you can do the same for any major software project.
    • by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      Under OSX I have regular problems with firefox consuming all available memory (I only have 12 gig in this machine) by lunchtime. I also have times when it will suddenly stop allowing you to input any text and have to crash firefox to get it back.

      I have reported the bugs, but do not see the problems get better with each beta or rc release.

      • by barzok ( 26681 )
        FF3 betas and RCs have been far better about memory consumption on both my Mac and Thinkpad than any previous FF release. On OS X, it's better than Safari as well.
    • Wow that's interesting because I used a PAC file for 5 years and never had a single issue with Firefox.
    • 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!

      I haven't seen any memory leaks in 3 yet. Its Javascript engine is light years faster. It doesn't have Edit -> Preferences alongside Tools -> Options anymore, just a single location at Tools -> Options.

      Have fun waiting for HURD-fox 1.0. In the mean time, I'll take what's available.

    • Can someone please mod this guy down? How is this a critical bug, and what does he use--Internet Explorer? Firefox 3 is the best browser out there in terms of functionality, features, reliability, security, and availability. (Safari is nice, but only for Macs. Opera doesn't work with many banking and financial web sites that work fine with Firefox. Internet Explorer is Internet Explorer.)

      The Mozilla developers have made Firefox 3 faster, more responsive, and more reliable than Firefox 2. The features were a
    • 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!

      lol.. Since when is stuff like being able to cross-session resume downloads "bloatware"? Or have status info without opening the download manager? Or the new web developer support? The UI stuff is just what you see easily if you don't care to look, which you quite obviously haven't.

      Have you even read a changelog?

      http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/trunk-for-firefox-3.html [squarefree.com]

    • by slamb ( 119285 ) * on Thursday June 05, 2008 @12:00PM (#23669239) Homepage
      Argh! Yeah, I hate that bug ("[PAC] Defer proxy resolution for HTTP and HTTPS PAC to avoid blocking main thread during DNS resolution")!

      I wrote a proxy server to run on localhost, do DNS resolution, and send the request to the appropriate upstream proxy or directly to the source, just to work around this bug.

  • Works for me. (Score:2, Informative)

    by linko47 ( 1253010 )
    Just clicked help > check for updates in Debian. Upgraded just fine and is working as normal. :-)
  • Who cares! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kamineko ( 851857 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @08:58AM (#23666667)
    None of us have any, you insensitive clod!
  • Just release the damn thing already!
    • So then you can complain about a rough feature that wasn't polished up enough in the rushed betas or a critical bug that wasn't fixed during the rushed release candidates? No thanks.

      Gecko 1.9 (the basis of Firefox 3) is likely to be with us for a while. In fact, Gecko 2.0 is so far away that a Gecko 1.9.1 is planned to fix bugs that affected projects other than Firefox and make it a generally stable platform to work with until Gecko 2.0 is finally with us. Any rushing here and we'll be regretting it for a

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Plug ( 14127 )
      Beta Beta Beta Beta Mushroom Mushroom
  • by that_itch_kid ( 1155313 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @09:15AM (#23666869)

    I hope I don't have any
    ...any what!?!? Memory leaks!?!? Fried CPUs!!? WHAT!?!? OH GOD, IT'S TAKEN HIM!! IT'S GOING TO KILL US ALL!!!
  • 1. option NOT to save descriptions with bookmarks
    2. Store only ONE copy of a favicon if more than one bookmark uses it, bookmarks.html could do with being a lot smaller.
    3. drag text down page/between tabs

    Of course all of these could be made as addons, but as I have not been able to find such addons, they might as well be built in as they should represent core functionality. My final secret little dream addon is a grammar addon, oh how the net could be a better place ;)
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by andrewd18 ( 989408 )

      My final secret little dream addon is a grammar addon, oh how the net could be a better place ;)
      Only you can prevent Grammar-ton Clerics.
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @09:27AM (#23667049)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • But can it... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by camperdave ( 969942 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @09:28AM (#23667061) Journal
    One of the features I'd like to see in Firefox is the ability to "tear off" a tab into a new window. My surfing experience is something like this [xkcd.com]. It would be nice to be able to right click on a tab, and convert it to a new browser window.
    • Re:But can it... (Score:5, Informative)

      by frooddude ( 148993 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @10:04AM (#23667613)
      Tab Mix Plus is your answer... Duplicate in New window and Move to New window are menu items that can be added to tab context, and main context menus.

  • is the Windows Media Player plug-in for Windows Vista. It doesn't seem to be working for me. (Well, besides of the regular constantly growing memory problem).
  • by distantbody ( 852269 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @09:37AM (#23667191) Journal
    Having one hung tab make the others unusable is not cool, in addition ive encountered a few infinite 'yes-no dialogue' loops attacks that force you to either select 'yes', or force quite-- an attack vector that shouldn't have gone past v0.1a IMO.
  • Does silverlight work in this new version?

    I cannot tell since google point to old topics and rc2 "release notes" are the ff3 release notes and not rc1-> rc2 release notes.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, 2008 @09:42AM (#23667259)
    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.
  • Still only getting 71 on the Acid3 test (your mileage may vary). As this is the RC, that's probably where it'll stick for the foreseeable future.
    • Re:Acid3 (Score:5, Informative)

      by tobiasly ( 524456 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @10:05AM (#23667621) Homepage

      Still only getting 71 on the Acid3 test (your mileage may vary). As this is the RC, that's probably where it'll stick for the foreseeable future.

      Correct, it has been in feature freeze for quite a while and no more changes will be made to the rendering engine.

  • by PhotoGuy ( 189467 ) on Thursday June 05, 2008 @09:53AM (#23667441) Homepage
    One feature I haven't seen any release notes or anyone else talk about, is true scaling of web pages. It always amazed me that in this day and age, that the Alt-plus and Alt-minus zoom only scaled the text, not the graphics. Not terribly useful for zooming in on a page, or seeing more of a page by zooming out. Opera has had this for ages (from the start?), and it's not as though scaling images is processor intensive (I've written blinding fast C code to do this, with smoothing, myself in the past).

    Glad to see this is finally in Firefox. Hopefully they've fixed a couple of other annoyances I've seen; the random refusal to load pages (that load after a restart, or in other browsers), and the failure of Alt-F search to find things that I can see right in front of me on the page.

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