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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
..with RC2 already. To late..
There are 2 types of people in the world - those who understand decimal and those who don't.
Anyone have the actual RC2 release notes instead of just the Ffx3 general release notes?
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
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).
I've been using the pre alpha nightlies, then the alpha then betas and finally tried RC1
This crashed as soon as it started up
RC2 shows a web page but crashes as soon as I click on anything...
I'm using XP which is up to date with all patches. I know most tricks on how to get FF working... but I am stumpted as to why both RCs are so fucked on my computer. I've had to revert back to FF2 and I miss the URL bar and tagging :-(
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
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
And since my copy just finished downloading, I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any
Clearly, you did...
Summation 2
i've been using minefield for a while now but i don't really care about these r2d2 releases. as long as it doesn't crash and webdeveloper, javascriptdebugger and foxmarks extensions work i'm happy.
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
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.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Just earlier today I was exhilarated to hear about changeset 15261:49cdeb4f8144.
Words cannot even begin to describe the anticipation building around the next changeset that will be made to Firefox. Hold on very tight everyone, the next one is going to change the world in ways you never imagined!
I just downloaded this, and the installer wanted to save to ..\Program Files\Mozilla\Firefox 3 Beta 5. Maybe they just didn't update the installer?
Have they address the memory issues? Or do they still insist that it is all a figment of the non-technical "user" imagination?
..that have been around for years such as this one:
,what do I know.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=235853
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
Just clicked help > check for updates in Debian. Upgraded just fine and is working as normal. :-)
None of us have any, you insensitive clod!
If it's gone to late, will it be back?
Yeah, I suck as a spelling Nazi.
Just release the damn thing already!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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
an incomplete article!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Until I can get a stable version of Tab Mix Plus, I'm sticking with FF2.
RC2 fixes the really annoying bug 421482 (Firefox 3 uses fsync excessively) which however is arguably not Firefox 3's fault.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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. It would be nice to be able to right click on a tab, and convert it to a new browser window.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Anybody want my mod points?
Or type to addressbar about:config and search "browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped" and set it as "true"
1. You don't lose installed extensions each time you upgrade firefox. They are installed in your user's profile.
2. You can download and keep your extensions. Just download xpi files instead of installing them.
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).
I'd add to that list that there's no way to manage plugins except to manually delete the files.
iTunes has helpfully made itself a FF plugin, and the only way to stop the iTunes plugin from loading when FF launches is to either disable loading of ALL plugins, or delete the npitunes.dll file from my computer. But iTunes puts the file back every time I launch it, so that doesn't really work.
Being complicit in letting a shitty program take over my computer is an unforgivable sin as far as I'm concerned.
"Choosing to refrain from producing another person demonstrates a profound love for all life" [vhemt.org]
Nightly Tester Tools extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6543) solves the extension compatibility for me, in almost every update (i.e. when the version checking is the problem itself, and not real underlying changes)
I ran the RC1 in sandboxie, and yep, the extensions are "broken". I have too much time invested in setting up, tweaking etc. Hat's off to you guys who run these betas/RC's. I'll wait a few days after the "final" is released.
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.
They are trying to address memory management issues in this release.
http://blog.pavlov.net/2008/03/11/firefox-3-memory-usage/
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.
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.
I feel his pain, those extensions take like 10 seconds to download and install. Woe is me.
I think you proved his point here. Either you have to download a add on, or go int about:config, why isn't it a option under Tools->Options?
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). 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.
I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any cooties.
I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any grues.
I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any women to nag at me.
I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any pizza that's been sitting in the fridge for more than a month.
I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any other nerds squatting in mom's my basement.
I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any comments that stop in the middle of a sentence on the front page of slashdot.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Judging by the sad looking mug on your wife, Malda, yeah...I can understand why you would hope that.
http://oldversion.com/
Enjoy and quit whining
Who modded this up? What are you, 12?
It's a beta/RC. You're supposed to be testing it, not using it for mission critical eBay auctions and suchlike.
I don't know about the rest of you but I kept FF2 installed alongside FF3b3-RC2. I do not jump through hoops when browsing, I go back to FF2. Yes, I miss some extensions but they are there if I feel the need to hack them about (I don't). Yes, it can be a pain when my bank doesn't support FF3rc2 but they've said they'll support FF3 final, so all is good.
Moaning fuckers.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
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.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
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.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
When I middle click on a folder full of bookmarks, I want it to replace the existing tabs. This is a feature that, in Firefox 2, could be turned on and off. Unfortunately, too many people whined and moaned about not wanting to change a preference. So do they just default it the other way? NO! They strip out the functionality entirely.
Yes, it still exists in about:config. But, the various bug reports on the subject state quite clearly, the functionality is gone.
How much trouble could it have been to leave that feature in place for those of us that use it? I browse by folders, not by individual pages. This means that I'm either going to have to stick with Firefox 2 and hope they continue updating it even after the release of 3, or I'll need to find a new browser.
What's your solution here? Freeze the extension API forever? It's up to the extension developers, not Mozilla, to make sure they're compatible and mark them so. If you know what you're doing you can bypass this check, but at your own peril.
New versions force you to use new features without providing functionality to back it out even when the user wants it. Eg. The new supercoolsearchbar garbage. I don't want my browser looking though my bookmarks when I type a URL but I don't mind it searching history that clears itself regularly.See, there's this great new search engine called Google.com, and if you go there and type "Firefox 3 disable awesomebar", the very first link describes exactly how to do that. But somehow I get the feeling you'd rather complain about it than actually take it upon yourself to do something about it.
Firefox is the one application i use regularly that I find myself killing using task manager regularly. It either hangs or hogs memory which is only released by restarting. Don't deny or try to explain in excruciating technical detail why the browser slowly saps all your memory if left on a page that refreshes itself regularly. It's a bug. Deal with it. Fix it. Even refuse to fix it. But stop denying there are memory management issues.OK, now it's painfully obvious you're either a troll or haven't been paying attention at all. Every Firefox 3 article I've read since the betas started coming out gushed over how memory management was so much better than in 2, how faster it is, etc. The Mozilla devs publicly discussed in many locations all the work they went through to find and plug memory leaks, prevent circular references in Javascript and extensions from tying up memory, etc.
Again I'm pretty sure you'd rather just complain than actually read about it but your friend Google will help you find plenty of information on this.
There's no graceful way to exit that doesn't pop up a thousand confirmations if you do keep the close tab confirmation active.I can't even parse this one. You leave the tab-close confirmation on, but don't want it to confirm when you close tabs? Whatever your issue here is, I'm sure there's a setting or extension for it if you'd take 2 minutes to research.
I can't download and keep my extensions for future install. I really don't like using up bandwidth downloading the same extensions each time I install Firefox.Right-click, Save Link As...
Firefox USE to be a better user experience than IE. I can't say that anymore and it stinks that I can't. I want my Firefox browser back!What exactly is it about IE you would like Firefox to emulate?
And how does drivel like this get modded "Insightful"?!
Yes you can. Just right-click on the .xpi file and save it somewhere, like on a flash drive. When you want to install the extension, open the .xpi via File|Open or drag the xpi onto the Add-ons window. I keep all my extensions in a special folder.
Now, maybe you meant that Firefox doesn't offer a feature specially designed for storing the xpi files somewhere to be reinstalled. I don't think there's enough demand to merit that enhancement being added. Sounds like a reasonable idea for an extension, though. :)
And I assume you've tried going to Tools -> Add-Ons -> Plugins and disable it? (I agree, iTunes is garbage and I don't use it so I can't test this explicitly)
- New versions break older extensions. Until the extension is updated, bye bye extension. I don't enjoy that hassle and it makes me think twice about upgrading.
I don't see why they should bother upgrading the plugins until the browser is released.
- Old versions constantly redirect to a page suggesting you upgrade. I don't want my software to nag me into submission thanks. I don't need to be babysat.
I bet this is an old habit, since many new users are fresh from IE and have possibly never updated anything without windows update.
- New versions force you to use new features without providing functionality to back it out even when the user wants it. Eg. The new supercoolsearchbar garbage. I don't want my browser looking though my bookmarks when I type a URL but I don't mind it searching history that clears itself regularly.
Try it for a bit. I had to get used to it, but it lets me find things that I had *already* spent hours searching for, bookmarked, and forgot I had it in the thousands of things I have saved over the years. And of course if it REALLY ticks you off (Like it does some people), I have no doubt someone will have an addon once this thing gets released just for you.
- Firefox is the one application i use regularly that I find myself killing using task manager regularly. It either hangs or hogs memory which is only released by restarting. Don't deny or try to explain in excruciating technical detail why the browser slowly saps all your memory if left on a page that refreshes itself regularly. It's a bug. Deal with it. Fix it. Even refuse to fix it. But stop denying there are memory management issues.
Dude, have you even TRIED the beta? How did you get informative? Not only is this the fastest version of firefox to date, but it has the lowest memory footprint of almost all browsers, and has a memory manager that not only releases unused data but data that points to itself. Please try the browser next time before insulting it.
- There's no graceful way to exit that doesn't pop up a thousand confirmations if you do keep the close tab confirmation active.
O.o I don't under stand this, you mean if you don't turn off the "Warn me when I close tabs", it warns you if you close tabs? Isn't this a good thing?
- I can't download and keep my extensions for future install. I really don't like using up bandwidth downloading the same extensions each time I install Firefox.
This is due to them not upgrading that version number in the plugin. ^_^ You *can* save the plugin to your computer, and then use that forever and forever by using the nightly tools plugin, and never download again... but these things are *tiny*, much smaller than a youtube video. Not only that, but you can now search for and install plugins from WITHIN the browser, which I find amazingly helpful.
Firefox USE to be a better user experience than IE. I can't say that anymore and it stinks that I can't. I want my Firefox browser back!
Its faster, smaller, less memory with more features. It has massive number of plugins, renders pages correctly, and is easy to uninstall. And there is nothing stopping you from using older versions of the browser.
In short I feel you just don't remember how bad IE really is.
I steal signatures. This one used to be yours.
FF3 RC2 using 92MB of RAM at the moment on this XP SP2 machine, with 8 tabs (1 Slashdot, the rest http://www.idg.se/ ). Only extension I'm using is adblock.
...unfinished sentences?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
> I can't download and keep my extensions for future install.
.xpi file somewhere on your local machine/network then drag and drop the .xpi onto Firefox to install.
You can indeed do that. When getting an extension right click on the "Add To Firefox" button, save the
I usually save extensions onto a network share and then "drag and drop" install onto whichever box I'm currently using (i.e. Linux box, Windows box) etc.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
OMG. I feel your pain, and I don't want to.
You need to STOP USING FIREFOX 3.0 IMMEDIATELY. Anything that causes you this much angst cannot be good for your blood pressure. I urge you, for the sake of your health, to immediately downgrade to Firefox 1.0 (or perhaps Netscape 3.0 would be even better), which should return you to those Good Old Days of yore that you apparently yearn for so intensely.
Ah yes, this computer is missing most of the web feeds (where I'd usually find The Burning Edge) I used to have with my old PC. I'm hoping I'll have those back by next week, my Mozilla feeds included.
.. a bug fix not making a release and sitting on a major bug for *4 YEARS*
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.
After which it suggests oldbar. And believe me, I have yet to find one single person who suggests oldbar is also using it.
What save as? Javascript?
Enough with the fanboyism, ok?
Oh please. How about normal usage? I exited Firefox the other day as it was using 750MB of memory. When it restarted with all the tabs and their history: 135MB. It's been leaking memory for years, across many releases. Yes it should be fixed, but your response is also typical of the Mozilla devs. They're useless; I wouldn't hire them for my team. They'll deny there's ever a problem for years, and will normally be proven wrong. I stopped submitting issues to Bugzilla more than six years ago because it was clearly a waste of time. Don't get me started about the BITMAP resource leak they denied existed but caused Win2K to BSOD for me for two years. Of course it couldn't be an app that brings down the OS! Let's blame nVidia for their drivers, ignoring that only FF caused the crash, and that it had a serious resource leak. *sigh* Moving on...
Are you thinking of Tools->Add-Ons->Extensions? Because that exists on my FF. Similar control of Plugins does not.
"Choosing to refrain from producing another person demonstrates a profound love for all life" [vhemt.org]
The announcement clearly states not to link to the download page. Link to the announcement page instead, as the download page will change.
Solution: Stop surfing porn sites. Duh. :)
But that makes the close tab confirmation inactive, which was one of his conditions.
By the sounds of it, the GP wants Firefox to warn him when closing multiple tabs, but he doesn't want to be bothered with any warnings.
?????
GP, please correct me if I'm wrong, but that sure sounds like what you're saying.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
You might want to check out FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) and it's sister extension CLEO (Compact Library Extension Organizer). Those will backup all your extensions and even put them all in one XPI file for easy installation.
You insensitive
www.blueapples.org
i'm more interested in the 084|\/|4 changeset, sure it's as over-rated as the iSpoon and probably won't ever even make it into an actual product release, but damned if it doesn't sound so radiant! omg,a pony!
Hey, fuckwit! Start using facts instead of fanboy drivel!
FF3 is a step in the right direction memory-wise and a step in the wrong direction for everything else. And yes, I'm using it.
I miss the days of 0.8 when we could get all that shit we didn't need but might want via *extensions*.
And disabling the "awesomebar" (whoever named the piece of shit that is a shithead that deserves to get kicked in the face repeatedly) is now impossible because the later betas removed the ability to disable it.
The release notes don't say what's new since RC1. Does anyone know?
I feel you. That kind of issue of someone else's bug fix has screws with how I like things has been happening more and more lately. I have had it twice with metacity, the Gnome window manager. The first time for grabbing a window and dragging it to another workspace by hotkey. The second with how metacity auto places new windows on multiple monitor setups.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
Although Firefox 3 is without a doubt more.. argh, I'm actually going to write it... performant than FF2, I'm seeing high memory usage too. I strongly suspect the TabMixPlus extension, without which life would scarcely be worth living. Are you another TMP adict, Lumpy?
I have had almost exactly the same experience on Linux. My machine is always on. The fact is that Firefox grows with use until has to be killed and restarted or it runs me out of memory. It has always done this and the developers have always denied it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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...
Yes, I was referring to OldBar, not the disabled preference. And you're correct in that I haven't tried OldBar, since I love the new address bar, but the fact that it has a five-star rating from its users, plus many comments saying that it works very well, led me to believe it would serve the OP's needs.
What save as? Javascript?Right-click on the big green box that says "Add To Firefox", and choose "Save Link As", then save it as .XPI, which is the standard extension format for XUL-based apps such as Firefox and Thunderbird.
Enough with the fanboyism, ok?Sometimes a little fanboyism is needed to counter others who spew nonsense that hasn't been true for a very long time, or hasn't been researched at all.
Believe me, I was as big a critic of Firefox 2 and its horrendous memory management issues as anyone else, but in the open-source world it's also very important to give credit where credit is due, and in the case of Firefox 3 they have done an excellent job.
looks different.
hmm...
Firefox 3 added a new Plugins tab to the Add-Ons dialog. If it's not present for you, I'd suggest starting with a new profile; your old FF2 themes or extensions may be keeping it from showing for some reason...
Not everyone can afford a 56k6, you rich, insensitive clod!
I stand corrected. You cannot suggest eye-drops for a headache, and counter by saying that it has good reviews.
I agree with memory issues, and that is why I am using nightly builds since beta5. But the attitude of Firefox developers is astonishing.
Fanboyism never helps, btw. Look at wikipedia for example!
And how does drivel like this get modded "Insightful"?!
The same way your equally lame counterargument was modded InformativeThe "normal usage" for Firefox is using less memory than other browsers. This has been repeatably verified, not just by Mozilla developers:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080317-firefox-3-goes-on-a-diet-eats-less-memory-than-ie-and-opera.html
http://www.thebrowserworld.com/2008/03/29/firefox-30-beta-4-vs-opera-950-beta-vs-safari-31-beta-multiple-sites-opening-test/
http://cybernetnews.com/2008/03/26/cybernotes-browser-performance-comparisons/
Now, again, if you see any memory problem, you'll have to be specific about what it is. The rest of us don't see it. It's not "denial," it's just the truth.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Well, all this is no solution.
oldbar is just about presentation.
matchOnlyTyped will continue to look for every place in URL.
I personally demand the old *searching* behaviour. Clear and predictable. I don't mind the appearance.
What you could do with Firefox 2, and cannot now, with all the twicking in about:config you could imagine, is:
type first letter of URL, go down once, enter.
That's 26 different places. I *never* had to type more than two letters in my URL to go to my usual websites.
Now, if I have gnagna.truc and bidule.gnagna, it will go to the second one if I type g and visit bidule.gnagna more often.
There are a thousand quirks like that which makes current search *unpredictable*, and reduces the selectivity, meaning that a same result can be obtained by several ways and, as a corollary, you get less possible different results for the same number of keystrokes.
I can understand that some people would prefer the "awesome" bar. But I want to be able to revert to the old behaviour. And I cannot understand why it is not an option.
Jonas
"One interesting thing I've found talking to average Joe (who doesn't have any personal agenda to fulfil as to whether they use IE or Firefox) is that they find all this Firefox publicity as vain"
..
I've never come across an average Joe that has even heard of a 'release candidate', never mind knowing what one is. I don't believe they are aimed at the average Joe, unless you know different. People would be off directing them to the current stable release. I mean without 'release candidates', Mozilla would they get less user feedback and retard the development of Firefox
"Release candidates are development packages released to check if any critical problems have slipped into the code during the previous development period"
davecb5620@gmail.com
I know it's cliche, but "It's not a bug, it's a feature." For once, it really is. I'll seek out an extension that fixes it, because I do definitely want an improved rendering engine.
The infinite popups thing can be resolved by using a system utility such as the AceHelper plugin for Total Commander to disable the javascript window popup, then close the tab and just click ok to close that single javascript popup window, as the tab is dead it doesn't loop again.
I agree this feature should really be available in Firefox but as it isn't I thought I would mention this as it has saved my session after stupidly clicking a link on Digg without reading it 100%
This is a particularly good thing about F/OSS software. Many years ago (circa 2002) I became so frustrated by the cruft that had been added to the AIM chat client (no, I do not want video advertisements to auto-load!), so I searched around their site and found a "Windows 95" release for backwards compatibility with older systems. I used that version for several years before switching to Linux and picking up GAIM/Pidgin.
But yeah, I got lucky that AOL published an old version of their software. In F/OSS, that isn't luck. It's standard.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
I'm already on Minefield 3.1a1pre :-D
http://rocknerd.co.uk
You demand?
Yes, I demand.
That's not a new feature, that's something that was there and was taken away.
I do not ask for it to be the default. I do not ask for it to be obvious to find. But, hell, since it already exists, it should be there, as an option at least.
Jonas
The bane of your desktop is your inability to pick a window manager which suits your preferences and ideas regarding window management. It's not like there is not choice... (And Havoc is one of the people you have to thank for the existing interoperability which makes that choice possible!)
I used to be able to set the bookmarks.html file location in firefox 2. it seems this functionality doesn't exist for the places.sqlite file.
Does anybody have any idea how to share and modify bookmarks between a windows and linux install in Firefox 3 ?
I've tried sharing profiles and places.sqlite between the OS's. Best case i can get is view but can't add any bookmarks in Linux.
They still don't have a fast way, when looking at the bookmarks, to point at a folder and "open all in new window". I have about a dozen browsers on my Mac (Isn't web testing fun?), and FF seems to be the only browser that lacks this handy gimmick. Instead, what you have to do is find another FF window, bring it to the foreground, and (on the Mac) type CMD-N, which opens a new window. Then you move back to the mouse, move the pointer back to the bookmarks window, click on it, CMD-click to get the menu, and finally you can "Open All in Tabs".
This clumsy series of actions to do something so simple is my favorite example to explain to people why I think the FF gang isn't particularly concerned with giving users a good UI. In general, FF seems to have evolved its UI to require many more actions to do common things than most other browsers now require.
And AdBlock doesn't load. If this gets annoying enough, I may go back to version 2. OTOH, NoScript seems to work fine, and it successfully blocks most of the active garbage in ads, so it may be acceptable. I'll play with it and see.
(One silly question: Why is the bookmarks window now labelled "Library"? Well, maybe it'll make more sense after I play with it for a while. For now, it's just one more inexplicable change that seems to do nothing but add to what I need to remember when I'm testing pages against multiple browsers.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
There is no way I am upgrading without it. I am surprised it is not a standard feature with Firefox by now like Opera's own implementation of something similar has become.
I think the general consensus is here: If you don't like it, don't use it.
I mean, some people enjoy browsers that run like shit, cant render pages by the standards and have more (security)holes than Swiss cheese. But, for the rest of us, Firefox FTW.
I've been running it all day and so far i like, it seems faster nothing has broken (well one extension but im used to that by now). However whenever i right click on a link FF3 seems to guess what i want, no lil menu just randomly tries to save the link or print it or email it or whatever other function it takes a fancy to. Its all very bizzare.
Well, Bart, your uncle Arthur used to have a saying: "Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out."
Make npitunes.dll a zero-length file and make it not writable.
Me, I just stopped using iTunes. Still need to strip the DRM out of my existing library, but QuickTime and iTunes are never touching my system again.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
One of the more annoying HTML features is the auto-complete = off parameter. It allows moron webmasters to disable your password manager.
Other browsers like Opera, correctly ignore the tag and let the user decide. (Really this is in the same class as the blink tag and pop-ups)
There was a script that you run to tempory disable the tag, but now becuase of a "bug fix" in the latest firefox (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=362576), this hack is no longer effective. Thanks Mozilla
Scared me so bad I cmd-w closed it without thinking! Context menu on a tab reveals "Move Tab to New Window." I can see how this would be handy- especially if you wanted to change views to view entabbed pages simultaneously. Maybe a FF extension is out? Anyone?
Every single time there is a post about Firefox on Slashdot, someone whines about how Mozilla refuses to address memory issues.
1 - Firefox 3 uses far less memory than Firefox 2.
2 - Most "memory leaks" come from poorly written extensions. Turn them all off and check out the difference.
3 - The biggest reason Firefox starts using a slew of memory after a bunch of browsing isn't a bug, but literaly a feature. It keeps fully rendered versions of pages in memory, so when you hhit the Back button, it can pull them up quicker. You can disable this feature if you want.
4 - People have this misconception that they should never use their memory. Unused memory does you no good.
5 - Next time try Google before you post a stupid quesiton.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
No, I have tried other window managers. The problem is the good one is no longer maintained, Sawfish. It did everything I wanted, but got replaced by metacity.
My latest attempt was XFCE4. Overall it isn't quite as polished as Gnome, but is usable. The problem is it has the same problem that metacity does in the latest versions, which was the whole reason I was looking at it in the first place. The issue is the putting windows on the same screen as the mouse cursor. For a twin view setup, it is a really stupid idea. I have two monitors, I open firefox and thunderbird at the same time. Why do I want them overlapping? It was changed in metacity for users who complained the old way didn't work well for projectors as the second monitor. I understand this situation, having experienced it once under Windows. The simple alternative would have been a preference, but Havoc hates preferences, hence he is a bane.
Other window managers don't work well for various reasons. They have vastly different concepts of window management, they are more of their own desktop environment, they don't integrate well with Gnome, etc. Overall my best choice is to revert to patches on metacity. I have been lucky in that the patch reversions have just worked for a long time.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
In addition, the comment in my sig is more than just about metacity. Havoc was one of the architects of the whole dumbing down of Gnome. Gnome 1.x was way more usable and configurable than Gnome 2.x. The only two things Gnome 2.x had going for it after it came out was that it was the "future", and it was based on gtk2.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
5 tabs open, using RC2: 102,772k on Vista (I know... I know...)
Its been open for about 3.5 hours, and I have been opening and closing tabs, using gmail and various other "interactive elements", I'm using 7 extensions. On minimize it reduces use to around 93,000k, and slowly rebounds over the course of a few minutes to slightly below the original usage.
FF2 used about 2x that for the same use pattern, with minimal benefits from minimizing. Though I have gotten FF2 to approach a gig before with some heavy usage of flash, ajax, and other "web app" platforms.
I would say that this is an improvement.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The iBook G4 series didn't get drop sensors for HD park and the multi-touch, 'scrolling trackpad' features until the "Mid-2005" models (1.33 GHz, 12-inch and 1.42 GHz 14-inch) ...the very last iBooks before the series was discontinued.
Ref, everymac.com: http://tinyurl.com/4zx8x6
Note: The heights below are simply intended to simulate content (such as images or paragraphs).
<html>
<head>
<title>Firefox 3 RC2 drawing bug (affects FF2 also)</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Go to top of page, and refresh, and use 'Page Down' key (and not the scroll bar) to scroll to the bottom of the page.</h1>
<p>This affects Firefox 3 RC2 (and FF2), but only for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Scrolling via the mouse in this example can sometimes show the same problem behavior.</p>
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</html>
The heights were all 1024 in my original example, but I was forced to make them vary a little bit here to thwart Slashdot's "postercomment" compression filter.
I hope Mozilla fixes this one. The problem affects me. I submitted a bug report, but there doesn't seem to be much interest.
What's your solution here?
A little thing called backward compatibility. That means you add new features but don't break existing ones.
See, there's this great new search engine called Google.com, and if you go there and type "Firefox 3 disable awesomebar", the very first link describes exactly how to do that.
Another idiot that insists I'm a troll without doing their homework. Oldbar does not restore old functionality. It simply makes awesomebar look like the old toolbar. However when you start typing a URL it still pulls things up from your bookmarks, and the firefox devs have no intention of changing how the search behaves. I don't want my bookmarks displayed to all and sundry when I simply type a URL into the search bar. They don't need to get glimpses of my political views, or what torrent sites I use!
OK, now it's painfully obvious you're either a troll or haven't been paying attention at all. Every Firefox 3 article I've read since the betas started coming out gushed over how memory management was so much better than in 2, how faster it is, etc
Okay now it's painfully obvious you're either a fanboi or haven't been paying attention at all. This happened when version 2 was released as well and it didn't fix things. It just took months for people to prove there was still a problem.
I can't even parse this one. You leave the tab-close confirmation on, but don't want it to confirm when you close tabs?
I'm glad you're not my parser then. I open 15 windows and more than one tab on each. Now to exit firefox, when I click close tabs on each one. There is no way to confirm I wish to close tabs on all windows. What's so fucking hard to parse?
Right-click, Save Link As...
Doesn't always work, and then how do I install the saved link. Create a HTML page to download it back from?
And how does drivel like this get modded "Insightful"?!
It got modded -1 troll actually. One person had the fucking sense to mod it insightful because obviously they've had the same experience. Yours remains at +4 informative despite the fact that you can't "parse" shit, and that you don't know how fucking oldbar works (but are happy to assume I've never come across it). You're the troll buddy.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Could you give the URL of a page that refreshes itself and causes Firefox to use more and more memory?
Try:
http://www.smh.com.au/
I haven't done any testing to isolate which pages, but I think that's the most likely culprit.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Actually there is; when you close, you just click the check mark that says "Do not prompt me again when closing x or more tabs."
No, I want that prompt. I just don't want it once per browser window when I'm trying to exit. There should be another button that says "Yes for this window and all others" so I can exit easily.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
It's a beta/RC. You're supposed to be testing it, not using it for mission critical eBay auctions and suchlike
Everything on that list is true for version 2 as well.
Moaning fuckers.
Double dumb ass to you too fella.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Wait wait wait...wait. What are... windows?
I've never met someone who used more than one window with firefox before, interesting
This is an absurd argument for calling him a `bane'. It was his window manager, it was him doing the all work so he was absolutely free to have it do whatever it pleased him, don't you think? Moreover, he provided you with enough freedom so that you could actually change whatever you wanted to change in the wm, and you seem to have done precisely that.
What is needed in order to not be a `bane': do whatever other people want?
Check this bug report out, as I think it is the cause of the behavior that you (and I) have been experiencing: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435865
But, in that case, it is not Havoc who's the `bane', but the whole of the GNOME community. It's not exactly him alone that did the change. Do you consider the rest of the GNOME developers just mindless drones that followed Havoc's orders? At most, what you can say is that `GNOME is the bane of your Linux desktop'.
Once you realize that, you have to ponder: why do you keep using GNOME? And: why do essentially all big distros use GNOME? Masochism? Or maybe those choices that turned GNOME into your `bane' where the correct ones for lots and lots of other people?
And, again, once you ask yourself that, you come to the following question: wasn't the GNOME community at complete liberty to choose its audience? If that community at some point chose to favour the part of the audience which does not think having more preferences is better, and unfocus the preference-hungry part of the audience, was it not their choice to make?
In the name of full-disclosure, I have to say that I took some part in that process which you call `dumbing down'...
I just found adblock, right clicked on the big green button, saved the .xpi
then I double clicked on it, selected firefox from the list of applications (the default choice), told it to always open using firefox, and um, it installed.
I hope this simple, multi-second process isn't too complicated or grueling for you.
And opera's pretty spiffy too.
I was surprised not to see a candlejack tag on this summary. Hasn't anyone seen Freakazoid? I mean re
Just out of curiosity, has anyone else had problems with Gmail and the 'Newer Version' of their UI with RC1? Firefox 3 RC 1 would eat up all my avaliable CPU and about 400,000k of memory when ever I opened GMail. Switching to the 'Old Version' fixes it. Using XP, all the fun patches, same thing happens on several other computers here at work.
God is dead -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead -- God
Zombie Nietzsche lives! -- Zombie Nietzsche
I hope this simple, multi-second process isn't too complicated or grueling for you.
/. to educate you.
Are you always this goddamn condescending to end users?
I haven't tried saving and installing XPIs for some time, because some time ago when the firefox extensions website changed it became difficult to do so. You weren't given the opportunity to right click and save as because a CGI script was serving the files and if you right clicked you'd just get the CGI script.
Regardless of your rudeness thanks for addressing one of my concerns. It's a pity that if I save the extensions I'm going to have to save them along with the browser version, because chances are if I download a new browser that version of the extension will no longer work.
If you can't see why I consider these things a PITA, or why an end user who's not an IT hobbiest or IT trained would find them annoying, there's nothing I'm going to be able to do in the course of one thread on
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I've never met someone who used more than one window with firefox before, interesting
From an organizational point of view, what I'm doing makes perfect sense.
I usually use windows to group my searches. For example I open a window on a newspaper web site, then open each article in a separate frame. Then I want to look at a website on weather, so I open a new window and anything related to that goes in frames on that window. Then might I open slashdot in a new window and each story I open in a separate frame on that window. I typically don't read everything at once. I look back at stuff in between doing other things, so I don't close these windows for some time. By the middle of the day I might have 7 windows each with between 1 and 10 frames. By this stage Firefox is using up half the memory on my machine. (Some of the websites have web pages that refresh themselves periodically). I wish I could just close down some of the windows and get my memory back to normal but that doesn't work. So I end up wanting to shut down Firefox to free the memory up. Now I get a half a dozen confirmation boxes, one per window. I'd just like to be able to say yes I'm exiting all thanks, with a single confirmation. No such option exists. Out to the task manager I go and kill it. Since sessions are now saved I can reopen everything in one hit, but that'll cause immediate memory issues so I don't restore the session.
Also I don't shut my computer down at the end of the day (and even if I had to I'd hibernate). I see now reason why my browser session should turn into a slow memory hogging pain in the rear that I have to kill.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
That would work great, except that TabMixPlus hasn't been ported/updated to Firefox 3 yet. It's pretty much the only reason I haven't made the switch yet.
On a side note; All-in-One Sidebar also hasn't been ported nor has Long Titles (for XKCD and the like), but I would consider those acceptable loses. Heck, if no one did Long Titles for too long I might even take a crack at it, wouldn't be the first time I'd patched up a (simple) extension.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It isn't exactly his window manager. He is an employee of Red Hat and codes it for them professionally. Which makes it more of a customer/vendor relationship than a user/programmer relationship.
Being reasonable, and be willing to add preferences for when in different situations need different behaviour, like said most every other program on the planet.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
Yes, I agree I am singling out Havoc. There were others who I am sure helped in what I dislike about Gnome. He is just the most obvious and in my face.
Why do I keep using Gnome, because it is still the closest to what I want. As for the big distribution, probably because Gnome is better than KDE in general, and those are the big two that are fairly feature complete. Not to say KDE isn't way better in many ways, but overall I still prefer Gnome. No, they aren't the correct ones for lots and lots of people. An advanced button to show additional preferences wouldn't hurt every day users. The closest Gnome gets to that is gconf-editor, and even then most of the time things are still missing. Your logic is we should cater to the majority, screw everyone else.
Yes, in general they are free to do whatever. They are answerable to their boss, if they do it professional. To a certain extent the boss is answerable to the customer. On the other hand programmers don't live in a vacuum, they don't just write it for themselves, and other people do use it. It would be nice if they took more input. It would be more social, and less narrow minded.
I figured you were related in some way.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
Not usually. I'd never thought about me not being an end user before. I guess I was only condescending because it seems like you complain and rant a lot without finding some of the obvious solutions. I apologize though.
I simply cannot understand where this feeling of entitlement you are evincing comes from, and in what way you justify it.
No one owes you anything.
That is not my logic. My logic is, let everyone do what they think is best. I cannot believe you are suggesting otherwise.
I'm sorry, but you are in no position of demanding anything.
That no longer works. FF developers in their infinite wisdom removed browser.urlbar.richResults from about:config.
You can install "old bar" https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6227
Thanks for the apology. I complain and rant because Firefox is one of about 3 applications that I still use that REGULARLY give me trouble. (The other 2 are development tools and I have no option).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
When I used FF2 I would close it from the manager every single time just because it would save the sessions because it thought it was crashing. Ah, good times. Your method does make sense. I do then same thing but without new windows so I get 30 tabs open and sift through them all.
it almost sounds like you just have too many things open at once. Even with FF3's better memory handling, it would still eat up all your ram
Haha guys, this is obviously fake. I'm using RC2 right now and nothing is amiss. I can post normally.. dunno what's going on with you guys, maybe Candlejack or something has-
I have been running FF3 beta ever since it came out and been loving it with every new extension update, but the one major annoying thing which really ticks me off is that it doesn't open the last tabs and windows when ff is restarted.
Yes that option is checked in the drop down menu in options. No, I don't even get the "Are you sure you want to close x tabs" dialogue when I close the the browser. Yes, I have reinstalled countless times. Yes, I reported this bug the first time I saw it.
I would love to hear if anyone has a solution for this problem.
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
Now, again, if you see any memory problem, you'll have to be specific about what it is. The rest of us don't see it. It's not "denial," it's just the truth.
OK, so suppose I'm in a typical state of having, say, 5 windows with 23 tabs open. I notice that when I'm not doing anything, just sitting there looking at a page, my top command or Activity Monitor window or whatever shows that firefox's memory is slowly growing. What tools are available that will tell me which of those 23 URLs is the one causing the problem?
I have occasionally used the technique of closing tabs one at a time, and waiting for the process-monitoring software to stabilize. But this takes a very long time, and usually doesn't even work. In some cases, I've reached the point of closing all tabs, FF has no windows at all open, and its memory usage is still slowly growing.
How do I identify the problem in such cases? I don't have a clue. That's why I've also generally given up trying to report them. As a programmer with a few decades experience, I pretty much understand what's needed for a bug report to be useful. I don't find very many cases with FF where I can present what I'd consider to be useful evidence if it were sent to me.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
http://www.smh.com.au/
/. with SeaMonkey, so that's the browser I used. This was on my Mac Powerbook, SM 1.1.9. I had an Activity Monitory window open to the side. Over about three minutes I watched as SM's memory grew slowly by around 15 MB (RSIZE) and 35 MB (VSIZE). Its CPU usage fluctuated between 12% and 31%.
Just for yuks, I opened that in a new window. I was reading
Finally, satisfied that this indeed looked like a case of slowly-growing memory use while "idle", I killed the window. CPU use dropped to around 5%, and memory use dropped. The RSIZE went back to about 95 MB, which it was before the test. The VSIZE dropped to 363 MB, which was about 10 MB more than it was before the test. So that URL apparently caused a permanent increase of about 10 MB in SeaMonkey's VSIZE.
I haven't tried the test with FF3.
With FF2, I've seen some pages that result in the VSIZE increasing by over 50 MB per minute, eventually reaching a VSIZE of several GB, at which point I kill it because all apps have slowed to a crawl. But usually by that time, I can't identify the offending URL, because I can no longer close tabs in FF, or do anything else with it.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
For current versions http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/ and if you really need something pre 2.0 then use ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based upon the order I joined. -Homer Simpson
Some great philosopher once succinctly summed your situation up in a few choice words: "Shit happens".
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
And it makes sense for those of us who aren't organized.
One reason I use both multiple windows and tabs is that there are a lot of sites that like to force their pages to be some specific width. Different sites rarely agree on this width, but it's common for related pages on a site to all be forced to the same width. So a set of tabs open to a single site works well. You can size the window for one tab, and it'll be a good size for the rest.
But if you have a window with tabs open to different sites, switching tabs means that you have to repeatedly resize the window, or do a lot of horizonal scrolling. This makes for slow, frustrating use of the group of tabs, and you're better off with multiple windows.
Among my daily reading is a collection of online comics. I have a set of tabs that are mostly on gocomics.com, for instance, and once I size the window for the first comic, it works for the rest. But there are a few on other sites that require a much larger window, so they're in a different set. I also have a number of sets of tabs for news sites, and they're similarly grouped by size. I'd much prefer to group them by topic. But the sites' owners, in their wisdom, make this difficult to use by forcing different widths than their competitors.
What I'd really like is a way to tell the browsers to ignore width= attributes, at least for some sites. But if any browsers have such a feature, I've never been able to find it.
It's especially annoying that slashdot forces a minimal width. I have images turned off and AdBlock cuts out most of the ads that get through. The result is a nearly text-only page, for which there's no sensible reason to force it to a width too wide for a small screen and different from other news sites. But
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Can I assume then that you're finally accepting that there are serious memory leaks in Mozilla?
Shit doesn't just happen with software. Bad programming happens. Bad design happens. Bad attitudes happen. If somebody on my team espouses that attitude, I starting working on moving them off the team. They're not wanted.
Same experience for me. I graduated in 1996 and have been working as a software engineer, team lead and engineering manager ever since. I had programming experience as a hobby for more than 10 years before that. It's not something I have the time nor patience to debug - I don't care if FF is open source, it might as well be closed-source commercial software from my perspective. Nor is there a simple test case to reproduce the issue, but suffice it to say I've seen it over many years over many installations on my several OSes, with and without extensions installed. Dunno how many people have to chime in and say there's a problem before the Mozilla devs pay attention. If I were on the project my team would be running it in a profiler until it's resolved.
When I say team lead, it's actual a tech lead position: I R&D, prototype, architect and do the code reviews for our engineers who are spread between Europe, US and China, and if I have time I contribute code to tasks on a project's critical path. I think this means my opinion and experience counts for something when I comment on this issue.