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

Comments

Actual Release Notes

[MankyD]

Anyone have the actual RC2 release notes instead of just the Ffx3 general release notes?

Re:Actual Release Notes

[Victor Antolini]

You can always check out http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/ It's not quite up to date right now but it's great for keeping track of development. He maintains this list which may be helpful: http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/trunk-for-firefox-3.html

Re:Old Look?

[Brian Gordon]

Firefox 2.0 Classic theme 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!

Re:Crash

[bunratty]

This link may help: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_crashes

Re:Momory Issues?

[bunratty]

Yes
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/

Re:Until they bother fixing critical bugs...

[binaryspiral]

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. Insert obligatory Vista joke here.

Re:Old Look?

[anti-pop-frustration]

The quickest way to make your extensions work with the new versions (without having to edit anything) is to use the Nightly Tester Tools:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6543

Re:Firefox is starting to give me the shits

[tobiasly]

- 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.

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"?!

Re:But can it...

[frooddude]

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.

Re:Acid3

[tobiasly]

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.

Re:Read this

[Darlo888]

And when you do that for the Mozilla page, "this website does not supply identification information", which proves that this feature is a complete waste of programming time. If the website doesn't supply the information then there's nothing to verify to make yourself more secure. That's because it only works for encrypted connections.

Home page has RC link...

[rklrkl]

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/ 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.

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? What's New on the right hand side has a "Firefox 3 Sneak Peak" link for goodness' sake! And even if you drifted to mozilla.org's home page instead, guess what? Developer News on the right hand side announces 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.