Firefox 3 Release On Tuesday

unkgoon writes "The Mozilla Developer News blog is reporting Firefox 3 will be released on Tuesday, June 17, 2008, and you're invited to the party! From the website: 'After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we're proud to announce that we're ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3 — the best web browser, period.'" Update: 06/12 17:44 GMT by T : Dan100 was among several readers to write with news that, rather than just being announced, "Opera 9.5 has been released today after nearly two years of development. New features include increased speed (particularly in the Javascript engine), Opera Link (browser synchronisation), and a 'sharp' new theme." Dan100 also links to a full changelog from 9.27.

Comments

opera is faster

[Anonymous Coward]

it was released today

Re:opera is faster

[willyhill]

I don't know why this was modded troll, Opera is faster and it was released today. "Faster" is a value judgment I suppose, but can I mod the article troll because it called Firefox "the best browser, period"?

Re:opera is faster

[CastrTroy]

Opera is faster, but my computer is so fast that you really can't tell the difference much, especially when you take into account internet connection speed. Firefox has extensions. Which is where the real advantage is.

Re:opera is faster

[Nerdposeur]

Opera is faster, but my computer is so fast that you really can't tell the difference much...

Yeah? Well my computer is so fast that it loads pages before I request them.

Oh, who am I kidding? [sobs]

Re:opera is faster

[somegeekynick]

Firefox has extensions. Which is where the real advantage is. Actually, some of the things you can do with extensions in Firefox are built-in functionalities in Opera. And I've found them to be much faster than a fully loaded Firefox. And having said that, I'm still a hard-core Firefox user, add-ons and all, although I'm sad to say, that I'm not as excited about the release of Fx 3 as I was prior to the release of Fx2, and that's basically because Ubuntu (and even some other major distros) decide to push out the betas in their more recent versions. Having got used to it, I can't really expect any surprises.

Re:opera is faster

[immcintosh]

The problem is, "faster" is absolutely not a value judgment. It's testable and quantifiable, and the claim that Opera is "faster," at least according to one benchmark, doesn't seem to be true. I won't even go into memory usage. I personally think we should reserve judgment until we can test final releases against eachother, but I think a troll mod is perfectly appropriate.

Re:opera is faster

[No-Cool-Nickname]

I wonder if my wife will believe this explanation for the porn on my computer.

Honey! I didn't type in www.sluttyteenagenubileprincesseswrestlinginpudding.com

Re:opera is faster

[alpha_loopy]

swoosh.... it was a joke, ppl.. Opera is faster [because] it was released today [instead of next Tuesday]

Re:opera is faster

[rlk]

It's not polite to turn on preload in Fasterfox!

Re:opera is faster

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, "faster" is absolutely not a value judgment. It's testable and quantifiable, and the claim that Opera is "faster," at least according to one benchmark, doesn't seem to be true. In context, I think maybe he meant "faster to the market" ... in that they got their update out "faster" than the Mozilla foundation did...

-AC

Re:opera is faster

[DiarmuidBourke]

Actually, this is somewhat true. With Opera speeddial, my 9 most viewed websites,are loaded before I request them.

Re:opera is faster

[bishiraver]

That's the HTML rendering engine. That only happens when:

• The page is loaded
• The DOM structure is changed
• A previously visible element is hidden, or vice versa
• Size of an element changes

The more important benchmark, especially for applications like google docs and other pseudo-application applications is the rewritten JavaScript engine in Opera 9.5, which is indeed extremely fast.

Re:opera is faster

[sulfur]

I am typing this from a 600 MHz / 256 MB machine that is running KDE, and I assure you that Opera is the fastest browser I tried - not even KDE-native Konqueror can match it (I've been using Opera since version 6). Websites that make heavy use of Javascript (digg, google apps, etc) are absolutely unusable in Firefox (3 had some improvements over 2, but it's still slow). While I do use Firefox on my home computer, there is no match for Opera on older machines. I wish Opera developers found a way to port AdBlock and Flashblock plugins - these are "killer" plugins that prevent me from switching to Opera completely.

I am amazed how a closed-source app like Opera can outperform open source browsers that can supposedly integrate into the enviroment much better by such a high margin.

Re:opera is faster

[SimonTheSoundMan]

If your worried about security why are you on the Internet?

Re:opera is faster

[dmsuperman]

My computer loads pages before IT even requests them. Then it DELETES them before I even know I want them. Top that!

Re:opera is faster

[CastrTroy]

I personally suspect (although I have no proof) that is must have to do with some specific extension that a lot of people use. I've ran Firefox for weeks at a time, and only had the memory go up to about 200MB, but that's with about 15 tabs open, spread between various windows. Since so many people experience it, it must be a popular plugin. But there's enough people who experience no problems at all, that it can't be something built into the browser by default.

Re:opera is faster

[Torvaun]

Hey, that's not a real site! Getting me all excited for nothing...

Re:opera is faster

[INowRegretThesePosts]

I am amazed how a closed-source app like Opera can outperform open source browsers that can supposedly integrate into the enviroment much better by such a high margin. I am not sure Firefox developers even *care* enough about speed. Unfortunately, most developers have this attitude that "I can make code as slow as I want, and Moore's law will take care of it". Optimization is seen as a waste of time.

Re:opera is faster

[polar red]

In my opinion, 'faster' depends nearly entirely on your connection. In that light, there are other things to consider choosing a browser. In my case the 'noscript'-extension dictates my choice for FF.

Re:opera is faster

[blind biker]

Opera is faster, but my computer is so fast that you really can't tell the difference much I guess you're a Vista user.

Re:opera is faster

[RiotingPacifist]

Or they realise that aslong as it works, nobody outside of slashdot cares if it renders pages in 100ms or 200.

Re:opera is faster

[ThePhilips]

OMG. What'a flames.

Mozilla/FireFox devels are performance conscious. But they target slightly different demographics. And no, 8yo computer of gp isn't their target.

FireFox on all platforms tries to be OS friendly and conform to UI standards of the OS. Opera? - Some outdated, hacked to death, overbloated with tiny features GUI which looks and behaves differently from whatever OS you have. OMG - Opera still supports the MDI stupidity when even its own author - M$ - has declared it a major mistake in UI design.

Opera's rendering engine is of course near perfect. While Fx team dedicates great effort to usability, all the resources Opera have spared on modern UI desing went into all the bells and whistles of HTML/XHTML/CSS/JS/etc support. No need to boast anything - they are most active member of WHATWG.

Do not ever expect Fx to be more resource friendly (*). But do not expect Opera suddenly be conforming to OS UI standards.

Thanks God, the iron grip of IE was lifted off WWW. Choice is all yours. Both Opera and FireFox are decent browsers - pick whatever you like.

(*) Part of reasons why Fx has much higher resource consumptions, is because they have to provide interfaces for extensions/add-ons. Opera is monolithic - FireFox is modular. Modular app would be always slower and consume more memory. As a trade-off, you have a whole bunch of extensions to choose from to make out of your browser whatever you want.

Re:opera is faster

[Jugalator]

Coincidentally, Firefox 3 also has a new extremely fast JavaScript engine since beta 5. I'm not sure if it was rewritten from scratch, but it's winning some tests at least.

Re:opera is faster

[Jugalator]

Here's one of those tests:
http://flickr.com/photos/nitot/2410514595/sizes/o/

Re:opera is faster

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Or they realise that aslong as it works, nobody outside of slashdot cares if it renders pages in 100ms or 200. Years ago I saw an Opera ad and thought "Ridiculous. Internet browsing is obviously IO-bound. Having a faster browser obviously cannot improve it". When I actually tried Opera though, I was proven wrong. I then realized that other browsers were so frickin slow that yes, Opera could make internet browsing far more pleasant. I later realized that the whole "IO-bound" meme is often just an excuse for slow software... If you actually optimize the software, you find that yes, it can be made much faster.

Mind you, I nowadays don't use Opera because it is not Free Software. I use Firefox.

Re:opera is faster

[shutdown -p now]

Opera? - Some outdated, hacked to death, overbloated with tiny features GUI which looks and behaves differently from whatever OS you have. OMG - Opera still supports the MDI stupidity when even its own author - M$ - has declared it a major mistake in UI design.

This has changed a lot ever since Opera 9, and 9.5 release pushes further in this direction - for example, all the "single-letter" shortcuts are disabled by default. As for MDI, it has been disabled by default for ages, and you had to go to "Options -> Advanced" and look for a checkbox there somewhere if you wanted it. The reason why it stays, most likely, is that quite a few old-time Opera users still use it from time to time.

Re:opera is faster

[INowRegretThesePosts]

I'm a Firefox user myself. I haven't used Opera since many years ago, but only because it is proprietary software. I don't know how things are now, but last time I used Opera it was *fast*, making internet browsing far more pleasant. I would really like for Firefox to be half as performance conscious as Opera. And, by the way, a 600 MHz / 256 MB should absolutely be able to run a web browser. To say otherwise is, in my opinion, an example of "let Moore's law take care of it" attitude. Though still not as exaggerated as the attitude of some people who claim with a straight face that "Vista should not be bashed, it simply is an OS for contemporary computers with 4 GB of RAM"

And I loved Opera's UI when I tried it. Specifically, that it had tabs, and that I could save sessions. Only later did Firefox gain tabs, and only much later it gained anything resembling session saving (the "save tabs as a bookmark folder" feature, which is still not ideal, but mostly good enough).

I never had an issue with Opera's UI being "different than normal". In fact, I see that, for example, some Windows software have a crazy UI but are popular. It seems to me that a native software can be as crazy as it wants (and by the way, I find it ridiculous that programmers go out of their way to make crazy UIs instead of sticking with the default), but we hold a different standard for cross-platform software: we demand that it behaves exactly like a native application. When a reviewer examines a cross-platform software, one of the most important things in his mind is "is there any difference between the way this behaves or even *looks*, and a native application?". I, personally, find this attitude ridiculous.

In fact, it seems that one of reasons for the huge disaster that is Java UI is that Sun first had an obsession of the UI looking exactly the same on any platform, then it changed for an obsession for the UI being exactly the same as a native software. Although I concede there are far more important reasons for the train wreck that is Java UI.

Re:opera is faster

[Krishnoid]

Mind you, I nowadays don't use Opera because it is not Free Software. I use Firefox.

Well, it's good of you to admit that Opera is better than Free alternatives. But based on that, a non-Free product is competing with Free alternatives and succeeding (at least in the performance arena) on its own merits and providing a good, perhaps even better quality product without acting unethically. RMS himself in his early essays would describe why Free produced better software, at least for some areas (TurboTax and its ilk is IMHO a counterexample to the Free is better argument). Where Free doesn't produce better software for one's use, shouldn't one use the best (ethically-produced) tool for the job -- I mean, it's a piece of software, not a human rights issue, right?

Re:opera is faster

[fireboy1919]

Minimo (based on the ff3 tree) is faster, supports more javascript, and has a smaller memory footprint than Opera does on my 400Mhz Nokia N800. Minimo runs flash better, too.

Firefox 3 is a tipping point. It is the point at which Opera's claim of greater speed is quite arguable if not entirely unfounded. Considering that speed and portability are essentially the only things that Opera has going for it, the latest version of Firefox may actually destroy Opera's market.

Re:opera is faster

[edremy]

I am amazed how a closed-source app like Opera can outperform open source browsers that can supposedly integrate into the enviroment much better by such a high margin.

Why should you be surprised that a small, focused team can make sure that outperforms software created by a huge pool? In my experience OS software is rarely if ever faster than commercial stuff.

Linux? RTOSs like QNX blow the doors off of Linux in both speed and size

OpenOffice. Laugh- the slowest office suite out there by a large margin. Even the bloated pig of Office2007 is quicker.

Opera? Certainly much faster than Firefox and uses a lot less memory

GCC? Compile time might be ok, but in terms of output optimized code speed IBM's XLC just utterly destroyed it back when I used both in grad school.

I'm sure there are lots of others out there- OS programmers aren't somehow magically better than folks working in commercial shops. They can turn out some truly great stuff (Apache comes foremost to mind) but OS just isn't a silver bullet.

Re:opera is faster

[AeroIllini]

Aren't AJAX applications changing the DOM and hiding/unhiding elements fairly frequently?

The HTML renderer still seems important for fast operation of Google Docs.

Re:opera is faster

[INowRegretThesePosts]

I believe Free Software is indeed about freedom. And I believe that Open Source does tend to produce the best technical results, but of course there are exceptions. Specially in areas where Open Source is not (at least yet) mature enough, possibly due to presently having too little momentum. Perhaps one example would be 3D FPS gaming, but I cannot comment because I currently rarely play games.
I do believe that by stimulating free software I am stimulating both superior technology, economic efficiency and issues like
1) The freedom of access to information
2) The independence of people, including in foreign countries, from a particular corporation *
3) Power to the people, including from repressive governments
4) The framework (free, good quality compilers and libraries for software makers; free and good image editing tools for image makers; etc) for people to learn something, or, after learning, to express their potential

And there is no doubt that by merely using Firefox, I help them. It is called network-effect. The network effect in software is so strong that a scientific study has found that, if not for piracy (which allows people who otherwise would use Linux to use Windows), Microsoft would undoubtedly lose to Linux. With piracy, the study found that the future is uncertain, and no winner can be predicted (and maybe there won't even be a clear winner). The reason is that each person that uses Windows (even if without paying) is one less Linux user. One more person in the market for Windows software. One more person for a windows user to turn for help. One more reason for hardware companies to develop Windows drivers. So yes, network effect is so strong that Windows has a *net benefit* from piracy.

So I do help Free Software by merely using it, and even more when I advocate my friends to use it too, and when I help people in the forums, report bugs, etc.
And I am always honest: I only advocate Firefox because I know that, while being (possibly) worse than Opera, it is good enough, and I don't claim it to be the best. I just claim it is very good, and much better than IE.

* Really. I'm not the usual moon-landing 9/11 JFK conspiracy retard, but it is scary that our whole country, including the armed forces, depend on Microsoft. It is not like the USA has not deliberately leaked booby-trapped technology to the Soviets before**... There is a real-world possibility that the US government has made Microsoft put traps on Windows
** And, by the way, it was good. I am not your usual Soviet Union panderer either. I thank God that the Soviets are gone, and I hope the Chinese dictatorship goes away as well. Unfortunately, the reality is currently different from that, and the future seems worrisome, specially for us in Latin America...

Re:opera is faster

[KikassAssassin]

The thing that really struck me about Opera when I started using it many years ago was that, not only was it a faster browser, it also had many innovative features that other browsers at the time didn't have which actually reduced the I/O limitations of browsing (such as container windows (which was always a more powerful solution than simple tabbed browsing), mouse gestures, bookmark nickname shortcuts, and more recently things like Speed Dial), and it made browsing much quicker and easier once you learned its tricks.

Of course, Firefox has implemented most of those features, either in the browser itself or through addons, and with the proper addons, you can make Firefox function very much like Opera, but Opera still seems to be a smoother, more polished experience to me.

They're both great browsers, though, so you really can't go wrong with either one. I tend to switch off between them just to get an idea of how they're both progressing (I've been using the Firefox 3 beta/RC for awhile, and I'm probably going to start to using Opera primarily again for awhile now that 9.5 is out).

Re:opera is faster

[ultranova]

The problem is, "faster" is absolutely not a value judgment. It's testable and quantifiable, and the claim that Opera is "faster," at least according to one benchmark, doesn't seem to be true.

I don't know if Opera is faster, but Firefox has an annoying habit of freezing for a few moments when there are lots of windows/tabs open and you open a new one. It's really, really annoying - almost as annoying as its habit of crashing when there's lots windows/tabs open and I accidentally press Insert when writing a comment on Slashdot.

I guess the fox has some memory control/fragmentation issues...

Re:opera is faster

[BZ]

"The environment" is part of the performance problem in a lot of cases. For example, GTK2 is a lot slower than GTK1 (affecting things like Window opening performance, for example). Using pango for text layout will let you get more things (e.g. Thai) correct, but is a good bit slower than other options that don't try to handle as many situations... RENDER and XOrg have all sorts of performance issues. There are graphics testcases where Firefox 2 on Linux beats Firefox 3 hands-down because the software rendering in Firefox 2 is faster than the "accelerated" rendering done through RENDER in Firefox 3.

So depending on the tradeoffs you want to make, the way to be fast might in fact be to NOT integrate with "the environment". At least on Linux. On operating systems with a better graphics and widget layer story, things may be different.

Re:opera is faster

[BZ]

Between the start of Gecko 1.9 development and now (effectively the end of Gecko 1.9 development), 389 bugs with the "perf" keyword got fixed. That's not counting the UI-only performance bugs (e.g. the Firefox UI took up about 15% of the pageload time in Firefox 2; in Firefox 3 that number is much smaller).

People care, I can assure you. On the other hand there are a _lot_ of performance bugs. At least in part because any algorithm that's not O(N) or faster amortized is automatically a performance bug on the web: people throw up multi-tens-of-megabytes HTML files all the time.

Re:opera is faster

[entrigant]

My connection has been faster than most browsers can render for quite some time now. The bottleneck is rendering speed, javascript execution speed, and ui speed.

Zoom

[Frosty Piss]

I've been using the RC, and must say the memory issues that the Mozilla developers have tried to claim never existed, are almost nonexistent now. The only tiny thing I don't like is the Text Size function which is now called "zoom", and is sucky.

Re:Zoom

[Derek Pomery]

View->Zoom
Check off "text zoom only"

Re:Zoom

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because now it really acts as zoom: it doesn't resize only the text, but the images too (though this can be configured), as opposed in FF2 where only the text would change size, and thus the "Text size" terminology made more sense.

Re:Zoom

[Richard_at_work]

I just wish there was a way to revert the 'Awesome Bar' to the standard address bar that FF2 had (with no automatic searching, just url matching), because I hate the new functionality.

Re:Zoom

[vivek7006]

I, on the other hand love the new zoom feature. I use a very high resolution screen and need to zoom webpages to read the text. Earlier zooming would only increase the text and plenty of websites would look atrocious. Now everything scales proportionally and webpages look uniform after zooming.

Re:Zoom

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wish there was a way to revert the 'Awesome Bar' to the standard address bar that FF2 had (with no automatic searching, just url matching), because I hate the new functionality. Of course there's a way. There's an extension. :)

Re:Zoom

[Richard_at_work]

I just wish there was a way to revert the 'Awesome Bar' to the standard address bar that FF2 had (with no automatic searching, just url matching), because I hate the new functionality. Of course there's a way. There's an extension. :) From that page:

Note that the underlying autocomplete algorithm is the Firefox 3 algorithm, not the Firefox 2 algorithm. oldbar only affects the presentation of the results. Its the algorithm that I want to disable completely.

Re:Zoom

[Anonymous Coward]

Check off: We are looking for Nuclear wessels...

Re:Zoom

[pubjames]

Yes. Apparently it's especially annoying when you are demonstrating something to a client and they get to see all the websites you were exploring the night before...

Re:Zoom

[deroby]

ctrl-shift-del is your friend ?

Re:Zoom

[Chyeld]

What kind of weasel?

Re:Zoom

[darthflo]

Opera had it even firster. >.<

Re:Zoom

[SEMW]

IE7 had it first. Actually, I think you'll find that Opera had it several years before either IE7 or Firefox.

Re:Zoom

[xSauronx]

srsly. using the address bar now is a hassle.

Re:Zoom

[macdaddy]

That's because the address bar, location bar, URL bar is apparently no longer used for addresses, locations or URLs. Go figure.

Re:Zoom

[ggvaidya]

Microsoft and Opera Software ASA aren't really friends :-)

Actually: is Microsoft friends with anybody?

Re:Zoom

[Workaphobia]

Mozilla doesn't seem to understand how to add new features without displacing sensible default behavior. For instance, in one of the v3 betas that I'm using now, going to an SSL-secured site where the certificate doesn't check out for any reason results in me being prompted to either leave the site or add a permanent exception for the one site. There is no option to inspect the actual certificate information. I'm sure a way exists, because the alternative is absurd, but it shouldn't take anyone who's ever used a web browser before more than five seconds to find it.

And I thought it was bad enough in previous versions that firefox displayed scary messages when it came across a self-signed certificate, just like every other browser, despite the fact that it's far more secure than plaintext.

Seriously, did you know that you can add and change advanced configuration settings through about:config, but you can't delete a setting after it's explicitly created because they want to protect you from fubaring your installation? You have to open a text editor to restore its original state.

In some respects, firefox is a lot like gnome.

Re:Zoom

[BZ]

Can you actually point me to an incident where someone who was an active Mozilla developer at the time "tried to claim [the memory issues] never existed"?

It's a nice meme to propagate, but I have yet to see someone come up with such an incident.

Re:Zoom

[totally bogus dude]

1. Lots of monitors (LCDs) look crap at non-native resolution
2. Changing the resolution takes longer than ctrl+mousewheel (or even using the menu)
3. Most window managers (in particular, Windows) will move your windows to fit them onto the screen when you change resolution, so when you're done with the stupid website with the tiny text you have to move everything back to where it was.

Changing your screen resolution so you can view a single site that has chosen to use an unreadably small font size is far more hassle than using your browser's zoom or font size feature. Additionally, the fact that it can also enlarge images is helpful on sites that use unreadably small fonts rendered as images.

Also I'm trying to understand what you're actually complaining about. Is someone forcing you to use it or something? I don't use the "Character Encoding" option but I'm sure it's very useful to some people, so I don't see much point in complaining about its existence.

Nothing about breaking records?

[Wicko]

Last I checked, there were just over a million pledges, far off from the 5 million they were shooting for..

Re:Nothing about breaking records?

[illeism]

I'm sure the downloads will be there.

It's like fast food, you don't make a reservation to go get it, you just do, you know you want it, you know you can't live without it... /startscript - analogy/backlash/thickskin.py

Re:Nothing about breaking records?

[twbecker]

Yeah, SeaMonkey is the epitome of "lean and mean".

Opera 9.5 released today

[wile_e_wonka]

In other news, Opera 9.5, the other best browser, released today.

Re:Opera 9.5 released today

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how this is offtopic.

Opera has been around a lot longer than FF, has a tiny memory footprint, and has a kick ass simple interface. That is to say, you don't need a fucking 3rd party skin to make it look good (because I doubt good UI design is one of FFs primary goals).

Nevertheless, kudos to Firefox. Unfortunately for me, it's Safari on OS X, and Opera for everything else.

Re:Opera 9.5 released today

[at_slashdot]

Opera 9.5 was just released today, however on slashdot we have an article about how Firefox will release on Tuesday... nice...

Re:Opera 9.5 released today

[Fweeky]

Opera support more platforms directly too; while Firefox supports OS X, Windows and Linux i686, Opera support all those, plus Linux x86-64/sparc/ppc, FreeBSD i386/amd64, and Solaris sparc and x86.

Of course you can't compile Opera for anything else, so I guess it's just as well.

Re:Opera 9.5 released today

[spyrochaete]

x.0 = major release

x.5 = minor release

I infer only the former is newsworthy.

Re:Opera 9.5 released today

[Threni]

> Yes, but 9.5 > 3.0 release numbers don't mean much. Opera 9.5 is just as important release as Firefox 3.0 is.

Hardly. Firefox has larger market share, is more popular, has more add-ons, is supported more widely even by mainstream non-nerdy websites etc. I use Opera Mini on my phone nearly every day, largely because it's free but also because it's pretty good, but when I decided, years ago, to experiment with a non Internet Explorer browser, I discovered that Opera had ads all over it, and to get rid of them I had to pay. I googled for another one and within seconds had started to download what is now Firefox. Things might have been a little different for Opera if they'd been more realistic about what an acceptable cost for a browser is, but that's just speculation nowadays.

Re:Opera 9.5 released today

[RAMMS EIN]

By the way, the other day I was wondering what the point is in releasing your software as freeware, rather than as open source. I can see the point of _selling_ closed source software (you make money), and I can see the point of releasing as open source (you get a lot of mind share and free contributions), but when you release as freeware, you get neither advantage. So why do it?

Re:Opera 9.5 released today

[SEMW]

"After almost two years in development ... Amongst the major improvements are a revamped rendering engine, massive increases in performance, EV and malware security features, synchronisation of bookmarks, a re-engineered mail back-end, improved address-bar searching..." Doesn't sound like a "minor release" to me. Version numbers can be misleading: different organisations have very different ideas about when a new release should get a new version number. You can't compare versions numbers of different applications directly.

Re:Opera 9.5 released today

[Juneau]

By releasing it as Freeware, you retain the right to return it to closed source, and sell it.

I'm no expert on the open source licenses (and I'm sure I'll be corrected), but once it's open source, it's quite difficult to put it back to closed source and sell it as a product

Re:Opera 9.5 released today

[csimpkin]

I think the general idea is that Opera makes money by selling a version for mobile uses. If they release the desktop version as open source, then someone else can port it to mobile platforms and eat into their revenue.

speaking of releases

[Anonymous Coward]

I just released a brown trout in the 3rd floor men's room. The toilet seems to be broken (or "beta" as us googlers call it), so you might want to avoid the middle stall.

I was expecting more to see Opera 9.5 news...

[sznupi]

I mean...it was, like, RELEASED, today; not only announced to be released.

But I guess that clears any doubts as to "/. pet-browser" that Firefox has... :/

Re:I was expecting more to see Opera 9.5 news...

[Mark Gillespie]

Funny thing is, only opera has the /. easter egg in it... Yep, type /. in the address bar to come here. Talk about cool easter eggs...

Re:I was expecting more to see Opera 9.5 news...

[pembo13]

Guess no one submitted a story on it.

Re:I was expecting more to see Opera 9.5 news...

[Doctor Crumb]

Or perhaps the fact taht opera has 1% market share while firefox has 18% might have something to do with it.

Re:I was expecting more to see Opera 9.5 news...

[sznupi]

Yeah, I'm so used to it that I have difficulties using other browsers efficiently ;)

Re:I was expecting more to see Opera 9.5 news...

[Zwicky]

Create a Slashdot bookmark and set its keyword to '/.' (sans quotes).

Re:I was expecting more to see Opera 9.5 news...

[ady1]

Someone, please remind me how much market share desktop linux has?

Market share has nothing to do with firefox being a news and opera not. The matter of the fact is that Opera is not open source. Firefox is. Also, opera's html rendering implementation, while fast in general from either IE or firefox, crawls to its knees when you go to a script heavy (WEB2.0 for some people) site. This was the primary reason I stopped using it even though I like it a lot.

Re:I was expecting more to see Opera 9.5 news...

[bigstrat2003]

The matter of the fact is that Opera is not open source. Firefox is. Who the fuck cares? Good software is good software.

Re:I was expecting more to see Opera 9.5 news...

[bigstrat2003]

a) I'd bet more people don't care than care.

b) The people who do care are idiots. Opera is a web browser with enough notoriety that a release is newsworthy, open-source or not. Slashdot isn't "open-source news", it's just about news.

What about the fsync problem?

[Spy der Mann]

Will it be fixed in 3.0, or will I have to wait for 3.1? See, I use Linux and my partitions are ext3. The fsync issue affects me.

Re:What about the fsync problem?

[Daimanta]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=421482

This is probably it.

Re:What about the fsync problem?

[sootman]

Will it be fixed in 3.0, or will I have to wait for 3.1?

You'll probably have to wait for 3.11 for Workgroups. Or possibly Firefox 95.

Re:What about the fsync problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fsync bug was fixed in rc2.

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[Hatta]

So what do you want? A cookie?

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Firefox is the best browser out there and it is the only one I will ever allow in my house

I don't, it sheds hair all over the couch and chases my pet firehen.

smaller memory footprint

[pak9rabid]

From what I can tell from using the beta, it seems a lot of the reduced memory footpring from Firefox 3 appears to be the result of it using the OS's native GUI widgets, as opposed to widgets supplied by Firefox itself. FF3 is coming along nicely, but still has a few annoyances that need addressing. Hopefully the release version will address those minor annoyances.

Re:smaller memory footprint

[diegocgteleline.es]

It doesnt use the native widgets. It uses its own widgets and then it paints them so that they look like they were native (other browsers also do this)

Re:smaller memory footprint

[Spy der Mann]

No, it's not. Haven't you read the news? They completely revamped memory management. Among the improvements, are:

• Reduced Memory fragmentation
• Fixed cycles with the Cycle collector
• Tuned the caches
• Adjusted how image data is stored (hint: compressed)
• Hunted down leaks. "Overall, we've been able to close over 400 leak bugs so far, most of which are very uncommon, but can still occur."

8.04 Hardy Heron users got it today

[MollyB]

It was part of the Update Manager offerings...
(no conflicts with beta add-ons)

Re:8.04 Hardy Heron users got it today

[WolverineOfLove]

Are you sure it wasn't RC1? http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/hardy-updates/firefox-3.0

Re:8.04 Hardy Heron users got it today

[MooseMuffin]

None of the release candidates identify themselves as release candidates in help/about. You're running RC1.

Re:8.04 Hardy Heron users got it today

[DaveM753]

It is RC1. The "About" screen doesn't say it's an RC, but the package did.

I'm waiting.

[oliverthered]

I'm waiting until flash is ready and all of my addons work with Firefox 3, it's only half a browser without them

Re:I'm waiting.

[Rurik]

Don't wait, contact the developers! Each add-on developer works independently from the rest of the system. I assumed my extension worked fine in 3.0 and was going to wait until FF3 became finalized, but I received enough comments and issues from beta users that I went and updated mine and continued to update the versions so that it would work with all of the betas and RCs. If there's an extension you need, email the authors and hound them to update it asap.

Re:I'm waiting.

[Kjella]

You know, I really don't have the time or patience to hunt down half a dozen different extension developres to hound them or assemble my browser by parts. Firefox is IMO not lean and mean, it's a stripped chassis. Using Firefox out of the box, I don't see why anyone would bother. It gets even more hilarious when people blame extensions for incompatibilities, memory leaks and such when extensions are IMO the best reason to use it. I use Opera because it seems to come with most things so reasonably as I want them, I'm sure I could probably tune a Firefox install to be even better but it's just not worth the time and effort. "Extendable" and "Self-assembly" are not synonymous, personally I wish someone would make "distro" versions of firefox and the most popular extensions as one release with proper integration testing. I guess by looking at the market share I'm not in the majority, but I'm happy with Opera and have no plans to switch...

Damn.

[Creepy Crawler]

I dont have a party hat.

All I have is a cloak and a wizard hat.

Re:Damn.

[Koiu Lpoi]

I cast Level 7 Noscript. Firefox turns into the best browser.

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[Rurik]

If you thought it was so good, wouldn't you have upgraded to the release candidate weeks ago instead of continuing to use the beta? :)

Re:I had the Beta

[tylervincent]

I love the beta it gives you an idea about what it will look like and I cant wait till the full version comes out and sure some of my add-ons don't work but they will soon. Sorry but my way is a lot better

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[pak9rabid]

Firefox is the best browser out there and it is the only one I will ever allow in my house and I even have the thumb drive version. This is when a 'fanboi' mod would come in handy.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[springbox]

So what do you want? A cookie?

Free cookie, visit Google

Re:Addons

[tuffy]

NoScript, Adblock Plus (w. Filterset.G) and FlashBlock are supported in the current 3.0pre Firefox, so they'll work in the final build. Checking Mozilla's addons website isn't that hard, really.

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[Dmala]

It was originally called Firebird, a reference to the Phoenix and the idea that the app was born from the ashes of Netscape. They changed it after receiving complaints from the Firebird database people, keeping the "fire" and swapping out the animal. I assume the fox was chosen for the alliteration and for the image of the fox as being scrappy and independent. Fireslug just doesn't have the same ring...

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[nuzak]

> I wonder how they came up with the name Firefox?

It used to be called Phoenix, which was to evoke the whole "rising from the ashes" imagery WRT the (at the time) moribund Mozilla project. The BIOS people didn't like that and asked them to change it, so they renamed it Firebird, which the database people weren't keen on. So finally they came up with Firefox, and it stuck. Better name anyway.

Re:No Big Deal

[tuffy]

The main one that accumulates memory with open tabs? I have heard that it was still not addressed in FF3, but that was a bit ago and I hope this is it!

It has been addressed. While FF2 would hog all my available RAM over the course of a day, FF3 releases memory regularly as tabs are closed.

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[yuriyg]

Me: Oh the great, all-knowing wikipedia, please enlighten me on the reason Mozilla Firefox chose such a glorious name!
Wikipedia: It was first named "Phoenix", because it arose from the ashes of Netscape. Then (due to international copyright laws and conflict with Phoenix Technologies) they chose to rename the great product as "Firebird," and all rejoiced! Alas, the great joy did not last long, as the wicked Firebird Database Server users started to complain. The great creators then finally settled on the name that is heard throughout the land: FIREFOX!

I did have to sacrifice a goat though...

Re:Addons

[spyrochaete]

Considering Mozilla gets millions of dollars of funding from Google I doubt you'll ever see a native ad blocker bundled with the distro.

Re:But will it work?

[el_chupanegre]

Of course you can't make it work 100%, no non-trivial piece of software is bug free. I wasn't saying it should be.

However, there are a fair few pretty serious bugs on there that for me should halt release until they are fixed. Multiple daily crashes is something that can really put someone off your product.

The top bug on the page I linked is reported 14,000 times in 2 weeks. At 1,000 times per day, just for those who 1) have a beta/RC of FF3 and 2) actually bothered to report it, when that gets released and downloaded millions of times that can do some serious damage to your reputation.

Personally, I wouldn't be releasing it with that many bug reports per day for the handful of people who actually have a beta/RC.

Re:Addons

[dq5 studios]

AdBlock (with filterset.g) No, you'll have to update to Adblock Plus and use one of the built in filters which is for the best anyways since Adblock was discontinued some time ago and Filterset.g has some horrible slowdown problems.

Re:Addons

[MSG]

Adblock plus deprecated filterset.g. That filterset caused too many problems for users, so adblock plus introduced new subscriptions that cause fewer problems and don't require additional components.

http://adblockplus.org/en/faq_project#filterset.g

In short: don't use filterset.g. Use Adblock Plus.

Firefox has severe problems with IPv6

[Omnifarious]

Firefox basically can't do SOCKS proxying and connect to IPv6 sites, even if you configure a SOCKS5 proxy which can handle IPv6.

Re:Can it [properly] handle mailto:?

[EricTheGreen]

Set Firefox 3 to launch GMail for mailto links

IMO getting the handler set up properly shouldn't be nearly this fussy, but it does work; I use it myself.

HTH...

Will Firefox 3 fix the annoying .net bug?

[Bananatree3]

Seriously, at least half a dozen times a day I will type in a an address into the address bar, hit enter, and then Firefox tacks a ".net" to the end of it. It directs me to some spammer squatter site, and I have to go back up to the address bar and delete the .net. I have no idea why it will happen sometimes and other times it won't. However, I was curious if other Slashdot users have experienced such an annoyance.

Re:Will Firefox 3 fix the annoying .net bug?

[MP3Chuck]

If you SHIFT+Enter in the address bar it'll tack a http://www on the front and a .net on the end. It has happened to me accidentally before, but nothing consistent or even remotely frequent...

Re:Will Firefox 3 fix the annoying .net bug?

[D Ninja]

Additionally, if you hit Ctrl+Enter it'll tack a http://www. and a .com on the end.

I personally really like this feature.

"Awesome"Bar (was Re:Zoom)

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an example of the old address bar algorithm:

* Clear the address bar
* Type the letter "c"
* The sites listed are your most frequently visited sites beginning with "c"

Here's an example of the new one:

* Clear the address bar
* Type the letter "c"
* The sites listed are your most frequently visited sites with words beginning with "c", and ".com" counts as a word

There really needs to be a way to restore the old matching behavior, and as Richard_at_work says, the oldbar extension doesn't accomplish that.

It's more like an "AwfulBar" than an "AwesomeBar".

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[TClevenger]

Firefox is the best browser out there and it is the only one I will ever allow in my house and I even have the thumb drive version.

This is when a 'fanboi' mod would come in handy.

It sounds even better when you say it in a Ralph Wiggum voice.

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[yuriyg]

Can't... resist...
In Soviet Russia, a thought can get YOU killed!

Thank you.

[Bananatree3]

You're right it isn't a bug, its a feature! I have been hitting at the very bottom end of the Enter key, so I've been simultaneously striking the top of the Shift key at the same time. I'll just make sure its more in the center next time.

Re:Thank you.

[LMacG]

Try changing the value for browser.fixup.alternate.enabled to false. I'm assuming that will turn off ctrl-enter for automatic ".com" completion as well.

Pledge map: Can someone explain Poland?

[Liancourt Rocks]

Just checking the pledge map here: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

Gives some fascinating insights on which countries care about Firefox the most... and which countries are playing catch-up with the tubes (well done South America, gogogo Africa!)

Also interesting is the difference between Korea (4000+ pledges) and Japan (43000+) which are both IMHO, two Internet savvy countries. Even without accounting for the difference in size, from my experience, Korea just doesn't seem to care about Firefox (Korean sites are pretty much IE only).

However, the one I don't understand is Poland. Of all the countries in eastern Europe, how come so many pledges come from there? Say even compared to France or the UK?

So, any IT work to be found in Poland? Fast tubes? Yummy zubrovka and women? Can't go wrong with that, really...

Re:Pledge map: Can someone explain Poland?

[BZ]

South Korea has the minor issue that they started doing internet banking very early, before SSL got standardized. So they came up with their own encryption setup.

They use it to this day, with an ActiveX control to handle the encryption. Which means you can't use any serious bank site (and can't use a lot of e-commerce sites) in South Korea unless you're using IE on Windows. There is basically no marketshare for Macs or non-IE browsers as a result.

FF3 Annoyances

[drew]

I've been using Firefox 3 on my linux partition since I upgraded to Ubuntu Hardy a few months ago. Honestly, I've found the new version to be more of an annoyance than anything else, although it's been hard for me to figure out how many of these annoyances were due to Firefox itself, and how many were due to Ubuntu.

1) Font rendering problems. Any font sizes specified in points were about 2-3 times the size they were supposed to be relative to anything else on the page. I eventually figured out that to fix this I had to manually set layout.css.dpi in about:config.

2) It feels significantly more sluggish than 2.0, although this has gradually been getting better lately. Maybe by the time it's actually released they will have this all worked out.

3) URL bar #1: I do find the new algorithm of the "awesomebar" to be annoying, although I can see how it might be a better experience once I get used to it. I'm going to hold off judgement on this until I've had a bit more time to get used to it, but regardless of the sorting matching algorithm, it just looks way too cluttered.

4) URL bar #2: They have changed the selection behavior in the URL bar to always select the entire url. There doesn't seem to be any way to quickly select a single portion of the URL for example to change from http://games.slashdot.org/ to http://hardware.slashdot.org/. I have found this to be the single most annoying feature of the new Firefox by far. In fact that alone is probably enough to keep me from upgrading on my other computers.

While none of these annoyances by themselves are deal breakers, I have yet to notice any changes (from an end-user standpoint - I understand the rendering engine has been significantly improved, which is great, but doesn't really help me all that much) that really make me want to upgrade.

Re:FF3 Annoyances

[lpangelrob]

Hmm. My experiences are limited to Win2k and OS X 10.5, so they may not apply to you.

Fonts - weird stuff sometimes. Some pages I need to increase the text size twice before it becomes readable. But most pages are OK on default.

Sluggish - I have the opposite experience in both OSes, in that it takes up significantly less memory, and renders pages faster. I've previous mentioned a GTK bug of some sort in Win2k that persists in Pidgin, so it's not a FF issue. (The most recent Win2k issue is that the Flash auto-installer just doesn't work.)

URL - I like the awesomebar because I remember titles and portions of links about 85% of the time. The awesomebar helps me out with this. Maybe getting in the habit of double-clicking the part of the URL you want to change would work better for you? (Unless you're an exclusive Ctrl+L guy... then you're just SOL.)

Re:Download Record

[bunratty]

According to the Download Day FAQ, they will discard duplicate downloads.

Feature: Re:Will Firefox 3 fix the annoying .net?

[Anonymous Coward]

when typing in the url in the address bar:
[enter] Takes what you typed in, will assume http:// if not provided
[ctrl+enter] http://www.url.com
[shift+enter] http://www.url.net
[ctrl+shift+enter] http://www.url.org

It's not a bug.

Can I install 3.0 and keep my 2.0 configuration?

[MLS100]

I'd like to test it but don't want to screw up my 2.0 config before I know it is worth upgrading.

Re:Memory issues

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Actually, most extensions have been updated for FF3, and one of the changes made in the allocator allows for automatic cycle collection. Previously, extensions had to break cycles themselves, making it relatively easy for them to leak memory, but with automatic cycle collection, it's easier to write a leak free extension. See this article on memory improvements

Doesn't work for me either

[Bananatree3]

That about:config setting didn't do anything for the shift+enter. I finally gave in an downloaded the URL suffix addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/443. Once its loaded, just select options for it from the Add-on list and delete all the entries. That will take care of it once and for all.

However, I'm still on the hunt for a simple about:config setting.

Re:opera is faster.. What is ALSO annoying

[davidsyes]

"Whenever we're asked "when is Firefox going to be released" we endeavor to answer to the best of our abilities, but the truth of the matter is that we'll only ever ship "when it's ready". We have a lot of indicators that help us understand when the product is ready for release: feedback from our pre-release milestones, excitement in the community and the press, availability of compatible Add-Ons, and a large active beta community helping us ensure that the release is compatible with all the various sites on the Internet."

C'mon. We have a new admin who is of the steadfast belief that NO beta-ware should be on machines except for compatibility testing. Anyone else should not be using beta-ware. That bugs me, as we ALL know that marketing deadlines make profit-drive/investor-backed companies release SHITWARE under a 1.0 or 1.1 or some moniker of "READY".

Mozilla, if you want to avert CIOs and IT admins who GENERALLY WOULD accept or permit use of FF in the office, you NEED to release more frequently and in batches that cover he easy bug kills. Making 3.x wait for SOOOOO long after 2.xx is crippling to those of us who want a blessed, ready incremental release we can feel safe (and be permitted) using. The diffs tween 2.x and 3.x are too tempting to ignore. If FF were to be non-released for, say 6 more months, it would be QUITE demoralizing to me to be denied using it at work.

Please, please consider modifying your release definition and make FF release more palatable as far as security and IT policies go.

Thanks!

When is google toolbar going to work with Firefox3

[mrmaster]

I've been loving Firefox 3 but all my bookmarks are in google toolbar. I can't convert at work until google toolbar works with Firefox 3. Shouldn't Google, who invests plenty with Mozilla, already have a working toolbar?

How to get it almost like the FF2 Adress Bar

[forgot_my_nick]

open about:config and:

1) Edit this key: browser.urlbar.maxRichResults and set the value to 5 or 6 (or even 0).

2) Most importantly create this key: browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped Type: Boolean Value: true

The Awesomebar will now behave almost like the FF2 addressbar.

AdBlock / FlashBlock

[bitrot42]

To the people who claim Adblock/Flashblock are deal-breakers, I've found a combination of the F12 quick menu to disable plug-ins/java/gif-animation, plus a custom hosts file that redirects doubleclick and the like, works quite nicely.

I mostly like Opera because navigating forward/back pages and between tabs is near-instant and can be done with simple keystrokes (Z&X, 1&2). There are tons of other shortcuts that help as well. I'm a madman on eBay and forum sites, plowing through stuff faster and more easily than I could with anything else. My Slashdot un-productivity is fantastic.

I also like that I don't have to deal with finding/installing/updating all sort of plugins on every machine I use. Opera has most, though not all, admittedly, of what I want built in.

To each his/her own, naturally, but Opera is well worth, er, exploring...

Address Bar gTLD Shortcuts

[Mana Mana]

CTRL + ENTER => appends .COM
SHFT + ENTER => appends .NET
CTRL + SHFT + ENTER => appends .ORG

I wonder where this is configurable? I might want to map one of these to .CX instead.

BTW, I do like this for fast browsing:

CTRL L
CTRL + ENTER => appends .COM   <----------<<<< This is your choice obviously.

Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta

[Tubal-Cain]

Ubuntu hasn't updated to the RCs.

Opera 9.5 - Heads Up

[ed.markovich]

I am a big fan of Opera and was initially very disappointed with the 9.5 version that came out today. Much of non-trivial rendering was broken (for example, the chats in Gmail Chat were totally messed up.) I couldn't believe that my beloved Opera delivered such a turd. It was very very disappointing.

For some reason I decided to uninstall Opera, remove my profile and try again. This this time it started to work and WORKS GREAT. I guess there's something in my profile that's been there for years (it's my original config going back years...) that somehow messed up 9.5

So heads up. If Opera 9.5 works weird for you, try running on a clean profile.

-E

Re:It was on the Ubuntui update last nite....

[BZ]

An RC is an RC. If no stop-ship bugs come up, those exact bits on disk become final, with no more changes. That includes changing text in about boxes.

Hence every RC for Firefox 3 has said "3.0" in the about box.