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Mozilla Pitches Firefox 3.1 Alpha For July Release
An anonymous reader writes "Just a week after Mozilla shipped Firefox 3.0, the open-source developer has proposed ship dates for the next version that, if approved, would produce an alpha release next month and a final no later than early 2009. According to a draft schedule discussed at a recent meeting, Mozilla wants to have the first Firefox 3.1 developer preview ready by July, then move to a beta by August. The schedule slates final code delivery in the last quarter of this year or the first quarter of 2009. A month ago, when Mozilla first started discussing Firefox 3.1 internally, Mike Schroepfer, the company's vice president of engineering, said the upgrade's target ship date was the end of 2008. If Mozilla holds to that plan, Firefox 3.1 would be its first fast-track update. Firefox 3.0, for instance, launched approximately 20 months after its predecessor, Firefox 2.0."
What are you talking about?, firefox 3 works perfectly fine over here
There's a reason IE6 is entrenched.
There's also a reason why some users stuck with Firefox 2.0. I was going to until I managed to regain control over the address bar with the oldbar and hide unvisted extensions. In fact if the fucking address bar evolves any further or if those extensions get blocked I'm going to move to another browser. Change for the sake of change is not good.
Now significant new features, which can be controlled without adding extensions? That I'd love to see. However it seems current Firefox policy is to ignore the end user and limit their options using the excuse that you don't want to clutter the options dialogs.
For me, Firefox ain't the shiny magic browser it once was. Years of memory bugs, extensions that require updating on every release, minor features breaking and now this maddness with the interface have soured me to it. I'll still keep using it until something better comes along but I'm no longer excited about new releases.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Let's hope the Mozilla devs get the Acid3 test to work with Firefox 3.1.
Well, I can dream, can't I?
And how does that help normal browsing? The acid3 test was made just so that Opera could scream Fr1st P0st again.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
That's the main reason why I use Opera. I often have a dozen or more tabs left open for hours on end.
Firefox does occasionally crash randomly after a couple of hours or start consuming ridiculous amounts of RAM. Opera on the other hand carries on happily no matter how many tabs I have open for however long.
Just type
apt-get remove libflashsupport; echo "I'm a `uname` noob"
He's using Linux. OSS always works better in Windows. :-P
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Yes, Firefox 3 does seem improved. But it still becomes a CPU hog (not crashes) when there have been a lot of windows and tabs open for several days, especially when Windows XP has been put into and out of hibernation several times.
I just re-started Firefox because of that problem. I was already using NoScript and Adblock Plus, and now, since the re-start, I'm using Flashblock again, also.
As I mentioned, I went to Tools/ Options/ Applications/ and selected "Always ask" or "Save File" for every application. I will try that over the next few days.
In another discussion on Slashdot about the CPU hogging bug, it seemed plausible to us that the bug is due to the way Firefox hooks and unhooks the keyboard driver. Something gets out of control. With Firefox 2, it was necessary to re-start Windows XP to recover, not just Firefox. I haven't tested Firefox 3 enough to know if it corrupts the operating system.
No one who says the problem doesn't happen to them seems to have duplicated the factors that cause the CPU bug. It is necessary, not just to have a lot of tabs open, but to open and close a lot of tabs, as when someone is doing research over several days.
Conditions for the CPU bug to appear:
1) Open lots of windows and tabs.
2) Close many windows and tabs, and open new ones.
3) Over several days.
4) With several hibernations or standby periods.
Since Firefox corrupts not just itself, but the Windows XP operating system, I suppose that there is a Firefox bug that interacts with a Windows XP bug. That causes me to suspect keyboard handling.
In tests of previous versions of Firefox with Linux, I was able to get Firefox to show the CPU hogging bug, but I was never able to get Firefox to corrupt Linux, which was always very robust.
Yes, I reported all this on Bugzilla, but all I got was the 22 standard excuses for not fixing the bug, which I won't post again in this comment.
Fifty million dollars a year from Google doesn't buy much if Firefox can't become stable, in my opinion. Howewver, I get the impression that Mozilla Foundation is managed better now that the technology-shy lawyer is no longer the chief, so maybe the next several years will be better than the last seven.
Eventually, years from now, I won't need to post the list. I'll just answer such comments with the excuse numbers.
Firefox Developer Top 20 Excuses
for Not Fixing the Firefox CPU Hogging bug
These are actual excuses given at one time or another.