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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."
But so what?
There's nothing in the article or summary that hasn't already been covered in the other 76 articles about Firefox in the last 2 months.
Firefox team is still developing Firefox... shit, so is Opera, so is IE, Safari, etc, etc...
Let's hope the Mozilla devs get the Acid3 test to work with Firefox 3.1.
Well, I can dream, can't I?
They could change the version number and release a production-quality 3.1 tomorrow. What matters is the new features/bugfixes/optimizations in 3.1. Without them there's no context for the news.
In every release, they would be given a cake.
6 months isn't "quick", its only the Alpha in a month...that's about normal for most smaller software, especially for a point (*.1) update, this isn't Firefox 4.0.
Hell, Opera released 9.51 RC1 (now on RC2) just a few days after 9.5...
Its pretty normal as far as I see it, and I'm glad they are (or seem to be) returning to a more consistent release schedule, it may eventually become my default browser again, which it hasn't been since Phoenix.
Comes Firefox 95!
Defective Logic
MSIE developers already figured out the cake is a lie long ago.
Have to agree - not sure if its add-on related but since I updated several PCs to FF3 I have had about 2-3 browser crashes a week and one UK grocery shopping site makes FF3 just 'disappear'.
AT&ROFLMAO
Firefox 2.0 was also supposed to be a quick development, based on the same gecko branch. It eventually took about a year.
I think the past record of Mozilla.org has repeatedly shown that it is unable to release a product on time, given the huge amount of testing/fixing iterations that must come before the final release. A Firefox "quick release" will take time, and divert resources from important future projects such as Gecko 2.
I would have thought Mozilla.org would have finally admitted that the architecture and development model of Firefox is characterised by long maturation times. This is needed to keep up its high quality level.
Of course, at one time, Firefox 3 was targeted for a Q3 2007 release.
I do have add-ons installed and it hasn't crashed once. Aren't anecdotes fun?
I'm passing up the opportunity to moderate you as 'troll' despite your obvious troll post on the basis that maybe, just maybe, you have some evidence to back up those statements. I'm not sure what bugs you're talking about but I use Firefox all day long every single day and very rarely have any problems.
I also use an application (MediaCoder) that I believe uses the XUL parts of Firefox seemingly without any problems (other than annoying load times for what should really be a simple control panel thing).
Try installing flashblock. Those ads tend to steal a lot of cycles. Worked for me anyway.
People getting bent out of shape about the address bar is simply absurd. While I admit, the option to turn it off should appear somewhere, if only in about:config, the development team isn't ignoring it's users. I have a feeling far more people LIKE the new address bar than dislike it. I certainly find it very useful at times. I also happen to find the new user interface to be well thought out and designed.
The "it's only one option in the config dialog" argument is wearing a bit thin. It also demonstrates a lack of understanding on what testing is required for even simple options. Perhaps terms like "decision coverage" and "condition/decision coverage" are meaningless to you, but they are quite important to software testers. Also important is the psychological concept of the paradox of choice in which many people will not make a choice if presented with too many options. I really am quite sick of hearing, "But it's just one little check box in the option dialog." Take a second and think about how many features that has been said about. Then take a second to consider how much your really now about good user interface design and how much research is done in the area of human/computer interaction.
The changes presented in Firefox 3.0 are actually quite minor when compared to other UI modifications such as Office 2007 or KDE 4. Such drastic language on your part is quite uncalled for. The changes presented in Firefox's front end are, in fact, not for the sake of change but rather for the sake of improvement. I hope comments like yours don't encourage the developers to stagnate on a single UI design because every time they work to improve it, a vocal minority of rigid people can't pull a stick out of their ass.
IME usually it's flash. install flashblock or noscript and enable only those flash movies you really want to see - haven't seen ff3 crash since I started doing that.
I hope to see the html 5 video support added for Fx3.1
You're almost certainly going to get it, with Ogg Theora support at the very least (a DirectShow backend for Windows, QuickTime backend for Mac OS X, and GStreamer backend for Linux are also in the works). But the real question that no one seems to be asking is, where is HTML 5 audio support? It's just as much a part of the specification, and Ogg Vorbis is well-known enough that corporate entities aren't so worried about patents. I've seen some work on it recently, but I'm not sure it's mature enough to make the deadline. HTML 5 audio and video support in Firefox 3.1 would be a dream though. Safari already has at least some support for both, and Opera has partial support for audio with video surely not far off. Internet Explorer is obviously going to take a long time to catch up, but I guess we can't have everything...
After reading the article (a novel concept for slashdot I know), the answer to both your questions is "Yes".
Which both of his three questions?
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Flash sites?
Only times I've had firefox 3 go down is on particular, badly made, flash-based sites, when trying to do specified things, which makes me fairly sure it's Adobe's fault.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Nah, just kidding. Don't take it seriously. :-)
Fuck, and I was already registering the domain names to squat...
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I see something similar as well. I use linux and Firefox 3 on my work laptop, and at home while browsing www.smh.com.au, cpu will hit 100% and the browser becomes barely usable.
Interestingly enough, at work, I can browse www.smh.com.au without any issues.
I noticed that the stop button is clickable during the 100% cpu periods. When I click it, and it eventually registers, the cpu usage plummets back to regular levels.
I suspect there's some DNS shenanigans going on, because the DNS service at home can be flaky, and I noticed "looking for" like messages in the Firefox status bar. Firefox 3 most likely burns the cycles in some polling loop when waiting for responses to DNS requests.
Anyway, that's my theory. It's strange though, that only one site manages to trigger the behaviour for me.
Adblock with large filtersets tends to bog down on slashdot because the sheer amount of text/code it has to work through on each page (especially with the new comment system enabled) try disabling adblock to see if it helps.
"Well, I can dream, can't I?"
I dream of a Firefox that doesn't have CPU hogging problems. Firefox 3 seems to be a little worse than the previous version.
For those of us who open a lot of windows and tabs and leave them open a long time, as when doing research, Firefox is a hassle. It slows the entire computer until all windows and tabs are closed.
I have a feeling far more people LIKE the new address bar than dislike it.
I'm one of the people who, for the most part, really likes the new address bar. Being able to type in a site's title to get to the url is a great time saver for me. However, there is one thing I can't stand about it, which is that sometimes it takes a second or two for it to load (especially if I'm on battery power and the hard drive is spun down) and in the meantime firefox freezes. If they could just sort that problem out I'd be very happy.
Try playing around with "browser.urlbar.search.chunkSize" and "browser.urlbar.search.timeout" in about:config. The prefs file says this about it.
"Kindergarten interface" is probably the most subjective complaint possible on the matter and last time I checked, kindergartners don't write in a sans serif font face. If you're referring to multiple colors, there is scientific research to support such a change, but then again you consider research to be garbage so I don't see you taking much stock in that.
It's also interesting how you reiterate "Change for the sake of change isn't good" with no new content despite that very point having been dealt with in the parent (repeating the same point verbatim is not actually a rebuttal). Despite what you may think, you have not successfully argued that these changes were made for the sake of change (they were not, any such statement is clearly ignorant and closed minded) or that the changes were actually negative. All you've done is described why YOU don't like it in the vaguest possible terms you could manage. I assure you, you are a minority and a small one at that.
While I don't have a problem with your personal taste in web browsers, I do find your critiques to be more of insults rather than critiques. If you don't like Firefox 3, that's fine, but making ignorant statements is a hard position to defend. I challenge you to provide actual evidence that suggests the user interface in Firefox was changed solely for the sake of change.
Just to be technical, there is an algorithm for what to display based on what you have typed. It is anything but random.
So more add-on incompatibility?! I want my Develpers Add-on to work again, not another!?
Just kick out the damn buggy Adobe Flash plug-in.
It runs in the same process as Firefox :
It eats to much memory, slows too much the browser, and take the whole browser down with it.
Either disable it, or at least use adblock+ and noscript to avoid having 80 flash widgets running inside your 30 tabs.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I went to Tools/ Options/ Applications/ and selected "Always ask" or "Save File". I will try that. It's necessary to do that carefully, because the selection box is buggy.
I was already using the latest Adblock Plus and NoScript versions.
I don't think Google is getting much software development for the $50,000,000 each year it is paying.
It would be great if the Firefox team could release updates on a schedule ... I know, I know it is a crazy dream.
But think of it this way. Release the incremental updates (.x) every quarter or six months and release them on time. Release version updates every 12 -24 months, up the the FF team, but stick to the schedule. If the FF team could do that it would show constant improvement and drive MS nuts.
Isn't this how the Ubuntu team operates? I know it is an apples to oranges comparison but I think it could work. There is no way MS could keep up with a consistent release schedule.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
That both.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Once again, are you sure that's not just Flash?
People get "bent out of shape" because something that worked well for them has been taken away and replaced with something that (for them) works less well, is less intuitive (when I'm in a URL entry box, I don't expect to have searches on titles), looks awful (that two line layout is not nice to read, despite having pretty colours) and does not allow a return to old functionality. If "awesome bar" had been an option, then there wouldn't be a fuss. But the developers seem to have decided they know what is best for the users and because they have made this great new thing it should be shoved down their users' throats. Last time I had this happen to me was Clippy - but at least you could turn that wonderful new functionality off!
As we can customise the interface, the awesome bar could exist alongside the address bar so that you could drag one or the other into your interface to use.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Flash runs inside of the Firefox process. They die together. On a side note, I've been running Firefox 3 on 3 Ubuntu machines and a Windows machine without any crashes so far.
I've installed several add-ons and it hasn't crashed for me, either. I thought it would be just as stable on any other OS, so I installed it on my mother's tablet (with M$ Vista), and it crashed almost immediately. Every once in a while, it'll randomly crash when I hit F6 (to highlight the URL), or when I first browse to a site. I would venture a guess, based upon my admittedly limited amount of experience on the matter, that the Windows version may have more instabilities than that of Linux... gosh, imagine that. ;)
Sanity is like a condom: rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
It seems your usage is so far removed from both
that I don't see why a browser should be expected to perform well against your criteria.
FF is open source, so it would be a simple enough thing for you to either fork it yourself or hire someone with the skills to do so, and build a variant that could be left running for days on end, with hundreds of tabs left open.
But I'm not sure that the community needs a browser that meets these requirements. Maybe I'm wrong, in which case I expect this post to get soundly trounced.