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Firefox 3.5 Hits Release Candidate Milestone
macupdate writes "Firefox 3.5rc1 has started trickling to users (mirrors and appropriate pages should all be updated soon). You can read the release notes. RC1 still scores a 93/100 on the Acid3 test."
Since chrome did 100/100 and its "beta"
https://www.speakservers.com/
Beta 99
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
I still don't understand the obsession with Acid tests - they measure performance in incredibly obscure areas and have a comparatively small bearing on real world performance. Webkit and Opera in particular have designed to the test to an extent, resulting in good scores but not necessarily comparable general compliance. I'm also slightly confused by the use of the word "still" - none of these bugs are severe enough to risk breakage leading up to a release candidate. I believe far more relevant are performance, bug fixes, features and HTML5/CSS3 support (which make far more of a contribution to moving the web on that Acid Test scores do) - areas in which Firefox 3.5 has improved dramatically. Talk about focusing on the negatives...
Yes, even slower than IE8. From start up times to rendering pages firefox is by far the slowest. If you don't believe me download IE8, use it for a week, and you'll see for yourself. IE8 sucks for other reasons (crashes more, no plugins, forgets log-ins), and firefox is my main browser, but it is seriously falling behind. It's speed, private browsing, and I would argue even security (no sandbox/protected mode) are subpar compared to the competition. And they really need to fix private browsing, it's pretty sad when an IE feature works better than the open source alternative. As repeated ad-nauseum here firefox is still my main browser due to plugins, but everytime the browser freezes because one tab decides it wants to do something I re-evaluate this decision.
Anyone know if xmarks, adblock, and firebug extensions are available for it yet? If so I'll download it in a heartbeat.. Otherwise I think I'll wait.
If you want it now replace 3.5b4 to 3.5rc1 in the URL from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html Might not be intended but it worked for me.
I wish Mozilla would make up their minds: are they going to target the Corps or not?
Even if you can get an MSI from Frontmotion (http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/download_firefox.htm), the corps will never go for it unless it comes off the Mozilla servers and is on the same web page as the current XPI installers. It's a "warm and fuzzy" thing that they need.
If Mozilla could somehow sanction those MSIs from Frontmotion then the corps would be more comfortable with it. Even a link from here (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html) would give FrontMotion's MSI package credibility.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
First they ignore you...
Then they ridicule you...
Then they fight you...
Then you win.
Enjoy
Thomas A. Knight
Author of The Time Weaver
RC1 still scores a 93/100 on the Acid3 test.
Minefield has scored 94/100 for quite some time now, so I doubt Shiretoko will score any better at release.
I know it's a tired topic, but it's a legitimate one, and not one that can be explained away by saying "extension writers suck".
I don't think anyone with a decent PC is going to be frustrated by the performance on 3.5
I don't understand what you mean by "decent". Low-cost subnotebook PCs optimized for size and battery life over CPU speed have become popular over the past year; are those "indecent"?
Opera and Safari have rather low adoption rates. Acid3 compliance is purely a marketing gimmick until people actually implementing those features in real webpages. Opera and Apple decided that such a gimmick was a relatively fast and cheap way to get publicity, but we don't know what damage was incurred in the codebase(s) to make it happen.
Few websites will use the final 7 tests until Mozilla or MS get around to it. Mozilla can afford to take it slow and implement the features properly, rather than tacking it on. MS obviously isn't in any hurry.
Gee, that's original. As if we haven't seen that same tired Ghandi quote hundreds of times before. Your creativity stuns us all. The video however, fails to impress. I guess you have to be a Linux geek with a chubby for OS advocacy to really get worked up watching it. What they don't tell you, is that while you're celebrating your pseudo-victory, we go right back to ridiculing you. You will never learn.
Will the fix either the spellchecker (which is supposed to be enabled automatically) or the documentation (which says it's supposed to be enabled automatically).
Probably not - they're too busy adding support for XZXZXZXZRSSML 5.3.1.2.c. Still, I prefer it as a browser to IE, especially on forum type sites where IE is sloooooow, but the help & documentation are total babber.
Actually, it's going in reverse with open source:
First you have a cool sounding idea to share source code and collaborate and you call it open source.
Then they fight you because open source sounds like a good idea.
Then they ridicule you because it actually fails in the real world.
Then they ignore you because the only people who still believe in it are the zealots.
And then you lose.
This is actually a pre-RC build, the actual RC should be coming in the next week.
See this site for more details.
http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2009/06/17/firefox-35-beta-users-will-receive-update-to-early-release-candidate/
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Technically you have one non-beta closed source; Safari gets its 100% from Webkit, which is open source.
Fed troll is fed.
when firefox first started out it was ok, a lightweight alternative to Mozilla/Netscape but feature creep bloated it up that even Seamonkey runs just as good and even better in most cases than firefox so whats the point of firefox anymore, i rather just get seamonkey since it already has a built in email client, but for just a stand alone lightweight browser i been using dillo for a GUI browser and lynx for a console/cli text mode browser, besides it is the text is what i am after anyway, i could care less for plugins and graphical animations which is just kludge anyway that offer no insight & information anyway
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Another failure for Open Source. There are now TWO non-beta 100% fully ACID compliant CLOSED SOURCE browsers available (Opera and Safari). Why can't the "Open Source" community come up with something competitive?
WebKit and Opera had 100/100 on the same day (March 26, 2008). WebKit is, of course, open-source. It's used by more than one open-source browser, including Chromium. WebKit and Chromium aren't developed solely by the stereotypical basement-dwelling hackers who communicate only over the Internet, but corporate-funded open source is still open source.
By the way, "Acid" is not capitalized. Perhaps you're confusing it with the database concept of ACID compliance (atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability).
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
I can feel the power of Privacy growing, leaving no traces in History, no stored passwords, and telling Big Brother to go back to Cuba with his comrades like Yoo et al.
Free at last!
Thank d0g, I'm free at Last!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This isn't really the kind of information I would like to share, and I imagine other people might not like it either, so to just disable it so you won't even be asked, do the following:
All information summarized (read: stolen wholesale) from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/geolocation/
I don't get the problem of the test showing you a distorted image. If you're seeing it on Acid, what would you expect?
would open in new tabs like they do in Opera.
No one even notice the new Firefox icon?
Here is the RC1 link:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.5rc1&os=win&lang=en-US
All I did was change "?product=firefox-3.5b4" to "?product=firefox-3.5rc1" and it worked. You'd be surprised what you can find by guessing URLs.
Enjoy.
I guess one moderator was afraid of the truth.
I just installed beta4 late last night/early this morning. Hadn't even had a chance to fire it up yet.
I'll go update it to RC1 straightaway, so we can move on with RC2 tomorrow.
(You're welcome.)
Kid-proof tablet..
Since when is H.264 industry standard?
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
H264 is industry standard since the day it was proposed/accepted. Industry standards aren't defined by nerds, they are defined by industry, huge boards of professionals and several computing specialists. There are billions (if not trillion) worth of broadcasting equipment, workflows, applications trusting to MPEG standards. Near all HD broadcasts are h264 and you should be thankful that TV industry didn't buy Microsoft's "but VC1 is documented too!" tricks.
They sit, argue, propose and after years, MPEG standards appear. H264, being part of MPEG 4 is more standard than anything you can imagine. It is result of 300 Experts discussions, several universities, companies and even governments.
Of course, it would be wise to wonder around saying "evil patents and mpeg la" but reality is a bit different. Even the reasons of patents are different than you may think.
In fact, even home users using OS X lives problem with "Drag Drop" installs if they aren't admin (super user) and the poor Finder's architecture of "if not owned by user, prompt" functionality is being relied on.
OS X is generally clever on that area but just moments ago, it stopped at half eventually giving up replacing the .app directory (which we see as Firefox.app) breaking the working executable.
If it was a .pkg, OS X would launch its Installer.app, it would nicely ask for admin credentials, store the app in "user neutral" way (not in uid of the admin dragging it) and store its metadata at /Library/Receipts. It doesn't do "healing" etc. yet but large Mac networks admins end up creating "Firefox.pkg" themselves just like you for similar reasons.
Really interesting is, they also give up the best feature of MSI. If you do it right, it can even "heal" the overwritten or missing files right? It really matters to home users.
You mean the Safari that uses the open source WebKit for rendering?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
For a web developer 93/100 is more than enough, such a (high) score is well suited to do everything you'd expect from a modern browser. The need to hit 100% is overrated, if you're a web developer you know what I mean. Firefox takes the approach of "what really matters" to web developers and users and that is not only passing the acid 3 test but also "next-generation" (HTML5) features like web workers (threads), native video, animated SVGs, Canvas and other stuff that other browser(s) that hit 100/100 aren't yet able to do for now, but which is much more welcome than the remaining 7% of the acid test.
Like my private links page.
It's a simple little page with about two layers of tables, and one of the recent Opera builds pounds it. (I think the one before last week's release.)
So now I don't know if it's because my page isn't Standard Compliant or if Opera is just throwing a snit.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Near all HD broadcasts are h264 and you should be thankful that TV industry didn't buy Microsoft's "but VC1 is documented too!" tricks.
No HD broadcasts in the US are H.264, unless you're defining that term completely differently from I do.
W3's HTML validator is a good place to start researching.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Or thank NoScript, rather.
Flash is now a significant malware vector.
Safari's renderer is WebKit, which is open source and based on KHTML.
Yup. Broadcast (ATSC) uses Mpeg-2. However both DirecTV and Dish use h.264 for many of their HD channels. That's why old DirecTiVo HDs miss out on a lot of programming.
My point was - if it is an industry standard, then why don't I see it used anywhere I go? Not at home, work or school (and MP4 != H.264).
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
It is used in HD Broadcasts, you don't see it get used, it is the satellite/set top box/device doing the h264. DVB-T and DVB-S (HD) are all in h264 and the container is always MPEG, in some form. VC6 (Theora) can't do the job H264 does. It is all about the bandwidth you can grab from satellite and H264 excels at giving very good quality in fraction of bandwidth MPEG4 SP would provide. It really matters to the 3G stuff too as you only rely on a single codec with several different bandwidths. It is more like ARM architecture and powerpc and even Motorola 68K, it is everywhere but you don't spot it.
If h264 didn't exist, there was no other standard than Microsoft VC1 to rely on for such uses. It would be a real disaster, way more than "patented" issue. I agree to the concerns about the MPEG LA and patents but just think what would happen if Microsoft, as a single company had reach of H264 with their VC1.
MP4 is the container, based on Quicktime standard and it is doing really well IMHO. Everyone, including pirates (which really matters) picked it except the ones using MKV container which really has full potential to be a standard but, because of its "image" and some political reasons at EBU/FCC, it would never be.
They must have some great bandwidth to spare. MPEG2 is of course usable in HD broadcast but it requires massive bandwidth compared to MPEG 4 SP (think like Quicktime plain Mpeg 4) and H264.
It is all about bandwidth actually, it is not "old tech" vs. "new" or anything. Also the way TV industry works matters. They will never change a thing unless some definately needed feature is required and can't be built on existing technology. That is why PAL/NTSC standards still lives today since 1950-60 period.
Just to nitpick, but the video codec is standardised by both MPEG and ITU. The "h.264" (lowercase 'h' followed by a period) name that everyone has latched onto is used by the ITU. In the MPEG world, it is known as MPEG-4 AVC (advanced video codec) or formally, MPEG-4 Part 10.
Oh yes, but thanks to Apple factor (who is also responsible for mpeg4 take off), everyone sticks with h264 now.
They can't even understand the difference between mpeg4 SP and mpeg 4 ASP and why it matters/mattered. Thanks to Apple (!) for not supporting the ASP in default quicktime mpeg4, people barely seen a full feature (like 3ivx) MPEG4 and when they saw H264, they thought it is a new thing and as SJobs introduced it as h264, name sticked.
In fact, it could be the reason why some people think h264 is not a standard, because of not having "mpeg" in the name and being promoted by Apple first.
Yea, I'd known about that but this morning I finally spent a few hours to switch my page over to microsteps of style type. Now I have a clean 4.01 Transitional rating. Yay!
I'll check the page again at work to see if Opera is still giving me fits or not.
I'll also have to put that page back on my resource links now I know how to get clean readings.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine