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Firefox 3.5 Reviewed; Draws Praise For HTML5, Speed
johndmartiniii writes "Farhad Manjoo has a review of Firefox 3.5 at Slate.com this week. From the article: 'Lately I've been worried about Firefox. Ever since its debut in 2004, the open-source Web browser has won acclaim for its speed, stability, and customizability. It eventually captured nearly a quarter of the market, an astonishing achievement for a project run by a nonprofit foundation. But recently Firefox seemed to go soft.' The worried tone in the beginning of the review gives way to excitement over the HTML5 features being implemented, saying that thus far Firefox 3.5 'offers the best implementation of the standard — and because it's the second-most-popular Web browser in the world, the new release is sure to prompt Web designers to create pages tailored to the Web's new language.'" The final version could be here at any time; Firefox 3.5 is still shown as a release candidate at Mozilla's home page. Update: 06/30 15:31 GMT by T : No longer marked as RC; the Firefox upgrade page now says 3.5 has arrived.
The main thing i want to know is if they've (finally) fixed the memory issues yet. Namely, if i keep a lot of tabs open for awhile (yes, i know, bad habit) and then close those tabs, will Firefox free up the memory (frequently over a gig of it) without requiring me to shut it down and restart it?
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It has a lot of plugins that provide for effortless retrieval of pornographic image and video content in bulk.
So talk standards and compliance and speed all you want. It's all bunk and you know it.
FF is best because it makes it easiest to pull down naughty media.
use telnet for browsing the internet.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
the new release is sure to prompt Web designers to create pages tailored to the Web's new language
Although, I would be happy if Slashdot would work right with the existing standards.
Without installing any kind of plugin JavaScript is supported by virtually every modern desktop browser and a growing number of mobile browsers. Yes some websites use JavaScript to do annoying things like resize/move windows, but most browsers let you limit what a website is allowed to do.
Umm Flash on the other hand requires you to install a 3rd party plugin that may not work well (or at all) depending on what platform/browser you use.
IIRC the HTML 5 spec doesn't even say that JavaScript is "required" to play videos, it's just used for the UI.
Do not download FF from anywhere except the main FF site. :P
And FF3.5 is up now for download. Pretty snappy, speed-wise. :)
Julie Moult is an idiot.
"Nonprofit" doesn't imply a lack of revenue.
Am I the only one who doesn't see the multiplicity of real competition as a threat, but rather as the greatest success of the Mozilla Foundation? Had it not been for Firefox, Opera would still cost money, Google Chrome wouldn't exist, a few people who paid way too much for their computers would be running Safari, and most (l)users would be stuck with the latest version of IE -- IE6. Thank you, Firefox, for reigniting the browser wars, and here's hoping that this time around the wars will be fought with functionality, stability, security, and speed, rather than with a new incompatible extension to JavaScript every week.
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Shrug. I block flash too, so what's the difference? Flash player is as big a potential security exploit as javascript.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Please excuse me for being a paltry light user of Firefox... but aren't you an outlier in this particular case? The most tabs I ever have open on Firefox is three, maybe four. IMHO, you're a power user and while your comments are insightful, I have to wonder whether or not your insights are of relevance to the average user of Firefox? I'm all for improvement, but if the improvement is only noticeable when you've got 30+tabs open a day and are burning through close to a gig of RAM to keep everything operating... then what good is the improvement to the average user?
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
It's not technically true, it's completely true. Don't the Mozilla foundation have tax exempt status?
All non-profits have to make enough money in one way or another to fund operations, after all people can't generally afford to work for free and suppliers expect compensation for their supplies. Google would be in a world of hurt if it clamped down on Mozilla as that would definitely trigger a swift DoJ investigation into anti-trust violations.
Okay, at one time, there were standards around CSS and DOM being implemented, and Microsoft implemented a version of those standards before they were standards, and became the Defacto Quirks Mode way things were done for a long time, and that was deemed Evil.
Now there are standards around HTML5 being proposed, but probably 10 years off, or at least way off, and Firefox and Google are implementing a version of these standars before they are standards, and are trying to become the Defactor Quirks Mode way things are done for a long time, and that is deemed Good.
If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
Microsoft may have billions of dollars, but I'd be interested to see how much of that went to the IE budget pre-Firefox. I tend to think not much, given the quality of IE6. Don't get me wrong, I love Firefox, and use it whenever I need to go to a site Elinks can't handle, but I don't think it's all that "amazing" that a project set up by Netscape and funded by Google could compete with a project that Microsoft had abandoned. Especially since the Opera devs probably worked in similar (or worse) conditions, and Opera has been better than Firefox for years. (TFA's author might claim that this is less amazing because Opera is for-profit, and I think that's silly.)
Le français vous intéresse?
Nah, just lactating.