Firefox 3.5 Benchmarked, Close To Original Chrome

CNETNate writes "The tests prove it: It's the third-fastest browser in the world, and over twice as fast as Firefox 3. In terms of Javascript performance, Firefox 3.5's new rendering engine places it squarely above Opera 10's beta and Internet Explorers 7 and 8 (based on previous benchmarks), plus it's getting on for being almost as quick as the original version of Google Chrome. Also, the new location-awareness feature was testing in central London, and pinpointed yours truly to within a few hundred meters — easily enough for, say, a Starbucks Web site to tell you where your nearest Starbucks is."

Comments

Web browsers, bah!

[the_humeister]

I prefer to read the html code and interpret them myself...

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Interpret this:

That's a tag that only works on IE8, they even patented it.

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[Tumbleweed]

I prefer to read the html code and interpret them myself...

You young punks make me sick. Back in my day, we used Gopher and were grateful for the upgrade over the teletype!

I still prefer content distributed via mimeograph, though. Get enough enough of that sweet blue text!

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah! I lick the network cable and decode the web page through the electrical pulses!

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[doomy]

I'm still waiting for my last pigeon or else I'd have responded faster.

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[kahless62003]

We didn't receive any messages and we definitely did not shoot this plump breasted pigeon.

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[michael1078]

Pigeons!? Wow, you're way ahead of me - I'm still using smoke signals and cave drawings to send HTML!

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[jbeaupre]

I still prefer content distributed via mimeograph, though. Get enough enough of that sweet blue text smell!
There, fixed that for you. Seriously, what was it about the smell of mimeographs that made taking quizzes just a little less painful?

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[carlmenezes]

And here I am expecting some comments along the opposite lines - like, "I don't use a web browser, I just observe the cloud".

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[gbarules2999]

Hell, it took me a few hours to walk to your house and hand you this message!

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[Tumbleweed]

Seriously, what was it about the smell of mimeographs that made taking quizzes just a little less painful?

Oh yeah. Mimeograph test and a number 2 pencil, and you're good to go. All day runtime was no problem. :)

Kids today don't know what they missed, or how good they have it. Little bastards.

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[B1oodAnge1]

Can't you see my smoke signals?

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[theendlessnow]

I prefer to read the html code and interpret them myself...

Do you read and interpret CSS? What score did you get on Acid3? Do employers look at that sort of thing on a resume? Are there any good books out there to help someone interested in taking the test?

Sorry about all the questions...

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[Darinbob]

You shot my Speckled Jim?

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[BikeHelmet]

I'm still waiting for my last pigeon or else I'd have responded faster.

You use IPoAC too?

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[selven]

Smoke signals? All I have is grunts. Can you imagine how hard it is to express the simple concept of "" in grunting noises?

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[object88]

Your clients are a bunch of Neanderthals too, eh?

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[hairyfeet]

Bah! you kids and your newfangled grunts! We still do the old fashioned way-With rocks! They throw a fist sized rock for a one, and a finger sized rock for a zero. And woe be unto you that picks a page with lots of JavaScript or flash, because the amount of rocks that will come flying at you will KILL YOU! Now get lost you kids, while I go get some more rocks so I can check my mail.

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[Gandalf_Greyhame]

What score did you get on Acid3?

I got "Whoa dude, look at all the colours... my hands, my hands are so large they can touch anything except for themselves..."

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[ami.one]

First Smoke Signal ! , As soon as I get the fire burning, *strikes stones repeatedly*

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[Miseph]

After a while, you don't even see the code, just "In Soviet Russia...", goatse, lolcat....

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[dhall]

Damn whipper snappers thinking gopher was old. :)

I remember maintaining uucp links.

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[L4t3r4lu5]

Flanders Pigeon Murderer!

Re:Web browsers, bah!

[L4t3r4lu5]

High grunt, Low grunt, 1, 0...

Computers use that system all the time.

Another thread, another flamewar

[dasuser]

Well, I guess we're in for a thread about how Firefox is still the (greatest|worst) browser in existence because of its (extensions|javascript performance|standards compliance|support for HTML 5). Looks like I need to go and get some snacks and pull up a recliner.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Kjella]

I'm very much looking forward to the <video> element - because every other solution tends to suck bigtime under Linux. There's a huge market for flash to do flash games and whatever but I really look forward to watching embedded video without it. I'll install x264 and not care about the codec wars as long it "just works". Opera is late to the party here, won't even be in 10.0 initial release :/. Too bad, because for various reasons I like it even better than Firefox...

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[nine-times]

I'm very much looking forward to the element - because every other solution tends to suck bigtime under Linux.

I'm looking forward to it because every other solution tends to suck under every OS. Flash is a resource hog and crashes frequently-- and besides, why should I need flash just to view a video? I don't understand that one.

AFAICT, the only reason we're all using Flash is that it was a stop-gap measure to deal with the fact that normal video support in web browsers wasn't what it should have been. It's like all the various mutli-column HTML/CSS tricks that people use because HTML just doesn't directly support columns. It works well enough for now, but it should be seen as "something to be fixed".

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[DdJ]

I'll install x264 and not care about the codec wars as long it "just works".

So far I haven't been able to get this to just work. If I point Safari at the YouTube HTML5 video demo, it all just works. But Firefox 3.5 doesn't have the x264 code, and fails silently, and I can find no mechanism to install that codec.

So, any pointers?

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Anonymous Coward]

-webkit-column-count:2;
-moz-column-count:2;
-webkit-column-rule:1px dotted #999;
-moz-column-rule:1px dotted #999;
-webkit-column-gap:2em;
-moz-column-gap:2em;

enjoy

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Sunshinerat]

You forgot the complaints that FireFox is a memory hog when you have 389 tabs open.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[rsborg]

AFAICT, the only reason we're all using Flash is that it was a stop-gap measure to deal with the fact that normal video support in web browsers wasn't what it should have been.

Which is why Flash's enemy #1 right now is HTML5. Once flash video becomes unneccessary, flash will become as useful as java applets within two years. Adobe's biggest friend right now is probably Microsoft (really).

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[evilviper]

I'm very much looking forward to the element - because every other solution tends to suck bigtime under Linux.

Before Flash came along, web video on Linux was a great thing. MPlayer supported the big tree formats very well (Quicktime, Real, and Windows Media) and performed extremely well. Open Source browser plugins didn't disabled the controls, and made it easy to download the source of the video, no matter how obfusticated the web page code.

In fact, MPlayer supports all types of FLV video as well... The problem being the way its embedded into a page requires a SWF interpreter to even find the URL to the FLV file, and as of yet, nobody has written-up what should be a rather simple bit of code to do that, and pass the URL back to the user, or directly to a video player.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[ThePhilips]

Looks like I need to go and get some snacks and pull up a recliner.

Don't bother. Flames will not last long.

To me personally the whole thing is senseless: benchmarking feature-full browser versus some puny, prototypical, essentially useless thing? Try again next time.

I understand Opera v. FireFox flames. Both are feature-full and useful. Both have their merits. That can be flamed about.

But Chrome?? They do not even have usable bookmark!? Who in their right mind would call it a browser? Even Mosaic 10+ years ago was more useful than Chrome is now. It would be forgivable if Google called it "beta" and version number was like "0.2" - but 2.0???? That's hypocritical at best.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[hansamurai]

I also couldn't get Youtube's demo to work, but give Dailymotion's a try:

http://www.dailymotion.com/openvideodemo

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[nine-times]

Adobe's biggest friend right now is probably Microsoft (really).

That's not such a big surprise. Even insofar as Flash and Silverlight are competitors, it's still contrary to both of their interests to see web standards progress so far that there's no need for proprietary platforms. Open formats and open platforms are a threat to both Microsoft and Adobe.

Also, it's noteworthy that, if Adobe ever decided to port their apps to run on Linux, it would be a disaster for Microsoft.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[MBCook]

Agreed. It's amazing how bad Flash is on the Mac. There is a reason Apple is trying to kill it (beyond lack of control).

HD video looks very nice. My Mac can play Apple's QuickTime h.264 clips, even those larger than the screen. It's not really a problem. It's a dual core 2.4GHz MBP.

Yet it drops frames on YouTube's 720p videos, and can do the same some times on other large (high pixel count) web videos (such as the HD 540p clips on GameSpot). There is no excuse for a 540p video not playing back smoothly and need ~85%+ of each core.

Download the same video in any format, no problem at all.

Flash video is just horrible. That's not even mentioning all the problems caused by every people on the 'net inventing their own Flash video player (some don't buffer content, some won't let you skip to arbitrary points, etc).

The video element is fantastic. I hope it catches on fast.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[DdJ]

I also couldn't get Youtube's demo to work, but give Dailymotion's a try:

http://www.dailymotion.com/openvideodemo

I can't get that to work in anything but Firefox!

If the way it works out is that some sites work with Firefox, other sites work with every HTML5 browser other than Firefox, and none of them work with Internet Explorer... this isn't good. I fear that this level of fragmentation could keep Flash-based video completely entrenched, and I don't like that. It needs to "just work" across multiple browsers, and today it doesn't.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox could be a memory hog with only 3 tabs because it's a time based thing. Firefox cannot handle running for days or weeks on end, regardless of the number of tabs open.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but unfortunately an entire industry has grown up around the original solution. Not that the flash (or silverlight) devs wouldn't mind getting paid to do the same thing in a simpler way in less time and with less effort, it's the big owners of those devs that squirm when it looks like something is going to supercede "their" technology, and make "their" countless products, add-ons, teams, websites, books, PDFs (ha), etc., a turn of the century blip on the radar.

I say "kill'em all, and let the mighty dog-lizard of unirado sort'em out later".

(I do say that, don't I?)

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Simetrical]

But Chrome?? They do not even have usable bookmark!?

I use bookmarks on Chromium just fine. How are they not "usable"?

Even Mosaic 10+ years ago was more useful than Chrome is now.

Really? What essential features does it lack? I assume you're talking about the Windows version, since the Mac/Linux builds are still clearly labeled as development versions (although I use Chromium on Linux as my primary browser now and only go to Firefox for Flash).

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[charlesnw]

Um.... checkout http://usnatch.sourceforge.net/ there are also numerous FF plugins to do that.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Simetrical]

I can't get that to work in anything but Firefox!

If the way it works out is that some sites work with Firefox, other sites work with every HTML5 browser other than Firefox, and none of them work with Internet Explorer...

Sites can provide video in one of two formats:

1. Theora is unpatented as far as anyone knows, and is supported by Firefox 3.5, Chrome 3, and experimental Opera versions. Apple has said they refuse to support it at present because of fears about unknown patents surfacing when someone with deep pockets starts shipping it (this was before Google shipped Theora support).
2. H.264 is patent-encumbered and supported by Safari 4 and Chrome 3. Mozilla and Opera both refuse to support a patented video format on principle.

Microsoft has not commented on any of this as far as I know.

Of course, sites can provide fallback so that the content works in the absence of video tag support. The way to do it for the time being is 1) provide both Theora and H.264 in a video tag, 2) put Flash or something in the fallback for older browsers and IE. This can be automated through various tools, and will "just work" for the user. Eventually everyone will support the video tag with a single common format, hopefully, but you have to give it some time, it's new stuff.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[selven]

The only things Chrome don't have that other browsers do are bookmarks, adblock/noscript and flash. And this is on the linux alpha version. None of these are particularly important to normal web browsing, and I would say having the option of starting up with multiple home pages open beats all of those weaknesses.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Simetrical]

So far I haven't been able to get this to just work. If I point Safari at the YouTube HTML5 video demo, it all just works. But Firefox 3.5 doesn't have the x264 code, and fails silently, and I can find no mechanism to install that codec.

So, any pointers?

As far as I know (could be wrong), Firefox deliberately refuses to allow H.264 to be used on the basis that it's a patented format and therefore poisonous to the web. I think Safari is the only browser that will support extra codecs' installation for video tags.

Content authors need to provide fallback content for these cases. When this is deployed on YouTube for real, either it will provide Theora as well, or you'll fall back to the Flash player like users of Firefox 3/IE/etc.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[ThePhilips]

But Chrome?? They do not even have usable bookmark!?

I use bookmarks on Chromium just fine. How are they not "usable"?

Yes, because bookmarks are such an exotic feature that I have to install something extra to get them.

Until I have in Chrome the same functionality I have in vanilla FireFox + Google Toolbar, for me it is in deep "alpha", least 2.0 release.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[ThePhilips]

The only things Chrome don't have that other browsers do are bookmarks, adblock/noscript and flash.

Which are essential tools to make about 99% of Web palatable.

And this is on the linux alpha version.

On Windows flash works.

[...] I would say having the option of starting up with multiple home pages open beats all of those weaknesses.

You are aware that FireFox does that for past 3 or 4 years now? Out-of-box. Without extensions.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Simetrical]

Yes, because bookmarks are such an exotic feature that I have to install something extra to get them.

I honestly am not sure what you're talking about. Bookmarks work perfectly fine for me in Chromium, with nothing else installed. Chromium is identical to Chrome in effectively every respect except branding, so I find it extremely implausible that this doesn't hold just as well for Chrome. What about bookmarks doesn't work for you?

Until I have in Chrome the same functionality I have in vanilla FireFox + Google Toolbar, for me it is in deep "alpha", least 2.0 release.

But you aren't able to name specific, exact things that you can do in Firefox but can't in Chrome?

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Kjella]

Theora is unpatented as far as anyone knows, and is supported by Firefox 3.5, Chrome 3, and experimental Opera versions. Apple has said they refuse to support it at present because of fears about unknown patents surfacing when someone with deep pockets starts shipping it (this was before Google shipped Theora support).

If you look up H.264 it's many, I didn't take a count but it's somewhere around 2-300 patents. Then there's all other patents that aren't part of the AVC patent portfolio. The chances are pretty damn good it's covered by something, the question is just if anyone wants to take a swing at it. Usually they'd rather spread FUD like Microsoft's 200+ patents were possibly violating. Still haven't seen anything but smoke and mirrors from that and don't expect to.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[R.Mo_Robert]

It's like all the various mutli-column HTML/CSS tricks that people use because HTML just doesn't directly support columns.

HTML shouldn't support columns--they do not relate to the structure of the document, only to its presentation, and HTML is really only a way to mark up a document's structure--i.e., it's structure in terms of headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, etc. (If the columns are part of the structure, it's probably a table you're after.)

CSS, on the other hand, should support columns--it's just that CSS 1 and 2/2.1 both don't really do it and make you rely on any of various "tricks" to create them. CSS 3, finally, will include a non-crazy way of doing this.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[enoz]

My Mac can play Apple's QuickTime h.264 clips, even those larger than the screen.

They only play larger than the screen when the reality distortion field is enabled.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[enoz]

Firefox 1.0 just called, they want you to stop reopening old bugs without supplying any evidence or test cases.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Cprossu]

fwiw before updating today(!) I had firefox opened up for 3 weeks straight.. on xp(still running sp1 on this box because I never reboot) no less!

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the complaints that FireFox is a memory hog when you have 389 tabs open.

... for more than 96 hours.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[evilviper]

there are also numerous FF plugins to do that.

No, there aren't, I'm afraid. There are numerous apps written that understand Youtube's naming scheme, but that's all. They don't actually parse the SWF, and any trivial changes to the site layout breaks them. Not to mention that FLVs on any other site still won't work.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[adolf]

AFAICT, Flash only ever happened to become the defacto way to present video on the web because the popular alternatives (RealVideo and Windows Media Player) were absolutely stifling and/or actively bothersome. Flash was always smaller, more focused, and has suffered very little from feature creep. It won even though it was late to the party.

And I'm surprised find myself writing this, but since the dominance of Flash in this market has really taken hold, Real's software has actually become somewhat useful and is far less annoying.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[buchner.johannes]

So, any pointers?

0x3A28213A
0x6339392C
0x7363682E
and good ol' NULL

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Dolda2000]

AFAICT, the only reason we're all using Flash is that it was a stop-gap measure to deal with the fact that normal video support in web browsers wasn't what it should have been.

What I don't understand, though, is what was wrong with the <object> tag. It could be used to embed the client's favorite media player into the page to play a video over HTTP, could it not? What does the <video> tag do that the <object> tag couldn't?

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly!

In fact, I don't understand what this new <video> tag is even supposed to do. Obviously, video embedding has been possible for the longest time – what does the <video> tag bring to the party that wasn't possible previously?

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[nine-times]

Well I know one problem that I had while trying to embed video was getting the behavior I wanted across various browsers and different platforms. Do you want the video to start downloading when you load the page? Do you want it to start playing immediately? Do you want it to show you a preview image until it starts downloading/playing? I assume the "video" tag addresses some of these thing.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAICT, the only reason we're all using Flash is that it was a stop-gap measure to deal with the fact that normal video support in web browsers wasn't what it should have been.

I thought Flash (and JavaScript, for that matter) were used for video because they provide a half-assed form of DRM; obfuscating the URL of the .FLV file so the average user can view The Precious but not download it.

But maybe that's the cynic in me talking.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[DdJ]

As far as I know (could be wrong), Firefox deliberately refuses to allow H.264 to be used on the basis that it's a patented format and therefore poisonous to the web.

Oh, ick, that's horrible. I've never seen hardware-accelerated Theora playback, but hardware-accelerated H.264 is all over the place.

From my perspective, this seems like Firefox making a boneheaded anti-consumer move that's going to have the practical real-world effect of handing video on the web over to Adobe and Microsoft, regardless of what they might intend. Thanks, Mozilla!

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Simetrical]

Oh, ick, that's horrible. I've never seen hardware-accelerated Theora playback, but hardware-accelerated H.264 is all over the place.

Only because it's so popular, though. If Theora becomes the de facto video format for the web, which is what Mozilla and Opera are aiming for, then devices could have hardware-accelerated Theora too.

From my perspective, this seems like Firefox making a boneheaded anti-consumer move that's going to have the practical real-world effect of handing video on the web over to Adobe and Microsoft, regardless of what they might intend. Thanks, Mozilla!

I don't know about that. We'll have to see. Mozilla might not be able to get a patent license anyway if they want to continue distributing under the GPL. I'm hoping that Theora will take off, personally. It might stand a real chance if Apple would back it, especially if it commissioned hardware Theora acceleration for the iPhone. Requiring the use of patented formats to get video to work is just a terrible idea.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Nyvhek]

I have a simple solution to this. Whenever I reach 389 tabs, I just open another one to make 390.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[ThePhilips]

Chromium is identical to Chrome in effectively every respect except branding

RTFA. We are talking here about official piece of alpha software released by Google called Chrome.

Until I have in Chrome the same functionality I have in vanilla FireFox + Google Toolbar, for me it is in deep "alpha", least 2.0 release.

But you aren't able to name specific, exact things that you can do in Firefox but can't in Chrome?

ZOMG. Where do I start?

1. AdBlock
2. FlashBlock
3. Bookmarks toolbar
4. Bookmarks menu
5. Keyword searches
6. Preserving text zoom level per domain
7. RSS feeds as bookmark folders
8. Searchable browsing history
9. Proxy configuration
10. Page Info screen which allows to save e.g. images used on the page.

.... and I'd stop here for today.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash is a resource hog and crashes frequently

Actually, that's not true. I'm using vista at work here, and flash doesn't have any noticeable impact on performance or memory consumption, and neither does it ever really crash as far as I can tell.

That's not to say that flash doesn't suck: it's a proprietary format with a proprietary binary blob of a player. And it's not to say I'd much prefer audio and video elements supported natively by the browser.

But let's stick with the truth, right? No need to spread FUD about flash - doing so just really undermines our argument against closed-source software, since it makes it appear as if we have to resort to this sort of FUD in order to paint it in a worse light, as if our freedom-based argument can't stand on its own merits.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[selven]

Which are essential tools to make about 99% of Web palatable.

Seems like we have different opinions about what is essential.

You are aware that FireFox does that for past 3 or 4 years now? Out-of-box. Without extensions.

Wow. Firefox sure did a good job of hiding that essential feature.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[ThePhilips]

Which are essential tools to make about 99% of Web palatable.

Seems like we have different opinions about what is essential.

In a way you are right - considering that some people still argue that IE 4/5/6/7/8 is The Best Browser.

Comparing Chrome v. IE v. Safari is fairer: they all lack similar advanced features and customization capabilities. FireFox is closer to Opera and thus should be compared against it.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[dotancohen]

Opera is late to the party here, won't even be in 10.0 initial release

That's fine because websites don't support it yet, either. Buy the time major websites will support it, Opera will have had a version or three out already.

Hell, the sites probably won't support HTML 5 video until after IE does.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[ClosedSource]

"Not that the flash (or silverlight) devs wouldn't mind getting paid to do the same thing in a simpler way in less time and with less effort.."

I'm not a flash developer nor do I know the details of HTML 5. Is developing for HTML 5 actually simpler, faster, and easier than flash?

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Simetrical]

RTFA. We are talking here about official piece of alpha software released by Google called Chrome.

I did RTFA. Chromium is effectively identical to Chrome in terms of functionality; I have no idea what your point is.

1. AdBlock
2. FlashBlock

Not part of "vanilla Firefox + Google Toolbar". Of course Chrome doesn't have as many extensions as Firefox yet, that's not what you originally said. What you said is: "They do not even have usable bookmark", "Even Mosaic 10+ years ago was more useful than Chrome is now", "I have to install something extra to get [bookmarks]". These all go far beyond the fact that Chrome doesn't have many good extensions yet, and all those statements are patently absurd.

3. Bookmarks toolbar

Chrome has this. Hit Ctrl-B, or select "Always show bookmarks bar" from the wrench menu. It's disabled by default in Chrome to save space.

4. Bookmarks menu

If you have the bookmark bar visible (Ctrl-B), you can click "Other bookmarks" to get the same functionality as Firefox's bookmarks menu.

5. Keyword searches

For what, where? Chrome's Omnibox allows you to search the web and your browser history.

6. Preserving text zoom level per domain

I don't know if Chrome does this, but frankly I had no idea Firefox did either. I also note that Opera doesn't seem to do it, and you apparently think Opera is a usable browser.

7. RSS feeds as bookmark folders

Yes, this is a feature Chrome doesn't provide. As far as I can tell, again, Opera doesn't either.

8. Searchable browsing history

Chrome has searchable history. Go to the history menu (Ctrl-H or via wrench) and you'll see a big prominent "Search history" box at the top. It also searches your history when you type in the Omnibox, although this doesn't seem to work as well as in Firefox 3 yet.

9. Proxy configuration

On Windows, Chrome uses the Windows default proxy configuration, according to Chrome help. You can change that just fine.

10. Page Info screen which allows to save e.g. images used on the page.

Chrome has a "view page info" option in context menus, right-click on any page. I don't know what it actually does, though, since it seems not to work yet on Linux. In any event, I once more don't see this option in Opera either.

So of your criticisms of Chrome:

• Two out of ten related to lack of extension support, which has nothing to do with your original claims.
• Four out of ten Chrome actually has, and you apparently didn't bother to look hard enough to figure that out.
• Three it might not have, but neither does Opera, so if they're reason to condemn Chrome, you're contradicting your earlier statement that Opera is featureful and useful.
• One I couldn't even understand.

In short, you apparently did not bother seriously trying to use any recent version of Chrome, and consider anything you use regularly in Firefox to be essential without bothering to give alternative ways of doing things a chance. Not a very good basis for criticism at all, let alone absurdly over-the-top claims like that Chrome has fewer features than Mosaic. I have no idea why I bothered writing out such a detailed response to such patent nonsense, but here you go anyway.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[ThePhilips]

In short, you apparently did not bother seriously trying to use any recent version of Chrome [...]

I have up-to-date Chrome on my office laptop and I'll check the ^B.

... since it seems not to work yet on Linux.

So it is alpha after all? Or is it still "Chromium is effectively identical to Chrome"??

In any event, I once more don't see this option in Opera either.

It is one of the Opera's numerous sidebars.

And regarding RSS ... YOU MUST BE [CENSORED] BLIND! to not to notice RSS in Opera which is like forever part of its mail client.

You must have been using Opera even less than I did Chrome.

These all go far beyond the fact that Chrome doesn't have many good extensions yet, and all those statements are patently absurd.

AdBlock and FlashBlock are not part of FireFox precisely because they are extensions. They might have been a part or it - like Opera - but then it might have severed Mozilla's (which is non-profit) relationships with advertisers.

So of your criticisms of Chrome:

1. Two out of ten related to lack of extension support, which has nothing to do with your original claims.

2. Four out of ten Chrome actually has, and you apparently didn't bother to look hard enough to figure that out.

3. Three it might not have, but neither does Opera, so if they're reason to condemn Chrome, you're contradicting your earlier statement that Opera is featureful and useful.

4. One I couldn't even understand.

1. See above. They are extensions in FireFox for a reason. Needless to mention that Fx since 3.0 provides pretty much official interface for such extensions. Let's see how Google (which depends on ad revenue) would fare.

2. "Four out of ten" apparently work in some developer build acquired somewhere else, but not from official source: http://www.google.com/chrome. Huh?

3. "Three it might not have" and you are blind to not to have seen them in Opera. (N.B. I do not think that Opera is usable browser. Actually I hate Opera. Yet it is well tried and usable browser for modern Web. But I do not like it.)

4. One you couldn't understand v. three you failed to answer.

I have no idea why I bothered writing out such a detailed response to such patent nonsense, but here you go anyway.

I also have no idea why you bothered to write how everything is rosy in Chrome^WChromium land and at the same time mention number of times that some some stuff still doesn't work.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Simetrical]

So it is alpha after all? Or is it still "Chromium is effectively identical to Chrome"??

Chromium is effectively identical to Chrome, as I've repeatedly said. I do happen to be using a developer version of Chromium, from nightly builds, but the features are the same as I'd get in the official dev channel of Chrome. "Chromium" is just the name for unofficial builds of Chrome, sort of like Iceweasel for Firefox. (Not quite, but close enough for the present discussion.)

You can have bleeding-edge Chromium builds, or you could have Chromium builds that track the Chrome stable versions, or whatever you like. Conversely, you can get stable, beta, and developer versions that are officially called Chrome — the dev versions are weekly builds.

And regarding RSS ... YOU MUST BE [CENSORED] BLIND! to not to notice RSS in Opera which is like forever part of its mail client.

You must have been using Opera even less than I did Chrome.

Right, I don't use Opera, I just loaded it up for a quick check and didn't see it at a glance, then Googled and saw some discussion about how it wasn't there. (I guess they meant it wasn't in bookmarks, it was a separate feature.) I use Google Reader, so I don't care much.

AdBlock and FlashBlock are not part of FireFox precisely because they are extensions. They might have been a part or it - like Opera - but then it might have severed Mozilla's (which is non-profit) relationships with advertisers.

It still has nothing to do with your comparisons to vanilla Firefox plus Google Toolbar, let alone Mosaic. Chrome definitely does not have the features of Firefox plus whatever extensions you like: nothing does. But it's quite comparable to vanilla Firefox, even if it's somewhat slimmer.

2. "Four out of ten" apparently work in some developer build acquired somewhere else, but not from official source: http://www.google.com/chrome. Huh?

Everything I said will definitely work in the official developer builds of Chrome officially acquired from Google and officially called "Chrome", by switching from the stable channel to the developer channel. Dev builds are perfectly usable in my experience. (I also usually used pre-release versions of Firefox: I was using 3.5 for months before switching to Chromium.) I don't have a stable build handy to test with — I'd have to go find a Windows box — so it's possible that stable doesn't support some of these things yet. But in that case it will pretty soon, or you could try the dev channel.

I also have no idea why you bothered to write how everything is rosy in Chrome^WChromium land and at the same time mention number of times that some some stuff still doesn't work.

Browsers do not have to support every feature that Firefox does to be good browsers. I don't know if Chrome supports every feature you mentioned, but I never really used any of them in Firefox, so I frankly don't care. If you really really can't live without RSS feeds in bookmarks or whatever, then by all means say you dislike Chrome. But don't claim that means that Chrome is unusable. At most it's unusable to you.

For some examples of features Chrome has but default Firefox doesn't: a "new tab" page that's useful, like Opera's but better than the versions of Opera I've tried; a unified search+URL bar so you don't have to tab over to the search box or manually enable shortcuts like "g" for Google; multi-process model means better stability and security; nothing slows or freezes the interface, ever, due to essentially no blocking on the interface thread; downloading doesn't pop up a separate window, it displays unobtrusively at the bottom of the screen; vastly less clutter in everything (right-click menus, prefs, etc.); much more responsive in my subjective experience, at least on Linux

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[shutdown -p now]

If you look up H.264 it's many, I didn't take a count but it's somewhere around 2-300 patents.

The difference between that and Theora is that H.264 patents are known patents. Furthermore, Apple is most likely already paying all the appropriate license fees for that (they do ship a player for it in OS X, don't they?), so they are in the clear. They know how much they have to pay, exactly, and to whom.

With Theora, they (and everyone else) can start using it, and then a few years down the line some asshole comes up with a submarine patent and sues them for damages for all those years. Which is going to be huge.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Tubal-Cain]

obfuscating the URL of the .FLV file so the average user can view The Precious but not download it.

/me looks at browser cache and /tmp directory.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[Hurricane78]

Read my words: OBJECT tag!

I used it exactly like the video tag back in the days. No need to specify any plugin. No need to even choose between video, audio, etc. Just use

<object data="my_video.mkv">Your browser can not display MKV videos. If your computer can play it, try <a href="my_video.mkv">downloading it</a>.</object>

and it works with any plugin that supports the mime type of that data. Optionally you can define that mime type yourself in the object tag (in case the web-server does not know it). And if you want, yo can even define an interpreter executable, including its mime type. (This allows for java viewers for example.)

You can even do something like AJAX with it, by making it one pixel big, invisible, and then send POSTs by loading a page with a form into the object, input the data via JavaScript, submit the form, and then run a callback in the resulting page, to load in the JSON data. I find it even more efficient than XML requests. The only problem is, that you have to serialize the posted data yourself. (But the toSource() function helps much with this!)
I did this back in 2004, and even before (when it did only work in the old Mozilla), as you can see in this early Alpha that I got running again.

Re:Another thread, another flamewar

[spiralx]

Try Download Helper, it detects any video streams that start playing and allow you to download them. It's worked on every site I've tried it on.

We're #3

[Nom du Keyboard]

We're #3 - wow that's something to boast about.

According to Nike, this means that your the second loser.

Re:We're #3

[Foofoobar]

Yes because Javascript performance is the only thing that every end user cares about.

Re:We're #3

[93 Escort Wagon]

We're #3 - wow that's something to boast about.

Number three always gets the chicks in high school!

"Hey baby, I'm on the bench!"

Re:We're #3

[Anonymous Coward]

The early bird might get the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Re:We're #3

[BikeHelmet]

We're #3 - wow that's something to boast about.

In Javascript performance. But javascript is only one factor.

Here, I'll convert it to a car analogy.

Your Hummer is the second loser because it accelerates slower than my Tercel.

What? Other features? They don't matter!

Re:We're #3

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're the loser's loser. Man, that's terrible!

Re:We're #3

[Anonymous Coward]

this means that your the second loser

The Internets... so full of win.

Re:We're #3

[tyrione]

We're #3 - wow that's something to boast about.

Number three always gets the chicks in high school!

"Hey baby, I'm on the bench!"

Sloppy thirds just doesn't have that great a ring.

Re:We're #3

[mqduck]

Yes, being #1 in speed is all that matters. That's why everyone who isn't an ignorant fool runs lynx.

Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

What about opera? Where does that rank?

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere between "crashes every 5 seconds" and "can't render anything correctly".

Re:Opera

[Mystra_x64]

Ahh, we have someone with a good sense of humor. Nice. Next.

Re:Opera

[mdwh2]

The only website I've come across that Opera doesn't render properly is Slashdot. By which, the correct statement is actually Slashdot "can't be rendered in anything correctly".

(Opera doesn't crash for me, either, discounting the Flash plugin that crashes, and Adobe have yet to fix. Works fine now that I've uninstalled it.)

Re:Opera

[CrashNBrn]

Lynx might be able to render Slashdot correctly...

Re:Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that this was modded way up then way down.

Was this a slight against Opera (saying Opera crashes etc) or Firefox (meaning Firefox crashes and can't render correctly and Opera does neither)? Either way, the people who modded this down are retarded.

Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[Joce640k]

The new benchmark in Javascript performance - slashdot.

...and I wonder if it will be powerful enough to get the line breaks right in "plain text" mode so I don't have to insert "br" tags manually.

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it will also fix the bug where preview strips out all the line breaks, but they're still there when you submit.

But I won't know until Ubuntu updates us from 3.0.11.

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[Joce640k]

Will it fix the belief that there's people out there who think in HTML tags? What's next? Automatic conversion to SMS-speak so us old fogies can look trendy...

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[gfody]

If the javascript performance were anywhere near chrome's you would be able to tell from running some of the examples here

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe make Anonymous Cowardon go away?

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean he isn't just a prolific asshole with no uid?

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[VisceralLogic]

Whoa... I never even noticed that before! (Currently observed w/ Safari 4.0)

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[KZigurs]

funny enough slashdot has been one of reference sites I test browsers with for quite a while. Incremental rendering in particular.

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[anonymousNR]

not a chance. After teh upgrade to 3.5 /. crashed firefox everytime I open a story with more than 400 comments.

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[EvanED]

What I don't understand is how he posts so often... no way his he following the "every 2 minute" rule.

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[ultrabot]

But I won't know until Ubuntu updates us from 3.0.11.

You can "apt-get install firefox-3.5" right now. You'll get the rc, and final version soon. It imports the old ff profile as well.

Re:Will it be fast enough to view slashdot?

[shutdown -p now]

You mean he isn't just a prolific asshole with no uid?

I always thought it's one of the new Transformers (generally unseen, because, well...) ~

pffft

[ocularDeathRay]

I just did my own test and lynx is faster than firefox and chrome.

Re:pffft

[NevarMore]

I didn't know any of the ASCII porn sites were still online.

Re:pffft

[ocularDeathRay]

http://www.asciipr0n.com/pr0n/morepr0n.html

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur this.
Lynx is way faster, if everything is configured earlier. For eg- Cookie acceptance, etc,
Why we not look forward for such a amazing browsers.

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the stuff that really matters. !!
Lynx Got one more reason to be useful.

Re:pffft

[morgan_greywolf]

Sadly, lynx fails Acid3 for some reason.

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're trying to be funny, but in the brief highly un-scientific test that I just did...neither lynx nor links are any quicker than Firefox.

If you really want to big lynx up against Firefox, just point out that it doesn't make a balls-up of rendering slashdot due to the fact that it doesn't do javascript or css....

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny... so does FireFox 3.5...

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

Apart from the URL, this is work-safe!

Re:pffft

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Okay, lynx may be a little extreme. But why does every site need to use javascript? I don't like web pages crashing anymore than movies (see: BluRay).

In other words, display it once so that it looks right; stop trying to make each website an application.

Re:pffft

[gbarules2999]

Hey, man, did you see that excellent mass of exclamation points? Dude. I mean, seriously.

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

Pftt Acid 3... Chrome could take a whole sheet and keep kicking

Re:pffft

[instagib]

Only for you, not for your co-workers looking at your screen from across the office!

Re:pffft

[CrkHead]

Did you save the graph?

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

It passes it now! See the screenshot!

      Acid3

      Acid3

      100/100

      To pass the test, a browser must use its default settings, the
      animation has to be smooth, the score has to end on 100/100, and the
      final page has to look exactly, pixel for pixel, like this reference
      rendering.

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it normal if the ascii art of this site actually does effect on me?

Re:pffft

[Bugs42]

/. - where text-based dirty pics get modded Informative.

Re:pffft

[WiiVault]

Wow you really are a serious lynx user.

Sickeningly biased.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm trying to think of some way to write this article that would be MORE blatantly biased in favor of Firefox, but it's just not coming to me.

Re:Sickeningly biased.

[albedoa]

The article is about Firefox, and yet it is shown, in the only quantifiable test that the author conducted, to rank third in a three-horse race against its two speed competitors.

Re:Sickeningly biased.

[morgan_greywolf]

Firefox is the fastest fully open-source browser.

Re:Sickeningly biased.

[amicusNYCL]

Firefox is the fastest fully open-source browser.

Out of how many?

Re:Sickeningly biased.

[gbarules2999]

Well, you have Epiphany and Konqueror, which aren't that terrible.

Re:Sickeningly biased.

[Simetrical]

Firefox is the fastest fully open-source browser.

Chrome has a very small amount of closed-source code in it, but Chromium is certainly fully open-source, and it's identical to Chrome for performance purposes. So no, Chromium is the fastest fully open-source browser.

Re:Sickeningly biased.

[mdwh2]

And Linux is the closest fully Open Source operating system to the desktop?

Re:Sickeningly biased.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh it's interesting alright. Does it still have that "Do not report bugs! There are too many of them and reporting does not help because we are in Alpha!" screen?

Re:Sickeningly biased.

[Simetrical]

Oh it's interesting alright. Does it still have that "Do not report bugs! There are too many of them and reporting does not help because we are in Alpha!" screen?

On Linux and Mac it does, because on Linux and Mac it's still in alpha, just as Chrome is (and I assume Chrome shows the same screen). Chromium on Windows has no such screen and never has. Chrome is just the name for official Google compiles of Chromium.

Big Brother...

[dfxm]

Why is it when the government can keep tabs about where we are it's "draconian" or "orwellian," but when a web browser does it, it's "cool"?

Re:Big Brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have missed the New Labour "Cool police state bro" campaign.

Re:Big Brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's my choice who I give the information to and it gives me some benefit.

Me explicitly telling a search service my location right now so that it gives me more useful results: good

The government tracking me at all times for who knows what reason (of no benefit at all to me): bad

Re:Big Brother...

[Kurusuki]

For one, the government usually doesn't ask for permission first. Not to mention that the information used to determine your geolocation is also derived from something already passed to the web host, your IP, assuming you're not using the WiFi option. Generally speaking web pages can achieve a similar result already with a little effort. As it stands this new feature isn't making new information available to the public, it's just making old information a bit more friendly.

Re:Big Brother...

[Just Some Guy]

You have the option of not using the web browser.

Beyond that, I tried one of the location demos. A Firefox prompt opened at the top of the window: "${site} wants to know your location: Share Location, Don't Share" with a checkbox to remember the settings for that site. Go ahead and explain how you could possibly be offended by that.

Re:Big Brother...

[cbiltcliffe]

Probably because:

1. You can turn the feature off in the browser. (At least, I'd hope so.)
2. The browser doesn't have the ability to pass laws that make you a criminal.
3. You don't pay taxes to your browser, only to have it track you in return.
4. ????
5. You get the picture.

Re:Big Brother...

[owlnation]

Why is it when the government can keep tabs about where we are it's "draconian" or "orwellian," but when a web browser does it, it's "cool"?

Yep. This "feature" sounds as welcome as the Awesome Bar. Can it be disabled? Cos it's definitely a deal breaker.

Re:Big Brother...

[MozeeToby]

An extention that pings a private website every few minutes whenever it has a connection, combined remember sites that I have identified as ok could lead to problems. It would take a bit of work, but if I were say a victim of domestic abuse married to a hacker, I might hesitate to bring the laptop with me when I finally took off.

Re:Big Brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the Mozilla people don't have guns and don't have the legal authority to throw me into a cage. Plus, I can choose to turn this feature off, or use another browser if I so desire.

Re:Big Brother...

[Just Some Guy]

An extention that pings a private website every few minutes whenever it has a connection,

There are easier ways to implement this, like a cron job (or the Windows equivalent) that does the same thing whether or not a browser is open.

Re:Big Brother...

[Toonol]

I believe it can be, so in that sense it's far better than the 'awesome' bar. It seems that the default option is to pester you with requests until you turn it off, though.

Re:Big Brother...

[Philip K Dickhead]

You must have missed the New Labour "Cool police state bro" campaign.

I'm afraid I haven't missed it at all. I would LOVE to miss it, fondly.

Re:Big Brother...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

A Firefox prompt opened at the top of the window: "${site} wants to know your location: Share Location, Don't Share" with a checkbox to remember the settings for that site. Go ahead and explain how you could possibly be offended by that.

Why would I ever want to share my location? Why would I want part of my window eaten up by an option I don't like? What happens when I click the wrong one at 5am cause I'm tired?

Re:Big Brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

"What happens when I click the wrong one at 5am cause I'm tired?"

Garbage in, garbage out. Deal with it just like you do with every other program you use at 5am.

Re:Big Brother...

[prockcore]

awesome bar can be disabled.

Preferences->Privacy->When using the location bar, suggest: [dropdown]

Change the dropdown to "Nothing".

Re:Big Brother...

[Just Some Guy]

Why would I ever want to share my location?

Seriously? Imagine you could search Google for something like "sushi restaurant near me", let Google access your location information (once or every time), and get a list of nearby restaurants. Location services are shaping up to be the killer app for mobile computing.

Why would I want part of my window eaten up by an option I don't like?

It's not. When you choose "share" or "don't share" the prompt goes away. It's exactly like the "remember this site's username and password?" prompt.

What happens when I click the wrong one at 5am cause I'm tired?

Oh, it clears out your checking account, sells your dog, and dumps your girlfriend. Honestly, what does any other random program do when you make a dumb choice? Whatever you asked it to do.

Re:Big Brother...

[Toonol]

Is that new with 3.5? Thank you, developers!

Although, I would prefer a revert to the sensible behavior of pre-3.0... a drop-down box that contains entries that have been typed into the text-box previously. That's a consistent and uniform interface that works with all textboxes.

Re:Big Brother...

[Threni]

Why is it that when the police murder a Brazilian electrician, it's "wrong", but yet when a terminally ill person goes to a Swiss clinic to end their own life it's somehow acceptable?

Re:Big Brother...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Seriously? Imagine you could search Google for something like "sushi restaurant near me", let Google access your location information (once or every time), and get a list of nearby restaurants.

I know where the sushi resturants are near me. When I travel, I'm almost always around a native. And when I'm not I can use a map, electronic or otherwise, with locations marked on it.

Location services are shaping up to be the killer app for mobile computing.

Then it's a good thing a computer-only browser implements this feature...

I would want Google/etc. to know where I am even less than where my home is.

It's not. When you choose "share" or "don't share" the prompt goes away. It's exactly like the "remember this site's username and password?" prompt.

Okay, either it eats up more space or I have to conciously get rid of it. I have the same issue with the "remember" interface, although that only appears rarely and I can ignore it until I move to the next page.

Honestly, what does any other random program do when you make a dumb choice? Whatever you asked it to do.

This is why I try to minimize the number of dumb options I have presented to me. I make mistakes, and I'd just as soon minimize the points of failure.

Re:Big Brother...

[LiquidFire_HK]

Then it's a good thing a computer-only browser implements this feature...

Someone has to make the first step. Also, Fennec.

Re:Big Brother...

[mr_lizard13]

Why would I ever want to share my location?

Seriously? Imagine you could search Google for something like "sushi restaurant near me", let Google access your location information (once or every time), and get a list of nearby restaurants.

I don't think he goes out much so he won't see the benefit of that...

Re:Big Brother...

[mdwh2]

Mozilla today announced Firefox 3.5, which will be compulsory for all citizens to install on their machines.

"The public support these plans," claimed the Mozilla spokesperson, "So we have passed legislation that will require Firefox to be installed on all computers, allowing us to keep track of the population, which is essential in the battle against terrorism".

A copy of Firefox is expected to cost around £100. "Most people keep their computers for about 8 years," claimed the Government, "So it's only actually £12.50 per year."

Re:Big Brother...

[diablovision]

I remember we used to have this things called "phonebooks" or something. It required opening a "book" and binary searching....and remembering street names. Can't be bothered with that now. Oooh silly cats on youtube! Huh? Oh shit, browser went down, can't change my clothes. Better lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling. God I wish this ceiling had better resolution.

Re:Big Brother...

[Just Some Guy]

Yeah. I miss carrying the phonebooks of all major cities I was visiting so that they'd always be close at hand. Don't you people ever get out?

Re:Big Brother...

[brusk]

Remind me again how you can filter the Yellow Pages restaurant section for barbecue places in a five block radius of your current location...

Re:Big Brother...

[cadrell0]

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/geolocation/

How do I turn off Location-Aware Browsing permanently?

Location-Aware Browsing is always opt-in in Firefox 3.5. No location information is ever sent without your permission. If you wish to disable the feature completely, please follow this set of steps:

• In the URL bar, type about:config
• Type geo.enabled
• Double click on the geo.enabled preference
• Location-Aware Browsing is now disabled

Re:Big Brother...

[Andyvan]

I thought you were making a joke about the tabs support, and couldn't understand why you weren't moderated as funny...

Re:Big Brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla's page contains instructions on disabling it. Just open about:config and search for 'geo'. Disable it. Then stop being so weird.

that's nice, but

[Sum0]

...how fast are all the plug-ins that are inevitably add-on?

Re:that's nice, but

[qortra]

In FF3.5, some of my add-ons actually make my browsing experience faster (like flash-block). Rendering an animated gif is significantly faster than launching a 32-bit instance of Flash.

Re:that's nice, but

[Sum0]

Good point. Some are actually helpful.

Re:that's nice, but

[stokessd]

Not to mention ad-block...No need to wait for the overloaded ad servers to be queried and spit some vile dreck into your browser that your computer needs to render only to annoy you.

Fortunately there is also safari adblock and chrome adblock so the field is pretty level in that regard. But the parents point is still valid, that speed comes from filtering out the non-desired cruft.

Sheldon

Re:that's nice, but

[Zantetsuken]

and since most of these speed tests go by JavaScript speed, throw in no-script and render just HTML half the time, probably making it even faster than any of the compared browsers, or at least on the pages where the webmaster is sane enough to keep a pure HTML/CSS fallback in-case his .js fancywork fails

Re:that's nice, but

[maglor_83]

I would rather an add-on slow down my browsing a bit, than not being able to do what it does at all.
That's why I added it on in the first place, after all!

Not even 1st loser...

[AmigaHeretic]

It's like my dad use to tell me, "If you're not 1st your last!" Shake and Bake Baby!!!

Re:Not even 1st loser...

[sexconker]

I was high when I said that!
What the hell does that even mean?
You could be second, you could be third, hell you could even be fourth!

This is such great science...

[AmigaHeretic]

.. I know 92% of time statistics are made up, but if you read the article you'll see they have a pretty graph, so I think the data is good.

Re:This is such great science...

[Bigby]

No. 84% of time statistics are made up.

Re:This is such great science...

[Anonymous Coward]

oh ye of little faith. It's commonly known that it lies somewhere between 60-64% with a 2%+/- when you are dealing with males 25-60 and only 70% +/-4% with females of the same age.

If you are going to quote the statistics, at least include the margin of error.

Re:This is such great science...

[Abreu]

Wrong.

The last study shows that exactly 78.34% of statistics quoted in a casual conversation are made up in the spot.

Re:This is such great science...

[Kjella]

(...) but if you read the article you'll see they have a pretty graph, so I think the data is good.

Yes, because a picture lies more than a thousand words or something like that...

Re:This is such great science...

[BikeHelmet]

.. I know 92% of time statistics are made up, but if you read the article you'll see they have a pretty graph, so I think the data is good.

I am 100% sure your statistics are baloney.

Re:This is such great science...

[tyrione]

(...) but if you read the article you'll see they have a pretty graph, so I think the data is good.

Yes, because a picture lies more than a thousand words or something like that...

Which show how both unknowledgeable on the subject the average person may be and/or how piss poor the average person's memory may as well be.

I don't even see the code anymore

[slyborg]

"All I see is 'blonde...brunette...redhead...'"

Re:I don't even see the code anymore

[L4t3r4lu5]

You obviously don't work in IT.

Unless you see them through the soundproof glass. Or in the other Firefox tab you have open...

Opera 10 not benchmarked in either link

[SteelRealm]

"Firefox 3.5's new rendering engine places it squarely above Opera 10's beta and Internet Explorers 7 and 8 (based on previous benchmarks)" Opera 9.6 =! Opera 10 Beta, or am I missing something here?

Re:Opera 10 not benchmarked in either link

[albedoa]

Yes: "Opera 10b1 wasn't fast enough to appear in this chart I'm afraid. It scores just under what the original Firefox 3 achieved."

Re:Opera 10 not benchmarked in either link

[hedwards]

Because it's not good practice to include betas in these sorts of tests. A proper beta is going to have debug code and such activated making the results not necessarily accurate. As a result there's really no guarantee that the final product will behave in a similar fashion.

If it were an article speculating on what Opera 10 is going to be like, that would be fairly reasonable, but otherwise I don't see any reason to include an unfinished browser.

Using Chrome now, but....

[tnk1]

Having used Chrome now for a little while after becoming irritated with FFX's memory utilization in particular, I'm going to have to admit that while it is quantifiably better than FFX (and Opera) in many ways, I don't find the speed difference compelling. Indeed, I find myself occasionally wondering if Chrome is actually slower than FFX in some ways. I am still using it, as the memory utilization is significantly better, but the little inconsistencies in presentation and the weird sensation that it feels slower makes me really want to switch back to Firefox. If Mozilla can get off their ass and really plug the memory leaks and utilization, I'd probably switch back today.

That's not to say that Chrome is bad. It's 100% usable, and its much more compatible with sites I use than Opera is. (I tried Opera first after I started looking around). The problem is that it still breaks some sites that aren't broken in IE or Firefox. And whether or not you blame the browser or the non-standards compliant webmasters, the reality is that I cannot switch their sites, but I can switch browsers that I am using. That means I have opened IE 7 windows more while using Chrome, than I have with Firefox.

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[TornCityVenz]

I do occasionally find myself opening FFX windows while using Chrome. Mostly for links that are supposed to go to files for download. Chrome has an odd tendency to not like those. Other than that Chrome has pretty much taken over my browsing experience since within about week of the first launch. So it's nice to know that my back up is almost as fast as the original chrome...

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

You might wanna recheck your preconceptions - a lot has changed in the past few releases for Firefox: http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory

It's too bad a lot of people still think Firefox is such a memory hog when really they've refined it to be one of the most quick and efficient browsers available.

That said, your mileage may vary depending on the add-ons you choose, but as long as you don't go overboard there's no reason your memory usage should be significantly different than those in the benchmark.

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who read FFX as final fantasy 10?

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[tnk1]

You might wanna recheck your preconceptions - a lot has changed in the past few releases for Firefox: http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory

It's too bad a lot of people still think Firefox is such a memory hog when really they've refined it to be one of the most quick and efficient browsers available.

That said, your mileage may vary depending on the add-ons you choose, but as long as you don't go overboard there's no reason your memory usage should be significantly different than those in the benchmark.

I have the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome and my switchover was not all that long ago (a month, maybe two). I tend to use both browsers in the same way, about 6-10 tabs open at the same time, with all of them getting some use, and many of them being used at almost the same time.

After having stared at the task manager and seen FFX taking up over 400MB of RAM while I see Chrome using 150-170 to do the same things, I can pretty much tell you that there's no preconceptions involved, only data. I am not incredibly enthusiastic about the alternatives, but the facts are staring me in the face.

Perhaps my mileage varies. I am a very heavy browser user and I freely admit to being the guy who has all those tabs open. I'm not really complaining about FFX taking up a lot of memory, I'm more concerned that it takes up more to do the same things that other browsers seem to do for less.

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[fluffernutter]

Don't you guys have problems with some websites? I tried Chrome when it first came out, dropped it, then gave it another chance a month ago, and dropped it again. I would go to a seemingly normal website that I had no problems with on either IE or Firefox and get something like (substitute various extensions):

'What would you like to do with file xxxxx.aspx? Open / Save'

It wasn't just one website either, it was several. And it didn't seem to be limited to MS technologies either.

Right now I am using FF 3.5 and it seems a bit snappier but mostly the same. I just wish it would load up a bit faster (like chrome).

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[Nikker]

After trying Chrome I found one thing that made the difference, extensions. On my machine 2.5GHz w/ 512MB ram surfing used to be pretty good but now with Slashdot's js and everyone else's for that matter it just slowed everything down again, same freezes as a page loads. My one out is ScriptBlock and AdBlock, Slashdot js gets banned as well as every other ad server and now my computer loads a 300+ comment in 1 second instead of 10-15. Just a FYI to the king Taco, it is NOT necessary to show your AJAX prowess by loading each and every comment after the pageLoad() one at a time. I downloaded the entire content with out JS and looks identical to the JS version in micro seconds. Hint: Load the content first then play with it via JS, we know your Uber cool trust us just let us load the page with out requiring some quad core w/ multiple GB of ram.

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[gbarules2999]

Yes. Frakking nerds.

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that I like about FF with respect to stupid websites that need IE is the IE tab extension. I use this a lot at work for all our stupid IE6 based web-tools.

The only one it still can't seem to render is iMAP, bu that thing is just such a pile of crap anyway.

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[Simetrical]

You might wanna recheck your preconceptions - a lot has changed in the past few releases for Firefox: http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory

That benchmark is worthless. Especially for Chrome. Quote: "When a process with the same name such as 'chrome.exe' is encountered more than once, its total size is accumulated, yielding a total of all the 'chrome.exe' figures together." Apparently the author has never heard of shared memory! See Google Chrome Memory Usage - Good and Bad on the Chromium blog for some discussion on this.

The other browsers might not be using multiple processes, but the same flaws apply to a lesser degree. Every library they load will count against them, even if another app is using the library and so it would be in memory anyway. The only reliable way to tell how much memory a process is really using is to check memory usage, use program, check memory usage, kill program, check memory usage. If the first and third figures are equal, then you can get a correct figure by subtracting the second figure from their common value. (If they aren't equal, either the app hasn't actually exited fully, or some other program has eaten up more memory in the meantime and the results are no good.)

Granted, I doubt Firefox is such a comparative memory hog as people paint it to be, but the benchmark proves nothing either way.

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[RedWizzard]

If it was FireFox 3's memory utilization that bothered you then I'd recommend trying out 3.5 - it's much less memory hungry.

Re:Using Chrome now, but....

[InverseParadox]

No.

Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[Ex-Linux-Fanboy]

I posted a blog about this yesterday. I tried Firefox 3.5 in a Windows XP VMware Virtual machine yesterday and quickly web back to Firefox 3.0.

The problem is that FF 3.5 freezes while loading a background tab. In Firefox 3.0, I have no problem clicking on some link that looks interesting, loading the link in a new tab, and continue reading the article I'm reading or what not.

This doesn't work in 3.5. When I load a page in a background tab, the entire Firefox client freezes up when it's processing Javascript, HTML, or whatever in the background tab. I can't scroll up or down in the foreground, write a posting or email (typing in text freezes and the letters I'm typing in aren't buffered), or do anything else with Firefox as it parses the page in the other tab.

Because of this issue, I quickly moved back to Firefox 3.0. I hope the Mozilla developers address this issue in the next six months, because if this issue isn't resolved in Firefox before they EOL security updates with Firefox 3.0, I will probably have to move to another browser.

Any modern browers besides Firefox with a "always use this font for text" option? Neither Opera, Safari, nor Chrome had this option last time I tried those browsers. (Don't get me started on IE8, which forces me to use anti-aliased text)

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[Anonymous Coward]

I just opened your post in a new tab to type this reply. Worked for me. No freeze.

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[kaiser423]

I don't see that problem here...neither do about a half dozen of my coworkers. Are you sure that your install wasn't boinked in some way?

Because for me at least, it's blazing fast and one tab does not bring the other tabs down like it did sometimes in the past...

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[Runaway1956]

I suspect some configuration problem on your end, to be honest. I'm running FF3.5 on XP SP3 inside of VirtualBox. I do not see that behaviour. Using snaplinks, I just opened six tabs, and the current tab remained responsive while they loaded in the background.

Whether the configuration problem is in your VM, within Windows, or in Firefox, I couldn't even begin to guess. In my case, I have 1 gig of memory allocated to the VM - if you have less memory, that might be something to look at.

Of course it's possible that my FF is different than yours in some subtle way. I upgraded from FF 3.5 b4 to FF 3.5 RC1 and then to FF 3.5 final. I really wouldn't EXPECT there to be any real difference, but crap happens, right?

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[Anonymous Coward]

Any modern browers besides Firefox with a "always use this font for text" option? Neither Opera, Safari, nor Chrome had this option last time I tried those browsers. (Don't get me started on IE8, which forces me to use anti-aliased text)

Opera has had this feature since at least 1996. Where else do you think the FF developers got the idea?

Checked my Opera (9.67). Yup, it's still there. Available in the point and click preferences, the "opera:config" page from the adress bar and, of course, in the .ini-file. You may also edit your opera css-files directly.

Hint: If you open the "opera:config" page, it is under the "Author Display Mode Options", as Opera distinguish between user display mode (where your font is the default, unless you change that) and author display mode (where the authors font is the default, unless you change that) and let you switch easily between user mode and author mode, or some other style sheet.

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[phantomcircuit]

VMware is probably swapping to free memory. You can disable the swapping of memory by VMware which will significantly improve performance (as long as you do not run out of memory).

Basically it sounds like you're waiting for the hdd to load something while at the same time writing out swap data.

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[BikeHelmet]

I'm happy with FF 3.5 so far. The link issue that was plaguing me has gone away!

When I first upgraded to FF3, I was angry to find out that links were malfunctioning. For whatever reason, I had to click on them two or three times to get them to do the proper thing.

First click either turns into a back command or picks another link on the page. Second is usually another link on the page. (if first was a back command) Third (or second) goes to the correct location. But spamming clicks on links may also issue a back command, so 2 or 3 clicks per link is the max I could try. Also, holding shift always resulted in a back command, which made opening new windows quite annoying.

Firefox 2 had no such issue on my computers, and FF 3.5 doesn't either. Bless them - it was getting terribly annoying!

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I have four different 3.5 installations and none of them are doing this. I'm not usually a "but it's working fine for me" kinda guy, but don't you think something like this would have been reported as a showstopper bug for 3.5? (Even as I typed this I background loaded your comment, and had no issues...) What plugins and add-ons are you running? Could they have an effect? If you're certain that there's no other possible cause, hopefully you've filed a bug report?

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[cbhacking]

ClearType is optional in IE, has been for years. No idea where you got the idea it was forcing you to do anything. Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> First item under Multimedia. It does default to true in IE8, since most people are using flat panels by now and find antialiased text less readable, but it's still optional.

To set IE8's default fonts, click Fonts at the bottom of the General tab in Internet Options.
To override page-specified fonts, open Internet Options, click Accessibility (under the General tab), then click "Ignore font styles specified on webpages" and/or other options there.

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is already a system setting, and IE ignores turning anti-aliased text off there.

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[Quantumstate]

I don't encounter this problem except when I try and open about 5 slashdot tabs at once but I think that is a slightly different issue.

Re:Firefox 3.5 freezes loading background tabs

[Anonymous Coward]

Re tabs freezing: Try "Clear Recent History" on the "Tools" tab.

I had a tab freezing problem too - worked for me.

PS

SunSpider says it all...

[Anonymous Coward]

I ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark on Chrome 2.0.172.33, Firefox 3.5, and IE8. Firefox was almost 7x faster than IE, and Chrome almost 8x faster. Of particular interest are the contraflow and recursive tests. Chrome: 4.4ms. Firefox: 55.4ms. IE...? 218.4ms. Chrome is fifty times faster than IE in those benchmarks. Embarassing!

Re:SunSpider says it all...

[Bert64]

IE has always had a really lousy javascript engine...
http://pentestmonkey.net/jsbm/index.html

Safari 4 seems very fast when its freshly started, but slows down a lot when it's been open a while...

Re:SunSpider says it all...

[Runaway1956]

Not embarassing at all - to Microsoft, at least. They just don't care. So long as they have the lion's share of the market, they are perfectly happy with any sad performance that people are willing to settle for.

Spread the word far and wide. Tell your family, tell your freind, tell your enemies, IE sucks. When they stop using it, everyone will benefit, including MS. If MS wants to keep market share, they'll invest time and money into making a better browser. If they don't want to keep market share, they'll just drop IE into the deep hole they dredged it out of.

Re:SunSpider says it all...

[BZ]

As with any benchmark, important questions to ask:

1) Does this measure things that are actually relevant? (For sunspider the answer is
        "maybe".)
2) Does it do a good job of measuring them? (For sunspider the answer is "maybe".)
3) Do the scores on the subtests of the benchmark mean anything? (For sunspider, as for
        any benchmark, the answer is "only if you're doing that exact thing that the subtest is
        doing").

None of which makes V8 slower than what IE is using, of course, across a broad range of loads. But it's pretty easy to write script that's 4x slower in V8 than in Firefox... or 10x faster (as the benchmark above). What really matters to a web page developer is how fast the different browsers run his code, not how fast they run benchmarks. What matters to a user is how fast the different browsers run the code of the sites he visits, not how fast they run benchmarks. Benchmarks are a poor proxy for both, especially when dealing with these early-stage JITs. It's pretty easy to tweak the code just a bit and have it jit a lot worse (or a lot better). It's also pretty easy to tweak the JIT to make particular tests faster, since so much of the game is various heuristics.

All of which is to say that better sunspider performance may or may not translate into better performance on _your_ code, and in fact improving sunspider performance may regress performance on your code if the JIT is seriously being tuned for sunspider...

Re:SunSpider says it all...

[dvhh]

we all remember the 3dmark fiasco with some graphic card constructor did some fiddling to alter their score. what about javascript engine, or rendering engine ? of course people in the industry have been known for their fairness and good practice ( especially whose with closed code ). Again it's a matter of personnal taste, chrome beta can be extended with some pain, but is fast and could restore most of its memory thank to the whole process separation. safari is mostly for mac user and eye candy lover, but fast. opera have very little extension means, is fast enough, and got a lot of feature which cause it to vomit option dialog on your screen firefox extension make make it grind to a stop but are legions, and make your own browsing experience. still my choices are opera and firefox.

THIRD PLACE!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

USA! USA!

"As good as chrom used to be"

[smallshot]

...almost as quick as the original version of Google Chrome

What a comparison. It's almost as fast, but not quite as fast, as a much earlier and slower version of the fastest browser.

Does it really matter?

[Ark42]

I tried to do something pretty seemingly simple with Javascript (1 draggable line to redraw the background colors of the table), and it drags its ass on IE8. It is fast and smooth in FF/Opera/etc, but with so many people using IE still, it hardly matters.

Re:Does it really matter?

[BZ]

Looking at your code, it looks like it's not actually performing that much computation in the javascript. So what matters here is not JS performance but DOM/layout/CSS performance...

Re:Does it really matter?

[Ark42]

True, but I assume those all go hand-in-hand as far as scripting performance goes. Either way, the obvious fact is IE8 is pretty damn slow and choppy compared to every other browser I can test that page on.

Re:Does it really matter?

[BZ]

They don't got hand-in-hand with script performance, by any means. Firefox has much faster scripting performance than Opera, and somewhat slower css/layout performance in many cases, for example.

Re:Does it really matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on the importance of the site, you could put "Best viewed in Firefox/Chrome/Opera/etc" and encourage people away from IE. Of course you can't really do this on commercial sites.

The more IE's market share drops the more likely MS are to fix its problems.

One pice of advice for users

[bogaboga]

If you want to install the new Firefox 3.5, you are well advised to remove all traces of previous versions. Otherwise your new install will have bizarre behavior like failing to open up links from websites like digg and being slow.

What I did was to uninstall it through the Windows XP control panel and delete all instances of Mozilla and Firefox in the registry. This is one bit of info developers should have informed us about.

Does anyone know how to use its geo-location feature?

By the way, it does not score 100% on the ACID 3 test and some links are returned as invalid but on clicking the "back" button, the sites load! I am also surprised that Yahoo Search is the engine that reports the error. Why, I do not have an idea. Could it be my ISP?

Re:One pice of advice for users

[Roman Coder]

Your experience was not mine. I installed 3.5 over the older version, and have had no problems at all so far. I've visited Digg, Facebook, plus many other sites, no worries (so far?). /shrug

Re:One pice of advice for users

[Ingenium13]

http://3liz.org/geolocation/ supposedly works. However, I'm in Pittsburgh and it put me in a LARGE circle with NYC as the center (Pittsburgh is not even in the circle). Using Comcast as my ISP. Plenty of wireless APs around me (upwards of 10). Maybe others have better luck with it?

Re:One pice of advice for users

[LiquidFire_HK]

Works great for me, found my location within 10 m in two different places in the same UK city.

Re:One pice of advice for users

[miro f]

Great stuff! It found my location as a 10m radius in Mountain View, California.

Unfortunately, I live in Melbourne, Australia.

Re:One pice of advice for users

[brusk]

Poor to fair results with geolocation for me. From a wired connection it put me in Austin TX. I'm in upstate NY. From a wireless connection on campus it gave a neighborhood-level location and from my home AP it shows my city with a circle about 10 miles in radius (I'm within it). Maybe this will get more accurate over time as more data goes into the system...

Re:One pice of advice for users

[Anonymous Coward]

therwise your new install will have bizarre behavior like failing to open up links from websites like digg

That's not bizarre behavior - that's called having good taste.

Re:One pice of advice for users

[Anonymous Coward]

What I did was to uninstall it through the Windows XP control panel and delete all instances of Mozilla and Firefox in the registry. This is one bit of info developers should have informed us about.

How are they supposed to know that your computer is messed up?

Reading comments such as yours makes me cringe: You automatically assume that the problem is someone else's, when the most likely cause is PEBKAC.

Starbucks

[Anonymous Coward]

within a few hundred meters â" easily enough for, say, a Starbucks Web site to tell you where your nearest Starbucks is

If you live where I live, then there are several Starbucks within a few hundred meters radius. A little more percision never hurt anyone.

Re:Starbucks

[sixteenbitsamurai]

If you live where I live, then there are several Starbucks within a few hundred meters radius.

If that's the case one might argue that you don't need a web browser to tell you where to find a Starbucks. You should be able to see one.

Now if only

[Anonymous Coward]

We would be allowed to bring up the right click menu again, it would be sweet!!!

I don't care...

[cyberjock1980]

I don't care how fast it loads webpages. What I want to see is a browser that isn't riddled with bugs and easy ways for badware to end up infecting my machine. I'll gladly surf on the slowest browser in the world if it really is proven to be the most secure. So what if I save a few seconds surfing web pages. That is nothing compared to the hours spent trying to get rid of a virus/trojan/keylogger/etc.

Re:I don't care...

[Anonymous Coward]

Browse inside a VM. It will be slower, and if you do want to download a file you have to jump through hoops to copy it outside, but it's very secure.

Re:I don't care...

[valinor89]

Certainly. I hardly make use of pages that take long to render or else. What I dont' like is to wait 1 minute for the browser to start or to block itsels every time it stumbles on a flawed page that contains some bucle ( multitreading would help). Does the new version fix all this?

Re:I don't care...

[Locklin]

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/80 is probably your best bet.

Re:I don't care...

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily, Chrome is the fastest AND the most secure, so there isn't really a choice you have to make.

Re:I don't care...

[cyberjock1980]

WOW. Never seen this before. I'll check it out! Thanks!

Re:I don't care...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop this misinformation. A VM is only more secure in that it adds a layer but, and that's the important part, this layer is trivial to break out of.

Solid

[Anonymous Coward]

Only problem I have with 3.5 is that my work Proxy doesn't like it...

Re:Solid

[Bert64]

Your proxy probably only supports http 1.0, which ie uses by default while firefox uses http 1.1, there is a setting to change that in about:config

Gecko FTW

[0xABADC0DA]

From just poking around the web with gecko and webkit browsers I found a bunch of pages that looked fine rendered by gecko, but had elements in the wrong place or other visual problems rendered with webkit. The majority of sites render fine in both, but not all and other then acid tests I haven't visited any that rendered better in webkit.

I'd rather have the page look good than be super fast, so I'll stick with firefox until sites render as well in webkit or firefox becomes unusable slow.

Re:Gecko FTW

[Colonel Korn]

From just poking around the web with gecko and webkit browsers I found a bunch of pages that looked fine rendered by gecko, but had elements in the wrong place or other visual problems rendered with webkit. The majority of sites render fine in both, but not all and other then acid tests I haven't visited any that rendered better in webkit.

I'd rather have the page look good than be super fast, so I'll stick with firefox until sites render as well in webkit or firefox becomes unusable slow.

Yes, but the Acid3 scores and JS benchmarks show that webkit is better. Now just stop using the internet and switch to using Acid3 and JS benchmarks for all your computer needs and you'll be fixed.

Javashit sucks no matter how fast it goes

[Anonymous Coward]

Disable it in your web browser for better performance and user experience.

IF YOU AREN'T FULLY SATISFIED, YOUR GET YOUR MONEY BACK, GUARANTEED!

The downside is...

[hacker]

The downside is... that almost nothing works with it; hardly any code has been ported for themes, plug-ins or add-ons, so you're basically starting back at square one again.

I tried it here on 64-bit Linux, using the Adobe flash plugin and got dozens of crashes/hangs (even the bug-reporting feature hung, and had to be xkill'd off). It's faster, but it crashes a LOT more than 3.0.11 for me, given my current use of the browser as a productivity tool.

Those crashes were with no plugins installed at all. My 3.0.11 browser has 32 plugins installed in it, and it is ROCK solid.

It's getting there, but it's not quite ready for prime-time just yet.

Re:The downside is...

[corychristison]

Did you

rm -R ~/.mozilla

or

mv ~/.mozilla ~/.old_mozilla

If not, that could be your problem right there.

Re:The downside is...

[hacker]

No, nor do I have to. I was starting with a clean profile, as I do with every Firefox version I test.

The problem isn't the profile itself, it's that the plug-ins and add-ons literally do not install, because they query the browser version and refuse to do so, unless I mangle them and force it... and that's not going to be met with success, if the code in the plug-in itself needs to be updated for the new Firefox codebase.

It'll take a few months before everything coalesces back to a place where 3.0.x plug-ins are compatible with 3.5.x browser code.

Re:The downside is...

[maxume]

All of the plug-ins I had installed with 3.0 appear to be working just fine with 3.5. Of the 5 extensions I use, only 1 does not have a version compatible with 3.5 (This will vary quite a bit between users, but 3 of my extensions didn't even require an update...).

Re:The downside is...

[k8to]

Accurate or not, this position is hilarious.

The mozilla and firefox team has utterly failed at configuration management since day one.

This problem is really not *that* hard. Why do people seem to think the "delete all your data every time you have a problem" is acceptable? It's like we're back to running Mac OS 7.

Okay ! but is it tested with extensions,plugins ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used FF before safari3, one thing noticeable about FF is it slows down proportional to use and numbers of extension on board, though some of extensions are really helpful.
After all, One of the major USP of FF is its extensions.

So report them

[Anonymous Coward]

Both Gecko and WebKit have excellent standards support, so I'm guessing the pages you're talking about are Quirks Mode pages. Gecko probably has a more battle-tested Quirks Mode.

Both Safari and Chrome have "Report bug on this page" options. If you're of a helpful mind, use them.

Re:So report them

[Anonymous Coward]

Reporting a page won't make it look right until the next release if that. And I won't know it isn't rendering properly with webkit unless I'm using webkit, which I don't do because it renders too many pages wrong.

The people using Chrome and Safari should report the badly rendered pages. But how do they know if the site is just bad looking, or if it's something the renderer could handle better?

How come

[Mystra_x64]

Home come these "news" deserve to be on /.? I'm feeling sick of this "Wow! We have a new who-the-hell-knows-what test. Out browser of choice is better at it than others! Boo-hoo!" And hear I thought browsers are for well... browsing. Apparently I was wrong.

In the real world...

[owlnation]

I'm not sure these benchmarks make much difference. The advantage of Chrome and IE is that they are multi-threaded.

Sure for one or two tabs open maybe Firefox does well. But if you are someone who opens 5 or 6 tabs routinely, and those tabs reload in the background, then Firefox is a total dog. Not to mention the whole not releasing memory thing that makes it unusable after a long browsing session.

So, fine, 3.5 is an improvement. But until Firefox is multi-threaded it's still not good enough. It's still far behind the competition on this.

Bias towards graphical browsers

[kiehlster]

I'm sorry, but Lynx is still faster than all of the above. When will we see fair treatment of all browsers? That's racist.

Loses your passwords..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly Firefox3.5 already has a bunch of bugs logged and complaints on the fora because people are finding their saved passwords have gawn AWOL after the upgrade.

Mozbackup can't help, so I've already downgraded. It's fast and shiny, but utterly useless to me without my saved passwords.

Re:Loses your passwords..

[jagilbertvt]

Your passwords are utterly useless to you when they are saved. Pretty sad that you can't remember your passwords.

Re:Loses your passwords..

[louiswins]

...unless he uses the good practice of using a different password on every site. I have saved passwords for between 75 and 100 sites, almost all different. Many of these sites I visit rarely, so when I do go to them, it's nice to be able to just hit Ctrl+Enter and be logged in instead of trying to remember or recover the password.

Not only faster pages but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, the experience is like I if bought a new laptop.

Since Firefox's GUIs and extensions are entirely assembled in JavaScript, the new javascript engine not only optimizes page rendering, but in fact, the entire browser experience in faster.

Seattle

[verloren]

Presumably in Seattle it could tell you where your nearest 100 Starbucks are...

Re:Seattle

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably in Seattle it could tell you where your nearest 100 Starbucks are...

no kidding... a quick look at google maps shows 10-20 coffee shoos within a 300 meter square block over most of the downtown area.

Re:Seattle

[Kjella]

Downtown that question can usually be answered with "look 360 degrees around you", and the full circle is only required if you want to make sure you go to the closest...

Re:Seattle

[DavidD_CA]

I tried, but I got a Stack Overflow error.

Still my baby

[decrypted08]

Opera is still my baby- I'll take any browser that includes precustomized user interfaces that allow me to connect to international irc channells and "chat" bot style.

Bias towards browsers

[godrik]

I read the web from the ethernet stream, you noobs.

Re:Bias towards browsers

[kiehlster]

I tried reading the web from the cable modem TV channel once, but it put me to sleep.

Detailed Studies Show

[DJ_Adequate]

In academics: 43.9% of statistic are made up.
In business: 72.3%, although banks were slightly higher than average.
In politics: 99.991%, although it's possible the .009% were a sampling error.

Now if I could just make this a pretty graph.

Talking javascript

[LSD-OBS]

Compared to the current Chrome 2, Firefox 3.5 with JIT enabled gets 1/2 the speed here, 7/8th the speed here, but about 2x the speed here. That's a much better result than ff3.1!

Well done, guys.

Re:Talking javascript

[LiquidFire_HK]

Huh? FF 3.5 is what was going to be 3.1, they just bumped up the version number.

I guess you mean 3.0.11 or something.

Re:Talking javascript

[LSD-OBS]

Yeah, I meant them 3.1 beta release jobbies.

Re:Huh? Safari is faster, and the benchmark proves

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox 3.5 is the topic of the discussion here.

Weird

[cayenne8]

I just upgraded to 3.5.

Strange thing...when it restared, it of course had a tab opened saying it was upgraded, etc.

Trouble is...I can NOT close this fucking tab to save my life?!?!? I can close and open others, but, cannot close this one. I can go to other sites on it..but, cannot close it.

Re:Weird

[SecondaryOak]

They changed the default behavior, but you change it back from about:config (type about:config in your url bar):
set browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab to false.

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

So how do you ge the right mouse button to open up the cut paste save menu again??

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

You still use the mouse for that? What are you even doing here?

If you're on a decent operating system, it's highlight to copy and middle click to paste.

Re:Weird

[cayenne8]

"They changed the default behavior, but you change it back from about:config (type about:config in your url bar): set browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab to false."

Nope..didn't work.

I can close and open and whatever with all the other tabs I have open. But that one that opened when it restarted, I cannot seem to close it by any means.

Re:Weird

[Sterling Christensen]

Firefox now shows the tab bar even when you only have 1 page open. What you're probably used to is the tab bar being hidden when only 1 page is open.

If you follow SecondaryOak's suggestion, you can close the tab and the whole Firefox window will disappear - because it's going from displaying 1 page to displaying 0 pages.

But I'm guessing that's NOT what you want - you don't really want to "close" the tab, you just want to hide it like you're used to.

So go to about:config and double click browser.tabs.autoHide to change it.

Re:Weird

[Joce640k]

That's not it either.... Before the update there was a "close" button on the last tab. Clicking it would make the page go away (good for stopping annoying sound or whatever). Now it's gone, and it's annoying me.

Re:Weird

[SecondaryOak]

Dunno man... it worked for me, once I changed the settings it behaves just like in 3.0 except it doesn't display the x button (but I can close it just fine with either middle-click or File->Close Tab).

Re:Weird

[mr_lizard13]

It's a new feature designed to promote the benefits of tabbed browsing.

Until you appreciate its value, you won't be able to close that tab.

So, start appreciating tabbed browsing, OK?

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod up Funny!

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

"Decent"? That's the absolutely worst copy-paste interface anyone has ever implemented.

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

when you have another tab open, did you try clicking the x on the tab you want to close?

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

You've made me wonder how paste-over could work in such a system.

Re:Weird

[almechist]

If you really need to close that first tab, open another tab and move the first one to the right. You will now be able to close the 1st tab... But the newer tab will be open until you repeat the procedure, and so on. Yeah, this is clunky and a bit tedious, but it does let you close ANY tab you want to, even though there will still be at least one tab open at all times.

Re:Weird

[AmberBlackCat]

Or exchange it for something of the same price, like Opera or Internet Explorer.

Re:Weird

[tom17]

What if you want to paste over a selection? That's one thing that has always bugged me about that copy/paste interface.

Re:Weird

[Mr. DOS]

Yeah. Ctrl+T Ctrl+PgUp Ctrl+W. That's so much easier than Ctrl+W.

      --- Mr. DOS

Re:Weird

[V for Vendetta]

Try a old-fashioned CTRL+F4.

Re:Weird

[tyrione]

Or exchange it for something of the same price, like Opera or Internet Explorer.

Hence my sarcasm about his whining for an external feature issue [HIG] and not the performance of the application to present Web Content.

No speed improvement for those on x86_64

[zoips]

The Tracemonkey JIT doesn't work on x86_64 in the Firefox 3.5 release. Apparently it works in trunk, but for those on x86_64 machines, you either have to run the 32 bit version or just deal with no JIT.

Re:No speed improvement for those on x86_64

[tyrione]

The Tracemonkey JIT doesn't work on x86_64 in the Firefox 3.5 release. Apparently it works in trunk, but for those on x86_64 machines, you either have to run the 32 bit version or just deal with no JIT.

No upgrade for moi.

Re:No speed improvement for those on x86_64

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap! How will I manage to use Firefox with only 4GB of RAM available?

Re:No speed improvement for those on x86_64

[BAILOPAN]

It's not in trunk yet, but we want to get it in as soon as possible. It's not trivial, but not terribly difficult either - someone just has to take the time to do it. Unfortunately getting 3.5 out in time was a much higher priority, we just couldn't block on x64. If you're interested, a tracking bug is here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=489146

Re:No speed improvement for those on x86_64

[BZ]

So you're not going to upgrade because one specific feature that's not available in the version you currently run won't be available in the new version? I mean... lack of jit in 3.5 on x86_64 is no worse than lack of jit in 3.0 on x86_64 (and elsewhere). Meanwhile, there were various non-jit performance improvements and features added that you're missing out on.

Am I missing something here?

Re:No speed improvement for those on x86_64

[tyrione]

So you're not going to upgrade because one specific feature that's not available in the version you currently run won't be available in the new version? I mean... lack of jit in 3.5 on x86_64 is no worse than lack of jit in 3.0 on x86_64 (and elsewhere). Meanwhile, there were various non-jit performance improvements and features added that you're missing out on.

Am I missing something here?

You're missing the idea of having a 64 bit platform without 32 bit libs.

Re:No speed improvement for those on x86_64

[BZ]

What do 32 bit libs have to do with this? You can install a 64-bit build of Firefox 3.5. It won't have the jit, but will have every single other feature 32-bit Firefox 3.5 has. So you're saying that a 64-bit Firefox 3.0 without jit _and_ without those other features is somehow preferable to a 64-bit Firefox 3.5 still without the jit but _with_ those other features.

Again, what am I missing?

Page Not Found in 1 sec

[djeshelman]

Of course Firefox rocks!

I got to "Address Not Found" in like... less than a second

(link slashdotted...)

Chrome fastest?

[Wingsy]

I thought Safari was the fastest. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49301219,00.htm

Re:Chrome fastest?

[TheMightyFuzzball]

They both use Webkit for rendering web pages, except that Chromium replaces the JavaScriptCore component with its own faster "V8" Javascript engine, thus making Chrome/Chromium Faster.

Re:Chrome fastest?

[Wingsy]

When I see 2 benchmarks where one says product A is faster and the other says product B is faster, I'm inclined to conclude that we really don't know. Now if I pump a little bias into it I can throw one of them out and choose to believe the one I inherently favor. Is that what you're doing?

Re:Chrome fastest?

[BZ]

Actually, the right conclusion from such a pair of benchmarks is that "faster" is not an absolute and that which one is faster might just depend on the particular workload...

Then the question becomes which workload matters to you. ;) Typically neither of the benchmark workloads really does.

Table

[Anonymous Coward]

because HTML just doesn't directly support columns

table
    tr
        td
            I disagree /td /tr /table

Re:Table

[Animaether]

yes, but "zomg you're not supposed to use tables for layout!"

which of course has led to the similarly quaint removal of b, u, s and i tags for the sole reason that content and presentation should be separate. Nevermind that if you -now- want something to be bold, short of writing your own XML bits and pieces, you have do something insane like "<style>.b { font-weight:bold } </style>...<span class="b">this is bold</span>".

At some point, the scales tilted completely the other way and all balance was lost. Alas. The same applies to tables. Not that I think tables are appropriate for layout, but DIVs with a crapton of CSS aren't particularly it either.

Re:Table

[maxume]

b and i, at least, are in the working version of html5:

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-semantics.html

and 'strong' usually results in bold text (but I guess it might not if the CSS for a page goes all over the place).

Re:Table

[RedK]

The advantage of using DIVs and CSS to format your page into columns is that you won't have a shit-ton of copy/pasting and code rearranging to do if you ever want to swap your columns around, or switch out some content from the right to the left. You just change a few lines in the CSS. If you can't see the enormous benefits this brings over Table based formatting, you have not made many changes to existing websites.

And from your CSS example, it shows. You do know about inline styles right ? You don't need to use the <style> tag at all. You can just do <span style="your CSS stuff here...">. But then again, why do it like that at all ? Even XHTML 1.0 Strict has support for the B and I tags for Bold Text and Italic Text. You can check the DTD yourself : http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/dtds.html#a_dtd_XHTML-1.0-Strict

Re:Table

[EvanED]

Nevermind that if you -now- want something to be bold, short of writing your own XML bits and pieces, you have do something insane like ".b { font-weight:bold } ...this is bold".

(1) What's wrong with and ? Okay, they aren't exactly the same, but they are pretty darn close.

(2) If you're working on a quick & dirty page or something like that, why not just use a version of HTML with it?

Re:Table

[EvanED]

Crap... I totally screwed that up. This is what my part should have looked like:

(1) What's wrong with <strong> and <em>? Okay, they aren't exactly the same, but they are pretty darn close.

(2) If you're working on a quick & dirty page or something like that, why not just use a version of HTML with it?

Re:Table

[Simetrical]

and 'strong' usually results in bold text (but I guess it might not if the CSS for a page goes all over the place).

The same is true for any HTML markup. b { font-weight: normal; color: green; } would chuck your expectations out the window just as well.

Re:Table

[Anonymous Coward]

Nevermind that if you -now- want something to be bold, short of writing your own XML bits and pieces, you have do something insane like "<style>.b { font-weight:bold } </style>...<span class="b">this is bold</span>".

Maybe I'm missing something here, but [strong] and [em] have been around for a good while now...

Re:Table

[Animaether]

"The advantage of using DIVs and CSS to format your page into columns is that you won't have a shit-ton of copy/pasting and code rearranging to do if you ever want to swap your columns around, or switch out some content from the right to the left."
Really?

Presume I have two TDs, and I swap their content. Select all content from through to , cut, paste. Done.
Now do the same with DIVs.
- Copy the positioning information from one.
- Paste into the other
- Copy the other's now
- Paste into the former
Done?

"And from your CSS example, it shows. You do know about inline styles right ?"
Should I take from that, that it shows you are horrible about your CSS?
-----
<span style="font-style:italic">why<span> on <span style="font-style:italic">why<earth> would you re-use styles <span style="font-style:italic">why<in-line> when you can use a <span style="font-style:italic">document-wide rule<span>?
-----

"Even XHTML 1.0 Strict has support for the B and I tags for Bold Text and Italic Text."
Yes, 1.0 does. 1.1 does not. HTML5 does*, I'm suspecting the XHTML equivalent once again will not; as per the desire to separate content from presentation completely.

For those suggesting em and strong; those are meta data for the content wrapped. They do not state anything about presentation. One browser might render strong as bold, for example, while another underlines it. Both are perfectly acceptable, but only one gives the desired effect.

* Unfortunately, however, the HTML 5 specification clearly states:
"Style sheets can be used to format b elements, just like any other element can be restyled. Thus, it is not the case that content in b elements will necessarily be boldened."

The above is -exactly- what my little rant is about. There is no more balance. There was a tag, <b>old, that did what it was supposed to do, in any browser that was at least -capable- of displaying bold text. Now, that same tag has been either deprecated entirely (XHTML 1.1), -or- neutered (HTML 5), allowing a browser to not do anything with it if it so pleases.

I've edited plenty of websites to know the advantages of CSS, including DIVs with a bunch of CSS for layout. Sometimes tables are simply easier and I daresay a better choice than DIV'd layout; neither, however, were particularly intended for page layout in any way from the get-go, and the "websites should be fluid so that they render appropriately on any device" crowd is holding this back in terms of standards. There's libs available that make things a lot easier for developers (much like jQuery filled a glaringy obvious hole in implementations), but I'd say that the vast majority of websites that are 'custom built' (so not just another Joomla! or Drupal or other CMS with a template slapped on and slightly modified) are done so through graphical editors which spit out a ton of code.. and usually for a good reason; you need that code if you want it working.

Well, it may be faster, but the quality went down.

[scorp1us]

I upgraded yesterday and I've had all kinds of loading problems. Facebook photos don't load. The gmail theme background loads, then goes missing ("whites out") after switching to another tab then back. I've had some some other sites like yahoo finance not load the charts. My 3.0 never had these issues... I hope they get sorted out. I noticed it has a better deferrable loading engine, where it can lay things out and get the page in front of you faster. I'm not describing those types of things. Unless the deferrrer gives up too soon.

And yes, I did provide the feedback.

Re:Huh? Safari is faster, and the benchmark proves

[Anonymous Coward]

iCab still has a browser?

Nothing quite as impressive...

[mcgeeb]

...as a video with out of sync audio. It's JUST like youtube! Awesome!

Re:Huh? Safari is faster, and the benchmark proves

[Anonymous Coward]

Peacemaker is a pretty cool site, you can test the browsers yourself ...

You do _not_ need to delete 3.0 files

[msobkow]

I just did a "normal" upgrade, overwriting the 3.0.x directory with 3.5. All of my account settings, passwords, bookmarks, toolbars, etc. are working just fine. I've had no problems accessing any websites, and even the old cache entries seem to be getting used.

Nearly content free article

[dirtyhippie]

1 - Make a graph of SunSpider scores for 3.5 and 3 other browsers.
2 - Hmm, that seems a bit thin.
3 - Add some stuff cribbed from the release notes.
4 - Still a bit thin, hrmmm...
5 - Acid3 results!!!
6 - Meh, 798 is almost 1000 words. Publish it!
6 - ???
7 - Profit!

Sheesh.

But does linux run it?

[lagomorpha2]

But does linux run IT?

Super Impressive!

[malevolentjelly]

Do you mean to tell me that Firefox 3.5 succeeded at failing to defeat Safari 4 at the one thing it does well, Javascript performance? Wow!

It also succeeded at failing to defeat Opera and Safari at the only other thing Firefox does well, standards support! They still fail the Acid 3!

Does it also succeed in failing to defeat Opera and IE 8 at page-load speed?

INCREDIBLE!

I think the only thing Firefox does better than other browsers at this point is attracting frothy-mouthed morons to shout their message from the tree tops and aggressively attack users of other browsers. So technically speaking, its only major strength is its wacky collection of extensions... just like IE 6! Welcome to mediocrity, Mozilla!

Re:Super Impressive!

[Slashcrap]

I think the only thing Firefox does better than other browsers at this point is attracting frothy-mouthed morons to shout their message from the tree tops and aggressively attack users of other browsers. So technically speaking, its only major strength is its wacky collection of extensions... just like IE 6! Welcome to mediocrity, Mozilla!

Yes, I wish Mozilla would instead concentrate on advertising the "user doesn't need a mouthful of cocks at all times" feature. This is an area in which Chrome and especially Safari will simply never be able to compete.

Re:Super Impressive!

[malevolentjelly]

Yes, I wish Mozilla would instead concentrate on advertising the "user doesn't need a mouthful of cocks at all times" feature. This is an area in which Chrome and especially Safari will simply never be able to compete.

Yeah!! You show The Man! He'll never be able to use chemtrails to read your mind!

Lies!

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] within a few hundred meters â" easily enough for, say, a Starbucks Web site to tell you where your nearest Starbucks is.

There could easily be several Starbucks within a few-hundred-meter radius...

Chrome uses more memory

[mdmkolbe]

I can run 100+ tabs in FF with no problem. Chrome starts choking after 10-15. At least in my humble experience.

Still not the fastest browser...

[TheMightyFuzzball]

I really like FF, being a web developer I use many different browsers, but ever since Google Chrome was announced I have been using that. Within the last few months I have been using the Chromium daily builds as my main web browser (completely stable, I might add) I like Chromium better than FF because it is clean, simple and fast. It takes the focus away from the browser and puts it on the content, I just wish they'd sort out fulscreen browsing :D

Agreed 110%, Web 2.x & javascript = BAD! apk

[Anonymous Coward]

All this "concentration" on "Web 2.0" riddled with javascript = "bad move", OVERALL, imo @ least! No, it's not "ALL BAD", & is a good thing, but I only say that because IF they would fix up the problems javascript itself has in its DOM, we might NOT see so many "bugs" come through our browsers & into the rest of our systems.

I mean, hey - Speeding up javascript processing's all "fine & good" but, it's only speeding up how fast you can be infected as well (& lately? Even by bogus adbanners (been this way for years now, only moreso lately)).

What about this EMCA script, that's supposed to be an improvement on javascript? AND, will it improve the DOM & the security vs. what we see in javascript now?? I think that we need something like that, now.

(These are the questions that need answering/addressing, imo @ least!)

APK

P.S.=> However, on this question from you:

"What I want to see is a browser that isn't riddled with bugs and easy ways for badware to end up infecting my machine" - by cyberjock1980 (1131059) on Wednesday July 01, @03:14PM (#28547409)

Well, the best I can show you on this account, is these stats from SECUNIA.COM, so you can make your OWN judgements/decisions, on this note!

----

Opera 9.x

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/10615/

Unpatched = 0% (0 of 22 Secunia advisories)

----

FireFox 3.x

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/19089/

Unpatched = 0% (0 of 15 Secunia advisories)

----

Internet Explorer

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/21625/

Unpatched = 50% (1 of 2 Secunia advisories)

----

(BIG improvement for FireFox, as I used to post these stats from 2005 - 2008 here, quite frequently, in debates about webbrowsers (on security, other url evidences for speed... & like the article says though, almost @ its outset? We HAVE seen big improvements in webbrowsers, this year especially))

Problem is though, that the stats above? Those are for KHOWN vulnerabilities... what about those NOT published publicly, & those that javascript creates? No, the problem is, & I AM CONVINCED OF THIS, is javascript - "the harbinger of doom" ... the problem's NOT SO MUCH the webbrowsers, but javascript itself - THIS IS WHAT NEEDS FIXING... apk

Upgrading

[mqduck]

The only reason not to upgrade from Firefox 3 immediately is if you myriad extensions aren't compatible

For the record, unmasking the still hard-masked mozilla-firefox-3.5 ebuild broke apart my Gentoo installation. Just saying.

(continuing the downward spiral of communication)

[vrjim]

*thows pebble, draws circle in the sand with stick, grunts*

But as soon as you use it...

[Snaller]

...for more than 5 minuttes it will probably slow down. Like 3.x - gets more and more sluggish. Their new awesome bar (or whatever it was they called it) is a really brilliant idea, but its so slow, it lags and freezes the browser - so firefox.. not so quick.

I understand what you mean

[tanveer1979]

I had the same annoying thing. Suppose I wanted to be on a blank page, I had to open a blank tab and close the last tab, till I discovered ctrl+W.
It will close the last tab and make it blank

Re:I understand what you mean

[arigram]

To use the tab close button to clear the last tab open and not quit the whole browser, change this setting to false: browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab

Re:I understand what you mean

[xtracto]

Haha

This thread is hilarious, I specially like all the "patches" and configuration hacks suggested:

set browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab to false.
said one guy...
So go to about:config and double click browser.tabs.autoHide to change it.
Said the other..
change this setting to false: browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab said a third one...

Those kind of hacks are really a letdown :(. Someone should make an extension that expose all those options (i) grouped in an intuitive way and (ii) explain what can they achieve.

It is like the Windows Registry (or x.org and etc friends) all again! but just for your browser!

Re:Well, it may be faster, but the quality went do

[thaig]

I didn't have any of these problems but I started from a new profile.

They just need to copy more from Opera.

[qieurowfhbvdklsj]

It isn't the default, but you can configure Opera to allow you to close all tabs. When you close the last one, it goes away, and you have no tabs until you create a new one. It's a perfectly logical way to work that I haven't seen any other web browser copy yet.

I've been using Opera for ages, and I find it humorous how everyone gets excited about new browser features when I've had them for quite some time.

I don't recall when Opera first included tabs, but it was ages before any other web browser. It's particularly funny how everyone was excited that Chrome put the tab bar above the address bar, so that the address bar is effectively a part of that tab, when it was that way in Opera since the very beginning and it always annoys the fuck out of me that it doesn't work that way in other web browsers.

Now I hear a lot of stuff about AdBlock and NoScript for Firefox. With Opera you can go to any web site and Right Click->Edit Site Options where you can block any page content you don't like, or disable javascript or java or plugins in general for that web site. There are also easily accessible toggles for javascript/java/plugins under Tools->Quick Preferences. There's no general ad-blocking that I'm aware of, but I haven't looked into it since I always use the winhelp2002 hosts file and so I don't see ads anyway.

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

That isn't to say it's without its problems. One annoying as fuck thing about it is that it's far too happy to send clipboard contents to Google. Middle-clicking anywhere in the Opera window takes the clipboard contents and, if they aren't a valid URL, sends them off to Google or some other search engine as a search query. It's a hell of a privacy problem if you ask me. I sent them a bug report about it, suggesting that they change it so that it only does that when you middle-click the new page button or perhaps the tab bar, but I suspect they don't give a fuck.

Which isn't a surprise, no one gives a fuck what I think. I also sent a suggestion that HTTP uploads come with some sort of progress indication, so that users aren't confused into thinking that the page load has failed when five minutes later after clicking "upload" nothing has happened. It makes perfect sense to me. We've had download progress indicators for ages, it's about time we have upload progress indication as well, and having web browsers provide this information is a lot cleaner than the hacks that web sites are forced to use to avoid the confusion of their users.

Come to think of it, I also sent in a bug report about the fact that HTTP uploads fail if the file name contains apostrophes since they aren't properly escaped in the mime content, nor are long file names properly split over multiple lines. Of course, every web browser I could get my hands on suffered from the exact same problems, but Opera's fail was particularly humorous since, instead of uploading the file, it uploaded half a dozen copies of it's "file not found" HTML page that it displays locally when it can't find a local file typed into the URL box. All of the other web browers simply choked and failed to upload anything.

It is a wonderful browser, however. For everything I hate about it I hate a lot more about others. Konqueror is damn-near a winner, though. The only thing that turns me away from it is that, like all KDE applications, it features "single click menus" which means that if you right click, the menu appears before you release the button, so that you can move the mouse over the item you want and select it by releasing the button. For compatibility, you can also just release the button, move the mouse, and click what you want. The problem comes when, in the process of clicking the button and releasing it, you happen to move it just one pixel down and to the right, so that it's now on the fucking menu, and you accidentally select whatever the fuck is first on the menu. I searched for a solution, in

hmmm

[smash]

• fastest browser? no
• most standards compliant? no
• most robust (process per tab)? no..
• prettiest? no

Hmm. Why should we use it again? Don't get me wrong, i was a firefox user from way back (when it was called phoenix, up until version 2.x or so), but I just don't see much point lately. Chrome whoops its arse on speed, stability and interface, safari whoops its arse on speed, coverflow bookmarks/history and standards compliance. Sure, firefox has a million plug ins I don't use, but it just fails the basics as far as I'm concerned...

Re:hmmm

[DanJ_UK]

I wish efforts could be focused on porting the extensions available in Firefox to WebKit based browsers (Safari / Chrome) so I could scrap FF altogether, I just can't tolerate having to manually kill the process / session every 30 minutes at work so I can get on with development, I must waste at least an hour a day going through the process of:

• Bookmarking currently open tabs to a folder
• Killing the FF process
• Loading FF again with a new session
• Re-opening all the tabs in the fresh session to continue my work

Not only does the browser become unusable after 10 - 30 mins (sitting idle might I add), if I open a site with flash content or something JavaScript heavy it starts to lockup other parts of my machine as well. I might add my iMac is a 3ghz multi-core demon with 4gb ram, why can't the mozilla dev's fix these problems that have been ongoing since I can remember many years ago (Phoenix / Firebird)?

...and the amount of people that have tried to blame it on platform issues, I get the same problems on any OS, Windows, Linux and OSX.

...the only thing holding me back from switching to Safari / Chrome completely are the debugger and inline markup editing in firebug which, although close in Safari and Chrome are still IMO unmatched.

Actually on the note of Firebug, when are the problems with Firebug freezing going to be rectified? (Since FF3) I don't know what changed in the architecture of Firefox to cause so many problems but how long has it been now? I'm assuming it's never going to change.

Grrr

Run *any* browser inside a VM, then

[Mathinker]

Your demands seem to be mainly met by running the browser of your choice inside a VM (and restoring to a fixed, virus/trojan/keylogger-free configuration either every time or just periodically).

You just have to figure out what is important to backup from that VM before rolling everything back. For most people, that might only be their bookmarks (easy to backup) and/or saved passwords (which might be tricky to backup, don't know).

(Of course, this isn't the most memory-efficient solution I can think of. It's actually one of the worst from that point of view.)

This is not what the op asked

[tanveer1979]

What is needed is a close button on the last tab.
Currently 3.5 has no close button on the last tab.
In Firefox 3, all you had to do was click on the close tab button, and the last tab would become blank page.

Ever tried "SandBoxie"? It's free, & works...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't care how fast it loads webpages. What I want to see is a browser that isn't riddled with bugs and easy ways for badware to end up infecting my machine. I'll gladly surf on the slowest browser in the world if it really is proven to be the most secure. So what if I save a few seconds surfing web pages. That is nothing compared to the hours spent trying to get rid of a virus/trojan/keylogger/etc." - by cyberjock1980 (1131059) on Wednesday July 01, @03:14PM (#28547409)

A lot of these folks are stating to try running a webbrowser inside of a virtual machine, which does have some merit, especially considering that it tends to "shield" the rest of your system from anything that MIGHT "come thru the browser window" into your system, via say, a malware scripted page or bad adbanner... but, want to know what does pretty much the SAME thing, & without ALL of the overheads of a Virtual Machine environs? Yes, per my subject-line, you might want to look @ SANDBOXIE:

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SANDBOXIE:

http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?DownloadSandboxie

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It's free, & works in the capactity you ask for, on Windows...

The ONLY thing I have noted that is a "downside" of its usage, is that it is slower on std. mechanical HDDs than it is on my SSD here!

(That is the way I "offset its slowness" here @ least, & you might also, albeit in YOUR case, possibly via a software emulation (software ramdisks) if you wish, which would be almost like what I use to increase its speed, via a CENATEK "RocketDrive" TRUE SSD (not based on FLASH ram, which is slower on writes))...

However, since you declared that you didn't care how fast a page loads & what-not, and that you were MORE concerned with security... this fits the bill.

APK

P.S.=> What it does is pretty clever: It literally uses a driver to intercept calls to apps that run under its protection, & creates a "fake/sandboxed" set of subfolders (which you can control the location of, hence, how I get it to operate as if it is on C: drive, albeit here on a SSD, so it is faster) where you tell it to that make the webbrowser (OR, really ANY application, you'll see once you use it) THINK that the area you set it to run SandBoxed apps on IS in fact, your C: drive... &, it works, for exactly what you are looking for, & without all the overheads &/or complications of setting up a TOTAL VM environs too... apk

Re:Oblig. rms

[Anonymous Coward]

For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have not net connection much of the time.) To look at page I send mail to a demon which runs wget and mails the page back to me. It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time.

http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/009889.html

Faster at revealing bug(lets)

[lsatenstein]

If I select a set of slashdot entries and click to open them, or request closing, to show the next one. I end up with page not found. Back button is non-operable.

Re:No speed improvement for those on x86_64???

[Nivag064]

Well I am using Firefox 3.5 on a Linux box with dual 64 bit cores (AMD4200+), and 3.5 is more than twice the speed of 3.0.0.11 when rendering the URL ftp://fedora.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/fedora/linux/development/x86_64/os/Packages - Firefox 3 took about 77 seconds.

So if it is not using a JIT, then I'm even more impressed!