Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 Released

An anonymous reader writes with word of the release of the first alpha of Firefox 3.6, "intended for developers and testers only." "As with Firefox 3.5, there are improvements to the performance; pages render faster, and pages with JavaScript code run much faster with the new Tracemonkey engine. Although this Firefox version carries the code name 'Namoroka' Alpha 1, it is also currently referred to as Firefox.next. And like other Firefox Alphas, it does not bear the Firefox logo. This release uses the Gecko 1.9.2 engine and will likely include several interface improvements in later versions, such as new graphical tab-switching behavior, which was removed from 3.5 with Beta 2." Update: 08/09 03:54 GMT by T : Read more at InaTux.com.

Comments

Gotta Love Slashdot Linking

[basementman]

Getting the code right to link to something on Slashdot is so hard not even the editors can get it. Maybe that's a sign of something.

For me on the same machine 3.5 is much faster

[ZP-Blight]

For me on the same machine 3.5 is much faster.

It's possible it might be taking more ram and on your old hardware with less ram it's using swapped memory, which is very very slow.

Re:For me on the same machine 3.5 is much faster

[psyclone]

3.5 performs better than 3.0 for me too (x86_64). What I have noticed the most is memory usage. I have the same extensions installed with 3.5, and I open the same number of tabs, and browse for a "normal" amount of time, say 3 days, and resident memory seems to peak at 250-350 MB. Whereas with 3.0, my resident memory is never less than 500-750MB over the same period of time.

My heaviest extensions are TabKit (yay groups of tabs on the side!) and NoScript.

I used to have to restart 3.0 every 5-7 days or so when resident memory would exceed 1GB. I can leave 3.5 running for 2+ weeks.

Re:I am on OS X 10.5.7.

[jez9999]

Further, tabs should be attached to the pages they represent, not floating around at the top, in limbo. That was the worst design decision I have seen in ages.

In my FF3.5, tabs are 'attached to the pages they represent'... unless I'm misunderstanding you. Care to provide us with a screenshot of what you're talking about?

Re:I am on OS X 10.5.7.

[caerwyn]

That's rather odd- I use Firefox 3.5 regularly on 10.5.7 with no such issues. The only slowness I've found is when quitting the app- it clearly does a lot of cleanup when you shut it down, and that process takes a ridiculously long time. Nothing with regular browsing, though.

Re:Too much too fast

[AmiMoJo]

I find 3.5 to be significantly faster than 3.0. As well as general optimisations, the history database backend has been improved so it puts less strain on your machine when doing lookups for things like the address bar suggestions. The new Javascript core is also a lot faster.

One major irritation with 3.5 is the new way tabs work. You used to be able to set it so that all links opened in the same tab, regardless of any target="_blank" rubbish. I.e., you have control over the browser, not the web developer. At the same time, there was a separate preference for links opened by external programs (e.g. you click a "go to product's homepage" link in a program, or a link in your email client) which allowed you to have them open in a new tab every time. Unfortunately the latter option has disappeared in 3.5, so now you can either have external links destroy your current tab or suffer endless new tabs being opened by badly behaving webmasters.

I wish the Moz devs would consult users on these sorts of major functionality changes before just doing them.

Re:Random number bug

[Anonymous Coward]

http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2009/07/09/the-firefox-3-5-fiasco.aspx

Awesomebar really is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I could never go back to using any browser that doesn't have something similar.

Let's say that I've visited a wikipedia article about Houston recently (as I have) and want to go back. With awesomebar I can just write "Hous" and it suggests me the right page. "wiki/ho" if I would have visited a lot of sites about Houston. In the Pre-Awesomebar times I would have had to write "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ho" or something like that before it would have suggested the right page.

And more often than not I remember that I have visited something about which I remember only part of the name. It might have been a political comic strip with huxley in it's name but I don't remember where did I see it. So I only write "hux" to the bar and it takes me where I want to be. Or I might have watched some hot clip about gothic femdom but not remember which of the numerous porn sites I visit hosted it. If I remember even part of the url, title (usually both of them mention a clip's name) or anything like that, I can just type it to the bar and I am back at watching gothic femdom.

Pre-Awesomebar? Searching through the history, etc... It was slow and sucked.

A lot of people prefer the old approach. For some it is just resisting change, some might even have some good reasons... So I agree that they should perhaps have left a radio button somewhere to let you choose to revert back... But honestly, it is pretty awesome feature and extremely useful.

Re:Holy shit

[Spewns]

Firefox 3.0 was released in June '08. Firefox 3.5 (the first following major release) was released in June '09. A year later. Update fatigue? What in the world are you on about? Plus, this is an alpha release. The actual release won't be for another (approximately, at this time) 2-3 months. How does one get update fatigue from upgrading your browser twice in about a year and a half? Actually, I don't see how you can't be excited, assuming you use your browser as much as most people, that your browser is developing so fast in important ways. (HTML5, performance, etc.) Have fun "not bothering" with that, I guess.

Re:The programmers aren't doing well, either.

[hairyfeet]

I don't know about his problem, but I can say that I had to switch my dialup customers back to the 3.0.x branch because the 3.5.x branch sucked ass on dialup. If I had to hazard a guess i would say it is that new JavaScript engine, as I didn't notice the problem on my portable Firefox but it has Noscript. I hope they have the bugs worked out by January, otherwise when they pull the plug on the 3.0.x branch I'll have to switch my dialup customers to Kmeleon or Opera.