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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.
And like other Firefox Alphas, it does not bear the Firefox logo.
Um... yay?
Downloads
Wiki page on Namoroka
Here.
https://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2009/08/07/firefox-3-6-alpha-1-now-available-for-download/
In comments, it's
Standard HTML. You DO know HTML, right?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Now with extra clickability: https://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2009/08/07/firefox-3-6-alpha-1-now-available-for-download/
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?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
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.
The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
you know, not everyone has a new computer and frankly I am glad that at least some developers don't make the same assumption you just did. This is especially important considering the rising popularity of smaller notebooks that even bare Windows XP has trouble booting.
How old are these machines that some people are running? My families oldest computer is from 1997 and runs Windows 95, should people expect that to be supported? If you slimmed down an XP install to run on older hardware and it can't handle a modern web browser is that the creators' fault? I can understand your grievance about netbooks, some are just plain underpowered for 3 tasks at once and you need to use the applications that it can handle, but how long is hardware supposed to be supported by software? 10, 20, 30 years?
You can still do this, although it takes a visit to about:config.
1. Go to about:config
2. Ensure browser.link.open_newwindow is set to 3 (should be default in current firefox)
3. Set browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction to 0 (default is 2)
You can follow the links to see all the possible values.
Hope it helps!
Err. I made a mistake.
Step 2 should be:
2. Set browser.link.open_newwindow to 1 in order to open in the same tab.
Somehow I read it as open in same window. Sorry about that.
In 3.5.1.
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.
the mentality of devs is that the hardware can take the bloat just give it some time and as far as I am concerned it's a cancer slowly eroding away at what software should be. quick, clean and efficient. BUt really, why shouldn't software be capable of running on hardware for over a decade- we've got a 12 year old compaq sitting in the basement that has less hard drive space than my ram is and yet it can surf the net just fine... The problem comes when devs start to think that they shouldn't be tasked with improving code efficiency because they aren't coding for older hardware. Well all I can say is maybe they should. If an old geezer compaq can hack it just fine on the internet today why can't newer versions of software that do the same basic things cope as well?
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The whole concept of tabs, in the first place, was that of a tabbed folder, like a 3-ring binder with those little plastic tabs so you can find your place. That was the visual "metaphor" that was being followed. By visually detaching the tabs from the pages they control, the metaphor is broken, and the eye does not follow as naturally from the page to the tab, or vice versa.
A plugin like Flash should not be ABLE to lock up the browser. No, that's not the fault of Flash, it's the fault of the browser that _allows_ it to happen. The browser should be in control of the plugin, not the other way around.