4 ms·

What's new in Firefox 3.5

75 points by geuis 18y ago

Derferman 18y ago
The new geolocation feature is creepily accurate. This page found my exact location. http://channy.creation.net/project/firefox/geolocation.html http://channy.creation.net/project/firefox/geolocation.html
- mshafrir 18y ago
  The geolocation put me about 8-10 miles south of my actual location.
- didroe 18y ago
  Mine too! Scary stuff.
- indiejade 18y ago
  45 minutes north, on the other side of the Bay. Phew. Thank goodness for proxies.
hsuresh 18y ago
Quite feature rich for devs. Geolocation, native video support, XmlHttpRequest across domains and offline/local storage are my favourites. And that is not even the end of the list. Btw, have you seen this -> http://blog.mozbox.org/post/2009/04/12/Firefox-35:-a-new-experiment-with-Canvas-Video http://blog.mozbox.org/post/2009/04/12/Firefox-35:-a-new-exp...
mynameishere 18y ago
Did they allow users to disable the "awesome" (ie, "shitty") bar? Serious question, because at some point I'll have to switch to IE or something...
- catch23 18y ago
  There are firefox extensions that turn it into a normal entry box, although personally I love the awesome bar. I can't switch to any other browser now because I hate having to type out the whole url all the time. I can just type "hac" in my toolbar to go to hacker news. FYI, in IE8, typing "hac" in the url bar sends you to a google search on "hac". In Safari, you end up at http://hac.com http://hac.com.
  - FooBarWidget 18y ago
    Seconded. The awesomebar is one of the best Firefox features.
    - quoderat 18y ago
      How does anyone actually tolerate the awesome bar? When it debuted, I thought it was some kind of prank. I still kinda do.
  - johnyzee 18y ago
    You can also just type 'n' (if, like for me, HN is one of your most frequently visited sites).
    - Hexstream 18y ago
      I can already do this with Firefox 2.0 (Firefox 3.0 from the Ubuntu repository crashed for me when I installed a new version of Ubuntu so I had to downgrade Firefox).
- vaksel 18y ago
  how is it shitty? I personally think its great, since you no longer need to remember urls, since it matches both urls and page titles.
- cookiecaper 18y ago
  I find that the awesome bar is increasingly awesome with more usage. I didn't like at all at first, but it really grew on me after a while. As far as I know, there is no official plan to remove the "awesome bar". Also, I can't until Ubiquity becomes standard. There's a disappointing lack of plugins for it at the moment, and standardization will really help that. :)
- rmaccloy 18y ago
  You can turn autocomplete off or have it only complete history/bookmarks (I just upgraded and checked.) This turns all completion off though, even URL prefix matching (as opposed to the awesomebar 'anywhere in the URL/page title matching'), which I'm guessing you don't want. There are some entries in about:config (browser.urlbar.match*) that might make it do what you want. Safari 4 does some subset of the super-matching thing too now; I find it kind of a mixed bag (I end up autocompleting to HN/twitter way too often) but am slightly on the side of it being helpful, although more intentional history search would probably work just as well.
- alexfarran 18y ago
  Would be nice if they could speed it up a little.
Raphael 18y ago
Does this mean it's out of beta?
- gjm11 18y ago
  Nope. Still at beta 4.
rmaccloy 18y ago
I think the support for web worker threads (OS-level, presumably preemptive multithreading for JS) is potentially the most interesting part of this release, although I don't know how lock-free they are. Moz: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_web_workers https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_web_workers WHATWG: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-workers/current-work/ http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-workers/current-work/
- axod 18y ago
  I really dislike this to be honest. Not having threads ensures the language is nice and simple and pure. Threads in what is pretty much an event driven language, make very little sense. What operations 'block' in js? Threads encourage sloppy inefficient programming. If you start 20 WebWorkers, and it's faster than having 10, you have to ask some serious questions of the interpreter/VM. Like whether it's insane. It should really be up to the interpreter/VM to be able to spread the work over multiple cores, not the programmer of the js.
  - mbrubeck 18y ago
    In terms of the programming model, web workers are processes, not threads. They have no shared state, and use asynchronous message passing as the only inter-process communication - very much like Erlang. This makes them very simple, and fits in perfectly with JavaScript's existing asynchronous event-based model. "What operations 'block' in js?" Web workers are important because everything blocks in JavaScript. JS in the browser is single-threaded, which means that if you do anything computationally intensive (reading from a Gears database, sorting a huge array, image manipulation on a Canvas element) then your page can no longer respond to UI events until the processing is finished. Without worker processes, the only way to do long-running computation without blocking the UI was to implement your own cooperative multi-threading by "yielding" with setTimeout(fn, 0). (Note: I'm talking about the model exposed to JS programmers, not the underlying implementation which might be based on native threads, native processes, or green threads.)
    - axod 18y ago
axod 18y ago
Awesome stuff. + Mibbit as default IRC:// link handler
- nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
  Congrats!
paraschopra 18y ago
Biggest happiness for me: Improved Synchronous XMLHttpRequest support
felixmar 18y ago
The audio and video element support is good for the open web but still needs work to be an alternative to Flash and Silverlight because currently it is too slow. It's not just because of Theora. Ogv videos play noticably better outside Firefox. Safari's video element support (using H.264) is much better.
- cake 18y ago
  I can't wait the day I won't have to load a Flash video. It's such a painfull experience. It'll be the beginning of the end of Flash, which makes me happy.
jokermatt999 18y ago
Although 3.5 has some interesting stuff, I'm really excited for the Taskfox/Ubiquity integration (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Taskfox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Taskfox). I think it could actually make the Awesome Bar much better. Not to mention, I'm sure we'll see a lot more work on it once it's integrated into Firefox. Hopefully users will still be able to submit commands.
JoeH 18y ago
Download link to Firefox 3.5 beta 4 (in case you were like me and it wasn't blindingly obvious): http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html
Xichekolas 18y ago
Really excited to try out things with TraceMonkey and the DOM workers. Also: "The String object now has trim(), trimLeft(), and trimRight() methods." You know, it's a little thing, and easy to implement yourself, but I'm still glad this finally got added.
chaosmachine 18y ago
Probably my favorite feature is the much-improved scrolling on OSX. It's just as smooth as Safari now.

75 points by geuis 18y ago

The new geolocation feature is creepily accurate. This page found my exact location. http://channy.creation.net/project/firefox/geolocation.html http://channy.creation.net/project/firefox/geolocation.html

mshafrir 18y ago
The geolocation put me about 8-10 miles south of my actual location.
didroe 18y ago
Mine too! Scary stuff.
indiejade 18y ago
45 minutes north, on the other side of the Bay. Phew. Thank goodness for proxies.

hsuresh 18y ago

Quite feature rich for devs. Geolocation, native video support, XmlHttpRequest across domains and offline/local storage are my favourites. And that is not even the end of the list. Btw, have you seen this -> http://blog.mozbox.org/post/2009/04/12/Firefox-35:-a-new-experiment-with-Canvas-Video http://blog.mozbox.org/post/2009/04/12/Firefox-35:-a-new-exp...

mynameishere 18y ago

Did they allow users to disable the "awesome" (ie, "shitty") bar? Serious question, because at some point I'll have to switch to IE or something...

catch23 18y ago
There are firefox extensions that turn it into a normal entry box, although personally I love the awesome bar. I can't switch to any other browser now because I hate having to type out the whole url all the time. I can just type "hac" in my toolbar to go to hacker news. FYI, in IE8, typing "hac" in the url bar sends you to a google search on "hac". In Safari, you end up at http://hac.com http://hac.com.
- FooBarWidget 18y ago
  Seconded. The awesomebar is one of the best Firefox features.
  - quoderat 18y ago
    How does anyone actually tolerate the awesome bar? When it debuted, I thought it was some kind of prank. I still kinda do.
- johnyzee 18y ago
  You can also just type 'n' (if, like for me, HN is one of your most frequently visited sites).
  - Hexstream 18y ago
    I can already do this with Firefox 2.0 (Firefox 3.0 from the Ubuntu repository crashed for me when I installed a new version of Ubuntu so I had to downgrade Firefox).
vaksel 18y ago
how is it shitty? I personally think its great, since you no longer need to remember urls, since it matches both urls and page titles.
cookiecaper 18y ago
I find that the awesome bar is increasingly awesome with more usage. I didn't like at all at first, but it really grew on me after a while. As far as I know, there is no official plan to remove the "awesome bar". Also, I can't until Ubiquity becomes standard. There's a disappointing lack of plugins for it at the moment, and standardization will really help that. :)
rmaccloy 18y ago
You can turn autocomplete off or have it only complete history/bookmarks (I just upgraded and checked.) This turns all completion off though, even URL prefix matching (as opposed to the awesomebar 'anywhere in the URL/page title matching'), which I'm guessing you don't want. There are some entries in about:config (browser.urlbar.match*) that might make it do what you want. Safari 4 does some subset of the super-matching thing too now; I find it kind of a mixed bag (I end up autocompleting to HN/twitter way too often) but am slightly on the side of it being helpful, although more intentional history search would probably work just as well.
alexfarran 18y ago
Would be nice if they could speed it up a little.

Raphael 18y ago

Does this mean it's out of beta?

gjm11 18y ago
Nope. Still at beta 4.

rmaccloy 18y ago

I think the support for web worker threads (OS-level, presumably preemptive multithreading for JS) is potentially the most interesting part of this release, although I don't know how lock-free they are. Moz: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_web_workers https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_web_workers WHATWG: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-workers/current-work/ http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-workers/current-work/

axod 18y ago
I really dislike this to be honest. Not having threads ensures the language is nice and simple and pure. Threads in what is pretty much an event driven language, make very little sense. What operations 'block' in js? Threads encourage sloppy inefficient programming. If you start 20 WebWorkers, and it's faster than having 10, you have to ask some serious questions of the interpreter/VM. Like whether it's insane. It should really be up to the interpreter/VM to be able to spread the work over multiple cores, not the programmer of the js.
- mbrubeck 18y ago
  In terms of the programming model, web workers are processes, not threads. They have no shared state, and use asynchronous message passing as the only inter-process communication - very much like Erlang. This makes them very simple, and fits in perfectly with JavaScript's existing asynchronous event-based model. "What operations 'block' in js?" Web workers are important because everything blocks in JavaScript. JS in the browser is single-threaded, which means that if you do anything computationally intensive (reading from a Gears database, sorting a huge array, image manipulation on a Canvas element) then your page can no longer respond to UI events until the processing is finished. Without worker processes, the only way to do long-running computation without blocking the UI was to implement your own cooperative multi-threading by "yielding" with setTimeout(fn, 0). (Note: I'm talking about the model exposed to JS programmers, not the underlying implementation which might be based on native threads, native processes, or green threads.)
  - axod 18y ago

axod 18y ago

Awesome stuff. + Mibbit as default IRC:// link handler

nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
Congrats!

paraschopra 18y ago

Biggest happiness for me: Improved Synchronous XMLHttpRequest support

felixmar 18y ago

The audio and video element support is good for the open web but still needs work to be an alternative to Flash and Silverlight because currently it is too slow. It's not just because of Theora. Ogv videos play noticably better outside Firefox. Safari's video element support (using H.264) is much better.

cake 18y ago
I can't wait the day I won't have to load a Flash video. It's such a painfull experience. It'll be the beginning of the end of Flash, which makes me happy.

jokermatt999 18y ago

Although 3.5 has some interesting stuff, I'm really excited for the Taskfox/Ubiquity integration (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Taskfox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Taskfox). I think it could actually make the Awesome Bar much better. Not to mention, I'm sure we'll see a lot more work on it once it's integrated into Firefox. Hopefully users will still be able to submit commands.

JoeH 18y ago

Download link to Firefox 3.5 beta 4 (in case you were like me and it wasn't blindingly obvious): http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Xichekolas 18y ago

Really excited to try out things with TraceMonkey and the DOM workers. Also: "The String object now has trim(), trimLeft(), and trimRight() methods." You know, it's a little thing, and easy to implement yourself, but I'm still glad this finally got added.

chaosmachine 18y ago

Probably my favorite feature is the much-improved scrolling on OSX. It's just as smooth as Safari now.