6 ms·

Firefox 3.5 is out

234 points by ptn 17y ago

Xichekolas 17y ago
Bah, the release notes link gives me a 404... here is the cached version of the RC release notes from last week... http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:P21aJ836YuQJ:www.mozilla.com/firefox/3.5/releasenotes/+firefox+3.5+release+notes&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:P21aJ836YuQJ:www.mozilla... EDIT: A much better list... https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Firefox_3.5_for_developers https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Firefox_3.5_for_developers EDIT#2: The What's New page that loads after installing also 404's...
- Xichekolas 17y ago
  (Figured a third edit might be inappropriate.) Aside from TraceMonkey and the new Gecko, my favorite new feature (in theory) is probably the DNS Prefetching: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Controlling_DNS_prefetching https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Controlling_DNS_prefetching I say in theory because I haven't run any objective tests, but, subjectively, things do seem to load a bit faster.
tsally 17y ago
Great, 4 of the top spots taken up by Firefox, PHP, Wireshark, and Virtualbox release notes. I know we've had this debate before, but I don't see why anyone wants 15% of their news to be release notes. If I care about these projects (and I do), I'll subscribe to a related RSS feed or mailing list. The only possible benefit I see is some useful discussion about new features, but honestly that's hardley enough benefit to compensate. I've only seen the volume of release notes go up in the past month. I don't think we should reward the people that post them with karma. That will just encourage newer users to post more release notes for more and more tangentially related products. I wouldn't be suprised to see some scripts pop up that automatically post release notes of significant projects (as we've seen in the past with pg's essays). Heck, even if we restricted outselves to release notes of software used by YC companies, we'd still be overwhelmed. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but honestly we can do better. EDIT: For those claiming that they are in it for the dicussion, point me to any useful discussion so far in any of the 4 mentioned stories. As of this writing I count 2 or 3 useful comments, and maybe 1 useful discussion. So I don't buy it. Rephrasing the release notes certainly doesn't count. Firefox: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680853 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680853 Virtualbox: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680692 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680692 PHP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680649 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680649 Wireshark: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680286 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680286
- w1ntermute 17y ago
  Well, these tools are essential to many hackers, so the posts are definitely relevant to HN. IMO, it makes much more sense to view all such news in a central location (i.e., HN), rather than subscribing to individual projects' RSS feeds, where one would also be notified of developmental releases.
  - tsally 17y ago
    I can count over 100 tools essential to many hackers. The *nix userland alone is certainly several hundred. How about the release notes for all the languages we use? Or perhapes the editors and IDEs? Also, if you want one central location, I suggest an RSS reader. And if you're worried about volume, many readers have filter functionality as well.
    - socratees 17y ago
      Yeah, but the HN community follows the development of browsers, internet software etc., with special attention. So it is essential that we discuss our thoughts about the software that matters to us most.
      - shpxnvz 17y ago
        Wouldn't it make more sense then to have a post about a specific new feature/change/bug of the software in question, rather than a general announcement?
        w1ntermute 17y ago
        The general announcement provides a page on which we can start threaded discussions on specific features, which can be quite useful, especially since many of the features significantly impact one another.
        randallsquared 17y ago
        That would make tsally's problem worse, since every significant new feature would have a spot on HN, rather than having all related features grouped under a few spots.
Davertron 17y ago
I'm still running Ubuntu 8.10, anyone get the release running there yet and want to share how they did it? Ideally I'd like to avoid trashing my old 3.0.11 install or profile...
- andyn 17y ago
  I have to run various versions of Firefox for testing purposes. What I've done is to download the binary from their homepage and then run them with the appropriate command line: /path/to/firefox2 -no-remote -P ff2 /path/to/firefox3 -no-remote -P ff3 -no-remote allows me to run separate profiles at the same time, -P specifies a profile name. So they don't run updates on, or ruin the other profile. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments
  - Davertron 17y ago
    Here's what I did (using andyn's method): Download the linux version of firefox 3.5 from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.5&os=linux&lang=en-US http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=... Untar and unzip firefox-3.5.tar.bz2: tar xjf firefox-3.5.tar.bz2 Move the new firefox 3.5 directory to /usr/lib: sudo mv ./firefox /usr/lib/firefox-3.5 Create a shell script to run firefox using andyn's params. Create a file (I called it firefox.sh) in /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/ with the following contents: #!/bin/bash /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/firefox -no-remote -P <profile_name> Note: Substitude <profile_name> with whatever you want to call your Firefox 3.5 profile; just make sure when prompted at first-run you create a new profile with the same name. Make the shell script executable: sudo chmod u+x /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/firefox.sh Simlink the shell script into the /usr/bin dir, or somewhere on your path: sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/firefox.sh /usr/bin/firefox3.5 Run the script from the command line using: firefox3.5 Enjoy!
    - mattyb 17y ago
      For those of you who want 'firefox' to run 3.5 with your current 3.0 profile, you can do the following: tar xjvf firefox-3.5.tar.bz2 sudo mv ./firefox /usr/lib/firefox-3.5 cd /usr/bin sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/firefox firefox-3.5 sudo rm -f firefox sudo ln -s firefox-3.5 firefox You can run 3.0 by using 'firefox-3.0', which should already exist.
_giu 17y ago
the new firefox is pretty fast and the new tab design looks good. I think I'll pause google chrome for a few days. update: if you have issues with old addons in firefox 3.5, John Resig suggests you to do the following: Open about:config, right-click new boolean 'extensions.checkCompatibility', set false, restart. (via http://twitter.com/jeresig/status/2404695608 http://twitter.com/jeresig/status/2404695608)
- jimm 17y ago
  I read that somewhere else. When I went to look for that setting, I couldn't find it. I'm on Mac OS X.
  - spooneybarger 17y ago
    you have to add it. right click when in about:config to add a new entry.
    - jimm 17y ago
      Thank you.
ashleyw 17y ago
Some rough figures: IE7: 0% (base, 1x) IE8: 24% faster (1.24x) FF3: 73% faster (1.73x) FF3.5: 183% faster (2.83x) Opera 10: 196% faster (2.96x) Chrome 2: 354% faster (4.54x) Safari 4: 427% faster (5.27x) Personally I use Safari because I prefer WebKit (it being fast is nice too), but I'm very impressed with Firefox 3.5. It makes a very good development environment with all the extensions available for it! :)
- jeresig 17y ago
  What are you using to arrive at those numbers? SunSpider, Dromaeo, some other benchmark?
  - ashleyw 17y ago
    Peacekeeper: http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper As I said, it's very rough, but seems to be a good indication of where abouts browsers are in comparison to each other. Though, once you get to a certain point (around 2x IE7, I'd say), it becomes irrelevant to 99% of what you'd want to do. Or should I say, irrelevant of what you can do, while slow browsers still have high market-shares...
    - jeresig 17y ago
      I agree with your perception - most of the modern browsers are just fine at this point. I've been skeptical of Peacekeeper, though - the tests may be fine but it's hard to tell since they haven't released the source of them, at all. I'm not even really sure how to determine if/how improvements could be made. As far as I know, none of the major browser vendors use Peacekeeper as a benchmark for their engines (which is really what a good benchmark should strive for: to push for the improvement of the browsers that it measures).
f00 17y ago
Argh. I want to love Firefox 3.5. Really, I do. Modern web standards. Faster. Smaller memory footprint. Native Aqua widgets (effing _finally_). The problem is, compared to Chrome and Safari, it's a dog. I've been running the nightly (Shiretoko) for weeks now, and, like everyone else, I'm hopelessly addicted to various extensions during heavy browsing sessions (development, etc).. but when I want to pop up a browser, check something quickly, and move on with my life, Safari is the browser of choice. The initial launch speed and JS performance are orders of magnitude faster. Gecko is a great layout engine, but my gut feeling is that XUL and friends are holding it back. Agree? Disagree?
- old-gregg 17y ago
  It's even worse on Linux. FF performance on Ubuntu/Gnome was pretty bad. Starting up, scrolling and even window resizing made me feel like I was using a Pentium II. I want back to OSX+Safari. I only fire up FF when I need Firebug. On the other hand, FF on Windows is blazing fast. So I doubt it's just XUL. Edit: wow, they did Safari-like pixel-precise touchpad scrolling (OSX). Very nice.
  - w1ntermute 17y ago
    Same here, I've been running the Firefox 3.5 RC's on my Gentoo x86 system for a few days now, and it just keeps crashing, at least once every 5 minutes. Opera, even the 10.00 Unite Alpha (which is what I'm using), is just so much faster and stable.
    - patcito 17y ago
      I've been using Firefox 3.5 and it's fast and hasn't crashed at all unlike Opera which crashed every once in a while here on Ubuntu Karmic.
  - f00 17y ago
    I haven't worked in a Windows-based environment in a while, but I do recall in the Fx 2.x days that it was significantly faster on Windows. Perhaps this is just a case of Mozilla catering to the largest audience. If that's the case, then I applaud the effort, as getting the masses moved from IE[6/7/8] to Firefox 3.5 is certainly a more valuable effort than besting Safari performance on Mac OS X. There's just a big part of me that hopes they can achieve both. :-)
thorax 17y ago
I thought their new stats page was really cool: http://downloadstats.mozilla.com/ http://downloadstats.mozilla.com/
- dpifke 17y ago
  Anyone know what SQLStream (the software Mozilla is using for the stats page) costs? Their web site doesn't say and it looks very "enterprise-y" so I'm guessing lots.
amix 17y ago
It feels a lot faster, at least on Mac OS X. The interface seems to be much more responsive as well. It's nice to see they have focused on performance :)
- CrLf 17y ago
  I didn't notice any difference. Seems to take as much to start and is still noticeably slower than Safari. Seems to use much less memory though.
zandorg 17y ago
I tried out the <video> tag on the 3.5 About page, but it still uses Flash. I thought the whole point was to go native and avoid Flash?
- ramidarigaz 17y ago
  Not sure what your issue is. I checked the Tour Firefox 3.5 video, and it worked like a charm, no flash req'd.
  - zandorg 17y ago
    I right-clicked on the video and it says 'Flash 11'. Is it possible that if Flash isn't present, it shows it natively using Firefox?
- rbanffy 17y ago
  What page are you talking about?
- halo 17y ago
  It uses the video tag as default, but also provides a Flash fallback for when it's not available. This means it works in all the browsers.
compay 17y ago
The Acid3 test page is currently down. Coincidence?
steerpike 17y ago
Since installing 3.5RC and even upgrading to 3.5 my login state for sites hasn't been respected by FF. I have to log back into every site I visit every time I restart firefox - anyone have any suggestions as to what I can try to fix this? Cookies are on, passwords are stored and I'm not in privacy mode.
shizcakes 17y ago
Here's a short python script to optimize your firefox databases: http://pastebin.com/m155f9e6e http://pastebin.com/m155f9e6e Close firefox, run it, be amazed. People have been claiming phenomenal speed boosts (mostly if your profile has aged a bit).
- timf 17y ago
  find ~/.mozilla/ -iname '*.sqlite' -exec sqlite3 {} 'vacuum;' \;
anand003 17y ago
Private Browsing !!! yeah.. but when I hit Ctrl-Shift-P It just overrides the current window ! And I have to hit that again to the public firefox browser. ! That just seems weird ! Atleast thats what the default does
ttam 17y ago
what the freck happened to using cmd/ctrl + arrows to organize the tabs?? i usually have dozens of tabs opened and i used that feature to prioritize them! now they took it away and it's frecking annoying

234 points by ptn 17y ago

Bah, the release notes link gives me a 404... here is the cached version of the RC release notes from last week... http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:P21aJ836YuQJ:www.mozilla.com/firefox/3.5/releasenotes/+firefox+3.5+release+notes&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:P21aJ836YuQJ:www.mozilla... EDIT: A much better list... https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Firefox_3.5_for_developers https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Firefox_3.5_for_developers EDIT#2: The What's New page that loads after installing also 404's...

Xichekolas 17y ago
(Figured a third edit might be inappropriate.) Aside from TraceMonkey and the new Gecko, my favorite new feature (in theory) is probably the DNS Prefetching: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Controlling_DNS_prefetching https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Controlling_DNS_prefetching I say in theory because I haven't run any objective tests, but, subjectively, things do seem to load a bit faster.

tsally 17y ago

Great, 4 of the top spots taken up by Firefox, PHP, Wireshark, and Virtualbox release notes. I know we've had this debate before, but I don't see why anyone wants 15% of their news to be release notes. If I care about these projects (and I do), I'll subscribe to a related RSS feed or mailing list. The only possible benefit I see is some useful discussion about new features, but honestly that's hardley enough benefit to compensate. I've only seen the volume of release notes go up in the past month. I don't think we should reward the people that post them with karma. That will just encourage newer users to post more release notes for more and more tangentially related products. I wouldn't be suprised to see some scripts pop up that automatically post release notes of significant projects (as we've seen in the past with pg's essays). Heck, even if we restricted outselves to release notes of software used by YC companies, we'd still be overwhelmed. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but honestly we can do better. EDIT: For those claiming that they are in it for the dicussion, point me to any useful discussion so far in any of the 4 mentioned stories. As of this writing I count 2 or 3 useful comments, and maybe 1 useful discussion. So I don't buy it. Rephrasing the release notes certainly doesn't count. Firefox: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680853 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680853 Virtualbox: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680692 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680692 PHP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680649 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680649 Wireshark: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680286 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680286

w1ntermute 17y ago
Well, these tools are essential to many hackers, so the posts are definitely relevant to HN. IMO, it makes much more sense to view all such news in a central location (i.e., HN), rather than subscribing to individual projects' RSS feeds, where one would also be notified of developmental releases.
- tsally 17y ago
  I can count over 100 tools essential to many hackers. The *nix userland alone is certainly several hundred. How about the release notes for all the languages we use? Or perhapes the editors and IDEs? Also, if you want one central location, I suggest an RSS reader. And if you're worried about volume, many readers have filter functionality as well.
  - socratees 17y ago
    Yeah, but the HN community follows the development of browsers, internet software etc., with special attention. So it is essential that we discuss our thoughts about the software that matters to us most.
    - shpxnvz 17y ago
      Wouldn't it make more sense then to have a post about a specific new feature/change/bug of the software in question, rather than a general announcement?
      - w1ntermute 17y ago
        The general announcement provides a page on which we can start threaded discussions on specific features, which can be quite useful, especially since many of the features significantly impact one another.
      - randallsquared 17y ago
        That would make tsally's problem worse, since every significant new feature would have a spot on HN, rather than having all related features grouped under a few spots.

Davertron 17y ago

I'm still running Ubuntu 8.10, anyone get the release running there yet and want to share how they did it? Ideally I'd like to avoid trashing my old 3.0.11 install or profile...

andyn 17y ago
I have to run various versions of Firefox for testing purposes. What I've done is to download the binary from their homepage and then run them with the appropriate command line: /path/to/firefox2 -no-remote -P ff2 /path/to/firefox3 -no-remote -P ff3 -no-remote allows me to run separate profiles at the same time, -P specifies a profile name. So they don't run updates on, or ruin the other profile. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments
- Davertron 17y ago
  Here's what I did (using andyn's method): Download the linux version of firefox 3.5 from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.5&os=linux&lang=en-US http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=... Untar and unzip firefox-3.5.tar.bz2: tar xjf firefox-3.5.tar.bz2 Move the new firefox 3.5 directory to /usr/lib: sudo mv ./firefox /usr/lib/firefox-3.5 Create a shell script to run firefox using andyn's params. Create a file (I called it firefox.sh) in /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/ with the following contents: #!/bin/bash /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/firefox -no-remote -P <profile_name> Note: Substitude <profile_name> with whatever you want to call your Firefox 3.5 profile; just make sure when prompted at first-run you create a new profile with the same name. Make the shell script executable: sudo chmod u+x /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/firefox.sh Simlink the shell script into the /usr/bin dir, or somewhere on your path: sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/firefox.sh /usr/bin/firefox3.5 Run the script from the command line using: firefox3.5 Enjoy!
  - mattyb 17y ago
    For those of you who want 'firefox' to run 3.5 with your current 3.0 profile, you can do the following: tar xjvf firefox-3.5.tar.bz2 sudo mv ./firefox /usr/lib/firefox-3.5 cd /usr/bin sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox-3.5/firefox firefox-3.5 sudo rm -f firefox sudo ln -s firefox-3.5 firefox You can run 3.0 by using 'firefox-3.0', which should already exist.

_giu 17y ago

the new firefox is pretty fast and the new tab design looks good. I think I'll pause google chrome for a few days. update: if you have issues with old addons in firefox 3.5, John Resig suggests you to do the following: Open about:config, right-click new boolean 'extensions.checkCompatibility', set false, restart. (via http://twitter.com/jeresig/status/2404695608 http://twitter.com/jeresig/status/2404695608)

jimm 17y ago
I read that somewhere else. When I went to look for that setting, I couldn't find it. I'm on Mac OS X.
- spooneybarger 17y ago
  you have to add it. right click when in about:config to add a new entry.
  - jimm 17y ago
    Thank you.

ashleyw 17y ago

Some rough figures: IE7: 0% (base, 1x) IE8: 24% faster (1.24x) FF3: 73% faster (1.73x) FF3.5: 183% faster (2.83x) Opera 10: 196% faster (2.96x) Chrome 2: 354% faster (4.54x) Safari 4: 427% faster (5.27x) Personally I use Safari because I prefer WebKit (it being fast is nice too), but I'm very impressed with Firefox 3.5. It makes a very good development environment with all the extensions available for it! :)

jeresig 17y ago
What are you using to arrive at those numbers? SunSpider, Dromaeo, some other benchmark?
- ashleyw 17y ago
  Peacekeeper: http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper As I said, it's very rough, but seems to be a good indication of where abouts browsers are in comparison to each other. Though, once you get to a certain point (around 2x IE7, I'd say), it becomes irrelevant to 99% of what you'd want to do. Or should I say, irrelevant of what you can do, while slow browsers still have high market-shares...
  - jeresig 17y ago
    I agree with your perception - most of the modern browsers are just fine at this point. I've been skeptical of Peacekeeper, though - the tests may be fine but it's hard to tell since they haven't released the source of them, at all. I'm not even really sure how to determine if/how improvements could be made. As far as I know, none of the major browser vendors use Peacekeeper as a benchmark for their engines (which is really what a good benchmark should strive for: to push for the improvement of the browsers that it measures).

f00 17y ago

Argh. I want to love Firefox 3.5. Really, I do. Modern web standards. Faster. Smaller memory footprint. Native Aqua widgets (effing _finally_). The problem is, compared to Chrome and Safari, it's a dog. I've been running the nightly (Shiretoko) for weeks now, and, like everyone else, I'm hopelessly addicted to various extensions during heavy browsing sessions (development, etc).. but when I want to pop up a browser, check something quickly, and move on with my life, Safari is the browser of choice. The initial launch speed and JS performance are orders of magnitude faster. Gecko is a great layout engine, but my gut feeling is that XUL and friends are holding it back. Agree? Disagree?

old-gregg 17y ago
It's even worse on Linux. FF performance on Ubuntu/Gnome was pretty bad. Starting up, scrolling and even window resizing made me feel like I was using a Pentium II. I want back to OSX+Safari. I only fire up FF when I need Firebug. On the other hand, FF on Windows is blazing fast. So I doubt it's just XUL. Edit: wow, they did Safari-like pixel-precise touchpad scrolling (OSX). Very nice.
- w1ntermute 17y ago
  Same here, I've been running the Firefox 3.5 RC's on my Gentoo x86 system for a few days now, and it just keeps crashing, at least once every 5 minutes. Opera, even the 10.00 Unite Alpha (which is what I'm using), is just so much faster and stable.
  - patcito 17y ago
    I've been using Firefox 3.5 and it's fast and hasn't crashed at all unlike Opera which crashed every once in a while here on Ubuntu Karmic.
- f00 17y ago
  I haven't worked in a Windows-based environment in a while, but I do recall in the Fx 2.x days that it was significantly faster on Windows. Perhaps this is just a case of Mozilla catering to the largest audience. If that's the case, then I applaud the effort, as getting the masses moved from IE[6/7/8] to Firefox 3.5 is certainly a more valuable effort than besting Safari performance on Mac OS X. There's just a big part of me that hopes they can achieve both. :-)

thorax 17y ago

I thought their new stats page was really cool: http://downloadstats.mozilla.com/ http://downloadstats.mozilla.com/

dpifke 17y ago
Anyone know what SQLStream (the software Mozilla is using for the stats page) costs? Their web site doesn't say and it looks very "enterprise-y" so I'm guessing lots.

amix 17y ago

It feels a lot faster, at least on Mac OS X. The interface seems to be much more responsive as well. It's nice to see they have focused on performance :)

CrLf 17y ago
I didn't notice any difference. Seems to take as much to start and is still noticeably slower than Safari. Seems to use much less memory though.

zandorg 17y ago

I tried out the <video> tag on the 3.5 About page, but it still uses Flash. I thought the whole point was to go native and avoid Flash?

ramidarigaz 17y ago
Not sure what your issue is. I checked the Tour Firefox 3.5 video, and it worked like a charm, no flash req'd.
- zandorg 17y ago
  I right-clicked on the video and it says 'Flash 11'. Is it possible that if Flash isn't present, it shows it natively using Firefox?
rbanffy 17y ago
What page are you talking about?
halo 17y ago
It uses the video tag as default, but also provides a Flash fallback for when it's not available. This means it works in all the browsers.

compay 17y ago

The Acid3 test page is currently down. Coincidence?

steerpike 17y ago

Since installing 3.5RC and even upgrading to 3.5 my login state for sites hasn't been respected by FF. I have to log back into every site I visit every time I restart firefox - anyone have any suggestions as to what I can try to fix this? Cookies are on, passwords are stored and I'm not in privacy mode.

shizcakes 17y ago

Here's a short python script to optimize your firefox databases: http://pastebin.com/m155f9e6e http://pastebin.com/m155f9e6e Close firefox, run it, be amazed. People have been claiming phenomenal speed boosts (mostly if your profile has aged a bit).

timf 17y ago
find ~/.mozilla/ -iname '*.sqlite' -exec sqlite3 {} 'vacuum;' \;

anand003 17y ago

Private Browsing !!! yeah.. but when I hit Ctrl-Shift-P It just overrides the current window ! And I have to hit that again to the public firefox browser. ! That just seems weird ! Atleast thats what the default does

ttam 17y ago

what the freck happened to using cmd/ctrl + arrows to organize the tabs?? i usually have dozens of tabs opened and i used that feature to prioritize them! now they took it away and it's frecking annoying