FireFox 3.5 RC

[Ian]

Is anyone here using the new FireFox 3.5 RC yet? I've just seen it's now available to download so I'm going to grab it later on tonight. It seems to have some reasonably substantial improvements:

Firefox 3.5 (Release Candidate) is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under development for the past year. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use, and adding new features for users:

• This beta is now available in more than 70 languages - get your local version.
• Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
• Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
• The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
• Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
• Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
• Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.

You can download it from here if you'd like to try it:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.5/releasenotes/

 

[BetaMan]

I love how all the browsers are suddenly coming out with a form of Private Browsing Mode. Chrome was the first, now all the competitors have to compete! Anyway, I'll check it out.

 

[Satchmo Bevins]

I love how all the browsers are suddenly coming out with a form of Private Browsing Mode. Chrome was the first, now all the competitors have to compete! Anyway, I'll check it out.

It runs pretty good. Works with with plug-in I have, all 3 of them, and to be totally subjective, I think it looks really great. Crisper or sharper, somehow.

Anyway, try it out.

 

[faun]

Fireproxy and Bitdefender antiphishing tool dont work, everything else i have (colourful tabs, foxclock) and themes dont work either. 3.5 looks more space efficient.... and im about to try the glass ui theme now...

EDIT:
It is actually noticeably faster. and the glass theme looks rather spiffy. grab it off the other thread about 3.5

 

[faun]

OOOOK. seems there is a bit of a problem. FF 3.5 has started crashing on me alot lately, altho this has only been for the last 2 days. I havent installed anything etc etc, seems random. But nonetheless i blame 3.5.

 

[Satchmo Bevins]

OOOOK. seems there is a bit of a problem. FF 3.5 has started crashing on me alot lately, altho this has only been for the last 2 days. I havent installed anything etc etc, seems random. But nonetheless i blame 3.5.

Hi Faun :hello:

Maybe you have one of the bugs they are going to fix "later this month". I have also read of complaints about excessive memory usage (450 mb & greater), that sounds to me like pages are not being unloaded from memory after you close them, until you totally close FF.

HERE is the article on techbeta.org about the coming fix.

 

[James M. Fisher]

Using FF 3.5, but still with IE8 as my default. I don't recall any version of FF ever crashing on me. IE, yes, but FF: no.

I really like Chrome 2.0, but not enough to switch to it full-time.

 

[danperteet]

I have also read of complaints about excessive memory usage (450 mb & greater)

I believe I hit 500mb with firefox 3.0.11. That was a really slow experience.

 

[Kougar]

While I have been using Firefox 3.5 as my secondary browser I haven't noticed any differences between it and 3.0x. That's probably because I mostly use Opera though.

 

[faun]

FYI for anyone viewing = FF 3.5 is crash happy when displaying pages with alot of Flash on. Eg. Youtube, Facebook, etc. Latest patch lessens the crash frequency, but certainly dosent stop them.

 

[danperteet]

I went to those pages before and after the patch and didn't have any crash problems either version. Just excessive memory usage on youtube. I'm pretty sure that's related to the browser storing the video buffer though.

 

[faun]

I went to those pages before and after the patch and didn't have any crash problems either version. Just excessive memory usage on youtube. I'm pretty sure that's related to the browser storing the video buffer though.

It might just be my one then.