Topic: Firefox 3.5 fully launched

[Clive]

The full version of the Firefox 3.5 browser has been fully launched by Mozilla.

Firefox 3.5 was initially supposed to be called Firefox 3.1, though the company took the decision to change it to Firefox 3.5 as it felt that it was more than just an incremental improvement on Firefox 3.

The full release isn't the first feature-complete version of Firefox 3.5 but it is the first to be considered stable enough to be offered to all surfers.

Four beta versions, a Preview version and a Release Candidate were all offered to members of Mozilla's testing community.

New features
Firefox 3.5 includes the TraceMonkey Javascript engine, which the company says makes it twice as fast as Firefox 3 and 10 times faster than Firefox 2.

Location-Aware Browsing is another feature new in Firefox 3.5, and it lets you find things near to you much more quickly, the company said.

"So much is happening on the web right now, it's a great time for browsers. Firefox 3.5 brings together the most innovative web technologies and delivers them in the most complete and powerful modern browser," said John Lilly, chief executive of Mozilla.

Market share
Firefox's market share has been gradually increasing over the past few years with a global share of 22.5 per cent, compared to Microsoft's Internet Explorer's share of 65.5 per cent.

Apple's Safari browser, Opera and Google's Chrome also compete in this market.

You can Download Firefox 3.5 from the Mozilla website.

[GillE]

Thanks for the heads up, Clive.  I've installed v3.5 and it does seem to be quicker than its predecessor.

[sam]

shall update once it makes it way past the ubuntu scrutineers and gets into the package manager.

[Simon]

Convinced yet, Clive?

[Clive]

 

[davy51]

I have been running it here
It seems to be faster and more stable on some sites I visit
I had already uninstalled the last version and gone to an older version because of bugs in it

[Reno]

It killed about 3/4s of my addons. I can edit the minimum version of the addons, but it takes forever. I also didn't see an easy way to clear out the private data like there is in 3.0. Maybe I looked over it, but I looked through the tools tab and all the settings tabs and didn't see diddly. I didn't see any real benefit.

[chorleydave]

I am giving it a try as my last whirl with Firefox.  I tried 3.1 and had nothing but trouble with it crashing more often than a North Korean internal flight, so have been using 2.0.20.0 for the last few months and that can be a bit flakey.  In truth, I was considering upgrading back to 1.5x, but instead reinstalled Opera and have been using that and IE6 more often than not.

I changed from Opera to Firefox when Opera started adding gimmicks, but Mozilla are now no better.  What, with that "awful bar" thingy and the removal of the choice to "force links to reuse the current window" (an option in 1.5x) so trying their hardest to force us to adopt tabbed browsing, I can't wait to get away.  If anybody knows of a browser that lets you do just that, browse, without all the flakey "improvements" than please let me know.

[Simon]

If anybody knows of a browser that lets you do just that, browse, without all the flakey "improvements" than please let me know.

That would be Sea Monkey you're looking for, Dave.  During the installation, you get a choice of Complete, Browser Only, or Custom.  Choose Browser Only, and it will do just as it says on the tin.  If you want to use the mail client too, select Custom, then choose Browser and Mail from the tick boxes.

[chorleydave]

Cheers, Simon!  I'll have a look at that now. 

[chorleydave]

Whooooo!  Got it, browser only and made it defaut.  No gimmicks here, so p**s off awesome err awful bar.

Thanks again, Simon. 

[Baz]

It killed about 3/4s of my addons. I can edit the minimum version of the addons, but it takes forever. I also didn't see an easy way to clear out the private data like there is in 3.0. Maybe I looked over it, but I looked through the tools tab and all the settings tabs and didn't see diddly. I didn't see any real benefit.

what private data do you mean Reno. I'm sure you can do it but you got me thinking now.is it not in tools>options>privacy the in the 'clear history when firefox closes' section is the 'settings' box.

is that it

[Camstop]

I If anybody knows of a browser that lets you do just that, browse, without all the flakey "improvements" than please let me know.

Google Chrome is worth a try as it's light and did raise the bar.

The latest Firefox is just them catching up with Chrome, IE8 and the latest Opera and i expect they are all pretty close now.

[Reno]

what private data do you mean Reno. I'm sure you can do it but you got me thinking now.is it not in tools>options>privacy the in the 'clear history when firefox closes' section is the 'settings' box.

It was as simple as going into tools/options/privacy/private data and setting your personal preference for clearing private data. After that was set you could just go to tools and click the clear private data option.

Like i said, I didn't find it in the same places in FF3.5. I looked for a few minutes, and then moved on. I imagine there is the possibility I overlooked it, because I'm pretty quick when I'm dealing with aggravations. Chances are though it has a dumbed down version labeled privacy mode somewhere.

[Simon]

The only thing I would do, Dave, is View > Theme and change to Modern.  Looks much nicer than the default theme.