Mozilla releases Firefox 3.5

Mozilla's live download tracker shows a snapshot of how often the browser is being downloaded.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Firefox 3.5, the embodiment of Mozilla's attempt to "upgrade the Web," is now available for Windows and Mac.

Firefox 3.5 has a range of new features, including a new JavaScript engine for faster Web applications such as Google Docs; the ability to show video built into Web pages without plug-ins; a private browsing mode; fancy downloadable fonts; and geolocation technology that can let Web sites know where you are.

"So much is happening on the Web right now, it's a great time for browsers," said John Lilly, CEO of Firefox backer Mozilla, in a statement. And, he boasted, "Firefox 3.5 brings together the most innovative Web technologies and delivers them in the most complete and powerful modern browser."

With the software released, Mozilla programmers and their open-source comrades now can move on to the next round of updates, to encouraging Web developers to build in support for the new features, and to finalizing new standards such as HTML 5.

Firefox broke Microsoft's lock on the browser market, but it now faces other challenges, chiefly Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome.

Mozilla released Firefox 3.5 in 70 different languages, taking advantage of the relatively broad internationalization that's more feasible with open-source software.

Through revenue that comes from search ads, Google supplied Mozilla with $66 million of its $75 million in 2007 revenue, the last year for which figures are publicly available.

Update 9:31 a.m. PDT: Mozilla has published a live download tracker site. It's showing the worldwide rate between about 80 and 100 downloads per second at present; I saw a peak of 109 per second.

[vikinzer]

You know, I can't help but wonder if Google doesn't actually care about dominating the browser market and that's why they are still willing to fund Mozilla. Truth is competition breeds quality. Mozilla was blowing IE out of the water, but that doesn't take much. The overall Firefox experience was much more feature rich, and lush. Speed was wonderful on Firefox at first, then the memory problems started. Mozilla wasn't really in a huge hurry to fix them because their only real competition was so much worse than they were. Then Chrome happened, boom Mozilla is focusing on speed. As of the 3.5 release they have the best combination of speed and features. Chrome still beats out on speed, but not by nearly as much, and it's not quite as rich an experience.

A heterogeneous browser market forces the standard hand, because Microsoft will keep leaking customers if pages don't render properly in their browser, and keeping up with Chrome pushes the speed issue across all browsers, which Google needs to sell it's whole Cloud, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Mail, Google EVERYTHING platform. Chrome has done more to help Google by forcing the other browser producers to fix things that were bad for Google than it has actually done for Google as a product.

It may well be in their best interest to keep throwing money at Firefox and producing Chrome, and I have to say I'm kind of surprised more people haven't pointed this out.

[Shankland]

Having watched Google and specifically Chrome for awhile now, I have no doubt that Google has big ambitions for its browser. However, I believe those ambitions are subordinate to Google's broader goal of building the Web as an application platform. In other words, Google doesn't want to dominate the browser market as much as it wants to energize that market for its grander cloud-computing ambitions.

The revenue Mozilla gets from Google isn't some charity handout--it's the direct result of search ads Google shows after people use Firefox's search bar. Google keeps its cut of the revenue, too. Google could cut Mozilla off, but I don't see why they'd want to. It's traffic to their Web site and it feeds their core business.

[cvaldes1831]

Stephen's right, it's about online services and applications. They're never going to corner the browser market, so it's better for them to focus on creating services that drive traffic to them. Besides that, concentrating on web browsers running on desktop PCs is shortsighted. The opportunity is in handheld devices; most of the world is going to run their lives around these little devices.

Today, I access Gmail far more frequently through my iPod touch's Mail app rather than through a web browser. I'm already at the point where I don't care about web services that aren't thoughtfully made accessible to these little devices.

[bedney42]

You guys have it right.

Google doesn't care about the 'browser market' as such... there's no money there anyway.

What Google *does* care about is making the Web, and the browser by extension, *the* platform for delivering data, apps, and everything else for the future. They want to ensure that future by having at least one browser out there that they completely control and can use to keep pushing the boundary. Google needs an 'exemplary' platform to show off what the Web can truly do when pushed... and that's not just 'browsing pages'.

You can see that Microsoft continually tries to pigeonhole the Web as the same Web we've all had since 1994 - good for browsing the newspaper and maybe a few Amazon catalogs, but that's it. They're fearful of a (client-side) platform that they don't control becoming the predominant platform for developing and delivering whole applications. They realize, as they did in the Win32 days, that the battle is getting developers to write to your APIs and then you can follow that up later with the business practices that they employ. The one thing they do *not* want is a third-party neutral organization such as the W3C setting the API.

Google's biggest fear is that there's going to be whole loads of data locked away inside of Silverlight plugin-based applications that they can't index and make money from (modulo security concerns, etc.)

Cheers,

- Bill

[Random_Walk]

Excellent comment...

Even reaching back to the original browser wars, The only reason IE got the feature set it did was because Netscape had them already. Once Microsoft squished Netscape (no need to explain why and how), Microsoft sat back and did pretty much nothing with IE, content to do only incremental updates, and even them only when it felt that it had to.

Once Firefox hit the market and began eating marketshare, Microsoft finally got off their duffs and started work on IE7. When IE7 failed to slow down Firefox' growth, and Safari began showing up in greater numbers, IE8 came out.

Now with Chrome (from Steve Ballmer's named mortal enemy), I suspect we'll all benefit for quite a long time.

The only oddball is Opera, which has been around since the first browser war died down, yet never really gained wide acceptance. I think that part of it had to do with its earlier days, where you either paid for the full version, or you gave up desktop real-estate to its adverts banner. IMHO that was a very dumb move on Opera's part, but changing the past is a bit impossible.

One thing that comes to mind about Chrome and Mozilla, though... if google stopped funding Firefox, then it would effectively lose control of development there. As it stands now, they have a voice in how Firefox is developed - if they lose that voice, they stand to lose a valuable tool in Google's plans to bring the future's focus to the web as _the_ platform...

[dhavleak]

I'd place a bet that Google is unlikely to stop funding FF in the near future.

I'm sure MS is already begging the FF people to 'allow' them (MS) to fund FF instead of Goog. The quid-pro-quo being that FF has to have Bing! as it's default search engine. So at least for the near term, I don't see Google dropping funding for FF.

[viky prabu]

Cannot even touch Google chrome's speed. Shame to see the great Netscape successor Firefox lagging behind new startup browser "Chrome". Better adopt webkit...

[El_Segfaulto]

And Chrome doesn't have adblock, flashblock, noscript, webdev, or any of the other plugins I use on a daily basis. I'm willing to sacrifice speed for productivity.

[pepoluan]

Well, in my experience, all sites that I use regularly (Gmail, Friendfeed, etc.) is as fast in Fx3.5 as in Chrome. So your comment here does not register with me.

I'm really tempted to uninstall Chrome now...

Chrome is faster because it is startup browser. Once it gets its first feature that can be used, It will gradually slow down...

[miaminica]

"Firefox broke Microsoft's lock on the browser market, but it now faces other challenges, chiefly Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome."

Windows users aren't interested in Safari. What Mozilla needs to worry about is the "Do no evil" company and its browser. As a Windows user, I'm more interested in Chrome than I am in Firefox. (Opera? Please!)

[Shankland]

I haven't seen market share statistics for Safari on Windows, but I suspect it's small. Bear in mind, though, that Apple has a strong brand and a strong presence on Windows machines through iTunes, so it least has a foothold. And the fact that Safari is built into an operating system with reasonable share means Web developers generally have to support it. Also, with Google now contributing significantly to WebKit, I wonder if some work there, such as extensions, will make Safari more competitive in general. It's no slam dunk for Apple, but don't count them out just yet.

[miaminica]

I think if Apple is smart, it'll make Chrome's extensions work on Safari, if that's possible, since both browsers use the same engine. If Google is smart, it'll prevent Chrome extensions to work on Safari. ("Why use Chrome for its extensions when you can get them on Safari?")

The fact that Apple has a presence in Windows through iTunes but still haven't managed to get its browser to be used more than it is says that Windows users aren't interested. I know I'm not interested, in part because Apple refused to make its programs have the native Windows look.

I think the new browser war is between IE8 (trying to stay relevant), Firefox (trying to now hold off Chrome) and Chrome (going after IE and Firefox users).

[Random_Walk]

"If Google is smart, it'll prevent Chrome extensions to work on Safari. "

Google's main thrust isn't browser marketshare - its main thrust is to move the focus of computing from desktop to Web. Google helps fund Mozilla, and likely helps itself to Firefox' codebase (or converts it) wherever possible due to the Open Source nature of Firefox. Google contributes to and improves WebKit, improvements which Safari gets solid use out of.

Out of the top four browsers, guess which one (not mentioned in this post) gets left out in the cold, unable to take advantage from any of that?

[forever4now]

Hopefully, Firefox's support for HTML5 video will really kick start the support of HTML5 functionality in internet sites. I suspect HTML5 video will go a long way in helping to conserve smartphone/netbook/notebook battery life, when compared to Flash video.

[SactoGuy018]

Unfortunately, Internet Explorer will still be over 50% of the market for browsers, and until IE gains HTML 5.0 support you can forget about HTML 5.0 becoming widely used. Mind you, I wouldn't be surprised that within a year Microsoft releases an "Internet Explorer 8.5" that does add HTML 5.0 support, especially since that may be important for "cloud computing" purposes.

[pepoluan]

@SactoGuy: it's not difficult to create websites that can cater to both, especially since IE8 maintains the so-called "conditional comments"

[forever4now]

@SactoGuy

Perhaps there could be a global campaign (lead by global governments?), to get consumers & businesses to upgrade their browsers to those that support the latest web technologies (e.g. HTML5 video, audio, canvas, etc.).

Browsers are the gateway to global internet commerce and progress should not be impeded by one company/browser.

[foobar2006]

What new methods are supported in the new crop of browsers is only a stepping stone to having them be useful. If you are talking about a site that is going to have some general appeal you have to remember that it is the universe of existing browsers out there that is the browser population, not the most recent cutting edge incarnation.
A large percentage of people out there in the real world only change their setups when it comes with new hardware or someone loads it for them. Many will not accept an upgrade and will feel imposed upon if one is loaded automatically. They know that grumpy feeling when there is a hiccup installing, the UI changes, or a new feature takes some work to figure out. Having HTML5 now in browsers really only means that HTML5 browsers and sites will be ubiquitous in 2-3 years. There will always be that trailing edge to bring to your site that has older things installed.

If you make a website that only works with a browser that has advanced features a great bulk of users will just not use your site. Most will wonder why your site does not work when they can use YouTube, Ebay, Facebook etc. just fine. Telling them to go get a new version of XYZ browser and load it just means they go away and use another site. I actually say a site today that said ?best experienced in Firefox?. I have FF on my system so I could try out the site but my thought was ?What is wrong with these guys? Don?t they know how to code a site?? There really was nothing wizzy on the site if seen in FF. As far as I could tell they were just lazy and did not know how to design for compatibility to meet user needs.

So like anything else the cutting edge is interesting and needs to go in place but for the bulk of the web it is about moving the masses over time to newer technology and giving them a great experience in the mean time with then current widely accessible methods. That means that the current successful web implementations don?t rely on cutting edge browser features but instead are implemented so as to be useful and accessible to a wide variety of users. But the browsers do need to keep advancing so that today?s new browser features can be used by sites widely in 2-4 years.

[alexcnovak]

I use both FF and Chrome for work. The developer tools on FF are more intuitive and less cumbersome than IE8. Although with the advent of Chrome, I find I'm using it more and more for everything since it's more of an all in one browser. Speed kills.

[FF2009]

awesomeness Fox is back...better than ever and much faster. All my add-ons work too. Good job Mazilla team. Keep up the good work!

[Sinkercat]

I don't know if anyone has noticed it but Google Gears is not compatible with FF3.5. The Gears engineering team still doesn't have a fix for the issue - http://code.google.com/p/gears/issues/detail?id=749
And all that Google talks about is Offline, Offline and Offline.

[CheeseKing]

One word. Opera.

[SactoGuy018]

Er--no thanks. Opera will never have the marketshare of Internet Explorer (if only because IE is default installed in Windows since Windows 95 OSR2!) or the massive third-party developer support that Firefox now enjoys. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised that once Windows 7 arrives the vast majority of users will use either IE 8 built into Windows 7 or use Firefox 3.5.

[pepoluan]

Fast but nowhere near as flexible as Firefox.

[El_Segfaulto]

I would have given them a chance but they're choice in using litigation to make themselves relevant says to me that their product simply can't compete on its own merits.

[exactlyy]

once again I LOVE Firefox

[lumpoco]

Goggle's browser is too minimal for my taste. PErhaps if they had meade it easier for experienced computer users then they might get more users. What I don't like is the fact that you have to search and search to do something that should be a given. I first used Chrome when it was released and have used it a few weeks back. nothing has changed. But that's fine. What's interesting is that Google's browser keeps track of everything you do on the internet. That's how they make money. They tailor their ads and web search results based on what you are searching and where you have been. It's a bit creepy, but those who like Big Brother tracking their every move in cyberspace won't mind the intrusion.

[trboyden]

Unfortunately Firefox 3.5 does not yet enable the CSS3 spec attributes such as box-shadow. You have to use -moz-box-shadow to enable box element shadowing. Though at least it now shows the shadows if you use the browser specific attribute. So it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully Mozilla and Webkit-based browsers (such as Safari and Google Chrome) will enable the CSS3 standard spec attributes soon. It sucks having to specify settings for each browser.

[pjk0]

I remain a devoted Opera user, not least because they are generally the first to invent the browser functionality that everyone else eventually adopts as standard, because it has massive flexibility and productivity out of the box without having to install, manage and babysit tons of add-ons, because it's typically the browser with the fewest long-term security problems, because Opera is generally the FIRST and most consistent browser to implement worldwide consensus web standards, and because I think that the world deserves at least one commercial browser vendor that can make a profitable business out of a superior product.

Opera is already the #1 browser in portable devices, and that was not an accident - it was because they saw the opportunity and produced a superior product.

As for their litigation, what other browser vendor has any standing to challenge Microsoft's embedded browser?

You know - the one that Microsoft spent billions of dollars developing, yet gives away "free" because it is well-known that this is a cornerstone of their push to have the world adopt the entire Microsoft "ecosystem" which is intimately tied-into their browser tech? Since there really are no other browser vendors in the world that have Opera's business model, who else would be in a position to make a case against them? Personally I think we should all be grateful for the pressure Opera brings to bear on that issue - people are taking for granted things like the EU's judgements against MS and so on. Mark my words - if they hadn't moved against MS (partly motivated by Opera's prodding), people would be screaming bloody-murder that "something must be done!".

Nothing like 20-20 hindsight.

[danathompson]

There are a few features of Firefox 3.5 that I really like. Tabbed browsing, private browsing and the speed. The only problem though is that not all of the add-ons are compatible with 3.5. A few of them like Billeo, Personas, Cooliris, Foxtab are compatible. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12715