New Firefox 3.6 beta aims to cut crashes

Earlier in November, Firefox surpassed 25 percent usage share of Web browsers, according to Net Applications.

(Credit: Net Applications)

Mozilla released a third beta of Firefox 3.6 on Wednesday, adding stability and performance features, and said it hopes to lock down the code soon for its first release candidate.

The new beta, for Windows, Mac, and Linux, includes a component directory lockdown that makes it harder for other software to meddle with the open-source browser's state by preventing that software from sidling into the same folder as the browser's own components. The result should be fewer crashes, said Mozilla's Johnathan Nightingale in a blog post, and Firefox still is open to third-party extensions via its official add-on mechanism.

The change should improve security, too, added another Mozilla programmer, Vladimir Vukecevic, who wrote in his own blog post that Mozilla is considering bringing the change to Firefox 3.5, too.

"Creating binary components to interface with the operating system or with other applications is fairly straightforward, though ultimately dangerous. Binary components have full access to the application and OS, and so can impact stability, security, and performance," Vukecevic said.

Also in the latest beta of 3.6 is a feature that lets the browser run some Web-based JavaScript programs asynchronously, which is to say without being so picky about the order the scripts run. This can improve the speed that Web pages load, Mozilla said.

The biggest Firefox 3.6 feature most folks will notice is Personas, the reskinning add-on that's now being built in. More than 10 million Personas have been downloaded so far, Suneel Gupta and Myk Melez of the Personas team said Wednesday.

Mozilla is working to release a final version of Firefox 3.6 before the end of the year, and one sign the project is wrapping up is that the developers are locking down the features and changes that can be added into the release candidate 1. Code freeze for RC1 is scheduled for Wednesday but might be at risk, a Mozilla planning site said this week.

Firefox is steadily gaining in use. Last week, Web traffic monitoring firm Net Applications announced Firefox cleared 25 percent share of those using browsers worldwide--not dethroning Internet Explorer by any means but still winning over new users. Mozilla estimates there are more than 300 million Firefox users total, and this week said there are more than 300,000 testers using the Firefox 3.6 beta

Google's Chrome, meanwhile, is appealing to some of the same browser enthusiasts who were Firefox's first users. One of its big selling points is speed, and Google is working on other ways to make the Web faster, too. Chrome gives it a vehicle to test such ideas out in the real world, a strategy that Apple, Opera, and Firefox have employed to advance the Web state of the art.

One Mozilla programmer, Alexander Limi, revealed a speedup technology called Resource Package for Mozilla, too, on Tuesday. His proposal calls for bundling many Web page elements up into a single compressed file that can be retrieved in a single Web-page request action. Browsers are limited in the number of such actions they can take in parallel, so consolidating the interactions can make pages load faster. The approach is backwards compatible with existing browsers that don't support the feature, he added.

"If the feedback is good we're likely to try and get this implemented for Firefox 3.7," said Mozilla evangelist Christopher Blizzard in a blog post Tuesday.

[MrVladimir]

????????? ????? ?? ????? ??????. ?? ??????? ????? ???????? ??????.<br />? ???????????? cnet.com ?????? ????? ???????? ? ????????????? ???? ? ? ?????.<br />??????? ???????. <br /> ? ????????? ???????? ????????, ??????.<br /><br />I constantly watch over your site. You are doing very useful work. <br />I recommended cnet.com many of my friends to use at home and office. <br />Thank you very much. <br /> Sincerely, Vladimir Panchenko, Russia.

[jbuberel]

Isn't Limi's suggestion similar to the 'Web Archive Format' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webarchive ?

[skylamer]

Greetings from Bulgaria!

[xaduurv]

Have tried beta 3 for a little bit now and i must say I'm very impressed with the speed improvements. Many of the personas I've seen look absolutely gorgeous. Methinks Mozilla has hit a slam dunk on this one.

Anyone else notice the tab preview for Win7's taskbar disappeared between B2 and B3?

[dgtb1994]

They had to remove it because of some bugs that cannot be fixed in time for the final release.

[Timetogetill7]

I really hope they find a way to cut crashes for Windows 7 because I've had one too many in the past few days (granted Windows 7 is new). For now I will stick to Chrome and maybe a mixture of other browsers though.

[Lerianis3]

Yeah, there is a HUGE bug with all versions of Firefox 3.5.5 and greater on Windows 7 right now where the thing thrashes the hard disk drive and crashes on occasion.

[bananaphonerules]

"Windows 7 is new" <br />What: do mean they didn't download the RC's of Windows 7? <br />They've had plenty of time. <br /> <br />They need to focus on quality releases not frequent releases. <br />I'm getting sick of updating FF all the time.

[Shankland]

@bananaphonerules You'd better get used to updating Firefox frequently, because they're moving to a faster release cycle. Firefox 3.7 is due in the first half of 2010, and Firefox 4.0 later in the year. I wonder if Chrome's philosophy--autoupdate in the background with no user input--is the wave of the future?

[splinter82]

@Shankland <br /> <br />I hope so, because Chrome's updating system is so ludicrously transparent I never even have to think about it. In these days of always-on web connectivity, it should be perfectly simple for web browsers (and other web-using applications) to be able to silently update themselves as need be. <br /> <br />Of course, hordes of paranoid users will immediately decry that this allows software developers to make stealth changes to your system, spy on you, and otherwise take over the world.

[Lerianis3]

splinter32, those users are not 'paranoid' and mostly, are corporate users who have had even small updates to browsers break their proprietary applications that they use... though I am of the opinion that if those things were BUILT RIGHT, they wouldn't 'break' even with major updates to the browser.

[exactlyy]

just installed it , the 1st thing i've noticed is the windows 7 tab preview , it only shows one open tab in firefox, not all open tabs .

[klzjr03]

I could care less about a new firefox right now. 3.5 just came out and the mozilla people need to work on getting Thunderbird 3 released since it is long overdue.

[bousozoku]

Thunderbird 3 is close and it seems as though each nightly build is working fine for me, but there are obviously some stoppers in there, as it's been about a month since they started labeling the release 3.0pre instead of 3.0beta4pre or something like that.

[AlexanderLimi]

jbuberel, Web Archives aren't backwards compatible, and would require browsers to add support for it before it could be used. Resource Packages can be used no matter if the browser supports it or not ? if it doesn't it just loads the files as usual. Browsers that support it will load the page faster.<br /><br />There's a great follow-up post from Steve Souders with some numbers on how this would affect the top ten web sites, should they support it:<br /><br />http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2009/11/18/fewer-requests-through-resource-packages/

[franzenk]

I have 3.5.5 and since updating to that I haven't had it crash but it sure does load slow. I was a lot faster when the original 3.0 came out and ever since then its slowed wayyyy down!

[tledmun56]

Firefox was my browser of choice for a long time. Now, I have to use IE8 (yuck), Opera, Chrome and Safari. Firefox crashes so often and seemingly for no reason, my frustration level forces me to the other more stable browsers. If 3.6 doesn't fix this problem, I will be forced to delete Firecrash. Anyone else as frustrated as I am?

[splinter82]

I had exactly the same problem, and the same again with Google Chrome, where tabs would crash and just hang there for no apparent reason. Firefox got so bad that it was taken several minutes to start up, even on a clean Win 7 install and without any extensions, I still have no idea why. <br /> <br />These days I use Opera, because although some websites and scripts have a couple of display niggles, its far more stable and much, much faster and lightweight than anything else out there. On the odd occassion Opera can't cope with a website, Google Chrome does the job. My Firefox days are long behind me now, I'm afraid.

[maxc2u]

I have experienced Many many crashes also. I tried to remove different add-ons and plugins but it keeps crashing randomly for no apparent reason. Yes I agree with you and I also have reverted to IE8 because it is a lot more stable than firefox. I don't understand why Mozella hasn't been able to resolve the problem in a more expedient fashion. They haven't offer any patches or repairs for 3.5 that I am aware of. If we have a product out there that is experencing crash problems let's fix that before we go on to another upgrade several months down the road. Yes, I am frustrated too. I haven't deleted Firefox yet as I want to see if the up grade does really solve the random crash problem.

[Earth-1]

Lets hope they can make it even faster while working on the stability.<br /><br />MK - 1- tw88dj maj

[Lerianis3]

Firefox is pretty stable...... I haven't had any crashes on the 'release versions' of 3.5, and very few on the 3.6 Beta and 3.7 Alpha builds.

[johnfirth]

I've been using Opera mostly recently, but I used to use Firefox for YouTube and Facebook, as Opera doesn't seem to like the script they use. Only problem being is that looking at someone's photos causes Firefox to crash, so I started using Chrome. Hopefully it'll stop crashing now.

[MarcusMang]

Ive had major problems with firefox lately and I don't understand it. Firefox used to be my favorite browser but now all I use is IE8 and its been working flawlessly.

[moshonis]

I prefer to wait about a year before installing windows 7. I hope such problems will be overcome then. <br />I hear there are quite a lot problems with windows seven like driver problems, crashes etc. <br />I am tired, so I will wait. Let the loaders deal with them I got no time to spare.

[JiMiZnHB]

PLEASE Release the NEW Firefox SOON!!! <br />for as many Browsers as I am Running@Once on ONE Computer ... Firefox 3.5.5 (at least 7 Tabs &#38; 2 Instances) ... Flock 2.5.25 (at least 4 Tabs) ... Opera 10.10 (at least 4 Tabs) ... Safari 4.0.3 (at least 4 Tabs) ... I am SO Fortunate that Firefox ONLY Crashes once or twice a Day... BUT it STILL CRASHES!!!<br />and this is on a Core2Quad Q9450 6GB on Windows 7 64Bit :)<br />AND I Have YET to RUN IN TO ANY DRIVER ISSUES with WINDOWS 7, I also have Windows 7 64Bit Installed on My other Core2Quad Q6600 &#38; on My Toshiba AMD DualCore Laptop... and it WORKS PERFECTLY :) NO DRIVER ISSUES!!! <br />Just Make SURE YOU UPDATE YOUR BIOS :)

[akita96th]

I been inter-net-ting sense windows 3 was out and things change constantly non stop.. I am always amazed at how things evolve on the net and ya know it doesnt matter what browser you use just use it and be happy ..me I use them all just because I can so I dont understand all the hoopla and anticipation of what browser to use.. those who prefer one over the other always seem to want to head butt ya on using that particular browser just because they think its great ..so ...what...find what works for you and leave the rest of us alone to find what works for us..

[Lerianis3]

Is Persona's REALLY built into Firefox 3.6? I deleted the Persona's add-on, and Personas went away! I think that it is in the latest 3.7 Alpha versions that Personas is built-in, not 3.6

[justinstepp]

I don't see the problems that everyone has with Firefox. I haven't had them. I agree its not the fastest (to start up or on web pages) but crashing and such things I've never experienced. Memory problems don't bother me since I definitely have enough. Some like to blame add-ons for the problems and I agree too many add-ons can make it unstable and slow it down but at one point I had 10 or more add-ons but now I limit myself to 5 essential ones and had no problems then or now. Anyways 3.6 is definitely a great and needed upgrade. Hopefully it fixes everyone's problems but who knows.....software is software.