Comments on: Firefox 3.5 'Web upgrade' planned for end of June

With Firefox 3.5, Mozilla hopes to "upgrade the Web" with new features such as faster performance, built-in video, and new graphics technology.

[ITcomposer]

This second take of the browser wars is pretty interesting

IE 8 leapped frogged ahead of a few competitors
SAFARI entered windows, and has 8% market share
FIREFOX now gets ready to jump in with 3.5 and the enterprise market.

Keep em coming boys this is only getting better for us users.

[MadLyb]

..."post-beta-4, pre-RC1"

Are we just that afraid to either call it another Beta or RC release, so try and spin it away?

Sheesh.

[Shankland]

The politics of version naming are pretty silly sometimes.

[bourgtai]

"We've added technology we think upgrades the web itself. It's called HTML 5, and we're pretty sure Safari, Opera, and Chrome didn't have it before us. And how could they? The entire thought is preposterous. Don't download those other browsers or nothin', because they definitely don't have HTML 5. Yeah. We already checked for you... so you don't need to now."

[richard mitnick]

FCF3.X has seen increases in crashes, reported on many forums. We hope that whatever was irritating 3.0.10 was fixed in 3.0.11.

Otherwise, there is a really solid robust Gecko based browser, Seamonkey 1.1.16, soon to be 2.0, part of the SeaMonkey Suite which succeeded the Mozilla Suite, which was born out of the original Netscape.

>>RSM

[renGek]

haven't had any kind of crashing at all and i'm using it at work and at home. Perhaps its your add-ons. I have all of 2 add ons because I know those things are going to cause trouble at some point.

[Freedomstarfox]

I have over 30 add-ons and have never experienced any crashes.

[texaslabrat]

I noticed a marked decrease in stability of 3.0.10 compared to 3.0.9 running on Vista-64. I'm now running the 3.5 beta4 and have had no issues at all. I haven't tried 3.0.11 yet...I've not had a reason to move away from the beta so far.

[unifex_]

Never saw any of those crashes. Do not use any add-ons though. Never saw anything useful in them.

[eBob1]

Here's what I get:

"What's wrong with the internet that came with the computer?"
"Why do I need to install a different internet?"
and my personal favorite,
"Aren't all internets the same?"

[justint89]

SECURITY STABILITY, USABILITY, CHOICE!
interenet explorer has serious issues, as all of the browsers do but! it has the most
usability firefox has if not better with add ons etc.
firefox is pretty stable..
and it comes down to choice would like to get forced to have cable tv and only cable tv nothing else??

[unifex_]

Be honest - for most people all "internets" are the same. If people do not distinguish between a browser and the internet, then why do you expect them to see a difference between browsers?

[tomws]

If 3.5 is as big a sack of crap as the rest of the 3.x series, they can keep it. I'm tired of crashes and constant "update failed" notices. If Chrome gets a fill-blown Firebug, Mozilla is getting the finger from me for the last time.

[Freedomstarfox]

Maybe its your add-ons. Corrupt installation? I never experienced any of the crashes people report about Firefox.

[jpap93]

Yeah, me neither. Makes me wonder sometimes.

[unifex_]

Never had any crashes. Never failed any updates. Running on 64-bit Vista Ultimate. Works like a charm, beats me what people don't like about it.

[Frederikrooms]

I hope it will be a bigger & better improvement than 3.0 was!

To be honest, when it comes to surfing the web, Chrome appears on my screen! I only use firefox to enable xmarks and downthemall, and that's a small percentage of my surfing time. Even IE8 is much more advanced and faster over IE7 and 3.0

[cvaldes1831]

My guess is that there will be a second release candidate and the final version will slip into July.

[cvaldes1831]

Oddly enough, RC2 was released the same day that RC1 was scheduled to debut.

[cvaldes1831]

And Yet Another Release Candidate (RC3)...

[dudesmiles]

Hey Opera! Firefox makes a browser people actually like and their market share keeps going up! Maybe consumers are not the ignorant a-holes u think. Looks like people are capable of making choices without the EU!

[Efrow]

I have to defend Opera here. I use Opera as my primary browser, but I have Firefox as my secondary, and then IE as a last resort. I keep trying, but I cannot get the same configuration in Firefox as I can in Opera.

[unifex_]

Opera has lost all of my respect when they made this statement that now not including IE with Windows is "not what they wanted". I guess they wanted Microsoft to distribute their product. Good luck with that. Not that I will ever use it, even if it will come with a new PC at some point. I will uninstall it just like I usually uninstall lots of software which is put there by the OEM .

[contentcreator--2008]

"Though 64-bit Windows is now arriving" --- where by "now", you mean 4 years ago... and many/most machines at retail have been 64-bit for a while now. In all fairness, though I'm a 64-bit advocate, not sure it's that critical for browsers on mac or windows. If you're set up to handle 64-bit mac, recompiling for 64-bit windows will be vastly simpler.

[Shankland]

Yes, 64-bit Windows has been available for years, but only now is it a real force in the marketplace, in my opinion. Beltzner definitely seemed to indicate 64-bit Windows was on the backburner.

[Mr. Dee]

Wasn't there a 64 bit version of Firefox long time ago? I remember it was available some back in '04 - 05. I disagree with Mozilla's stance though considering that there is a large blanket of 64 bit Windows installs, especially where Vista is concerned.

[Cole_Brodine]

There is a version called "Minefield" that some people are already compiling for 64-bit windows. It isn't an official Mozilla binary, so you can't report bugs to Mozilla. It seems to work really well for me. Flash, of course, doesn't work in 64 bit yet, but all my extensions work fine.

[unifex_]

This is really ridiculous - I've got a 64-bit Dell for years now, what exactly is the point of having a 64-bit processor (like most newer Intel dual/quad cores) and running a 32-bit OS? Most of the software I am running is 64-bit, IE is 64-bit, but Mozilla is thinking this is still something exotic! Yes, there is minefield, but this is an unofficial build and thus there is no feeling of security.

[iTrackmine]

As of May 2009, IE 6 still has 16.94% :(

[beat_elite]

I don't find that to be a surprise since most of my school's computers use it, probably because it's more secure. But I find it terrible that i have to open multiple internet explorers since i can't use tabs.

[MadLyb]

My company *still* deploys new systems with XP and IE6 since we have over 2000 web based applications and they are still not all compatible with newer versions of major browsers.

At least our public site is kept up to date.

[justint89]

WHY??
it is the worst edition of any browser!
how can people still deploy something so buggy i guess that's what happens when its preinstalled like it was and still is even when installing a service pack it should just upgrade to 8...

[unifex_]

Well, I can tell why - on my older laptop with XP the IE8 did not work. I got it through Windows upgrade and it just did not work - I mean the menus were blank and so on. So, I uninstalled it and the system reversed to IE7. That one works fine.

[darksantos91]

Now if Firefox had the features IE8 has for Windows 7, such as jump lists and tab previews on the task bar, It will be the best browser ever.

[Freedomstarfox]

I agree. Maybe Firefox will get jump lists and tab previews when Windows 7 final release comes closer.

[dgtb1994]

Mozilla is already working on it but I don't think it will be in FF 3.5 but maybe in FF 3.6.

[karnk432]

Is it just me or is every feature of Firefox 3.5 to catch up with Safari?

built-in video - Safari 3
local storage to enable richer Web applications that can work even with no network connection - Safari 4
a private browsing mode - Safari 2
geolocation to aid Web pages that can benefit from knowing a user's location - Safari 4
faster performance loading pages and executing Web-based JavaScript programs - Safari is still faster. The performance race is between Safari and Chrome which is also a WebKit browser.

[Freedomstarfox]

A lot of features of other browsers are to catch up with other browsers too. For example, Safari probably saw an increase in the usage of Google Chrome and the Webkit engine, so they added Chrome buttons. Also, Chrome and IE added Private Browsing based on Safari's idea too.

[unifex_]

By and large, all browsers do same things. Whether the video is built-in or external player - WMP or something else - get embedded in the web page - I don't really feel a difference, I just watch the video. It's the same with pretty much everything. Of course, there are special needs of some people and then either you use proper extensions or find that some browser is better suited for your needs. But for larger audience - the big difference between browsers is long gone.

[ibelieve01]

Until Firefox gets a decent email client that rivals Opera's, I cannot switch. I rely on an integrated email client too much. (And that sucky "Simple Mail" extension doesn't count, for one, because it's too limited in its features, but mostly because it will not send emails from my Hotmail account).

[G-Skaf]

You can use Thunderbird for e-mail. It's a separate application, but it's quite powerful and versatile. Now that Hotmail's finally switched to POP3/SMTP, you can use it with any client.

Personally, I would like Firefox to remain a simple browser focused on getting the job done. Integrating things like an e-mail client would inevitably bloat it up. Every user should get just the basic stuff and then install add-ons to add any further functionality required.

[INDIANDEVIL]

THEY SHOULDN'T UPDATE FOX SO HASTILY ,INSTEAD THEY SHOULD MAKE IT MORE STABLE & SHOULD WAIT FOR STABLE RELEASE NOT PREVIEW OR BETA .BECAUSE MY EVERY NEW FIREFOX CRASHES MORE THAN PREVIOUS ONES.

[Hoser McMoose]

Maybe if you turned off your caplock key it wouldn't crash so much?

Just a suggestion...

[minh tân]

i like Opera 10 beta

[Issaland]

I do like to. But Opera have still major problems with displaying some websites, e.g. Hotmail site (login.live.com) is completely blank :( And I can't log in to some services. like You Tube. This is the very big downside of Opera!

[exactlyy]

since Firefox 3.5b55 i only got one crash , but when i tried the latest version of chrome , i got 2 crashes when trying to open aljazeera.net

[exactlyy]

btw Firefox 3.5RC1 is now available for download yay :D

[exactlyy]

wow if i am not mistaken and i know i am not firefox starts up faster , seems like the time opera and chrome needs to startup , and it got a new icon, its a little bit darker and more shiny ..i love it

[LoudHeart]

This is wonderful news.