Firefox 3.0.1 = Patched Up and Ready for the Masses

Comments (11) · July 17, 2008 at 6:50 am · Firefox Security

The latest version of Firefox is out and patches a few holes here and there in our favorite browser.  Here is the official word from Mozilla:

We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 3.0, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.

So what exactly is new in Firefox 3.0.1?  Here are a few of the details from the release notes.

• Fixed several security issues.
• Fixed several stability issues.
• Fixed an issue where the phishing and malware database did not update on first launch.
• Under certain circumstances, Firefox 3.0 did not properly save the SSL certificate exceptions list.
• Updated the internal Public Suffix list.
• In certain cases, installing Firefox 2 in the same directory in which Firefox 3 has been installed resulted in Firefox 2 being unstable. This issue was fixed as part of Firefox 2.0.0.15.
• Fixed an issue where, when printing a selected region of content from the middle of a page, some of the output was missing (bug 433373).
• Fixed a Linux issues where, for users on a PPP connection (dialup or DSL) Firefox always started in “Offline” mode (bug 424626).

For more information, be sure to check out the official release notes for Firefox 3.0.1 and happy browsing to all, and to all a good night day.

Firefox 3, Worth the Wait? What About Firefox 4?

Comments · June 16, 2008 at 6:51 am · Firefox News

So as you anticipate getting your hands on Firefox 3 tomorrow, do you think it will be worth the wait?  Due to memory issues and problems with multiple tabs Firefox 2 has kinda been the picked on step child of the Firefox releases.  Personally Firefox 2 never caused me any big issues, but for others it is a different issue.

Also, what comes next after Firefox 3?  Here is what Mike Shroepfer, Mozilla VP of Technology has had to say on Firefox 3.1 and Firefox 4:

There were a number of features that we held back from Firefox 3 because  they weren’t quite ready - but they were nearly complete.    These include things like XHR, native JSON DOM bindings, ongoing performance tuning,  awesomebar++, better system integration, etc.  This along with the overall quality of Gecko 1.9 as a basis for mobile and the desire to get new platform features out to web developers sooner has lead to us want to do a second release of Firefox this year.   This release would be date-driven and targeted at the end of 2008.   Any features not ready in time will move to the next major release.  This is currently planned to be based on Gecko 1.9.1 - but if there are solid technical reasons for breaking frozen APIs we will bump the version number to Mozilla2.

Firefox 4 will incorporate some of the more aggressive platform improvements in Mozilla2.   It is far too early to set a shipping date  but an initial target would be sometime in late 2009.  Mozilla2 work has been underway for > 8 months

One thing is for sure, it is a good time to be a Firefox fanatic. 

Firefox 3 - RC1 is in the Public!

Comments · May 17, 2008 at 11:07 am · Firefox News

After three years of development, Firefox 3 has finally almost made it to a version ready for the public.  So what does the release candidate (otherwise known as RC) mean?  This is pretty much the final version of Firefox 3 - short of bug fixes and little tweaks here and there. 

I think this quote from Asa Dotzler sums things up nicely…

With more than 15,000 improvements over the previous release, ranging from dramatic performance and memory gains to truly innovative features like the “Awesome Bar,” Firefox 3 is the no-compromise browser that puts you back in control of your Web experience.

So will you be giving Firefox 3, release candidate 1 a shot?  If interested you can download it for yourself on Mozilla’s web site.

Firefox 3, We Will See You in June!

Comments (2) · March 28, 2008 at 6:32 am · Firefox News

I have never been one for doing a lot of news but I’ll wear the suit and tie any ways while writing this quick post.  According to Wired’s tech blog the final release of Firefox 3 is due in June of this year.  This was disclosed to a roundtable discussion of tech bloggers (I wasn’t invited to!*) on Wednesday. 

To give you a timeline to work with, right now we are at Firefox 3, beta 4.  Firefox 3, beta 5 is expected to be released the first week of April (hopefully not on the 1st!). That should though be the last of the beta releases for Firefox 3.

In May we should be seeing the first release candidate hit the streets, and then most of the work will go into kicking extension developers in the pants to try to get them to officially update their code to work with Firefox 3. 

* - I am sure my invitation got lost in the mail, right guys? RIGHT?!

Firefox 3 Beta 4 in the Wild

Comments (2) · March 11, 2008 at 6:04 am · Firefox News

Firefox 3 Beta 4 is ready for download. Well there was some confusion yesterday on if it was out or not, so I decided to hold off on this till today. Yet again, Mozilla continues to surprise and amaze with improvements to the core product. Two of the biggest updates I would say would be:

• Speed:
  Improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in significant improvements. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3 Beta 4, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.
• Memory usage:
  Some new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 Beta 4 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.

You can check out the full list of improvements and updates on the release notes and as always, Mozilla Links has an awesome in-depth review of this newest Firefox beta release.

Firefox 3 - Return of the Beta 3

Comments (3) · February 13, 2008 at 7:32 am · Firefox News

Firefox 3 Beta 3 is released out for testing purposes. Are you getting excited yet? Here are some things worth taking note of in the newest Firefox release:

• [Improved in Beta 3!] Speed: Major architectural changes (such as the move to Cairo and a rewrite to how reflowing a page layout works) put foundations in place for major performance tuning which have resulted in speed increases that continue to increase page drawing speed in Beta 3. This release also features over 90 changes that improve performance over the previous beta.

• [Improved in Beta 3!] Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.

• [Improved in Beta 3!] Memory usage: Over 350 individual memory leaks have been plugged, and a new XPCOM cycle collector completely eliminates many more. Developers are continuing to work on optimizing memory use (by releasing cached objects more quickly) and reducing fragmentation. Beta 3 includes more than 50 improvements to memory use over the previous beta.

Check out the full Firefox 3 Beta 3 Release Notes to read more about what is better, what has changed and what may stay the same. As an interesting side note - I think it is about time Mozilla started to remind addon developers to update their work to get it ready for Firefox 3.

Here are the results of our latest poll:

Read the rest of this entry »

Released: Firefox 3 Beta 1

Comments (3) · November 20, 2007 at 6:55 am · Firefox News

This is something everybody and their grandmother will be covering over the next few days, so I thought I should say something about it. Firefox 3 Beta 1 is now ready for testing. Still for “testing purposes only” this version promises to deliver…

• Improved security features such as: better presentation of website identity and security, malware protection, stricter SSL error pages, anti-virus integration in the download manager, and version checking for insecure plugins.

• Improved ease of use through: better password management, easier add-on installation, new download manager with resumable downloading, full page zoom, animated tab strip, and better integration with Windows Vista and Mac OS X.

• Richer personalization through: one-click bookmarking, smart search bookmark folders, direct typing in location bar searches your history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles, ability to register web applications as protocol handlers, and better customization of download actions for file types.

• Improved platform features such as: new graphics and font rendering architecture, major changes to the HTML rendering engine to provide better CSS, float-, and table layout support, native web page form controls, colour profile management, and offline application support.

• Performance improvements such as: better data reliability for user profiles, architectural improvements to speed up page rendering, over 300 memory leak fixes, and a new XPCOM cycle collector to reduce entire classes of leaks.

List of feature courtesy of developer.mozilla.org.

+ Download Firefox 3 Beta 1!