It seems that Firefox 3.5 was released today. First impressions on my Ubuntu box:

• Opens faster.
• Scrolling and zooming are smoother now. Fx 3.0 would lag when zooming image-heavy pages - Fx 3.5 works better here (but still not perfect).
• Gmail loads faster, but that's about the only page I've seen any real difference.
• My spell checker no longer works. Edit: fixed after a restart.
• I can no longer feel its trademark hesitation when changing or opening tabs. Nice!

Other new features include a "privacy mode" (arstechnica has a nice, descriptive passage on its uses), "geolocation" (GPS, WiFi-based or IP-based, offered by Google), improved HTML5 and SVG support, web fonts and several smaller enhancements to its address bar. All in all a compelling, but not earth-shattering, upgrade. It certainly went smoother than the 2.0 -> 3.0 upgrade, which broke almost all add-ons. As a whole, Firefox 3.5 edges in front of Opera 10 in speed and standard support, but trails in features and looks. Have you installed it? What are your impressions? Would you switch from your favorite browser to it?

FYI Im using 3.0.11 and Ive never had a problem with scrolling or zooming or opening/closing tabs.

Firefox rules.

Quote: Original post by AndreTheGiant
FYI Im using 3.0.11 and Ive never had a problem with scrolling or zooming or opening/closing tabs.

Firefox rules.

Indeed, no problems here either. Off to upgrade shortly.

BTW I didn't take to Chrome. Overrated and didn't do what it said on the tin.

Open a few tabs and hold down Ctrl-Tab. Do the same in Opera. Unless you are running on a supercomputer, the difference tends to be quite visible. Fx 3.5 is much better in this regard, but still hesitates when you *lift* your hand from Ctrl-Tab.

Also, the OS makes a difference: Firefox on Linux is quite a bit slower than Firefox on Windows or Firefox/Win running on Linux through Wine (this says more about GCC than anything else, though).

Edit: just tested on Windows and they still haven't fixed the "menus don't fade" issue. A shame.

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
As a whole, Firefox 3.5 edges in front of Opera 10 in speed and standard support, but trails in features and looks.

How are you measuring speed? Firefox feels a lot slower than every other browser at basic tasks like scrolling through tabs or switching tabs. Not that it's slow enough to be all that irritating, of course. That said, Opera 10 doesn't support HTML 5 at all, so Firefox has taken the lead there. [smile]

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
Open a few tabs and hold down Ctrl-Tab. Do the same in Opera. Unless you are running on a supercomputer, the difference tends to be quite visible.

Opera brings up a tab switcher a bit like the Alt+Tab dialog, rather than switching tab instantly. I'm not sure if that's the difference you meant (I assume not).

Quote: How are you measuring speed?

Gamedev loading speed! Seriously, Gamedev loads faster that before.

Quote: Opera brings up a tab switcher a bit like the Alt+Tab dialog, rather than switching tab instantly. I'm not sure if that's the difference you meant (I assume not).

That's the second thing I disable in Opera. ;)

(First thing: enable mouse gestures. Third thing: "open new tab next to active". Fourth: disable status/menu bars.)

[Edited by - Fiddler on June 30, 2009 3:17:18 PM]

I really like it so far. It seems very noticeably faster in a lot of ways on my netbook which is a big plus. I also think the privacy mode is a good idea. The other changes probably aren't the kind that you'd immediately notice affecting your browsing but they seem good.

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
As a whole, Firefox 3.5 edges in front of Opera 10 in speed and standard support, but trails in features and looks.

Happily both "trailings" can be very simply fixed and opera then gets surpassed in trails in features and looks :)



my personal config (it's a 3.0 pic actually, but not much changed in looks and features with 3.5 for me.)

i now have a private mode button for when-ever someone else wants to quickly wants to check his/her mail/facebook/whatever stuff, and then be able to revert back and continue with my stuff as if nothing happened. i really like that as i'm quite often around with other people, and they quite often ask for "can i just, just a minute ... ??" :)


i like that performance went up quite a bit.

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
Open a few tabs and hold down Ctrl-Tab. Do the same in Opera. Unless you are running on a supercomputer, the difference tends to be quite visible. Fx 3.5 is much better in this regard, but still hesitates when you *lift* your hand from Ctrl-Tab.

Hm, I'm now on a crap computer, and it has no lag, no performance issue, nothing at all, when ctrl-tab around. Don't know what you mean.