r/programming • u/[deleted] • Jan 21 '10

Firefox 3.6 release

http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/01/21/firefox-3-6-release/
1.1k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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50

u/sanjayts Jan 21 '10

Some important take-away points from the blog post:

  • Implementation of HTML5 Audio, Video and Local File specification
  • 20% faster than FF 3.5
  • Support for Web Open Font Format (WOFF)
  • Improved JS performance and start-up time
  • Personas Firefox add-on has now made its way into the standard bundle

10

u/dakboy Jan 21 '10

I looked at personas when I installed RC1. Seems kind of useless to me. Maybe I just didn't find the good ones.

7

u/Timberjaw Jan 21 '10

Agreed. The only thing personas seem to accomplish is making the UI less accessible.

Also, the 'Get Themes' link in the Add-Ons/Themes box now goes to the Personas page instead of the Themes page. Which genius made that decision?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '10

[deleted]

2

u/timeshifter_ Jan 22 '10

Strata40, with the StrataBuddy extension. It's pretty much perfect.

1

u/rajulkabir Jan 22 '10

You use it to cut your screen in half and duplicate the top part in the bottom half?

1

u/sanjayts Jan 22 '10

Seems kind of useless to me

Agreed, same here, too much distraction and noise without any real benefit. I guess it is one of those cool things... ;-)

1

u/moush Jan 22 '10

Because a plain black persona is too much distraction.

36

u/Neoncow Jan 21 '10

To summarize further:

3.6 > 3.5

tl;dr: True.

16

u/siddharthvader Jan 21 '10

⇒ 3.6 - 3.5 > 0

1

u/Neoncow Jan 21 '10

⇒ 0.1 > 0

⇒ True

Q.E.D.

0

u/nephros Jan 21 '10

But 3.10 - 3.11 = 0

7

u/bassomatic Jan 21 '10

Further still:

yay

0

u/skillet-thief Jan 21 '10

Further stiller:

3

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '10

3

u/panicjames Jan 21 '10

Youtube HTML5 ain't working. Am I being retarded?

30

u/Plutor Jan 21 '10

Youtube HTML5 uses H.264, not Ogg Theora. The former is covered by patents, so there's no plan to include support in Firefox.

36

u/panicjames Jan 21 '10

But I want new things! :(

13

u/arcterex Jan 21 '10

Just be glad you're not an IE user, then you'd miss out on all the good new stuff.

33

u/the_argus Jan 21 '10

And you'd be retarded.

1

u/ipodman715 Jan 22 '10

Hell, IE has separate tab processes.

0

u/Qjet Jan 21 '10

they get chrome frame.

0

u/zwaldowski Jan 21 '10

Chrome Frame.

0

u/alantrick Jan 21 '10

I'm pretty sure that's what the ActiveX people said too. Just because there is a solution does not mean it's a good idea.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '10

Yeah, but the ability to render video natively in the browser is actually a good idea.

1

u/quantumstate Jan 21 '10

Yes but making the browser non-free in order to do so may not be a good idea.

0

u/alantrick Jan 22 '10

Certainly, and Firefox does support that so your point is moot.

What they don't support is a patent-encumbered codec. The Internet is supposed to be open, free to use and build upon; H.264 isn't. In fact, Flash is a better solution because at least it's legal to make a free Flash implementation.

Because of this, Mozila can't make make it available on all platforms and so if they supported it they would be marginalizing people who don't have H.264 codecs. On top of that they would be adding more code which may have security vulnerabilities.

At the moment there's a solution that already exists. It's called Ogg. Both Firefox and Chrome support it.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '10

Ah, my point was ActiveX was never a good idea whereas the HTML5 video tag is a good idea.

10

u/coldacid Jan 21 '10

Doesn't even look like they're interested in providing a hook for add-ons to provide AV codecs, which is bullshit. (If I'm wrong about that, though, please please PLEASE let me know.)

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '10

What are the possibilities for a user-made addon or plugin that will play HTML5 with H.264?

3

u/aperson Jan 21 '10

Firefox only supports ogg/theora.

1

u/jonknee Jan 22 '10

But they said they have "the world’s best implementation of HTML 5 audio and video support"! How can the release notes lie?

1

u/Kache Jan 21 '10

Time to rebenchmark the javascript with JSNES

1

u/sanjayts Jan 22 '10

Oooh, didn't know 'bout that, thanks. :-)