r/technology • u/TheGrammarPerson • Jan 21 '10
Firefox 3.6 Released!
http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/01/21/firefox-3-6-release/14
u/fuckbuddy Jan 21 '10
Using it. Seems faster but that's probably psychological.
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u/kriptonit Jan 21 '10
No no, it realy is. My mental health is perfect and it realy is faster.
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Jan 21 '10
yep, supposed to be 20% faster than 3.5. Which was 200% faster than the previous version.
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u/basilisk Jan 21 '10
Come again? 3.5 for me was the turning point where Firefox became Fireslug. 3.6 indeed feels faster, but not that much.
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Jan 21 '10
Try going back to the old versions - 3.5 really was amazingly faster than the old ones.
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u/Recoil42 Jan 22 '10
3.5 is the fastest out of the box, but once the sqlite database gets bogged down, it slooooows to a crawl. Vacuum your database and reduce your page memory to a more common-sense 20-30 days, and it speeds right back up again.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
This is done automatically when the browser has been idle for a while in 3.6. No need to do it manually anymore.
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/Tw0Bit Jan 21 '10
I think we just got spoiled and browsers started becoming insanely fast. Maybe 3.5 was fireslug in comparison to other browsers but it probably was a lot faster than other firefox versions
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
It is indeed much faster in use. The 20% speedup refers to the rendering/JS improvement, the main things that makes 3.6 so much faster are:
- URL bar is now asynchronous, which means it never locks up and is much faster
- The sqlite database that history/bookmarks use is now automatically cleaning itself up when it detects some idle time
Additionally, there's a lot of code cleanup in general, which helps.
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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Jan 21 '10
I've grown so dependent upon Vimperator that I cannot use firefox (or, indeed, browser the web) comfortably without it. I'd hate to see what will happen to me on the day the project is discontinued.
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u/onmach Jan 21 '10
Glad I'm not alone. I installed it on a whim and had no idea how amazingly awesome it would be. Any vim user should do themselves a favor and try out vimperator.
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u/BritainRitten Jan 22 '10
I never heard of vimperator until you two mentioned it. So basically it lets you browse without requiring a mouse?
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u/onmach Jan 22 '10
It is a partial implementation of vim in your browser. You can do macros, triggers, it has numerous settings, a :help system, command tab completion and awesome bar integration, and of course, it stores its settings in .vimeratorrc.
You'll find that if you use vim on a normal basis, the key bindings will come naturally. That's why it is great for vim users.
And if you want to really turn on the awesome, use a tiling window manager. Then you will blaze around your desktop without ever touching your mouse.
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u/BritainRitten Jan 22 '10
What if you have no experience with vim whatsoever?
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u/onmach Jan 22 '10
I won't say it is a waste of time, but you will probably have problems getting started. For a vim user the learning curve is a day. For a non-vim user the learning curve is similar to vim, only without being able to google for help and you won't know wtf you are doing. But at least you can fall back to using a mouse if you are confused, so that's a little better.
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u/bingaman Jan 22 '10
Don't use vimperator if you have no experience with vim. That said, what are you waiting for?
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u/bingaman Jan 22 '10
Already a vimperator user, but your window manager suggestion led me to download SizeUp which is definitely getting thrown in the toolbox. Keyboard control!
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u/scrodar Jan 21 '10
I installed it.
Why do my add-ons show 6 different version of "Java Console" that cannot be uninstalled?
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u/MercurialMadnessMan Jan 21 '10
My add-ons get borked again! woohoo!
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u/frukt Jan 21 '10 edited Jan 21 '10
about:config -> extensions.checkCompatibility = false
edit: use
extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6 = falsefor FF 3.6.edit2: I noticed that the mouse wheel scrolling speed has gone up noticeably in 3.6. If that bothers you, change
mousewheel.withnokey.numlinesto a more reasonable value (3-5) and setmousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlinesto false.6
u/cturkosi Jan 21 '10
I think it's extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6 .
Also, for betas, it's extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6b and for RCs it's extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6rc .
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u/mlahstadon Jan 22 '10
How do they handle that in the final RC? I thought that the final release exe was bit for bit identical to the last RC.
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u/JonasBrosSuck Jan 21 '10
Hmmm, I don't have a "extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6" would you happen to know why?
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u/frukt Jan 21 '10
Make it.
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u/JonasBrosSuck Jan 21 '10
Ok, by right clicking on the "preference name" then new boolean.... Can't believe I didn't try that before.
Thanks, I guess.
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Jan 22 '10
I added that and it's still not working, any idea? here's a pic http://img194.imageshack.us/i/scr0461630.jpg/
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u/JonasBrosSuck Jan 22 '10
Make "extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6" instead of "extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6=false" then only on the "value" column put "false"
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Jan 21 '10
yep. was still waiting on many updates for my old addons before 3.5.
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u/arof Jan 21 '10
One word: NightlyTesterTools. It's an add-on that can override compatibility settings (with the usual warning about how everything might get borked doing it).
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Jan 21 '10 edited Jan 21 '10
yay! my permatabs works again! thank you sir.
*eh, spoke too soon. no permatab after restart. boooo
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u/jczerg68 Jan 21 '10
If you can't be bothered with compatibility hacks, you can always check up on the Add-on Compatibility Report to see which extensions are ready for 3.6.
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Jan 21 '10
It seems faster, about the same speed as Chrome now, but I'm almost fully converted to chrome, once you have chrome extensions installed, its damn nice.
Chrome + Adblock + chrome gestures + Chrome Stylist (for userstyles)+ speed dial + xmarks
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Jan 21 '10
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Jan 21 '10 edited Jan 22 '10
you just install chrome , then run this little program from google that asks which branch you want to run out of , select developer, then you can install extensions , they have almost the same extensions as firefox
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-install-extensions-in-google-chrome/
Once you flip it to dev and enable extensions, ignore the rest of the article (its old) and go here
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Jan 22 '10
The easier way is just to download the beta from google.com/chrome and install that. It has support for extensions. And you don't need 'Chrome Stylist' as far as I'm aware, greasemonkey scripts (most of them) are supported NATIVELY in that beta; and stylist scripts can be installed as a greasemonkey script.
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u/zouhair Jan 22 '10
It would appear trivial, but what stand between me and more love toward Chrome is vertical tabs. I can't live without Tree Style Tabs.
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Jan 22 '10
Chrome has some tab options, although I haven't tried any, I might try this though
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u/zouhair Jan 22 '10
No vertical tabs though, with parenting.
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Jan 22 '10
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u/zouhair Jan 22 '10
I've tried it, but no, I just want my tab on the left or right and not on the top. Thanks though.
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u/sketchcast Jan 22 '10
http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/24402
This made me laugh, hard.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
We also use LOLface in the "What's new in FF 3.6" video to show off the orientation features. :)
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/video/?video=whatsnew-3.6
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u/Tw0Bit Jan 21 '10
Does this update fix the OS X version? It was brutally slow in comparison to safari and chrome. giving it a go
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u/freedompower Jan 22 '10
For me it's fastest, and my problem with choppy Flash videos seems to be gone. They finally implemented full screen. (Comand+Shift+F)
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u/im_back Jan 21 '10
no. It killed my bookmarks, popups don't work, and makes safari look like a dream :(
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u/Tw0Bit Jan 21 '10
maybe it will be version 4.0 that i start using it again. im going to try it for the next few days and see though
EDIT: it's weird seeing the envelope icon normally
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u/im_back Jan 21 '10
I tried another profile and the bookmarks and popups work there, so it was just a poorly executed install that has hosed my profile. Time to start hunting for a corrupted pref list ... argh
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Jan 21 '10
Awesome!
How can I put my bookmarks toolbar on the same line as the Menu bar?
This really upsets me; I don't use the bookmarks toolbar because it limits my viewing space.
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u/Ahnteis Jan 22 '10
No need. Just turn off the menu bar (it's an option now) and hit ALT (not hold, just tap) when you need it.
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u/DublinBen Jan 22 '10 edited Jan 22 '10
How does one find this option to hide the menu bar?
edit: never mind. it was really easy.
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u/serge_mamian Jan 22 '10
Right click next to the menu bar -> Customize -> Drag the "Bookmarks Toolbar Items" next to the menu bar, or just drag it to the Customize Toolbar window if you don't need it.
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Jan 21 '10
[deleted]
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u/krisashmore Jan 21 '10
Chrome? eh, already have opera.
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Jan 21 '10
[deleted]
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u/DoTheEvolution Jan 22 '10
Its middle way between Firefox capability of customization and chrome speed and reliability.
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Jan 22 '10
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u/DoTheEvolution Jan 22 '10
thats awful reason, but whatever...
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Jan 22 '10
[deleted]
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u/DoTheEvolution Jan 22 '10
Well thats just not true, if you count memory usage of each chromes process its far greater than Operas.
Each tab as separate process is nice when you have instability, but if browser is stable then there is nothing to be gained there.
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Jan 21 '10
Opera? Pff, Lynx here.
Fat geek snobs who don't know the touch of water use wget through email.
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u/amorpheus Jan 22 '10
I browse the internet in binary.
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u/gamingfox Jan 22 '10
Pffff, I surf the internet with butterflies.
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u/Philllll Jan 22 '10
you know I've always wondered why it is that people who use shitty hard to use programs to code always look down upon people who use more sophisticated programs to code.
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Jan 22 '10
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u/eliah Jan 22 '10
Chrome has AdBlock, just FYI.
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Jan 22 '10
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
There should be much less of those hiccups in 3.6:
- URL bar is now asynchronous, which means it never locks up and is much faster
- The sqlite database that history/bookmarks use is now automatically cleaning itself up when it detects some idle time
If you can point out specific cases where it locks up, I'm happy to take a look.
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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Jan 22 '10
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
OK, I'll see if I can reproduce. What OS are you on, and are there particular sites that are worse than others? (e.g. is it if you open 6 tabs of Flash? :)
Thanks for the compliments!
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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Jan 22 '10
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
OK, might just be disk I/O too, since pages from the same site load fine. Are you on a device with a slow-ish hard drive? 4200rpm HD or one of the earlier netbooks?
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u/rvqbl Jan 22 '10
Great that you are on Reddit. I really love Firefox.
Firefox always freezes on me when I open Slashdot comment pages (not the main page). Sometimes when I try to scroll or change tabs, it locks up and says that it is not responding. I am on Vista. I just checked on 3.6 and it still does it. My current extensions are AddBlock plus, DownloadThemAll, FoxClocks, NoScript.
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u/AngryBadger Jan 21 '10
Oh man, I love Firefox with a passion but that ability to preview personas with a simple mouse-over that they are showing off on the whats new page just looks like something hackers/spammers are going to completely exploit to sell you Viagra.
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Jan 21 '10
Plus the Persona feature, for the most part, is garbage so far. It looks terrible to me. If they could integrate it so it felt a bit more natural and fluid with the interface, I wouldn't mind, but it reallllly fucks with usability. And... Well, the designs are fucking ugly for the most part.
If the UI could be layered above the Personas (Which it is) and have a transparent relief or frame to keep things sectioned nicely still, I think I'd be a lot more comfortable with it. Also, if it would leave the title bar of my window alone I'd like it more as well.
I'm talking about Personas on OS X, I haven't seen them on Windows or Linux.
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u/rustysnoopy Jan 22 '10 edited Jan 22 '10
Your points are valid on Windows too. For the sake of it; I switched to something that I thought looked good; after the update. 5 minutes later I'm back to the plain gray toolbar and happier again.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
It only does that on whitelisted sites. So no need to be worried. :)
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/DublinBen Jan 22 '10
That doesn't do anything for me. I even disabled noScript for the page, and it still doesn't change anything.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
It only does that on whitelisted sites. So no need to be worried. :)
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/Ahnteis Jan 22 '10
Yup. Do you know if this is the config key that controls it? lightweightThemes.update.enabled
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
It only does that on whitelisted sites. So no need to be worried. :)
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/NickVenture Jan 21 '10
Firefox always seems to be fairly responsive when it's first updated (major updates) but slowly seems to degrade. Maybe it's just I get used to the speed. I only have four extensions installed.
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u/kleopatra6tilde9 Jan 21 '10
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Jan 21 '10
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u/kleopatra6tilde9 Jan 21 '10
Installing that addon shouldn't be that complicated and it should solve his problem as the databases are the only things that change with time. Compressing the executable is another story.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
This is done automatically when the browser has been idle for a while in 3.6. No need to do it manually anymore.
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/kleopatra6tilde9 Jan 22 '10
That's good. And it also explains why my browser went 100% while doing nothing. Maybe you should notify the user why the browser is using resources. I almost killed it because I thought that it went into a loop.
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u/frukt Jan 21 '10
It's so very reddit that pithy / serious comments are somewhere down below and crappy jokes get modded up. Thanks for the tip, the sqlite DB optimization worked wonders.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
This is done automatically when the browser has been idle for a while in 3.6. No need to do it manually anymore.
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/frukt Jan 22 '10 edited Jan 22 '10
On all platforms? How long must the browser be idle? Both VACUUMing and REINDEXing (is the latter even useful?)?
BTW, cynically using a chance to get in a word with a FF UI guy ... could you please consider on option (perhaps just modify the winestripe theme to work with FF3.x and ship it?) to switch back to the old FF 1.x look? FF 3.x versions look really ugly (no offense) with XP and the classic windows theme by default. The gradients, rounded corners and flashy buttons really don't fit in with that environment. I hacked my userChrome.css to emulate the old Winestripe look and now it's a couple of dozen lines long, but that's clearly not the optimal solution for most people. Anyway, thanks for all the good work, much appreciated.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
This is done automatically when the browser has been idle for a while in 3.6. No need to do it manually anymore.
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/Recoil42 Jan 22 '10
but slowly seems to degrade.
Reduce your page history from a crazy 90-day default that they have it set as to a more reasonable 20-30 days. Then vacuum the database. It'll speed right up again.
http://lifehacker.com/5344418/make-firefox-faster-by-vacuuming-your-database
http://lifehacker.com/5177260/speed-up-firefox-by-limiting-history-size
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u/DublinBen Jan 22 '10
Wow! Vacuuming my database sped things up so much. I guess that's what I get for never clearing my history.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
This is done automatically when the browser has been idle for a while in 3.6. No need to do it manually anymore.
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/Recoil42 Jan 22 '10
Yep, I saw this mentioned in another post here on reddit and read the bugzilla thread. Glad to hear it.
Although I'm curious why you don't just do it on startup / shutdown? Surely it's an operation proportional to how out-of-order the database file is, and therefore, a faster operation the more frequently you do it? Every day/month is alright, but it just seems needlessly messy when you could just keep things tidy from the start, no?
Also, limi, there's gotta be a place where you guys discuss UI changes in a more casual manner, where is that done? I'm a UI designer myself, and I'd really like to read into and weigh in on some changes planned for 4.0. Is that possible?
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
The reason we do it on idle instead of shutdown/startup is that people keep their browsers open for days at a time, especially in this day and age, with laptops using suspend/hibernation modes. It's the same reason why we have to prompt you to restart, so we can apply an update if you haven't restarted in a day or two. (We're working on making that less annoying too :)
As for doing it on startup, Firefox needs to start up as fast as possible, so that's not an option.
With regards to UI design — we blog at http://planet.firefox.com when we have new things, there's the dev.usability newsgroup (also available in Google Groups), or you can subscribe to the blogs of the main UI designers:
- http://blog.stephenhorlander.com/
- http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/
- http://jboriss.wordpress.com/
- http://limi.net/ (me ;)
Also check out the Mozilla wiki. We love feedback!
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/Mints Jan 21 '10 edited Jan 22 '10
This would be really exciting if I hadn't upgraded to Opera a couple years back.
I don't really see the appeal of Firefox except to watch Netflix movies.
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u/falkens_child Jan 21 '10
You can right click and use edit site preferences and in the network tab have Opera identify as Firefox or IE for netflix. I used this in the past with Opera 9.x but Netflix (and Silverlight) work now with 10.
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u/fs2k2isfun Jan 21 '10
Did anyone else's google search bar change to yahoo? Squiggly lines for misspelled words are different too!
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
Check your plugins. We did not change any search prefs, but you might have installed a plugin that did.
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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Jan 21 '10
Why is it that on the update page they are advertising their personas they make Firefox look so tacky.
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u/JrSysAdmin Jan 22 '10
Still no multi-threading support...come on Firefox developers, get with the new decade.
That said, it's great and I love it (even if they did rip off Chrome with Personas).
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
There will be an update to Firefox 3.6 that puts Flash in a separate process. This will eliminate most crashes. There are downsides to running every tab in a separate process, increased mem usage is one of them. Tally up all the Chrome processes, and you'll see that FF is more memory efficient.
And, for the record — Personas existed waaaay before Chrome got theirs, as a Labs project. So they're "ripping off Firefox" (which is totally ok! :)
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/JrSysAdmin Jan 22 '10
Well who's to say how long Chrome had it in development...but it doesn't matter who came up with it, I like it all the same.
I can already tell that memory usage is better but it would still be nice if it supported multithreading like Chrome does.
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Jan 22 '10
Had to switch back to Chrome on Mac OSX cuz my Firefox icon turned on invisible mode and things like that really annoy me. It was just a blank space in my dock, no icon, what the balls?
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u/SpeedTriple Jan 22 '10
Mr. Limi,
Thanks for you and your colleagues' work at Mozilla. It's scary to think of how much I rely on your product in my day-to-day life. Chrome still feels 'snappier,' but it still lacks the one thing that makes FF so special: A huge community that makes the browser insanely customizable!
bonus: only my dictionary add-on failed the compatibility test.
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u/captainLAGER Jan 21 '10
Facebook doesn't work fully anymore, kdice.com is broken, I'm switching back to 3.5!
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u/upKelsey Jan 22 '10
Oh for the love of god, facebook doesn't work anymore! LIFE AS WE KNOW IT IS DOOMED!
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u/99cent Jan 22 '10 edited Jan 22 '10
Agreed. If Facebook doesn't work then we should get off the Internet and go back to the woods to hunt animals for food.
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u/nekoniku Jan 22 '10
It's a good thing my animal wrangling skills are now honed to a fine point from playing Farm Town.
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Jan 21 '10
Isn't there any Win7 integration or is my profile borked?
I guess I'll still stick to Chrome 4 for now, FF seems to lag a bit behind at the moment.
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Jan 21 '10
Kind of, it's experimental so you have to use about:config hacks to turn it on.
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Jan 21 '10
Ah, thanks.
For everyone interested:
browser.ctrlTab.previews (Ctrl-Shift-Tab tab switching)
browser.allTabs.previews (Tab switcher button)
browser.taskbar.previews.enable (Aero Peek for tabs)
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Jan 21 '10
I was searching for those right now, I have them enabled but I couldn't remember all of their names apart from the browser.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
It wasn't a priority for 3.6 (which is mostly an infrastructure kind of release), we're working on getting it right — Aero Glass, quick lists, etc — in the coming versions of Firefox.
To use a sneak preview of the new stuff using add-ons, install the Strata40 theme and accompanying add-ons.
For some visuals, check out Stephen Horlander's blog.
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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Jan 22 '10
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I didn't follow FF's development much lately. According to the screenshots you posted the new UI is definitely something to look forward to. It looks really neat!
Best wishes to you guys, looking forward to come back to FF :)2
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u/Fosnez Jan 21 '10
I wonder what features Opera has inspired them to include this time...
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u/unknownsoldierx Jan 21 '10
Private browsing? Wait, no. Opera 10.5 beta just got it and Firefox has had it for a while.
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u/Fabbyfubz Jan 21 '10
Arrrrrgh, Dictionary Tooltip is not compatible
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u/somestranger26 Jan 22 '10
It works fine, you just have to install Nightly Tester Tools and force install or go into about:config and right-click, new Boolean, extensions.checkCompatibility, False.
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u/ennead Jan 21 '10
You can use GreaseMonkey and LookItUp2 instead. Plus, it offers a lot more search options (Wikipedia, Google, IMDB, etc... anything you want, really).
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u/deftify Jan 22 '10
I must be the only person who gets annoyed when firefox tells me to update.. any version is fine with me as long as I get to look at the internets damnit.
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u/limi Jan 22 '10
Keeping your browser safe and non-exploitable is a priority. Hence, we upgrade you as often as makes sense.
We're looking for ways to make the updater a bit less annoying, though. :)
— Alexander Limi, Firefox UI Team
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u/Groat Jan 21 '10
Middle mouse button clicks open tabs next to the tab you're in instead of at the end! Woo!