Firefox Beta Touts Advanced Engine, Solves 8 Flaws 493
nandemoari writes "Mozilla may be this year's winner in the 'browser battles' as they ready the next beta version of their tour-de-force, Firefox 3.1. Mozilla is resolving eight critical vulnerabilities found in the current version of Firefox — a move sure to garner applause from devoted Firefox users.
As this year's crop of new browsers emerges, enhanced features are becoming secondary to one thing: speed. Mozilla is nearly ready to release the next beta version of Firefox 3.1 to the public for testing, and insiders predict that it will outpace even Safari 4, which has been the fastest browser in wide release since its beta began last week." It looks like they also will be upping the next major release to v3.5 to better show the significance of the release.
I hope they fix a couple of things (Score:5, Insightful)
Right-click is a nightmare on linux platforms (don't know if it affects others, I'm exclusively a linux shop these days).
It randomly follows an action rather than bringing up the menu about one time in ten. Opening up email programs, choosing a new window, bringing up link properties... needs fixing, badly. (Workaround for fellow sufferers - install mouse gestures add-on)
Also it seems really really processor-hungry on one of my machines. Wish I knew why.
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I've started using bash for file management instead of Finder because I can't trust the mouse to accidentally move folders etc.
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Hmm.. I find it does the right-click thing on my iMac but it might be 'cause the Mighty Mouse is so awful.
I've started using bash for file management instead of Finder because I can't trust the mouse to accidentally move folders etc.
Have you not considered getting a nice Logitech mouse or something? The latest "MX Revolution" mice are very pleasant to use, and work fine in OS X...
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I concur - the Mighty Mouse is not so mighty, Apple's worst product in a long time. I have the problem you describe in Safari 3 and 4 beta. Plus scrolling down has worn out somehow.
I am now back at using an unbranded (but white!) mouse bought 4 years ago for under 10 euro! The bluetooth one may have a function in the living room for BBC iPlayer etc.
You can fix the scroll ball (Score:5, Informative)
I concur - the Mighty Mouse is not so mighty, Apple's worst product in a long time. I have the problem you describe in Safari 3 and 4 beta. Plus scrolling down has worn out somehow.
Right clicking on the Mighty Mouse appears to have been designed by someone who only used one-button mice before. You have to pretty much take your fingers off of the mouse and only click on the right side of the mouse. It would have made much more sense to make it signal a right click if the right "button" area of the mouse was being touched, regardless of what's happening on the left. It sucks, and they really should fix it (probably could be done with a firmware update).
As for the scroll ball, I have used the "turn the mouse upside down and run the scroll ball around on your pants leg" method with some success. It only works until you get something inside the scroll ball that won't come out. My primary Mighty Mouse (I have four, two are bluetooth and on the same desk) would not scroll right, and even throwing it at the floor and wall didn't work, so I decided to break the damned thing open.
It's actually not hard to crack the mouse open, if you don't mind breaking that little collar that runs around the bottom of the mouse. There are two flexible connections that you have to disconnect, but you can remove the scroll ball mechanism with a small phillips screwdriver, disassemble it, clean it out, and reassemble it. I did it a month ago with no further problems. There is an order to reassembling the mouse and not having one of the flexible connections pull out, but it's not hard to trial and error your way through.
Re:I hope they fix a couple of things (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you considered using a mouse that doesn't suck?
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I have that right click problem with a few things in Linux. Mostly Azureus/Vuze. Never really noticed it in FF though.
I just assumed it was a GTK/library bug.
Re:I hope they fix a couple of things (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't even bother with Firefox on Linux anymore. It's dog slow, and clear that the work goes into the Windows version.
A year or so ago I thought I'd try something out...if it's so slow in Linux native, what if I tried browsing in Firefox under Wine? Surprise! Wine+Firefox is _much_ faster than native Firefox. Sure enough, this was confirmed a month or two ago on /. The AwesomeBar, in particular, is SLOW in Linux; this is coming from someone running a 3.4Ghz Core 2 Duo chip.
Not sure why it's this way, but it's pretty clear the work goes into the Windows version and hardly any goes into the native version.
As a matter of fact, the lack of an alternative decent browser (no please not Opera) on Linux is one of the major reasons why I don't bother with it at all, currently. Yes, I've tried about 7 others (insert your favorite one here); about the only alternative I would be OK with using is Chrome but that's not available for Linux.
So, I'll just check Linux out again when Chrome comes out for it.
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You can speed up firefox especially with the super bar by using tmpfs to put the firefox profile in your ram. A guide can be found at http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-717117.html
Re:I hope they fix a couple of things (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I hope they fix a couple of things (Score:5, Informative)
The reason for this is that the Windows compile is compiled with some kind of compiler optimisation. Don't really know what that optimisation was, however it had nothing to do with Windows.
IIRC, that was profile-guided optimization [wikipedia.org], which gives Firefox a 15-20% speed boost. It was enabled on Windows nightly builds at the time but not Linux nightly builds due to various reasons. It's now enabled on both, and surprise surprise! The performance gap is gone.
We're still seeing this cited and modded up despite being busted on this very site (in the comments for that story) though, which I guess just goes to prove the old adage that a lie can get around the world before the truth manages to tie its shoes.
Re: Right-click misbehaviour (Score:2)
Jeez... I'm sure glad I'm not the only the only one who has been seeing this in the recent FF release. I've been seeing right-clicks ignored and then when you try again -- and successfully perform what you wanted to do -- the basic right-click menu would pop up, requiring yet another click to make it disappear. Intensely annoying. I was afraid that my beloved Kensington track ball was going bad. Glad to hear it's not a hardware problem.
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I've seen the same exact behavior in the gnome desktop, but only in VMware images and usually Fedora Core. For example, even left clicking the close box sometimes doesn't take. Sometimes I'll click maximize and the window just disappears (I think something 'accidentally' clicked the close buttom). Sometimes it will double click. The mouse seems to work okay for moving, but it 'feels' a little jittery. The workaround for the right button is to hold it down, like another poster said.
In any case, this isn't a
Re:I hope they fix a couple of things (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, it's definately a Linux Firefox issue. I have exactly the same problem.
I've found that the workaround is to hold down the mouse button, and only release the button once I've selected something from the list. That works reliably every time. Right-clicking once sometimes brings up the menu, sometimes fires off the last action, and sometimes fires off a completely random action.
Re:I hope they fix a couple of things (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC, You want to test Shiretoko.
RAM usage (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really care about the speed. It's already fast enough. I just wish they'd sort out the RAM consumption issue and all the memory leaks. My firefox process is currently using 1.1GB of RAM and I have to restart it about twice a day just to free up some RAM. I've only got about 4 extensions installed and I've tried disabling each of them in turn to ensure the problem didn't lie in an extension.
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You must be doing something wrong (seriously). I have 4 extensions and 16 Addons installed and have routinely checked my Firefox memory usage; it's gotten to 700MB before a few times but not twice per day, it was after 3 days of having it open.
Re:RAM usage (Score:5, Funny)
> You must be doing something wrong (seriously)
If "by doing something wrong" you mean "you're a web developer" then you're probably right - I am. :)
Re:RAM usage (Score:4, Interesting)
Yikes! Opera peaks at 250MB, and stays there. They really need to work on the memory issues. Even though I don't even touch computers with less than 4GB RAM, it's pretty sick to see 25% of that eaten by a web browser.
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not RAM but CPU usage (Score:2)
I don't really care about the speed. It's already fast enough. I just wish they'd sort out the RAM consumption issue and all the memory leaks.
I have the exact opposite experience.
My firefox currently uses 13% of my 2 GB, which is 266 MB. Sometimes it becomes horribly slow.
Even if it crept up to 500 MB, I wouldn't mind much (I'm using almost 1 GB of core and 800 megs of cache ATM). If it was always fast and snappy, I'd be much happier.
I mean, come on---I'm having 50-60 tabs open but I'm only looking at one at any given moment in time...
Also, when it restores the last session, why doesn't it load the tabs in MRU order? Does it think I want to lo
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My firefox currently uses 13% of my 2 GB, which is 266 MB. Sometimes it becomes horribly slow.
Yes, this is an oddity I have heard about before. :-S I wonder what's going on there. I know a friend who used Firefox 2, but she can't switch to Firefox 3 due to this problem that understandably drives her mad on especially heavy sites. Personally I'm not seeing it at all, and it should of course not consume CPU especially on a static web site without Flash or many GIF animations.
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I mean, come on---I'm having 50-60 tabs open but I'm only looking at one at any given moment in time...
Btw, this... IF some tabs have Flash content up, I don't think it helps to have them inactive, and I think that's a limitation of Flash / addons.
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I don't know what's wrong with firefox but thats pretty sad. And yes, I have tried the "disable all plugins", uninstall/make sure all profiles are gone/reinstall. Same behavior.
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Re:RAM usage (Score:5, Informative)
I don't really care about the speed. It's already fast enough. I just wish they'd sort out the RAM consumption issue and all the memory leaks.
Firefox 3 is the best performing browser memory-wise according to all independent tests that I have seen. It barely ever creeps beyond 200 MB RAM usage for me over days of usage. In comparison, Safari 4 Beta and IE 8 easily grows to 300-400 MB after a bunch of tabs browsed. It doesn't even take much effort to get those there.
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Yes, I see much the same. I have ~30 extensions, and currently five tabs open, been running all day, and only ~160MB in use.
But I don't think the people that are complaining about this are making it up, so the question is, what is going wrong for them? On Windows I recommend trying Firefox Portable [portableapps.com] as a diagnostic aid (make sure you close your installed Firefox before running the portable version). That will run with it's own profile and extensions all in it's own directory, completely separate from your in
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Preferential treatment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting how stories spin out differently depending on the browser in question. If it were an IE story, there would be howls of derision that the vulnerabilities existed in the first place and questions about why Microsoft didn't fix them more quickly.
Re:Preferential treatment? (Score:5, Interesting)
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print("Hello World!")
Version 578120.4:
print("Hello World!")
print("Goodbye World!")
Re:Preferential treatment? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know. Check out this discussion I had with my neighbor Bob the other day.
me: Hey Bob, was that your mom just leaving?
Bob: Yeah, she came over to hang out this afternoon.
me:Oh - little hypocritical Bob?
Bob: What do you mean?
me: Well when that homeless guy that tried to rape and kill your wife came by the other day you called the cops. But you just let your mom right on in and hang out.
I've decided people are just like that - that can't seem to be impartial. They have some crazy desire to take past actions and relationships into account. Weird.
Re:Preferential treatment? (Score:5, Funny)
So you're equating Microsoft to a psychotic rapist and Mozilla to your mom....
Have you discussed this with your therapist?
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The difference is that Mozilla actually resolves issues with their browser. Those are probably the only known critical vulnerabilities. :P
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If it were an IE story, there would be howls of derision that the vulnerabilities existed in the first place and questions about why Microsoft didn't fix them more quickly.
It could have something to do with IE usually leading the browser pack with unfixed major vulnerabilities at Secunia.
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Interesting how stories spin out differently depending on the browser in question.
Humans aren't perfectly reasoned or objective, nor do they apply the same standards fairly to everyone and everything. More news at 11 ;)
What would be interesting to point out is why we treat FF better than IE (the interesting question is always "why?").
I think it's fair of "us" to hate IE, because we are the ones suffering from its bad security. We are the ones who have to clean up after the messes that IE allows others to make. Instead of MS making their browser less flammable, they have us put out unn
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Stuck at beta 2 (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems like 3.1 has been stuck at beta 2 for several months. This is while Chrome and Safari have leapt ahead with the taps and top interface and other improvements.
I still prefer Firefox, but the difference in screen real estate between Firefox and Safari Beta 4 is jarring.
8 flaws (Score:2, Insightful)
I love Firefox, I currently use it... but only one question : 8 flaws solved / how many vulnerabilities not solved?
Dear Adobe (Score:5, Insightful)
Please fix your flash plugin. Seems that once a day if I go to a page with considerable flash (which is most pages these days), the browser will crash and when I examine the crashfile, it's *gasp* always you. I've reinstalled flash and FF 3.0.6.....
Re:Dear Adobe (Score:5, Insightful)
While you're at it, Adobe, could you also consider fixing the streaming video issues in Firefox? There's no reason on this planet why Firefox's version of flash has to take up 99% CPU on a quad-core system to play video, while the IE version takes a measly 2% to play the same video.
Oh, and if you could do something - anything - about your 64bit linux support, that would be fantastic. Kill it if you must, or open source it, because your engineers are simply not talented enough to make it work.
Re:Dear Adobe (Score:5, Insightful)
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Second the recommendation of flashblock. Whitelists are the way to go.
Re:Dear Mozilla (Score:2)
But only Firefox. Somehow Konqueror and Opera manage to survive the crash* of one measly plugin while the great and mighty Firefox goes down in flames.
*Chrome's allegedly designed to do so, too. Although the one time I tried it shortly after release it almost immediately crashed when, you guessed it, Flash decided to take the day off
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I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with Flash problems on FireFox. Mine seem to fall into two main categories:
1) Annoying: Flash file doesn't load for some reason forcing me to use IE (usually in the form of IETab) to load the content.
2) System Breaking: Flash file tries to load a JavaScript function in IE. Fine if the file was *OPENED* in IE, but it wasn't. It was opened in FireFox. My default browser is FireFox. Why is it opening an IE window at "javascript:SomeFunction();"? And, when that fails
Re:Dear Adobe (Score:5, Informative)
Please fix your flash plugin. Seems that once a day if I go to a page with considerable flash (which is most pages these days), the browser will crash and when I examine the crashfile, it's *gasp* always you. I've reinstalled flash and FF 3.0.6.....
This is Slashdot, not Adobe's bug reporting system. [adobe.com] Please fix your bookmarks. They won't fix the problem if you don't post it where they will read it.
fast is a matter of perspective (Score:2)
by the time you install all of the essential add-ons to firefox, it becomes slow again.
a few things I can't live without are adblock, rip, forecastfox, ietab, twitterfox, firebug, foxmarks and ubiquity.
With these installed, the browser is no longer fast.
Oh well.
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A solution can be to use different profiles for different jobs. I have a developers profile in which I have developers add-ons like firebug, in my normal surfing I do not need it so it's not in my default profile.
Re:fast is a matter of perspective (Score:5, Informative)
As an Add-On and Web developer i'd say: disable firebug when you don't need it. Firebug is a ressource hog.
Constantly running a debugger must slow down your browser.
-S
Multithreading (Score:5, Insightful)
I still use Firefox, and will continue to do so for the time being. The reason being adblock and flashblock, exclusively. I am not as happy with Firefox as I was when I first used the 0.8 something version. I feel Mozilla have lost their way. Too much bloat like the awesome bar -- which frankly just does not work for me at all, it's an hindrance, not a help.
I want to use chrome, because of the multithreading. Firefox absolutely needs to have multithreading to compete. It can be a true dog to use if you have tabs that reload in the background.
The second that there is some sort of adblock and flashblock for Chrome I'm gone. No more Firefox for me.
I'm sorry to have to do that. I actually bought the firefox T-Shirt. I was active in the GetFirefox campaign. But now, I use it only because of the extensions.
Please, Mozilla get your act together. Now more useless features that should really be extensions, and get multithreading sorted. I want to be a Firefox fan again.
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Seconded, sick to death of FF grinding to a halt whilst a background tab is doing something (not even JavaScript in many cases, just loading/rendering a scriptless page or image).
Add this to the fact that the future is multicore CPUs and you have to wonder how Mozilla can justify sticking with a single threaded model.
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Did you know that there are other Mozilla Gecko-based web browsers that you can install Adblock Plus and Flashblock into? They're SeaMonkey (cross-platform as well) and K-Meleon (Windows only). Try them.
By the way, Chrome doesn't do multi-threading. It has a multi-process architecture.
Re:Multithreading (Score:4, Interesting)
Where Chrome is really better than opera is closing down. I can have 20 tabs open in Chrome and when I close the application, I recover all the memory pretty much instantly. Opera needs about 2-3 minutes where it actually takes more memory (e.g. jumps from 170MB to 210MB ram) before finally closing down internally. As I mentioned elsewhere, FF in windows normally just crashes upon closing, taking 100% CPU usage and requiring killing from the task manager. Therefore I use it as little as possible.
Adblock is not a dealbreaker. I have it installed in FF but it's normally off. The sites I visit don't require blocking ads. I won't visit a site so obnoxious that it would require adblocking to be functional.
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Ditto, extensions are the only things keeping me on it.
Ugh, no kidding. Perfect example of what's wrong with the project these days. Is it occasionally useful? Sure. Does it slow me down the other 99% of the time because it takes way longer to do a huge history search than a simple match on just URLs? HELL yes. Should have been an extension, or at least have had some sort of toggle next to the address bar or via a right-click menu.
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Tamarin (Score:2)
Has anyone heard when or if Tamarin is going into FF at any point in time? I checked the site quite vigorously the other day and could find no estimates, time-lines, or even projected version.
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Huh? (Score:2)
Mozilla is resolving eight critical vulnerabilities found in the current version of Firefox -- a move sure to garner applause from devoted Firefox users.
Excuse me if I'm missing something, but aren't eight critical vulnerabilities supposed to be patched in the stable branch instead of a beta branch?
(I also am not entirely sure whether fixing so many critical vulnerabilities should garner applause from Firefox users...)
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Excuse me if I'm missing something, but aren't eight critical vulnerabilities supposed to be patched in the stable branch instead of a beta branch?
(I also am not entirely sure whether fixing so many critical vulnerabilities should garner applause from Firefox users...)
RTFA: "The beta Firefox 3.1 will still have a few bugs to work out, but Mozilla officials have promised that eight of the security flaws found in the current browser, six of which have been rated critical, will be fixed in the updated version. The most serious of these vulnerabilities are already being repaired, and can be downloaded as patches from the Mozilla website."
when you read (Score:5, Insightful)
"Microsoft is resolving eight critical vulnerabilities found in the current version of IE -- a move sure to garner applause from devoted IE users."
slashdot users laugh at the propaganda
but when a firefox shill says
"Mozilla is resolving eight critical vulnerabilities found in the current version of Firefox -- a move sure to garner applause from devoted Firefox users."
slashdot puts it in the story summary reverently
propaganda is propaganda is propaganda. no matter the source, even if you love the source. just say "firefox fixed some bugs." and leave the sleazy ad copy out of it please
what next?
"the exploit found in firefox is a feature, not a bug" maybe?
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We hate and distrust Microsoft...does this really need to be explained every single fucking time.
Just because this place has been invaded by Microsoft shills, and people who don't know anything but Microsoft, and people who don't know how to use a cmd line so Microsoft lets them pretend to be IT experts, doesn't mean Slashdot should change the way it is.
do you see pac man? (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Web_browser_usage_share.svg [wikipedia.org]
if/ when the bulk of that piechart is firefox, rather than ie, revisit what you just said
you think microsoft doesn't patch bugs it finds first? really?
more ie bugs are found in the wild, simply because the rewards for finding such bugs are much larger
i'm sick of mac and firefox fanboys claiming their browser/ os is somehow more secure. its not more secure, its just less attacked, because less people use it
Mozilla may be this year's winner? (Score:2)
Seriously, do you really think Apple and Opera won't be upgrading their browsers for the next 9 months?
Check the English next time (Score:2)
The meetings notes says they are "considering" changing the numbering. Until there's an official announcement saying that they are changing the numbering this shouldn't be taken as anything other than "yup, we discussed it".
From the wiki page:
"Version numbering
* considering 3.1 -> 3.5 to indicate increased scope
* will need to figure out how to update all our tools effectively (build, bugzilla, AMO, etc.) -- detailed plan coming this week
uh...talk about spin (Score:3, Insightful)
The speed boost is attributed to TraceMonkey. I've been testing nightly builds for a while now with TraceMonkey enabled and they're generally outperformed (barely) by Webkit nightly builds, and pretty much trounced by Chrome. So if the author is betting on TraceMonkey to give Firefox as massive lead in Javascript performance then he may be in for an unpleasant surprise.
He then raves about how eight critical flaws will be fixed in the upcoming version. Say what? That means there are eight critical unpatched flaws in the current released code that have yet to be repaired. That's a bad thing, not a good thing.
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Speaking as a Gecko developer, the article's author is just confused. Either that, or in desperate need of copy, no matter how inane.
What _is_ true is that Tracemonkey at ship will be reasonably competitive with then-shipping Safari (as opposed to Webkit nightly builds, which should be compared to the then Firefox nightly builds) and V8 (depending heavily on the test; it'll be a lot slower on the V8 tests).
Due to the way the jits involved work, it's pretty easy to find tests where one or the other of the e
Factually wrong headline, misleading summary (Score:4, Informative)
Whoever cleared this for the front page?
If a free software team announced "our current stable version is insecure, but if you install our test version, you'll be safe", there would be serious hell. If you have security holes in your current stable branch, you bloody well fix them immediately instead of asking users to download a beta version. (Well, unless you're Google, in which case the whole universe is in beta.)
Just to be sure this wasn't the case, I traced the source through this poorly researched blog entry on infopackets.com back to CNet, and lo and behold:
Nope, no mention of a beta. Yes, a beta of 3.1 was released at the same time as a stable 3.0.7, and yes, 3.1 has an advanced JS engine that will boost performance. I'll even wager that if the 3.0.6 bugs were also in the 3.1 branch, then this beta fixed them as well.
But no, users do not have to download a beta version to ensure security, and to mislead them otherwise is pretty irresponsible as there is already enough FUD going on about Mozilla.
Re:ACID3 (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Acid3 only tests a small part of CSS compliance. Giving fanboys pretty number to shout about should not be a priority. Also, please don't reply to posts that you are actually not replying to. Replying to the first post is obvious attention seeking.
Re:ACID3 (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought that replying to the first post was a sign of horrible UI decisions. Anyone else notice the number of replies to the first post skyrocketed when the new design rolled out?
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It's not because of attention seeking, it's because the "real reply button" is either:
- not a button
or
- buried somewhere at the bottom of the page.
Re:ACID3 (Score:4, Insightful)
The ACID3 test is not important. It tests for unimportant small rendering bugs, and CSS3, which isn't even a standard yet.
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> In W3C land to become a recommendation there must be two completely interoperable
> implementations
This is a recent development, and wasn't in place when the specs ACID3 tests were written. None of them have two interoperable implementations, and none even come close. Some are impossible to implement a written due to self-contradictions. It's great fun.
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I also get this about 9 of 10 times and my partner does too. Why there isn't a bigger outrage over this BS after they forced us to move to FF3, I'm not sure. In my mind, they had no right to force the end of life of FF2 until *this* bug is fixed, and I've seen very few people even talk about it.
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and I've seen very few people even talk about it.
Because a lot of people don't get it? This is the first time I've even heard about it and I've been using FF3 since installing Intrepid Ibex on release day.
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So what is your complaint about the new location bar?
I switched to Firefox 3 some time ago, and I've never bothered to notice the differences (which means that the new behavior doesn't bother me or get in my way).
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Even worse, it will bring up the same five or 6 sites REGARDLESS of how often you view them. I went to 4chan ONCE on a fresh VM with FF3 installed, and FOREVER AFTER it was the first result in the Awful bar! I had to do a complete uninstall and reinstall of FF3 (including manual deletion of leftover folders) to get this to stop!
Since then the first thing I do after installing FF3 is go to about:config and completely disable all the Awful bar functions.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Informative)
Ooooooooooooor you could just go to about:config and set browser.urlbar.maxRichResults to 0.
But you know, if aimlessly bitching is your thing, please continue.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
You shouldn't have to dig in about:config to disable a prominent feature.
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BINGO!
While the Awful bar would make an EXCELLENT extension, it is wrong to force it on people that don't want it. FF started out as a nice, stripped-down browser that you could customize any way you want with easy to install extensions. now it's become a bloated, slow beast that get's features put in that a significant amount of users DO NOT WANT (note I said "significant amount", not necessarily "majority". Just because users who don't want it are a minority doesn't mean we shouldn't get a say.)
The pro
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What's more, you shouldn't have to dig around in about:config to change a setting that doesn't actually do what you want.
The max rich results setting just means it won't display any search results. That's not even remotely the same as going back to an old-school auto-complete functionality.
To be fair, I hated it at first (and at times I still do) but while it sometimes has completely random matches, there are a number of sites that I can now get to much more easily, even without having bookmarked and tagged
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Personally, I like the awesome bar but I do wish there was a way to easily disable different classes of entries from getting added. I have turned off history on my machine because the awesome bar just gets too cluttered, but I use it all the time to quickly navigate to my bookmarks.
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Check out about:config and the settings that begin with places.frecency. You will probably have to google them to figure out what they do.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
I loved it from the first time I saw it.
Maybe, just maybe, not everyone hates it. Maybe it's just a vocal minority that hates it. Maybe the 'community' -is- getting input and the problem is that you are going against the community, not them.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
I love the "awesome bar" myself, and I'm willing to bet that the majority of the community in this community project gave Mozilla similar feedback.
I'll admit, the bar hasn't helped me find the really odd or obscure site I havn't visited in a while, but that's what bookmarks are for.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
What's your beef with the awesome bar? I actually *like* how it searches through my bookmarks as I type in keywords. No more having to go through multiple levels of bookmark folders. I pretty much just click the yellow star to bookmark a page, then add a few custom tags to it. I got rid of the "I feel lucky" google search behavior, but I've been doing that since firefox 1.x...
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When I initially saw the awesome bar, I didn't like it - mainly due to when I went to navigate to gmail it showed me the titles of the mail for accounts that weren't mine.
It does expose the history alright, and to be fair that is something that was in the history list already. There is a extension that lets you filter sites from storing in your history. And I have this set to filter gmail which solved my problem.
Now I think it is brilliant. Just for finding sites I have been to or navigating bookmarks, It i
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Problem solved...
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Problem NOT solved.
As I stated in another post. There is NO WAY to revert the bar to it's old behavior. Extensions won't do it, about:config won't do it. The only thing that you can do is cripple the bar to do NOTHING but accept typed-in URLs. That's it.
Perhaps you should actually TRY to do a full revert before posting?
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At what point will they recognize the groundswell of DISLIKE for this part of the browser and just go back to the old 2.x behavior?
You're assuming that the "groundswell of DISLIKE" actually exists. Citation needed.
Personally, I think it rocks.
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I thought Firefox was supposed to be a "community" project? Why isn't the community getting input?
It is a community project. Definitely. But I think you belong to the vocal minority here.
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It's because all these articles reporting that it competes with chrome/safari are bullshit. See above for my test results â" even the very latest minefield still lags massively behind Safari, which depending on the test you run is either slightly faster or slower than chrome.