Loading ...Firefox 3 Alpha 1 released, yes it matters
The first development release of Firefox 3, code name Gran Paradiso, is now available for testing, and against what I previously thought this release actually matters.
It happens that the main improvement here is not to the Firefox user interface or functionality but to the underlying Gecko rendering engine, responsible for proper presentation of web documents in Firefox, Thunderbird, NVU, Sunbird, Netscape, Flock and a number of other Gecko based products. Gecko 1.8.1 is what comes with Firefox 2.0 and the next major version will be Gecko 1.9 which is included in this alpha. It has been in development for more than one year now and developers want to test it as soon as possible since its a very large update.
Among these improvements is the inclusion of the new Cairo rendering engine. Until Firefox 2, it was used for rendering SVG images only. Its use has now been extended to handle full web page rendering. Among other benefits, Cairo provides a coherent output independently of the device, this means for example screen and print outputs will be the same, a welcome improvement for Firefox’s buggy printing abilities. Plus, the possibility to save web pages as PDF files. Additionally, Cairo can use the extra power provided by modern graphic accelerator cards for better performance.
Another set of improvements to CSS (a standard format language) support, allows Gran Paradiso to pass the Web Standards Project’s Acid2 test, which is nothing but a very complex HTML and CSS document that stresses a browser capabilities.
Acid2 test results before and after reflow branch landing are shown below:
MacOS X users will be pleased to learn the new Gecko uses Cocoa widgets instead of Carbon as featured in Firefox 2 and previous versions. Like in Camino, Cocoa widgets will provide a more natural feel in MacOS X environments.
Among minor user interface changes, accessing about:config, Firefox advanced configuration interface, users are prompted with a confirmation dialog.
Places, the integrated interface for bookmarks and history management is already being rolled in experimental builds and should be back to the main development trunk soon.
This alpha also marks the start of the end of support for Windows 95, 98 and Me versions. As previously announced, Firefox 3 won’t run on any of these versions.
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December 10th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Interesting post. I wonder about the artifact on the nose, is that being taken care of?
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December 10th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
save to pdf would be a killer feature for firefox.
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December 11th, 2006 at 6:01 am
the about:config thing is cool. I’m sure many people have destroyed there installation using that!!!
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December 11th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Just downloaded this alpha build, but no confirmation dialog and can’t pass the acid2 test.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20061204 GranParadiso/3.0a1
AM I got the right one？
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December 11th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Possibly not. You need the Nightly. I don’t know where you get them from.
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December 11th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
wow, firefox 3!
When do you plan the final release?
I hope you don’t make it too soon, because most users do not like having to update their software more than trice a year. too many updates induce the idea that the soft is always faulty, which, in the case of firefox, it is not.
good luck!
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December 11th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
nogg3r5: I thought this article is talk about the alpha 1 “release”, anyway thanks.
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December 11th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
BobChao, you can get it here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/granparadiso/alpha1/
David, what nose artifact? According to the Acid2 test, the nose should turn blue when hovered and it does. I’ve read reports of 1 pixel offset somewhere in the face but really a very minor problem I believe.
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December 11th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Alexander, Firefox 3 is expected for late 2007, about a year from now.
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December 12th, 2006 at 9:13 am
What about thunderbird?
It hasn’t been updated for a long time.
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February 12th, 2007 at 10:02 am
OK I have a question and I am not sure if this is even the right place to post it. How do you convince a boss to use FireFox/Mozilla? I have been using FireFox since god knows when. I have tried to download it here at work but got into a little bit of trouble when I did it. If you have any suggestions please let me know. I can not stand using I.E. Thanks
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