Comments on: Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 available for testing now

By: jiMMy

jiMMy — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:41:04 +0000

funny thing when pipelining is enabled in about:config, some sites
script goes to 100%. still not ready yet

example:
http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/exchange.htm when paste directly in the address bar does not cause browser to eat cpu resources.

however from google, type “us exchange rate” and click on the results (www.bankofcanada.ca/en/exchange.htm), the same site will consume cpu.

summary same site – one entered directly using address bar and the other from google search results links.
one trigger non-responsive script.

all this occurs only when pipelining is enabled. very serious problem indeed.

By: James

James — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:29:19 +0000

I tried out SunSpider and found:
Firefox 3.0.9: 2,462 ms
Firefox 3.5 b4: 1,000 ms

Tests from others, as far as I know, also fall
in the range of 2x ~ 2.5x as fast.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:32:43 +0000

It’s THERE in the Customize, you can drag it out. They put this back since weeks ago in the nightly builds…
Maybe your firefox profile is crapped up? Just make a new one then.

By: Wikzo

Wikzo — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:25:21 +0000

How? I can’t see the button anywhere.

By: Mohan

Mohan — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:53:23 +0000

I am using it right now on Windows XP running in Virtualization and so far I am liking it. I especially like the faster javascript.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:56:30 +0000

It looks like you didn’t test the new beta 4…
The allowed customization for the button now.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:53:29 +0000

I really like what they have done with the new html5 video player. It now has all the basic functionalities you would expect from a normal player:
Title line to display video name,
Timeline displayed in digits,
Timeline displayed as progressbar,
Proper seeking in progressbar,
Play button,
Pause button,
Stop button,
Mute button,
Volume slider,
And for the cherry on top, it can also resize the video.

Overall great job in he design, there’s a world of difference between the old player in beta 3 and this new one. The only thing left of concern is the inefficient cpu usage, people on old computers are going to complain why their video and sound stutters heavily while their Flash youtube videos play fine.

By: Wikzo

Wikzo — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:30:35 +0000

Please give me the option to have a normal “New tab” button in the upper corner left to the Backward/Forward arrow buttons. I really don’t like the new “+” button in the tab bar because it moves when you open/close new tabs. It is like in Internet Explorer.

I want the button to always stay at the same place and I don’t see why I should change my way of tabbing. Could you at least give me the option to have it like all previous Firefox versions instead of just removing the button completely.

I used to right click on and select “Customize” to drag the icon where I wanted it to be. Now the icon is completely gone! Why is that?

This may be a reason for me to NOT switch to Firefox 3.5 … I can’t see the big deal of not allowing the user to decide how he wants to open new tabs. Yes, I know the Ctrl+T shortcut, but I sometimes prefer to hit the button with my mouse.

By: David Naylor

David Naylor — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:05:02 +0000

Ah, there already was a bug:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=489958

Sounds like it’ll be fixed.

By: David Naylor

David Naylor — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:43:22 +0000

Nice review, as always.

My only gripe so far with beta 4 is this: In the “Clear Recent History” window, if I choose “Details”, the options are shown in a list with a scrollbar. That scrollbar is really annoying.

Get rid of the scrollbar!! (Are you listening, Mozilla?)

Might file a bug for that.

By: Jay R.

Jay R. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:09:31 +0000

If it’s the last, why am I running 3.5b5pre?