All about Firefox 3.5, available now
Posted by Percy Cabello on June 30th, 2009 • Tags:
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After slightly more than a year in development, Firefox 3.5 is finally here. As planned, it is an evolutionary update that builds on the significant performance enhancements and features introduced in Firefox 3.0, to deliver a still more responsive experience, more private, and extending the possibilities of the web by supporting a new set of powerful web standards.

Let’s take a look at what’s new in Firefox 3.5.

A new icon

Firefox 3.5 introduces an updated Firefox icon, that aims to reflect the evolution Firefox has gone through in the last three releases since the last update for Firefox 1.5. The new icon features a stronger 3D look with deeper shadows over the globe, and flames actually surrounding the globe. It also adds detail to the hand and snout and furrier snout and ears.

firefox-256

In low resolutions like Windows and Linux taskbar icons, the changes will go almost unnoticeable but for a slight change in colors and saturation.

Privacy

A new  private mode is now available from the Tools menu. Whatever you visit, search, or download is cleared as soon as you return to normal mode or exit Firefox, including cookies, passwords, and web forms. At this time the only hint you get while in private mode is some text added to the title bar. Future versions of Firefox may revisit the user interface for a better way to let you know you’re in private mode while not letting others which would be counterproductive.

What happens when you forgot to enter private mode before entering a site you want to keep for yourself? You have two options. One, tell Firefox to forget about that site: open the Library (Bookmarks/Organize Bookmarks…) look for any page in the site in your History, right click on it, and select Forget About This Site.

Option 2, tell Firefox to forget about the last  few hours, the day or everything. In the Tools menu, select Clear Recent History…,  the amount of time, the specific elements you want to discard, and you are done.

The Privacy options page has been updated with a dramatically streamlined interface where you can opt for Firefox defaults which remembers your browsing and allows cookies (like Firefox 3), set it to always run in private mode, or customize for something in between. You can also exclude history and bookmarks from the location bar suggestions in a new separate option.

Tabbed Browsing

Tabbed browsing is now the default browsing mode as the tab bar is always visible. This is a setting many people has requested as default for years before and the decision was finally made. There are two direct consequences: the throbber (activity indicator) is gone from the menu bar since each tab already has sits own. While it may seem a great idea, it has the inconvenience of being a moving target, so if you want to know if the current page is loading you have to first locate the current tab’s place in the tab bar. Fortunately, it is still available in the Customize Toolbar dialog so you can add it back in a blink.

The other consequence, is that when only one tab remains open, it doesn’t have a close button; and, if you close it (with a keyboard shortcut or menu File/Close Tab) the whole window goes along.

The tab bar now sports a new tab button next to the last tab making it discoverable for  new comers. Tabs can be dragged out of the current window into their own and dragged back  if wanted. An option in the tab context menu allows to do the same thing.

A new option in the History menu now let you to restore recently closed windows and not only individual tabs as in previous versions.

Native <audio>/<video> support

As part of Mozilla’s commitment to web standards, Firefox 3.5 implements the <audio> and <video> tags defined in the HTML 5 specification, making the inclusion of video and audio content on web pages as easy as images. But, most importantly, to help make the web an open environment, it bundles Ogg Vorbis and Theora decoders so web content authors can publish their audio and video content in these formats knowing that (at least) Firefox users will be able to listen, watch, and save with no need for any additional plugin on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, the supported platforms.

Conveniently, the tags specifications provide easy fallback options to other video formats like MP4 for Mac OS X users, or even to a Flash video if a codec is not available. This will help progressive transition for sites like Dailymotion, and more recently The Video Bay (from the makers of The Pirate Bay), which have started adopting the standard and tags.

Web standards

More support for web interface and language standards is a highlight of this release. Among the most relevant, the support for the @font-face CSS attribute which means web authors can now redistribute the fonts they need to make a web page look exactly as they imagined it to all users and not depend on what fonts are installed in your computer.

Web designers get powerful CSS media queries that improve developers customization options to deliver content appropriate for the user’s screen size, resolution and color capabilities. Support for color profiles introduced in Firefox 3 is now enabled by default.

Experimental support for CSS transformations and SVG effects for HTML elements dramatically expand the possibilities for web designers with options to rotate, scale, blur, or solarize web elements in a couple of lines.

Web developers get query selectors as a more effective way to access relative page elements with better applications performance. Cross-site XMLHttpRequests support is back in Firefox 3.5 (it was pulled back form 3.0) now that the specification is complete. It allows AJAX web applications to pull content from other web domains if the server allows it.

Native JSON support for easier and more secure data exchange between a web application and the server.

A standard way to declare, create and run web page background processes (like JavaScript code) called web workers, will enable web developers to create more responsive rich internet applications where complex scripts don’t put the whole interface on hold. HTML 5 drag and drop is also implemented, again for easier development, better performance, better user experience.

You can check these and more cool new web techniques at the highly recommended Mozilla Hacks.

Geolocation enables Firefox to pass the current user location to web sites that ask for it to provide customized content.

Usability

Support for recent MacBooks’ multitouch trackpads is also available, with gestures for navigating back and forward (three finger left or right swipe), move to the top or the bottom of the page (swipe up and down), zoom (pinch in or out), and swithc tabs (twist clockwise or counter clockwise). With Windows 7 expected to include support for multitouch interfaces sometime in 2010,  good to know Firefox will be ready and awaiting.

Gestures can be customized via about:config:

gestures

Links to external resources such as JavaScript files or CSS files are now clickable when viewing a page source code.

A new session restore dialog now lets you select what windows and tabs you want to restore after a crash helping isolate the problematic tab or plugin and prevent. As a side benefit you can always can always enter about:sessionrestore in the location bar to check what tabs you had in your previous session

Library management gets a tad easier with the ability to edit several bookmarks at a time. Tagging can be faster now with tag autocomplete for bookmarks and history.

The themes have been very slightly updated this time with new tab buttons and new full screen icons on Windows XP and Vista, a removed back/forward keyhole etch on Mac OS X, and a new blocked plugin icon on Linux.

You can restrict suggestion in the location bar to history, bookmarks or tags only, enter ^, * or + respectively somewhere between your terms. To include titles or addresses only, you enter # or @, and you can combine them with the previous operators to refine your suggestions.

Firefox update dialog windows are now more informative and show how long it will take. Add-on updates (specially large ones) also benefit of this enhancement.

Performance

Performance-wise, this release is significantly faster that Firefox 3 running web applications, thanks to the introduction of TraceMonkey, a technology that allows just in time JavaScript compilation for faster execution. Despite these improvements however, Chrome currently holds the crown for speed with better results in the main JavaScript performance tests, thanks in part to its V8 JavaScript engine.

Places, the history+bookmarks database is now significantly faster due to several improvement to the querying. Web feeds refresh has also been optimized so it won’t hang Firefox if updating several feeds at the same time.

More coolness

In the accessibility front, text formatting such as alignment and font weight, as well as the new audio and video play controls are exposed to assistive technologies via AT-SPI and IAccessible2 attributes properties which are well interpreted by popular screen readers Orca, NVDA, and JAWS. Text formatting even works in rich text areas like Gmail compose area, easing the task  for people with visual disabilities.

Firefox 3.5 is available now in 68 locales for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux platforms, making it the current web browser available in most languages at this time.

According to the last Mozilla Add-ons report, over 80% of add-ons are already compatible with Firefox 3.5, an important achievement and good news for users who may be too attached to their favorite extensions and themes to leave them behind.

Conclusion

Firefox 3.1 was originally planned as a completion release to get in some features that didn’t make it for Firefox 3 like new tab switching, private mode and video, but in the end it took a purpose of its own, prompting  a version push to Firefox 3.5 and extending the originally targeted last year’s end release to mid-2009. But I find it completely worth it. I’ve been using 3.5 since the betas as my main browser (about 8 months now) and have to say  I just don’t remember when was the last time it crashed.

Firefox 3 retirement starts today at update number 11 (3.0.11), and according to Mozilla policies it will go out of support six months from now, on December 31, 2009. But with 80% of add-ons ready and a very nice set of new features and performance gains it’s hard to justify not upgrading now.

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Comments
Eric Ferreira said on June 30, 2009, 1:09 pm:

Very good, thanks for that good info, Firefox forever! Fastest, beautiful, perfect.

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anonymouse said on June 30, 2009, 1:36 pm:

So… how long does Firefox store my history now?

I used to be able to set it for 30 days… or 90 days… or 365 days…

I see where I can clear recent, but what about clearing old, irrelevant history? Apologies if I missed it, but I can’t see where this is handled.

And if it can’t be, I’d like to know how far back it’s storing my data…

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Björn said on June 30, 2009, 2:46 pm:

> “So… how long does Firefox store my history now?”

Go to the privacy options and for “Firefox will” select “Use custom settings for history” and you can set the number of days. The default appears to be “Remember history”, but like you I don’t think it is obvious if that means that Firefox will never forget the history or use some default number of days.

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dave said on June 30, 2009, 3:14 pm:

Anyone know when they are pushing the automatic update for existing installs of 3.0x?

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Wikzo said on June 30, 2009, 5:05 pm:

I can’t find the new tab tearing feature which lets you drag a tab into a new window like in Google Chrome. When I try to drag it, there is no visual clues or anything … How do I enable it?

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Mohammad B. Irshid said on June 30, 2009, 5:32 pm:

I just wanna to thank Mozilla for the great work and to congrats it and myself by this incredible version… BUT I need to know Is it possible to update Firefox 3.5 RC3 to the latest version? I used to check update option in my RC3 to get all updates but it tells me that no newer version available!!!!!!

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Percy Cabello replied on June 30th, 2009, 5:56 pm:

Mohammad, if you are using RC3 then you are using Firefox 3.5 final, that’s why there’s no update available.

Bob in Ottawa said on June 30, 2009, 9:31 pm:

Nice update! Unfortunately this new version does not want to play with my Norton 360 browser add-in, which was removed during the installation of this upgrade. Other than that, nice…

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paularoid said on June 30, 2009, 9:58 pm:

All very fine – BUT – (and there’s always one of those now isn’t there?) unfortunately almost -all- of my wonderful extensions won’t work thus rendering this supposedly wonderful upgrade(?) almost totally without use to me until such time as the extensions get upgrades.

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anonymouse said on June 30, 2009, 11:37 pm:

Thank you, Bjorn. Can’t believe I missed that. =-)

@Wikzo: there’s nothing you need to do to enable the tab tearaway that I know of. If you drag the tab outside the original firefox window, it will open in a new window. At least for me, it’s working just like Chrome… except way slower. Whereas Chrome’s tearaway is nearly instantaneous, there I notice a several second lag in firefox.

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paularoid said on July 1, 2009, 12:49 am:

Well it might be all nice and dandy – BUT – unfortunately (for me) the majority of my wonderful extensions won’t work with this newer version rendering my browser of choice virtually useless to me until they’re all working. No update for me – yet. I’ve no problems with the current version so I’ll stick with it for now.

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Transcontinental said on July 1, 2009, 4:57 am:

Firefox 3.5 is definitely a piece of art. Not only is it faster than ever (page rendering is of a velocity and fluidity I have never seen before), but as well is it thought and programmed with the user in mind: everything from the features to the explanation of these features (as done here) is done with the user in mind. I’m with Firefox since version 2, but I must say version 3.5 is more than evolutionary, it is revolutionary, and I mean it :)
Congratulations to the working teams and to all who have contributed to this jewel!

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kurt said on July 2, 2009, 1:10 pm:

3.5 removes support for drag-and-drop bookmarking? It is no longer possible to drag a bookmark to the toolbar. Is this something that will be fixed in an upcoming release?

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jeff replied on September 22nd, 2009, 11:33 am:

Will drag-and-drop bookmarking be making a come back? It makes no sense to put this kind of work into such a nice program and get rid of one of the most useful tools. Please bring it back.

shin said on July 2, 2009, 11:41 pm:

when i run firefox 3.5 in window 7 mode..it always have some problem….like auto hide in taskbar,difficult to click the tab,..but when i run in vista mode all is back to normal…could someone telling me why?

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anonymouse said on July 2, 2009, 11:53 pm:

Drag & drop bookmarking seems to work OK for me, Kurt.

Perhaps one of your addons is causing a glitch?

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Transcontinental said on July 3, 2009, 2:51 am:
helaku said on July 3, 2009, 6:03 am:

I have the same problem as Kurt: Drag-and-drop bookmarking is no longer possible in 3.5 :-(

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Simmah said on July 3, 2009, 10:25 am:

What happend to ICC4 support of 3.0.. Even though it was off by default in 3.0, 3.5 seeming has no option to turn it on by going to about:config and typing in gfx in the filter box… there is no gfx.color_management.enabled to set to true, and adding it doesnt work, seemingly deleting it when you close to restart?

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Cheryl said on July 3, 2009, 6:17 pm:

I’m not happy AT ALL with this new upgrade! My themes/skins add-on is useless, and so is my Norton Internet Security 2009. How am I supposed to browse the web unprotected?? I wish I could downgrade back to my original Firefox. I hate the new one! They should have thought of this before making it available for download. I’m extremely upset!

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Hollis said on July 3, 2009, 9:02 pm:

I am writing this on Google Chrome because ever since I installed Firefox 3.5, I constantly get Firefox (not responding) messages. So much so, I have quit using it. I have used Firefox for years with no problem. So much for “new improved. I even removed it and reinstalled with the same results. The new option to allow for restoring the session is useless, since I still get the same message. The screen turns opaque white and can only be shut down using task manager. I hate people who take a perfectly good program and release an “improved” version that no longer works, with no change to the computer it is installed on.

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Michael replied on July 12th, 2009, 4:45 pm:

and I disabled all add ons too and it still hangs…
And it’s a fairly recent Windows installation too.
Service Pack 3.

John replied on July 30th, 2009, 9:52 pm:

I have been experiencing the same issues with Firefox 3.5 CONSTANTLY crashing and not responding. It is so bad that I removed the browser and now use Chrome.

eric replied on August 5th, 2009, 2:24 pm:

I am having the same issue with 3.5 “not responding.” This happens at least a dozen times per day. If I wait a minute or so, it usually corrects itself, but often I have to kick its butt with the task manager. This new version of firefox is AWFUL!! I am very close to kicking it completely off my computer – DO SOMETHING TO CORRECT THIS AWFUL RELEASE!

Sarah replied on August 26th, 2009, 8:51 pm:

I’m having a similar problem mine is some sites won’t run fast at all and if I just hit x on firefox and then try to open a new one it keeps telling me I have one up that isn’t responding and the only way to avoid this is to ctrl-alt-delete but then when I open it the next time instead of going to my home page it restores the session it is like it isn’t responding without telling me that
I have version 3 on my computer with Windows XP and it has never given me this problem I download 3.5 on my brand new Vista laptop and this problem is occuring every single time I use firefox I would like the problem to be either fixed or they need to make it so that you can have the option of downgrading back to version 3.0

Livio said on July 4, 2009, 10:24 am:

The themes have been very slightly updated this time with new tab buttons and new full screen icons on Windows XP and Vista, a removed back/forward keyhole etch on Mac OS X, and a new blocked plugin icon on Linux.

After upgrade from 3.0 I see no “new tab button”. It doesn’t appear in my XUL tree. Something’s wrong. I can’t find an option which controls it, so I guess something else is borked.

Cheryl: if you think that before final release of Firefox, authors of addons will upgrade them, you’re crazy. They always to this after. Just wait few weeks for all addons to get updated. No problem.

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Cheryl replied on July 4th, 2009, 11:12 am:

Livio, there was no need for name-calling.

Transcontinental said on July 5, 2009, 4:55 am:

Some have problems with this new 3.5, others as myself not the slightest, why? No idea. But 3.5.1 is scheduled to be released before the end of this month.
For you people who have been using Firefox with pleasure, don’t abandon the ship just because there’s a temporary difficulty, Mozilla, you know that, is always on the go, always aware, and reacts quickly. So stay tuned! Firefox is a fabulous adventure, the best browser ever, and of course no improvement = no problem. This is a temporary difficulty, things are about to be fixed :)

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Tara said on July 6, 2009, 5:03 am:

I updated to 3.5 and now have no menu bar and can’t access one; lost all of my google toolbar buttons/customization buttons; can’t access the the Yahoo toolbar customization “green wheel”; I have no control over my menu/tool bars at all. Do I need to uninstall the 3.5 version, if so how; is there a way to migrate? HELP!

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Jeff replied on August 12th, 2009, 7:28 pm:

Tara my Google bar was messed up also after I installed 3.5. I think I should have turned it off before I upgraded. I went and downloaded the bar from Google and it installed fine and all was back to the way it was before the upgrade.

Kumar Desai said on July 6, 2009, 1:58 pm:

Drag and drop bookmarks not working, constant hanging (server not found) of browser especially when using the search box on top right, occasionally the styles in a page are missing.

Other than that no complaints.

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Westy replied on July 29th, 2009, 4:06 pm:

My drag and drop bookmarks works, (on 3.5.1), but styles in pages are missing with disturbing regularity, which makes some pages appear to be missing bold or underlined text

Vince said on July 6, 2009, 3:43 pm:

I am unable to drag-and-drop bookmarks on my bookmarks toolbar. Is anyone else having the same problems.

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quby said on July 8, 2009, 1:30 pm:

just drag the icon next to the URL

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Matt replied on September 10th, 2009, 10:50 am:

Thanks for that quby, the drag-and-drop bookmarks thing has been bugging me for ages… what a stupid change though!

jeff replied on September 22nd, 2009, 11:43 am:

Thank you for explaining that. I agree a stupid change for firefox.

Buttercup said on July 9, 2009, 9:35 am:

I’m having a similar problem except no history in the navigation toolbar is being saved. Also when I go to Tools->Options->Privacy and set “Firefox will: Remember History” it doesn’t stick.

FF 3.5
Vista Enterprise
Adblock Plus

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Dana said on July 10, 2009, 7:10 am:

I didn’t really notice the new icon. Firefox 3.5 sure is faster! I find tabbed browsing really helpful. It is so much better. The new ‘private browsing’ option is great too. Not all the add-ons seem to load on 3.5 though. Only a few of my favorites such as Foxtab, Billeo, Personas etc are compatible. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12715

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Greg said on July 10, 2009, 9:44 am:

I just loaded 3.5 and now the ‘right click’ button on my mouse no longer works. I cannot open up sites in a new window or tab. I have rebooted several times but the problem persists. This is hardly an improvement. Can anybody help? Thanks!

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Sylvia replied on July 12th, 2009, 1:34 am:

I am having the same “right click” problem as Greg would love some troubleshooting input.

Heather replied on July 14th, 2009, 11:28 am:

I also can no longer “right click” only in firefox since upgrading. I tried this fix, but it did not work…
http://webdesigner-kochi.blogspot.co…u-diabled.html (uncheck the box labelled “disable or replace context menus” under the advanced button)

Craig replied on July 17th, 2009, 12:26 am:

I have the same problem…so do a number of other folks as this problem is being discussed on several forums…no help…they say to uninstall the yahoo toolbar..no help. Other sujggestion do not help. Opera works just fine…maybe that is the answer.

I keep by downloaded exe installers in a folder…got my old 3.0, installed it after shitcanning 3.5 and can now right click. Sure would be nice if the kind folks who bring us firefox would check the stuff out a bit more…I saw no indication this was a beta trial run.

Vignesh kannan replied on August 11th, 2009, 11:16 pm:

Im having the same right click prob, pls anyone help

KMGuru replied on January 15th, 2010, 12:47 am:

My mouse lost its Right Click functionality with ver 3.5.7

The program automatically upgraded itself today and I lost the right click in the window. No Yahoo toolbar. System Win2000 Prof.

Patrick said on July 14, 2009, 2:05 pm:

I clicked on the icon that said to upgrade to 3.5 – a faster version. After it was downloaded and installed I was not able to get to the internet through the new version — all I get are page load errors…. ugh — now I have to go back to IE to surf the web. I tried a re-install but no help. Is there a way I can re-install 3.0?

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Randy replied on November 18th, 2009, 11:42 pm:

Patrick,

I know this post is several months late, but maybe it will help someone else who is having the same trouble.

Just something to try…This depends on what firewall, anti-virus, or internet security suite you are using and how it is set up. For example, my security suite uses a white list of certain programs that it “allows: to access the internet. Maybe you need to find a similar list of programs in your firewall and set it to allow the new version of Firefox? I had this same issue until I discovered I needed to allow the new Firefox permission to access the internet.

quizman said on July 19, 2009, 5:30 am:

no history available, is there a fix or upgrade?

Regards

quizman

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Kumar Desai said on July 19, 2009, 6:42 pm:

As a web developer I need to work fast and without any interruptions or delays. The continual problems with FF 3.5 meant that I had to remove it and roll back to the previous version of FF which works really well. I’ll reinstall 3.5 when they fix the problems.

Btw the new Safari for PC and Mac is fantastic – it’s really fast and has an elegant interface etc, but I’m not sure if they have the same add-ons. I need Firebug, Colorzilla, Xmarks. Right now I would switch to Safari if I could.

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Drei said on July 22, 2009, 9:42 pm:

i thought i was the only one having “RIGHT CLICK” problems with the new firefox.. the speed is great no doubt about it.. i dont get errors like you guys have but i really hate coz it doesnt have RIGHT CLICK options. RIGHT CLICK is very essential! not all people knows the keyboard shortcuts (i’m not one of them) like copy and paste. RIGHT CLICK options like copy link location, copy image location, save image as. etc etc… now where do i find these??? i hope mozilla fix this soon! now i’m back using IE.. grrr

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Ralph said on July 23, 2009, 10:35 pm:

I used to LOVE Firefox. This new Firefox 3.5 is a NIGHTMARE! I have No Right Click option anymore! I close my email and my screen turns black and freezes. I can’t believe they haven’t done anything yet. This is insane. I guess I have to use Opera until they come out with a new version. FRUSTRATING!!!!

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Mellisa replied on August 3rd, 2009, 10:29 am:

I am having the SAME issue and it is very annoying!!! I’m going to start using google chrome until they fix this.

Ralph replied on August 3rd, 2009, 1:29 pm:

WoW. That was awesome. They fixed my problem within hours of the time I posted my complaint. Now I am back to Firefox, and I LOVE it!

Nicole replied on September 6th, 2009, 5:49 pm:

I am also having problems with the right click. I need it for spell check because, I get a lot of brain farts on some words. I think I may have to go back to IE! Did they fix your right click problem Ralph? And is there a easy way to get rid of all of these annoying add-ons they got FF?

Lindsey replied on September 13th, 2009, 7:10 pm:

What is the fix for the right click issue?! I just began having this problem and am not happy at all about it! I’m looking into this google chrome but I’d prefer to get my firefox working properly

Yolanda replied on September 14th, 2009, 12:47 am:

No right click its annoying with spell check I cant correct anything. I use right click a lot. Its hard trying to live without it.

Ralph replied on September 14th, 2009, 5:39 pm:

When I downloaded the new version and cut out my old custom charcoal theme add on, my right click came back.

Amanda replied on December 28th, 2009, 12:07 pm:

I am having the same exact problem. Can’t right click and everytime anyone signs out of their email the screen just goes white and freezes. It had to be closed out then it takes about 10 minutes to restart! Didn’t have any problems until the upgrade.

Neil said on July 24, 2009, 12:55 am:

Problems problems problems
My upgrade to 3.5 led me to nothing but problems this evening. I’m writing this before I go to bed…
Checked for upgrades and upgraded to 3.5
Immediately confronted with a crash
Started in Safemode, disabled add-ons
Restarted with selecting add-ons one by one
Java OK
Cooliris not OK!
Crash!!
Now when I go to Youtube – “sorry you need the updated version of Adobe Flash we can’t play your video”
Followed link to dowload Flash plugin
Installed plugin
Still no YouTube!
I will downgrade FF tomorrow
Fed up
Goodnight!

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Craig said on July 24, 2009, 3:52 am:

Surely the Firefox 3.5 administrators have heard the complaints…no response..no fix. What gives? I am becoming more and more satisfied with Opera as my main browser. I did reinstall the 3.0 Firefox and it does what I want it to…I’m just feel let down. I’ve praised the Mozilla option to my friends…Did sucess turn Goggle into a second rate microsoft…just look at their actions in Utube…is Firefox succumbing to this illness, too?

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Roland said on July 27, 2009, 4:07 pm:

I have a brand new installation (even new harddrive) with XP Pro SP3 with all Microsoft security updates (as of July 25) installed.
After installing Firefox 3.5.1 I cannot access any https web pages, neither on-line banking, nor any on-line mail servers.
I downloaded Firefox 3.0.12 and installed it over the 3.5.1 – all add-on remmained.
The good news is, I have full access again to https web pages !!!
I do hope with the next release this access issue is fixed.

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Roland replied on August 5th, 2009, 4:29 pm:

I just installed Firefox 3.5.2 and the problem I reported on July 27 still remains: I cannot access any https wep pages. I reinstalled 3.0.13 and I have again access to https.
My hope that this problem would be fixed with the new release was not fulfilled.

Roland replied on August 10th, 2009, 2:34 pm:

For me personally I was able to solve the problem: I use now from my hard drive the “Portable Firefox” 3.5.2 – I have all my add-ons, and it works smoothly.
Please do not ask me about the difference between the portable and non-portable version.
Bottom line, I have full access to the web.

Björn said on July 31, 2009, 5:40 am:

> “After installing Firefox 3.5.1 I cannot access any https web pages, neither on-line banking, nor any on-line mail servers.”

Did you check if you were online, I mean that the menu option “File – Work Offline” was not checked? I think you can set that in the about:config too.

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Guy said on August 3, 2009, 3:07 am:

I have just downloaded Firefox 3.5.1. on my Macbook and now cannot get into my Gmail inbox. Whenever I try to do so, the page “blinks” manically and the programme seems to go into a continuous loop. From checking user websites, it seems that other Mac users, and some PC ones, are encountering the same problem. I have tried every fix recommended, and still the thing doesn’t work. It is incredible that Mozilla could put out such a shoddy, badly tested piece of software. This is a major defect.

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Guy said on August 3, 2009, 5:00 pm:

No thanks to the people at Mozilla, I have finally cracked the Firefox Gmail problem. The solution is to go into the bit of Preferences that deals with cookies and to list the Gmail URL under “always allow” exceptions.

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Carlene said on August 4, 2009, 4:57 pm:

Technical folks at Mozilla, please reinvest in the “right-click” function, it’s quite annoying, it seems as though you guys take a step back in actions and functions, and you need fix you crash report system as well, because i’m still getting crashes that messes up my important work.

One last thing, as proof reading in typing is essential, testing your “assumed to be alright” product is VERY essential before you release it so that your users won’t have these problems and switch to a different web browser.

Thank you, and please take these comments into consideration.

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Carlene replied on August 4th, 2009, 4:59 pm:

i meant it’s annoying without the right-click function which is a very important function to have, so put it back in the updated version when ever that is.

Jason replied on August 13th, 2009, 12:36 am:

I had the same problem of lack of a functioning right-click drop-down menu after “upgrading” to 3.5.2. Here’s what worked for me per another website’s recommendation:

1. Shut down Firefox completely
2. Start -> All Programs -> Mozilla Firefox folder -> Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode)

It worked in Safe Mode and, more importantly, after I shut down Safe Mode and opened regular Firefox, it worked just fine.

Hope that helps!

Jan Wroblewski said on August 6, 2009, 1:16 pm:

I have Firefox 3.5.1 operating under XP Pro SP3. When I uploaded the update 3.5.2, clicked on the shortcut ….waited ….waited – no Firefox. Tried again and again ..zilch Checked process Cntrl alt del no Firefox. Strange I thought , well go directly to the application and activate from the directory in case the shortcut was somehow not activating.. And nothing,, ziltch. Rerun the 3.5.1. and immediately back to normal operations. But as I found out, I left the automatic update on, so it updated back to 3.5.2. and again the program was unable to run. I stripped it off and reran 3.5.1 again – left off the automatic update and I can use the browser.
I’m not sure if this is 3.5.2. fault or a setting in the ant-virus/scan software (Iolo +Ad-Aware) but there’s no report in the scan’s made and 3.5.1. works immediately under the same protective regime. And answers would be interestingly read.

Regards
Jan

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kaito said on August 7, 2009, 1:54 pm:

3.5 “not responding.” – writing this from IE – nice one mozilla.

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Lisa Hays said on August 15, 2009, 4:16 pm:

How do I get right click back? can’t find an answer anywhere.

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Josh McGee replied on September 4th, 2009, 4:14 pm:

The Yahoo Toolbar messes with FF 3.5. If you have it installed, that’s probably your problem. At least that was mine. Once I removed the toolbar, my right click worked just fine. Go to tools > add-ons > extensions then click on yahoo toolbar and uninstall it. Restart FF and you should be good to go.

MColman said on August 19, 2009, 8:54 am:

Firefox 3.5 does not work. It takes nearly five minutes to open, if it opens at all; more times than not it freezes on opening and I have to close it with the task manager, which takes another two or three minutes. I used if for a couple of days and found I was loosing over an hour of time each day dealing with “Firefox not responding” freeze ups. I have stopped using firefox after years of being a satisfied user. I am using Chrome, it is peppy, doesn’t freeze, and does everything I need it to do. Good bye firefox.

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R Graham said on August 26, 2009, 3:31 pm:

I cannot believe how awful FF 3.5 is and I do have all updates and have removed all plugins/extras on a fresh windows install. It’s useless when you have pause to type anything, you have to wait for everything, it crashes, it hangs, it’s a shame it was released.

I write this on IE 7, heaven forbid.

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Liz said on August 30, 2009, 9:41 am:

UGH I hate this new version of firefox. I should have never upgraded it but I got tired of the upgrade box to continue harassing me of upgrading. Now I have to uninstall firefox and lose all my bookmarks and download the older version. The new one sucks. Stupid bars that keeps hanging Ugh Ugh Ugh. I HATE IT!!!!!!!!

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Eduardo said on September 1, 2009, 3:26 pm:

For now, two features loss:
* Drag and drop the link to bookmarks (I know now that it works with fabian icon, but, why loose it!!)
* Close last window

This is not the way guys !!!

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seanmcgu said on September 2, 2009, 12:25 pm:

I have v3.5.2 installed at home and it’s working fine. Here at work, I got tired of the nag screen to go to v3.5.2, so clicked Ok to upgrade. Now all of my Menus at the top are not working. When I mouse over them, the first one I mouse over just stays present on the screen and covers everything below it. It does not go away after moving the mouse into the main window and clicking (or anything else I do, except closing FF and restarting it).

I followed the instructions as posted by Jason above about going into Safe Mode and then restarting but when I restart FF again in Normal mode, the problem is still present.

Is there anyway to revert back to v3.5.1 without having to do a full reinstall? I don’t want to have to re-setup all of my toolbars, settings, etc. I don’t have the time!

Thank you.

…..Sean

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OrgaNon said on September 5, 2009, 2:38 pm:

FF is working very badly, in Win7. I´m really dissappointed.

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Morrigan said on September 8, 2009, 12:11 pm:

Installed FF 3.5 on new laptop, its constantly not responding and freezing, absolute nightmare!!! Have 3.0 on pc and its never given one bit of bother!!! Improvements??? Thats a joke :-(

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seanmcgu said on September 8, 2009, 11:17 pm:

Ok, it’s working again. What I did was Disable all of the Addons (while not in Safe Mode), restarted Firefox and then Enabled them one at a time, restarting FF each time. Of course, the last one on my list, Tab Kit v0.5.6, was the culprit. Lol.

All’s fine now and FF is working faster than ever. I’ll email the makers of Tab Kit to let them know.

…..Sean

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David Nicol said on September 22, 2009, 9:12 am:

Firefox 3.5.# doesn’t run on my machine, but then neither does 3.0.14. All the previous ones do. It gives the same error each time “The instruction at “0x5a928150″ referenced memory at “0x5a928150″. The memory could not be “written”.
I have seen this error mentioned elsewhere but no fixes, other people get it but intermittently. It happens in safe mode (on both versions after 3.0.13) Running standard XP MCE with no firefox extensions etc. Reinstallation makes no difference.
Had same problem with IE 8. Microsoft sent me a batch file which fixed it, by reregistering variou s .dll etc but it doesn’t seem to work for Firefox. I guess that is the end of Firefox for me as I have posted on forums but got no replies

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Janitor Mann said on September 24, 2009, 1:59 pm:

Quit Messing around.
Seems, as with any software, once I have gotten used to it, have it running the way I want, and everything is fine, an “upgrade” is required that is impossible to use. The standard user doesn’t want to mess around with having to learn new software every year, and not having it work the same and look the same as the old. Firefox is no exception. I recommend waiting 3 to 5 years after new software of any sort comes out before installing. If the stupid web designers would stop “improving” (making unnecessary changes, it all worked FINE ten years ago) then software wouldn’t have to be improved either. I see NO reason to update from windows 2000 and I was hesitant to “upgrade” to that because everything changed. My word processing still works fine and LOOKS THE SAME, no reason to “improve” it. I really see very little need for updates.
I had a HELL of a time with firefox 3.0 and it’s BRAND new, NO reason I can see to change to 3.5 which, yes, I tried, and NO it doesn’t work, disabled all my add ons, does NOT work on pages on the internet, they should not release this until it is able to install with the option to have your program look and run exactly the same as versions before without the user having to learn or do anything.

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Miker said on September 27, 2009, 6:14 am:

I had a major problem with Gmail after I upgraded to 3.5. If I check the box in Tools, Options, Warning Messages – Settings, for “I submit information that’s not encrypted”, then I would endlessly get:

“Security Warning:

The information you have entered is to be sent over an unencrypted connection and could easily be read by a third party.

Are you sure you want to continue sending this information?”

In addition Gmail shows an error ’103′ at the top of the page and then you are stuck in wherever you are in Gmail; that is stuck in the Inbox, Sent Mail or Drafts.

However, just by un-checking the above noted box, the problem is resolved.

I am using Windows Vista 64bit Home Premium Edition with Service Pack 2 and Mozilla Firefox 3.5.3

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Anon said on October 14, 2009, 4:33 pm:

Yay for porn mode… was about time since the Internet pretty much for porn.

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Daniel said on October 15, 2009, 9:33 pm:

when i use firefox, i can access most websites but i cant access youtube. the loading bar at the side doesnt progress at all..anyone have the same problem? please reply :D

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April said on October 16, 2009, 6:32 am:

I was running firefox 2.o, I tried updating to version 3 a while back, and it would not work on my computer. So after a few tries, I just uninstalled it and kept 2.o. I have just updated firefox to version 3.5, and have lost all my bookmarks. This has never happened previously in any firefox updates. They were very important bookmarks, and now they’re somewhere in cyber world, floating around. I don’t understand why this has happened, I’ve tried many ways to restore my bookmarks or get them back, nothing is working.
Not happy. If I can’t find a way to get them back, then I’ll go back to using Internet Explorer or Google Chrome and I won’t recommend firefox to anybody again. Thanks a lot, firefox. This update is truly terrible.

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Björn replied on October 17th, 2009, 5:21 am:

April try the following links:

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Bookmarks#Troubleshooting

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Lost+Bookmarks

“During normal usage of Firefox, you may discover that Firefox has apparently lost your bookmarks. In most cases, the bookmarks are not lost. This article discusses the main ways in which it can appear that your bookmarks are missing and explains how you can recover them. “

Scott said on October 18, 2009, 10:20 am:

I am running FireFox 3.5.3 on XP SP3 with 1 Gig of ram.
My brother has Vista with 4 Gigs of ram.

FireFox freezes on my system and not on his system.

People that are having this problem should post how much ram they
have on their system. We may see a trend develop. I intend to upgrade my ram to the 4 Gig max my system will hold.

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George Avalos said on October 22, 2009, 2:21 pm:

Windows XP

Firefox 3.5.5 is terrible at keeping bookmarks. Every time I open FireFox, the bookmarks I had saved in the prior session are no longer there. I tried all the fixes that were recommended. these include checking to see if the files are read only or hidden, including deleting the SQ places, and SQ journal places, or whatever they’re called, files. None of these fixes work. I have uninstalled and installed FF several times. It keeps happening over and over.

Is anybody else having this problem? Is there a real solution?

Until I know for a fact it’s fixed, I’m going to have to return to Internet Explorer. You can open tabs in IE8, just like Firefox.

thanks

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Björn replied on October 23rd, 2009, 4:24 pm:
AlanT said on November 13, 2009, 11:56 pm:

When will FF get fixed !!! After using FF for years happily I am now going to change because of the constant “Not Responding” problem.
I keep gong back and downloading the latest version (currently 3.5.5) and STILL the same problem.
I Firefox do not do something about this soon I will NOT bother downloading future versions in the hope the problem has been rectified

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Terry said on December 2, 2009, 8:09 am:

Yep, since downloading 3.5.5, I’ve been having some of the problems mentioned above: PC freezing, programs not responding to Task Manager for ages and sometimes in desperation I turn the machine off at the plug (naughty, I know) and start it up again. It’s fine for a short while, then it gets worse. I’ve tried reverting to the last version and and am now on the new beta 3.6 but still the same issues. I’m wondering about clearing my hard drive (which I usually do once a year anyway) and re-installing everything, but fear from the comments above I might not solve anything. IE – which I’ve hardly every used – seems fine. So it could be goodbye Mozilla after five years.

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Scott said on December 8, 2009, 10:38 pm:

I’ve been Using Firefox as a tool to develop JavaScript for college. I just recently had to create an rss feed and found that when Firefox accesses rss feeds via JavaScript httpRequest and php headers, Firefox freezes.

It has been apparent to me for some time that sites such as Sourceforge.net which use scripts for file downloads, causes Firefox to freeze. I have also noticed that Firefox will tend to freeze on certain sites for no apparent reason. I am of the opinion that these freezes are due to the JavaScript httpRequest which I have found to cause freezes.

SATovey

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Sake-chan said on January 20, 2010, 12:04 am:

I also had the “right click” issue, and uninstalling Yahoo Toolbar did the trick for me, I’m so glad I only had to put up with that for an hour. Although… I kind of would like that toolbar back….
>.>

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EdV replied on January 20th, 2010, 10:56 am:

What an annoying problem. Un-installing the Yahoo Toolbar fixed it for me.
Thanks for the tip.

Ely said on January 21, 2010, 11:17 pm:

Pls help! I updated 3.5.7 version of FF a while ago then when I tried clicking a link into new a tab, it suddenly stopped doing it. While before I update, I don’t have problems like that. What am I going to do? Pls help!

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Sydnee said on January 22, 2010, 3:20 pm:

Fire fox isnot responding when ever i go on youtube, and its starting to piss me off.

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Luis said on February 7, 2010, 1:20 am:

Well, this was my fault, i was playing with disabling the toolbars, and i disabled all of them even the menu bar, and now i don’t know hot to get them back, the only bar right now i the tab one, does anyone know how to get them back?

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Björn said on February 7, 2010, 11:40 am:

> does anyone know how to get them back?

At least In FF 3.6, and I suppose 3.5 if you are still running that, pressing the Alt key will restore the menu-bar temporarily.

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Ichiro Furusato said on April 7, 2010, 4:33 am:

Somewhere in the last minor version or so (I’m on FF 3.6.3 on Ubuntu Linux but this seems to be something that occurred post-3.5) an incompatibility between Personas and drag and drop in the Bookmarks organizer has arisen.

I’m pretty sure this is a direct relationship since as soon as I disabled Personas and restarted I was again able to drag and drop to organize my bookmarks menu items. If anyone is having UI problems I’d *first* suggest turning off Personas as well as any themes (in the past they’ve caused issues as well) and try again.

My apologies – I’m not sure where to file this as a bug but this does seem to be something relatively recent.

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Craig said on April 12, 2010, 3:56 am:

The new version of firefox is useless every time it updates it loses all my bookmarks and personas, settings,passwords everything tried installing it and setting everything up again 3 or 4 times now with the same results so now its bye bye firefox hello chrome. Been using firefox for years, very dissapointed!

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