Posted 07/01/09 at 12:45:58 PM by David Murphy

Happy day-after-Firefox-release day.  If you're one of the 3.2 million Americans to download the latest release of the browser as of this column's writing, congratulations.  You, like your peers, have recognized the value of upgrading to faster and better technology products!  If that sounds weird, that's the point.  It should.  According to Net Applications, around twenty percent of users (out of a survey sample of around 160 million people) still use an older version of a Web browser, be it Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 2, or either Safari 3.1 or 3.2.  You are not among them; I salute thee.

You've probably read a lot of marketing in the last 24 hours about how fast, awesome, and packed-full of features the new Firefox 3.5 release is.  Since you've had a chance to play with the release candidate of this latest upgrade starting in early June, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise.  But let's cut through the press release and examine the real facts: Just how much faster is Firefox 3.5 over its browser brethren?  Has Mozilla's newest TraceMonkey JavaScript engine delivered a princess or a barrel?

Click the jump to access the contents of this article 35 percent faster.

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Posted 06/28/09 at 11:52:46 AM by Justin Kerr

Betanews claims to have confirmed the official release date of Firefox 3.5, and if correct, it could be as early as Tuesday June 30th. Once out of beta, everyone will have the opportunity to test out a stable version of Firefox’s new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. Early tests of the public beta have been impressive, and have pegged TraceMonkey performance at over 200 per cent faster than the previous version, Firefox 3.0.11. These same tests showed both Safari 4 and the Chrome 3 leaving Firefox 3.5 in the dust, but it’s a bit early to jump to conclusions until we can compare the released version of all three browsers side by side. Until then, check out our in-depth preview of the Firefox 3.5 RC.

Mozilla is also hoping that Firefox 3.5 will help them champion the open HTML5 standard, and start putting a dent in proprietary video technologies such as Adobe Flash or Windows Media. HTML5 has seen a lot of support from third party browser developers lately, and could prove to be a very capable and flexible alternative. “Somebody has to take a stand” said Mozilla senior platform engineer Damon Sicore. "Somebody has to put open video on the Web. It's important that these formats are unencumbered. We feel that it's something that's in our mission that we have to do to keep them moving forward, in keeping the Web open."

Have you been playing with the Beta or RC version of Firefox 3.5, or do you like to wait for the final release? 

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Posted 06/17/09 at 02:40:41 PM by Paul Lilly

In just a couple of days, Mozilla will make available a release candidate (RC) for its upcoming Firefox 3.5 browser, and according to Pocket-Lint.com, a final version is expected by the end of the month.

Firefox 3.5 -- which trails in release behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 and Apple's Safari 4 --  sports a number of improvements, over 5,000 according to Mozilla. Some of the more notable features include private browsing, a faster rendering engine, geolocation functionality, and better tab management.

Already looking ahead, Mozilla's next browser, currently codenamed Namoroka, will take a page from Google's Chrome and utilize process isolation features. There will also be a 64-bit version of Firefox for OSX users.

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Posted 03/11/09 at 09:28:03 AM by Paul Lilly

After several delays, we were beginning to wonder if Firefox 3.1 would ever see the light of day beyond a beta release, and as it turns it out, it's not going to. Instead, Mozilla has renamed the once 'fast-track' update to 3.5 with a fourth beta scheduled for April 14, 2009.

"The increase in scope represented by TraceMonkey and Private Browsing, plus the sheer volume of work that's gone into everything from video and layout to places and the plugin service make it a larger increment than we believe is reasonable to label ".1". 3.5 will help set expectations better about the amount of awesome that's packed into Shiretoko," said Mike Shaver, Mozilla's engineering VP.

Shaver went on to say that the version change to 3.5 is indicative of the current scope and not intended to represent a significant increase 3.5's current make-up.

Still no word on when the next version of Firefox will go Gold, though if we had to guess, we'd say either May or June of this year.

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