Firefox 3.5 Arrives Today, But Are You Dazzled?
There used to be a time when a new Firefox release was an exciting day for early adopters. We'd delve into the new features, rejoice in the speed improvements, and moan about our lost extensions. Today should be another action packed upgrade day - it's reported that Mozilla will release Firefox 3.5 later today (update: it's here now) - but, this time, something is missing.
Firefox just isn't dazzling us the way it used to. In fact, in some cases, it's as if the browser is playing a game of catch-up instead. With new features like Private Browsing and TraceMonkey, an engine that speeds up web applications, Firefox isn't exactly blowing us away - they're simply introducing features that put them on par with Google Chrome and even, gasp, IE.
Private Browsing
One of the most notable of the new additions to Firefox 3.5 is the Private Browsing feature. Often jokingly (or perhaps not) called "porn mode," this special browsing mode keeps all traces of your web activity off your computer, including everything from browser history to passwords to search bar entries and more.
Although we're certainly happy to see Firefox add this now-standard web browser feature, it's the first time we can remember Firefox copying something from Internet Explorer and not the other way around. For the browser that brought us a revolution of tabbed browsing and extensions, copying IE seems like a sad state of affairs. IE8 has offered private browsing since March of this year, Chrome had it from day one - back in 2008, and Safari had it before both of those. What took Firefox so long?
At the very least, can we hope that Firefox does private browsing better somehow? Well, it does let you individually remove sites from your history via a new "Forget About This Site" option in case you forgot to "go private." But then again, erasing your browsing history accomplishes this task, too. In 3.5, you can also specify time ranges of history to clear - anywhere from the past hour to the past day. That's a nice little added tweak, but nothing ground-shaking. In the end, private browsing is more of a "me-too" feature than anything extraordinary.
Speed: TraceMonkey
Under the hood, Firefox 3.5 is introducing a new engine called TraceMonkey, which is said to result in a "massive speed increase both in the browser chrome and web page content." Specifically, this improvement affects programs written in JavaScript, as many rich internet applications (RIAs) are today. Historically, web apps running in JavaScript haven't been able to match the speed with which native software runs on the PC, but TraceMonkey brings that gap much closer together.
However, although Firefox 3.5 is faster - a lot faster, in fact - it's not the fastest browser out there. A SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark test (courtesy of PCPro) shows that it's currently being beaten by both Google Chrome and Safari 4.0.
Location-Aware Browsing
Finally, location-aware browsing - a feature that is innovative! In Firefox 3.5, the browser can tell web sites where you're physically located in the world so you can find relevant information more quickly. In other words, if you're searching for a nearby restaurant, you can simply search for "sushi" and the search will return localized results. However, this all depends on whether or not the web site in question is a "location-aware" site. If it is, it will ask you if you want to share your location. It's too bad there's not an all or nothing switch for this feature, though. Instead, you're prompted to allow the feature to be switched on whenever you visit a location-aware site for the first time.
Still, this one's a point for Firefox.
HTML 5 Support & Other Geeky Stuff
HTML5, the next version of markup language used to build web sites, won't be ratified into a standard for another year, but Firefox 3.5 is already supporting many of its capabilities. For example, the new browser will support audio and video embeds without the need for the Flash plugin.
Also supported are offline data storage, support for native JSON, the <canvas> element for drawing vector graphics and animations, and new CSS options that let designers create text with shadows and draw border images.
However, although the offline data storage feature of HTML5 will eventually lead to a standardized way for web applications to work offline (that is, when you're without a net connection), it already has a competitor: Google Gears. Gears, now an open-source technology, is currently used for the same purpose as HTML5 when it comes to offline data storage. And unlike HTML5, Gears works in older browsers too.
Finally, there is the addition of "web workers," a way for web content to run resource-intensive scripts in the background, a feature that will make the browser feel faster while also helping improve stability. But will it "feel" as fast as Chrome? Well, it might, especially when you take into consideration the memory usage issues of Chrome.
Conclusion
Overall, the latest upgrade to Firefox is definitely worthwhile and filled with improvements that will please its users. With its new features, speed increases for web apps, and support for standards, 3.5 represents a major upgrade, not a minor release.
Firefox continues to dominate the other "alternative" web browsers at 22.5% marketshare compared to Safari's 8.43%, Chrome's 1.80%, and others who haven't even reached 1.0% yet (stats via Net Applications). However, this time around, a few of Firefox's "upgrades" aren't entirely new to us as web browser connoisseurs. The browser is late to offer private browsing and although speedier, it's not the speediest anymore.
All that being said, Firefox is still the one to beat when it comes to IE alternatives. But with all these new contenders cutting into its marketshare, it may never topple IE from its throne after all.
Image credit: browser pie chart - Webmonkey
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It's out now.
It just went live, updating post. Thanks.
as long as it has adblock, i will use it
Just wanted to note that HTML5 support is an important issue not just for "geeks", but indeed for everybody and anybody who enjoys the openness of the web and wishes for it to stay that way. Firefox (and the Mozilla foundation) is an important force in fighting for web standards and their adoption. If it were not for them, it's (sadly) too easy to imagine how proprietary technologies from the various companies, combined with intentional delays in implementing standards, would make the web look much more fractured by mini-platform-wars.
Now to a finer point... @Sarah, I don't think Firefox is the greatest software product ever, but... to me it seems that you've pre-chosen the verdict ("Firefox is boring") and then went on to write the article.
For example, regarding "private browsing" - definitely, MS has innovated with this feature. So, Firefox developers recognized that and implemented it as well - kudos to them for that. Would you prefer them to ignore this innovation and thus avoid this "sad state of affairs" where they copy IE8...? Or perhaps they should've sent their open-source-zealot-innovation-inhibitors to Redmond, to preempt the possibility of MS innovating? ;-) I just don't see what here warrants bashing them for, unless you think the 3-4 months gap vs. IE8 is enough of a sin to justify the harsh conclusion... To me anyway, the standards support (with video support, which is a Big Deal), the impressive speed improvements and the added features seem like a nice dose of improvements for a point release.
PCMag is all ablaze about it: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2349494,00.asp - but from their review, all I see, really, is that FF still has it over IE and is playing catch-up with the other browsers. Lifehacker, of course, runs a continuous love affair with FF, also.
FF is still agonizingly slow to start up on MacOSX, compared to Safari and Camino, and is still slower to render pages (at least in my perception). Its primary advantage is its many add-ons. Having tried it for a few days habit (via RC testing), I think it is no great shakes. I'll use it for cross-browser testing and for webmaster tools, and stick to others for habitual use.
Its streams ogg theora files in a player with a transport.
Not a big feature, but I haven't seen that in any other browsers.
@Firefox user: Nope, I asked around. None of my non-geek friends care about HTML5. :) In all seriousness, though, I understand that improvements like this will help the "non-geeks" in the long run, but it's just not a selling point for them.
Also, of course I'm not implying that Firefox shouldn't have implemented private browsing to avoid copying IE. That's just silly. But it is telling that they're now behind and reproducing a feature both IE and Chrome had (in fact, Chrome was first *and* a lot earlier than IE).
When I first started with FF, I was amazed with all their unique offerings. Now I'm watching them play catch-up. Say what you want, but things have changed.
"canvas element for drawing vector graphics and animations"
You're mistaken. Canvas is bitmap graphics, not vector graphics. Also, though it gained some new features in 3.5, it's been in Firefox since 1.5.
"when you take into consideration the memory usage issues of Chrome."
The linked site is a joke, written by somebody who doesn't understand how to measure memory usage. I'm much more concerned about the memory usage (both amount, and patterns) of Firefox.
Finally, your pie chart is all skewed to the side, making a type of chart that's already hard to interpret even more confusing. Are percentages based on area, or angle?
@Mike: I don't claim to understand that Canvas stuff but I snagged that info from Webmonkey (linked in the article). They wrote: "The new browser also supports offline data storage and the element for drawing vector graphics and animations"...
So they're wrong, I'm wrong, etc. I guess.
Also, re: memory use in Chrome, here are some other links of interest. Love to know what you think:
http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2009/06/22/memory-usage-firefox-chrome-safari-opera-the-winner-is/
The Slashdot comments about the site I linked: http://slashdot.org/story/09/06/20/1951212/Memory-Usage-of-Chrome-Firefox-35-et-al
Finally, I think this info from the Chromium blog is telling:
"While the multi-process model provides clear robustness and performance benefits, it can also be a setback in terms of using the absolute smallest amount of memory. Since each tab is its own "sandboxed" process, tabs cannot share information easily. Any data structures needed for general rendering of web pages must be replicated to each tab. We've done our best to minimize this, but we have a lot more work to do."
@SarahPerez: you are wrong on the private browsing feature being first in Chrome. Safari was the first browser to have this, something like 2 years ago.
I've been using what's essentially Private Browsing since Firefox 2. Just set the browser to clear everything on exit. All that's added here is an idiot-proof implementation.
@Stark - oh right!
Lots and lots of downloads already:
http://downloadstats.mozilla.com/
Sarah: well, it's true Firefox 3.5 supports an "element for drawing vector graphics and animations". That element is SVG, which has also been in Firefox since 1.5. That page on webmonkey.com you link to is rather light on facts; if you're going to use a single (non-authoritative) source, you should probably double-check their claims.
I've not seen that dotnetperls.com page linked to by somebody who wasn't pointing out that it was completely wrong. The slashdot comments you point to say "Simply opening tabs and summing memory usage is an idiotic way to measure memory usage of a browser [...] find someone competent to run your memory benchmarks". Even the Chromium blog says "If you're measuring memory in a multi-process application like Google Chrome, don't forget to take into account shared memory. If you add the size of each process via the Windows XP task manager, you'll be double counting the shared memory for each process".
If it feels like FF 3.5 "is playing a game of catch-up", perhaps that's because it's already soundly beaten everybody in all the other categories. Its standards support is second to none today: XHTML, SVG, CSS, and Ecmascript were already by far the best in 3.0 and all got better in 3.5.
FF i playing catch-up for the same reason MS is with Windows. Their product is much older, and has a lot of legacy baggage. If they change too much too fast, it risks breaking a lot of stuff, and risks alienating users.
> @Firefox user: Nope, I asked around. None of my non-geek friends care about HTML5. :)
I'm pretty sure you've asked the wrong question. The correct question is not "do you care about html5?", but "do you want better looking websites and videos?" - I don't think any of your non-geek friends will answer the later one with "don't care"
Firefox copied private browsing from Safari, not IE.
tabs was Opera not ff
I spent a lot of time on the beta making sure my Twitter Toolbar add-on worked. So I was a little disappointed to find that Googles Toolbar stopped working for me when downloading the official version. You would think Google would have all the bugs out of that before FF released. I lost the pagerank function, and a few other simple commands it has like going to it's help page.
@Mike: OK, how about I agree with you on the chosen link. It's hotly debated, so perhaps not the best choice. I'll point to this link on Hacker News: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=667592 ("He is using Process.PrivateMemorySize64 in .NET. It doesn't double-count, because it only counts non-shared pages...") I'd say that comment could use a solid, plain English translation if you're up to it.
But ultimately, the test shows memory consumption, and that doesn't really equate to the everyday usability or efficiency of the browser. So long story short, not the best link perhaps.
Still, the Chromium blog also says (on that same entry you referenced): "Try opening the browser with 10 different sites in 10 tabs. You will probably notice that Google Chrome uses significantly more memory than single-process browsers do for this case."
They go onto argue that despite this "setback" as they call it, it's still a good tradeoff: "Now that you have 10 open tabs in a single process browser and Google Chrome, try closing 9 of them, and check the memory usage. Hopefully, this will demonstrate that Google Chrome is actually able to reclaim more memory than the single process browser generally can."
I agree that it's a good tradeoff - and it's also one of the reasons why Chrome is my default browser now. However, since I keep 20 some tabs open on a regular basis, I can't overlook the memory hogging.
Firefox is too slow on my Core 2 Duo 2.8 Ghz PC with 2 GB ram
Go figure.
I use Chrome exclusively now. Can't stand FF's slow interface, and its bugs
Firefox already had private browsing though with the help of extensions. How then can you say that they are playing catchup?
AFAIK, Google Gears is not in competition with HTML 5. Gears was created to lead the way towards the next standards, starting with HTML 5. As soon as HTML 5's usage starts to grow, observe how Gears will work *with* HTML 5, not *against* it.
@Daniel - that's true, it will work with HTML5, not against it. But it currently offers the offline storage feature of HTML5 to all browsers, including older browsers via its plugin. So it's not *exactly* competing with HTML5's offline capabilities, just doing the same thing.
Here's the latest from Google on that: http://groups.google.com/group/gears-users/browse_thread/thread/1c11eb7bca12ee3e/88848d6b3f54e054?lnk=raot
"We're working on pushing out a new Gears version that support FF 3.5.
We typically wait until the official "gold" release of Firefox is
pushed, because otherwise, we keep having to do new builds everytime a
new RC is pushed.
- a (Google) "
firefox 3.5 playing catch-up with Chrome ?
http://tekunik.blogspot.com
Firefox had private browsing, and many of the features of others browsers for awhile now via extensions. Just install what you want. Some of your think that because a feature isn't native to a program, it's not as good or something. Those are the same people that call Firefox bloated. I've used and tested probably over 125 extensions and I've never had a conflict. If Opera has speed dial, and Firefox has an extension for it, what's the difference? I'm glad Mozilla leaves some of these features out and actually implements the ones most people use.
If Mozilla wanted Firefox to have all these features, do you guys really think it's rocket science for them to implement it? The hard part is already figured out by whoever developed the extension.
Google Adwords is now working with 3.5???? It says I need to use an older version.
I tried using Firefox 3.5 but most of my add-ons aren't compatible with it yet! This is very frustrating, especially when it prevents me from using important tools for SEO and Social Media. I already went back to using Firefox 3 and will wait until the new upgrade works with all add-ons and plugins.
Firefox was late with private browsing *because* this feature was already available via a plug-in.
I recall reading the comments for the private browsing change request - about 18 months ago - and the strong opinion from the devs was that they wanted to keep Firefox as small as possible and avoid code bloat. Anyone who wanted private browsing could install the plug-in, so there was no real need for it in the core browser.
Ironically, this is a case where the strength of Firefox actually hurt the browser.
@Mad : I think you overestimate the non-geeks. You'd be surprised how many people are satisfied with the status quo. You expect them to answer your question with a resounding "YES!!" with big smiles on their faces, but in reality, they'd be more likely to answer with a "sure, I guess...." and a puzzled look.
I can't wait for them to update the add-ons to be firefox 3.5 compatible.
check out the big list of features that Firefox 3.5 offers http://web3.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/firefox-3-5-pushing-the-web-a-step-forward/
You should not blaim Firefox for less excitement going from revolution to evolution, this is a natural maturity increase, the absence of noise can be attributed to the excellent automatic upgrade system.
The speed increase against Fx3.0 and IE8 is in the order of magnitudes, and the speed differences with Opera and Chrome are not, so that is good news. So is the HTML5, but practical implementation of that has to wait until at least 50% of the audience can handle it. It's a pity that hidden agenda's are fighting the video tag, there is a need in the audience for a non-propriatry, non-licensed format. Like with PNG that saved us from GIF.
I'm very happy with Fx3.5 which feels faster, and uses less resources on my PCs.
I have upgraded to the latest version of Firefox. It's faster and allows you to customize and install add-ons directly in your browser. However not all add-ons are compatible with the latest version. Some of them that do work are Adblock plus, Personas, Billeo, Twitterfox and Anycolour. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12715
You should not blaim Firefox for less excitement going from revolution to evolution, this is a natural maturity increase, the absence of noise can be attributed to the excellent automatic upgrade system.
The speed increase against Fx3.0 and IE8 is in the order of magnitudes, and the speed differences with Opera and Chrome are not, so that is good news. So is the HTML5, but practical implementation of that has to wait until at least 50% of the audience can handle it. It's a pity that hidden agenda's are fighting the video tag, there is a need in the audience for a non-propriatry, non-licensed format. Like with PNG that saved us from GIF.
I'm very happy with Fx3.5 which feels faster, and uses less resources on my PCs.
Testing a large SVG application, FireFox, with the 3.5 update, has gone from decent to very very poor performance as compared to the other mainstream browsers.
I have not updated and tested it on Linux actually, because it (FireFox) is a main component in my development environment and I don't want to mess with it. But performance has been trashed with the update on Windows and Mac.
If you are using plugins make sure they will work before you upgrade.