Firefox 3.5 arrives

After some rather impressive RC builds, Firefox 3.5 is all packaged up and ready for public consumption. Mozilla is saying its new browser is more than two times faster than Firefox 3, but what has us more excited is the support for plugin-free "open codec" video and audio playback using Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora-- it's still in its infancy, but the subtle glimpse we've seen so far of a world without Flash video reducing our CPU to jelly is rather compelling.

[Jeff Oakes Posted Jun 30th 2009 3:12PM]

I was going to get on here and say that this new Firefox is quite a bit faster than the old version, but it looks like that's been said. I think I'll reinstall a few of my favorite add-ons that I had removed because they were slowing down the old version. Thanks Firefox. PS, the download was super fast too.

[b4dmash Posted Jun 30th 2009 3:36PM]

Does 3.5 have the pr0n mode? I hear that's a hip new current gen browser feature ;)

[sporkinum Posted Jul 1st 2009 12:32PM]

Yes it does, and it works great. Basically, when you activate private mode, it suspends what you currently are doing and gives you a new screen. Everything you do is not saved in history, cache, cookies, etc. Once you turn off private mode, it restores your tabs and browser state back to where it was before.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 30th 2009 3:40PM]

FF 3.5 sucks. It says it's faster, but I get the exact same scores on my Speakeasy Speed Test.

[Rebel6381 Posted Jun 30th 2009 5:16PM]

You have to be kidding me, SpeakEasy??? DO YOU HAVE ANY CLUE HOW TO USE A COMPUTER AT ALL???

Speakeasy is a test for your Internet Connection Speed, not the speed of your browser.

YOU EPICALLY FAIL!!!

[Wwhat Posted Jun 30th 2009 6:02PM]

Are you sure he isn't kidding?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 30th 2009 4:01PM]

Open codecs ftw.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 30th 2009 4:29PM]

If anyone has troubles with their addons not installing with FF 3.5, check out this addon that forces install. It works:
http://www.oxymoronical.com/web/firefox/nightly

[Wwhat Posted Jun 30th 2009 6:01PM]

They made some important changes to some stuff that addons rely on, so it's a bit tricky to force addons to install by just changing their compatibility string.

[weeman Posted Jun 30th 2009 4:36PM]

yay! it does the crazy drag n drop a tab to make a new window, just like chrome

[Jacob1 Posted Jun 30th 2009 4:52PM]

yay!

[Rebel6381 Posted Jun 30th 2009 5:14PM]

Shocking news! New Firefox 3.5 is out: http://bit.ly/ShiretokoShock

[Wwhat Posted Jun 30th 2009 5:59PM]

I like the new font stuff, embeddable fonts and fontshadows (sounds boring until you see what you can do with it)

And yet, I'm not changing my regular FF to it until some of the addons I insist on also work with it.
There's portable versions though that you can install simultaneously.

But it's a bit annoying that you always have to wait for addon adaptation for new versions, although at least noscript and adblock plus work with it already.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 30th 2009 6:30PM]

nice

[newone Posted Jun 30th 2009 7:25PM]

2 million downloads at 23:15 utc, will FF3.5 make a new record of browser downloads in 24 hours?

[newone Posted Jul 1st 2009 11:09AM]

4 715 000 15:07 UTC

[vudean Posted Jun 30th 2009 8:34PM]

I still like Chrome better, seems faster

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 30th 2009 8:38PM]

If it still has the idiotic "awesome bar", I won't be using it. The Bookmarks menu also go way out of hand.

(Just us an "add-on"; no add-on gives me back Firefox 2 address bar behavior.)

[Riley Posted Jun 30th 2009 11:30PM]

great, now i have to wait forever again until RedShift is updated to 3.5

[theRise Posted Jun 30th 2009 11:33PM]

just ran SunSpider test. Guess even though 3.5 is better than 3, it's not faster than Chrome.
Chrome: 1391.2ms +/- 7.8%
FF 3.5: 1866.2ms +/- 12.6%

[paul34 Posted Jun 30th 2009 11:39PM]

I downloaded this afternoon. I have to say, quite impressed. It is indeed quite fast!

And yes, I'll say it - even faster than Google Chrome! At least in the rendering and loading department. I really have to tip my non-existent hat to Mozilla. They really did it this time.

[Tohe Posted Jul 1st 2009 12:05AM]

Using it now, I like the speed, hate the look, what's up with the dead space in the now dedicated tab bar? and that button (IE like, yikes). Firefox users know how to use ctrl + T, thank you very much. Please give us an update to fix these annoyances.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 1st 2009 2:06AM]

FF3.0 4 life ..... cant live without extensions all 100 or so. Yea its a little slow to start but ive got 7 home pages and the rss feedreader . it launches about 150k and crask about 1,400k or 4 or 5 youtube videos later. btw i dont worry bout sloww launches because a never close the browser and i just download the YT videos( with an extension) instead of streaming them problem solved ff3 4 life

[jamesvpat Posted Jul 1st 2009 4:15AM]

errrrr firefox 3.5 uses twice the amount of memory as 3.0 :(

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 2nd 2009 4:10AM]

Speedy for me even with tons of web dev add-ons installed.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 1st 2009 8:23AM]

damn ... why my PageZoom Not working in 3.5 :(

any way any one try to drag the tab into Taskbar ? it's amazing!

[Foo Bar Posted Jul 1st 2009 10:22AM]

I am curious to see how to implement advertising in "open video". I have a feeling ad-supported video sites (like my employer) aren't going to be interested in browser-based ad logic (that I assume can be easily circumvented), but I am sure this will come up in our competitive reviews. I hear all the talk about the death of Flash, but I don't see it happening any time soon unless there is a way to enforce business logic in the browser that is as effective as a compiled swf.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 1st 2009 4:38PM]

I am sorry but I am not having the same experiences that you guys are having with FF 3.5. Now I do know I have to get me a newer computer since I am still on this ancient Pentium 4 celeron but the previous FF 3.1.0 I had installed didn't slow my computer down as much as this version does and 3.5 uses more resources atleast on my computer.

Thinking of giving Chrome a chance here.