If you've been counting down the hours until the next release of
Firefox hits doorsteps, you can now officially reset the clock. Firefox 3.6 has dropped its beta label and shimmied out into the wide world, boasting a slew of new add-ons and features which should make even the most selective browser enthusiast jump gingerly skyward whilst clicking one's heels. Included in the latest and greatest is support for browser thumbing via "Personas," which seem to be a response to Chrome's theme functionality (allowing users to change looks with one click), improved Javascript support, and most interestingly, improved support for HTML5 video, which further opens the window for all kinds of Flash-dashing activities. We're still not seeing nearly the performance bump present in Safari or Chrome when it comes to page rendering, but if you're going for maximum compatibility, it's hard to beat Firefox. As you can probably guess, the download is free and available now, so go get it.
posted January 22nd 2010 10:01AM
thanks mozzila
@rhezaganteng
i want firefox 4
@Acey
I, too, am looking forward to quattro
@rhezaganteng
This was "officially official" yesterday. Why report it today?
@jakem Posting all the Apple rumors might have distracted Massively from actual news? At least the sister site download.com had it. Someone in the AOL blogsphere was paying attention.
Does it fix what seems to be a pernicious memory leak that still appears to persist in 3.5.7? I've used Mozilla for years, but I'm seriously about to switch to something else.
@Old fogie late bloomer
Probably one of your add-ons that's causing it.
@rhezaganteng Maybe it doesn't fix your memory leak. But it did fix an issue I'd been having with pop-ups over the past 2 weeks. All of the pop-up boxes that I initiated, including the few regular Netflix popups I still get, came up blank. Just empty boxes. Seems to be fixed.
@Anatidae All the Apple Rumors? the last two pages I counted two articles try again.
@Old fogie late bloomer Yeah ... I'm a pretty diehard FF user d/t extensions, but the memory thing ... denied by so many ... is still there. It is dependent on time open and windows which have been opened/used. It is NOT primarily the result of extensions. What bullsh*t. The good new is one extension fixes it ... it's called RAMBack by Pavlov and it forces FF to shed memory. Unlike other "memory fixes," it actually works and doesn't seem to extract a performance hit.
For me, FF is still the one to beat. It's all about the plugins. If I want pure speed, yeah maybe I'll use Chrome, but for functionality, it's FF all the way. Gotta pay to play.
@Level 5
adblock plus = instant win
@Level 5 good thing the Chrome beta has extensions then
@nichts
I won't rule out Chrome; but as of right now the extension support, and selection of extensions/plugins is a little undercooked. Chrome is fantastic on its own and if the plugin support gets there, I'm not opposed to switching.
@nichts Ya but they're not that great. In fact they seem very limited in terms of how they interact with the browser. When i see something similar to Tab Mix Plus, I'll consider Chrome.
Adi
@Level 5
Agreed. Love chrome and safari. But I simply cannot live without the plugins!
@Level 5 agreed 100%.
@Acey The people that made ABP for FF also made one for Chrome :D
@Jango311 It's pretty tweaky and it doesn't "just work" like it does in FF.
Support for HTML5 isn't new. Fx 3.5 had that.
@CommentsTroll
Why can't you use left/right arrows on Engadget comments? :(
HTML5 [video]*
@CommentsTroll
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_audio_and_video_in_FireFox
Firefox has had HTML5 audio and video support since version 3.5.
@CommentsTroll Why can't you read the article "improved support for HTML5 video"...show me where it says new!
@Rebel6381
The editor stealth edited. :)
@CommentsTroll think you guys missed out the word "improved"
Yes, The Worlds Best Browser
@dattebayo
Ye definitely, your move chrome
Nice...
Your article neglects to mention that Firefox's implementation of HTML 5 does not support h.264 videos like Safari and Chrome, and opts for Ogg Theora instead.
@Tsurisuto
correct. and for the time being, this means you cant use firefox to watch html5 video on youtube. :(
@Tsurisuto - I'm pretty sure that's not true. I watched HTML5 YT videos just fine under FF 3.6 yesterday, after reading about YT's beta.
Also, if you watch FF's YT video on the new features, it specifically mentions H.264.
@Tsurisuto
You won't see h.264 on Firefox for some time. Mozilla can't afford to license h.264 for every single Firefox download, the browser being free and all. Same goes for Opera.
It's probably one of the reasons google decided to use h.264 on youtube. They have no problem paying for the h.264 licensing for chrome, they have the money, which gives it an advantage over the competition.
Hopefully h.264 html5 won't catch on and they'll have to consider open source options, like ogg/theora. We really don't need more proprietary standards on the internet...
@MacAnkka
They also still only have a miniscule market share compared to FF, so one more reason it's easy for Google.
What happened to don't be evil?
@Tsurisuto
Yes,
OGG\theora which is the basis of HTML5 since the WHOLE purpose of HTML5 was to get rid of a proprietary embedded video monopole from Adobe.
But thanks too smart ass Apple and Google we get instead H.264 which will make a lot of money. great.
BTW : dailymotion uses ogg\theora.
Go to hell youtube.
@Flix C right? what's up with this licensing, b.s.? smh.
@MacAnkka
and "Don't be evil" they says...
Firefox has had support for Persona's for a while, since before chrome had themes. So I don't think they're a response to Chromes themes.
@killplay Yeah, but before it was an add-on (one made by Mozilla, but still...). Now, it's built-in.
@MowDownJoe
My point is, that persona's have been around long enough to not have been inspired by Chrome themes. That is all, and true.
when did Firefox originally debut Personas? I know it was at least several month's ago, but it feels like they made it available in the summer of '09
@ror
https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2007/12/personas-for-firefox/
They were around for nearly a year before Chrome was even released. It's a bit disappointing that engadget couldn't put even a minimal amount of research into a new release of arguably the most widely known open source project ever.
@ror The point is that it is now an official part of Firefox 3.6. Here you can read about its inclusion in the 3.6 beta http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/11/hands-on-firefox-36-beta-supports-personas-fullscreen-video.ars -- see that while it was launched in 2007, it wasn't officially "in" FF until this recent version.
@Joshua Topolsky
It was on the update page, when you updated to 3.0, it would link you to the page where you could mouse over to view them and everything, just like you can now. They've been officially supported for a while
@Joshua Topolsky
Dude, stop responding to comments in your defense and just correct the posts instead.
That way you can make the poster look crazy as opposed to you looking silly :)
@Joshua Topolsky
Just correct the post. FF had it before Chrome, just because FF they didn't have it integrated doesn't mean they didn't do it first.
How much longer until Ubuntu sends out the update??
That was sooooo yesterday.
The real question is will HTML5 video utilize gpu hardware acceleration. If Flash is able to attain it exclusively, it's hard to see HTML5 video catch on any time soon.
@KevinQ Yes, I think it does. At least, I have lower CPU usage with the YouTube HTML5 beta on Chrome, and the video is always smooth.
Just downloaded. Really like it.