Mozilla teases surfers with near-final version of Firefox 3.6

ubuntu-mozilla-daily 3.6pre

Firefox 3.6 & 3.7 Available via daily ppa

Gain access to the latest ubuntu-mozilla-daily ppa.

Karmic Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.6

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.7

These packages install in their own directories so you can use 3.5/3.6/3.7 side by side.

The new FF3.6 will be found under the name "Namoroka" in Applications > Internet.

The new FF3.7 will be found under the name "Minefield 3.7 Web Browser".

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2pre) Gecko/20100109 Ubuntu/9.10 (karmic) Namoroka/3.6pre - Build ID: 20100109051341

Need for speed?

There we go: a new version of Firefox is announced and the first comments are about how bloated and slow FF now is compared to IE, Chrome, pick-your-browser-of-choice and how everybody expects it to still be slow with this new version.

First about speed: Firefox out of the box is actually quite fast. Admittedly not as fast as say Chrome or IE8. However, what tends to slow FF down are extensions: if you have a performance problem, try disabling a few and see if it makes a difference. As for bloat, if someone can tell me what functionality you would remove out of vanilla Firefox (i.e. no extensions installed whatsoever), I'd be interested to know. I'd agree that the upcoming "persona" feature is surplus to requirements but I do struggle to see what else I would remove out of vanilla FF to make it more lightweight.

In terms of expectations, FF 3.6 is a minor version upgrade compared to 3.5 so you should not expect any major changes, this is all about incremental improvements. For major changes, we'll have to wait for FF 4.0. Performance improvements to match (or overtake) Chrome, IE8 or any browser that was completely (re-)built from the ground up in the last 18 months probably require a major rewrite of some essential parts of the rendering engine and that is an undertaking that should be left for a major upgrade, not a minor one.

</rant>

Having said this, you choose the browser that fits your needs and one good thing to say about Firefox is that since it came out it's revived the market and we now have real competition and therefore a real choice. I choose to use Firefox for the following reasons, that are probably different from yours:

1. It is fast enough for me (and that's on a 5 year old laptop and a netbook),

2. It displays properly all the web sites I go to, even the ones that are just tag soup,

3. It has a number of extensions I find useful,

4. It supports a number of W3C recommendations beyond HTML, in particular SVG and MathML,

5. It is open source, which means that if I have an issue with it, I can easily file a bug so that it gets sorted,

6. It is the default browser on my Linux distro of choice, which means I know it will be kept up to date.

Spot on Bruno

Its good to see some rational comment Bruno. Some of the negative comments seem to come from characters that take all the body panels off their car to save some weight, regardless of how it looked and how cold it is.

Undoubtedly there are some problems and it can always be better, but as long as it is built with the fripperies capable of being switched off it should work for most people.

To be fair

the only reason I use FF is because of FireBug. Quite possibly one of the most helpful things I've ever come across (for front-end stuff).

If Chrome came out with a functionally similar add-on, or IE started behaving (not that it would run on a Mac), then I couldn't care less what browser I use, but as it stands, I still have to do front-end rubbish, and FF+FB makes my life a hell of a lot easier!

I do think its the extensions that make FF what it is, as much as they do slow it down..

re: Why do you need a 64 bit version?

Because they think it will run better, and totally overlook the much bloated memory requirements that 64bit applications have which in the case of a web browser will totally drown out any 64bit processing efficiency benefits..

Either way, Firefox is a huge memory bloat anyway, it's also pretty unsecure these days too. Anyone with any sense would be using Opera by now, as it's really the only credible alternatie (Chrome steals your privacy, Safari is a joke full stop and Firefox is insecure bloatware, IE8 is well shockingly bad)

Whatever

Firefox always expands to fill the available RAM. Got no more than 20 tabs open, and firefox is pushing 600MB RSS. If I restart firefox, it will fall to ~ 200MB for the same tabs.

It almost certainly is extensions, mainly firebug, that seem to do it. The point is that in firefox the functionality I need is an extension written in javascript, where as in chrome/safari/epiphany it is part of the browser.

There is more crap in firefox than in a french toilet, and none of it is useful.