Firefox 3.5 Under The Hood
by Frank Jovine on 07/01/2009 in Internet, Software
At first glance it doesn’t look like much has changed in the new version of the Mozilla Web browser, but Firefox 3.5 has major improvements which addresses many of the flaws from its previous version. In addition to fixing the many flaws, Firefox has some new and really cool features.
What’s so different?
We welcome all the neat features, but what I appreciate the most out of 3.5 are the greatly improved speed and stability.
There’s more!
Speed: The 3.5 version of Mozilla Firefox is noticeably faster than its previous version.
Privacy: When a Private Browsing session is enabled, computer users can surf any site at all with no trace remaining when they exit the site.
Music and Video Support: Firefox 3.5 now supports HTML 5 audio and video elements, users can watch video and listen to music directly in a Web page, without launching any plug-ins.
Session Control: If Mozilla Firefox crashes, users can choose which tabs to resuscitate, a feature previously available through the Session Manager add-on.
Awesome Bar: The location bar -dubbed the “Awesome Bar” by some perhaps overly enthusiastic developers – has been made even more, well, awesome in Mozilla Firefox 3.5. Previously, you could simply type the name of what you were searching into that field, foregoing the search box altogether, and a Google search page would show results. Mozilla has tweaked the search functionality in the browser so surfers can show only bookmarks by using an asterisk after a query such as “Channelweb *”, or show only tags by using a plus “Channelweb +”. Thanks to http://www.crn.com for spelling this feature out!
As you can see its freaky good and freaky fast!
Jonathan - Advanced Life Skills
Jul 1st, 2009
Guess it’s time for an upgrade, thanks Frank.
Jonathan - Advanced Life Skills
Jul 1st, 2009
5 minutes later – OK Frank, now powered by Firefox 3.5
Frank J
Jul 1st, 2009
Jonathan,
You will notice the improvement. I am glad you upgraded!
HART (aka PetLvr)
Jul 1st, 2009
Okay – you twisted my arm .. will try it on the ‘ole desktop!
Frank J
Jul 1st, 2009
Hart,
You are going to love it. You will notice the speed when rendering a page.
Ryan v.
Jul 1st, 2009
Firefox is definitely the browser to beat still. Now with firefox 3.5 it’s unlikely that they will ever be.
Frank J
Jul 1st, 2009
Ryan,
Roger that! I played with the browser all day and noticed that even the WordPress admin console loads much faster.
Joanie
Jul 1st, 2009
I’m a huge fan of Firefox. It’s also great for web programmers. Unlike IE, it gives meaningful errors when your code is wonky. Debugging is so much easier!
Thanks for the reminder to go download it.
Frank J
Jul 1st, 2009
Joanie,
You rock! I am glad that you are a fan of FF.
Matt Chatterley
Jul 2nd, 2009
Duly upgraded, and it’s definitely better. MUCH faster than 3.0 was – which is fab. I haven’t quite discovered the ‘awesomeness’ of the bar yet – seems like before – but I can be quite unaware of so called advanced browsing features!
Frank J
Jul 2nd, 2009
Matt,
So far I am very pleased with 3.5. It is definitely better than 3.1.
Mitch
Jul 4th, 2009
Thanks for sharing this info. I just went and upgraded my Firefox after reading this. I actually had just read about it earlier today in PC World, but totally forgot about it until now.
Frank J
Jul 4th, 2009
Mitch,
It really is impressive when it comes to speed and handling video and audio.