Firefox 3.5 now available

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 1st July 2009
Comments (29) Stumble
Firefox 3.5 now available

Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5 and it's described as a major release. It boosts performance, introduces new features and supports emerging Web standards like HTML5.

Mozilla has announced that Firefox 3.5 is now available and describes the release as a "major update." According to the browser maker, Firefox 3.5 boosts performance, introduces useful new features and delivers strong support for emerging Web standards.

"So much is happening on the Web right now, it's a great time for browsers. Firefox 3.5 brings together the most innovative Web technologies and delivers them in the most complete and powerful modern browser," said Mozilla CEO John Lilly in a statement.

Firefox's new features include:
  • Private Browsing pr0n mode
  • The ability to go back in time and clear recent history
  • Support for HTML5 video and audio tags, including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio
  • A new JavaScript engine, known as TraceMonkey, which improves performance twofold over Firefox 3.0 and tenfold over Firefox 2.0
  • Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation
  • Tear off tabs
Both private browsing and tear off tabs have existed in other browsers for some time, but they're welcome additions to Firefox. In our preliminary tests, JavaScript performance is also massively improved as well - it's notably faster than Firefox 3.0.

You can grab the new version of Firefox from the usual place - we had to upgrade manually as the built-in update feature seems to be playing the devil at the moment.

Discuss your experiences with the new version in the forums.
Quote Floyd 1st July 2009, 12:25
Good because my old Firefox has been freezing up lately. Sad to have to switch back to IE :(
Quote MajorTom 1st July 2009, 12:31
Been enjoying it since yesterday evening. The Weave Sync addon is just brilliant. Goes a little further than xmarks and syncs your tabs for when you get back from work. Very nice work in progress.
Quote impar 1st July 2009, 12:35
Greetings!

What is "Tear off tabs"?
Quote V3ctor 1st July 2009, 12:39
Is it compatible with flash? Normally I have to wait for flash to be available to new variations of FF
Quote RTT 1st July 2009, 12:47
Quote:
Originally Posted by impar
Greetings!

What is "Tear off tabs"?

Drag a tab off the tab bar to open it in a new window. you can drag tabs between windows too
Quote:
Originally Posted by V3ctor
Is it compatible with flash? Normally I have to wait for flash to be available to new variations of FF

yes it is
Quote impar 1st July 2009, 12:55
Greetings!
Quote:
Originally Posted by RTT
Drag a tab off the tab bar to open it in a new window. you can drag tabs between windows toos
Ah! Thanks.
But the "drag tabs to another window" was already available on previous versions.
Quote robyholmes 1st July 2009, 13:12
Ummm where is 3.6? I have been on 3.5 for ages now, next please, lol
Quote Psy-UK 1st July 2009, 13:13
This is the final release. You've been using the RC or Beta versions.
Quote capnPedro 1st July 2009, 13:24
I'll give it a few weeks before I upgrade. Wanna make sure all my extensions and skins and such work. They're very important to me!
Quote V3ctor 1st July 2009, 13:50
Eveything works fine here... No problems at all, even with the extensions...
Quote steveo_mcg 1st July 2009, 13:55
Loving the tear out tab. Opera had this before didn't it?
Quote badders 1st July 2009, 14:00
I'll probably get this for work, as it's a new JS engine, but don't think I'll bother at home.
IE8 and Chrome occasionally serve my browsing needs. (Dons flameproof suit)
Quote sear 1st July 2009, 14:30
Been on 3.1 and then 3.5 in various beta iterations for probably at least six months now. I've been quite happy with it, and have had very few issues with stability or performance (most of those cleared up before the release candidate stage), but I guess the changes may not be as drastic to me, as I've seen then added in one-by-one in each version.
Quote Zurechial 1st July 2009, 14:45
Rendering is sloppier in 3.5, I find.
It's prone to flickering/jumping with fixed-position backgrounds in CSS, which didn't happen in previous versions nor in IE8.

On the upside, it now only supports the standards-compliant opacity option in CSS and ignores the IE and Netscape opacity filters.
Quote Omnituens 1st July 2009, 15:46
Hm, last time I tried a manual update, I lost all my settings and bookmarks. Going to wait for auto-update to get fixed.
Quote Tim S 1st July 2009, 16:11
Quote:
Originally Posted by steveo_mcg
Loving the tear out tab. Opera had this before didn't it?

not sure about Opera, but Chrome has it.
Quote wuyanxu 1st July 2009, 16:28
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim S
not sure about Opera, but Chrome has it.
also Safari, if you don't mind Apple.

3.5 is fantastic, i can now go back to single browser. although it'd be nice to be able to have private mode by window instead of by session. eg, 1 private mode window, the other normal mode.
Quote BentAnat 1st July 2009, 16:35
Installed it this morning, and am liking it.
JS rendering is deffinately quicker. All the sites i've made still work (very good thing, that), and as such i am a happy camper.
Quote adamc 1st July 2009, 16:56
Any ideas why the installer is trying to force me to install to C:/ProgramData instead of C:/Program Files (x86) ??
Quote HourBeforeDawn 1st July 2009, 17:08
wow Im liking the universal video player thats nice. :)
Quote Chocobollz 1st July 2009, 17:13
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim S
Quote:
Originally Posted by steveo_mcg
Loving the tear out tab. Opera had this before didn't it?

not sure about Opera, but Chrome has it.

I will confirm that Opera has it too because I already use it for age, damn I even forgot since when! For me, there's nothing useful here so I won't bother to try it out. A few days ago I've tried to update my FF to the latest version and even then, damn it's slow like hell. I've also tried the back and forward function and oh well, it is still so f*ckin slow. Opera does the job so much better, it's like its flying lol. And so, I've ended up uninstalled FF.
Quote:
Hm, last time I tried a manual update, I lost all my settings and bookmarks. Going to wait for auto-update to get fixed.

LOL BTW, that's one thing I've been forgotten since I'm using Opera 9. With Opera Link, you'll never lost your bookmarks. I love its functionality. I can even access my bookmarks on my mobile. The only thing which make me want to try this new FF is the Weave Sync addons but I'd rather wait for it to be implemented in Opera.
Quote glaeken 3rd July 2009, 06:12
Anyone else having a problem with long first time loading times? 3.5 takes at least 3x as long to load for the first time for me.
Quote BentAnat 3rd July 2009, 10:06
glaeken - can't say i have that. If anything, FF3.5 seems to load quicker than 3 for me...
Quote azrael- 3rd July 2009, 10:10
FF3.5 seems to work fine for me. I'd be happy if it weren't for the completely messed-up new version of Qute. Whatever was the author thinking... :(
Quote glaeken 3rd July 2009, 15:39
Hmm maybe it's some extension that I have.
Quote wuyanxu 3rd July 2009, 18:09
Quote:
Originally Posted by glaeken
Anyone else having a problem with long first time loading times? 3.5 takes at least 3x as long to load for the first time for me.
same here, first time loading is pretty long, and then it's very fast, almost instant.

my addons:
-bazzacuda image saver plus
-british english dictionary
-colorfulTabs
-download status bar
-ebay sidebar
-flashblock
-flashgot
-ie tabs
-image zoom
-snap links plus
-tab mix plus
-xmarks

and a couple incomparable plugins such as TryAgain i didn't bother delete
Quote glaeken 6th July 2009, 20:15
We've got download status bar and tab mix plus in common. Could be one of those two, I'm too lazy to uninstall/disable all of the extensions to find the culprit. Here's mine:

-avg safe search
-BF: Heroes updater
-ChatZilla
-Download status bar
-DownloadThemAll
-Firebug
-google bar lite
-IE View
-Tab Mix Plus
-ForecastFox
Quote an4rew 6th July 2009, 21:41
deleting firefox in appdata/local/mozilla fixed mine.
Quote wuyanxu 6th July 2009, 23:07
Quote:
Originally Posted by an4rew
deleting firefox in appdata/local/mozilla fixed mine.
won't that mean a completely reinstall of the addons?
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