Section: Firefox
November 01, 2009 by
Jason
The first fully-fledged Beta development milestone of the next generation of Mozilla’s open source browser is currently available for download. Testers and early adopters that have been waiting for Firefox 3.6, codenamed Namoroka, to evolve from Alpha stage are now free to access, download, install and start test driving the Beta 1 build. In addition to being the first Beta for Firefox 3.6, the development milestone offered by Mozilla is also the first example of a third-party browser to embrace Microsoft’s latest iteration of the Windows client. Just like the native Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 is designed to play nice with Aero Peek and Thumbnail Previews via the new Windows Aero Taskbar (Superbar) in Windows 7.
As you can see from the screenshot included below, Firefox 3.6 Beta users can now take advantage of the some of the same graphical user interface enhancements in Windows 7 as those running IE8. While Google and Opera are lagging behind when it comes down to tailoring their browsers to Windows 7, the same is not valid for Mozilla. And as Windows 7 became available for purchase on October 22, 2009, customers running the OS in combination with Firefox 3.6 will certainly enjoy the bells and whistles of the new Windows Aero GUI. Read More»
Posted in Firefox, Windows 7 | No Comments »
October 02, 2009 by
Jason
Firefox 4.0 is the flavor of Mozilla’s web browser that is expected to come to the market sometimes in the second half of next year, while delivering to users a series of visual changes that will start to appear as soon as Firefox 3.7 is pushed out. We already had a glimpse at how the 3.7 version of Firefox might look like, and at the visual improvements it might bring to Windows-based computers, and we should also have a look at how 4.0 should continue the improvements.
According to Mozilla Wiki, the UI of Firefox 4.0 is mainly expected to deliver refinements to the changes that are to come with 3.7, and should include some major additions and changes. Among them, we can count the possibility that the LocationBar and SearchBar are to be merged, the Stop/Refresh/Go are to become One Button, a Tab-on-Top Option could appear, as well as App Tabs, the Home Tab functionality is to be enhanced, the Bookmarks Bar hidden and the Status Bar removed.
Here’s what Mozilla says when it comes to the merging of the LocationBar and SearchBar: “The AwesomeBar already has a lot of search functionality, even though it is currently only local. These fields have a convergent function: finding things. Merging these and including something like Taskfox will put search in a unified location with added utility. It will also reduce toolbar complexity/clutter by merging functionality.” Read More»
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September 27, 2009 by
Jason
Firefox 3.5 has been here for a while now, and Firefox 3.6 awaits just around the corner to make an appearance, yet the guys over at Mozilla are already working on the development of Firefox 3.7. Considered only a minor upgrade for the browser, the 3.7 version is expected to land in March next year and bring around a series of visual changes to the Firefox that we know at the moment.
For the time being, however, it should be noted that these directions are only proposals, and that they need to be approved before being put into place. The changes in theme, states the Mozilla Wiki page describing what Firefox 3.7 might include, are not aimed only at the visual style, but will also affect UI placement and arrangement, as well as the evolution new features of the browser will register.
“As noted on the 3.0 Windows Default Theme Issues Wikipage, Firefox feels dated and behind on Windows. Especially Vista and Windows 7. These issues include absence of Glass, anemic purple toolbar color on Vista, tall and bulky UI footprint, element overload, inconsistent toolbar icon usage/style, lack of a tactile look & feel and perhaps too great of a divergence between the look on XP and Vista/7,” is what Mozilla Wiki states. Read More»
Posted in Firefox, Windows 7 | 2 Comments »
September 20, 2009 by
Jason
Mozilla is working its way to deliver the first beta development milestone of Firefox 3.6., codename Namoroka. The next iteration of the open-source browser won’t have any additional Alpha releases and will advance straight to Beta, with the final release planned for just two months away. At the start of this week, Mozilla noted that the Beta 1 Build for Firefox 3.6 is the next development milestone of Namoroka, indicating that the v3.6 minor update for Firefox is evolving fast toward general availability.
String freeze in common code and browser only took place on September 15th, just to be extended to all aspects of Firefox 3.6 the subsequent day. As far as Mozilla is concerned, the upcoming deadline in the development process of Firefox 3.6 is Beta code freeze. “Right now we’re potentially drifting into November for a final release due to [a] number of outstanding blockers,” Mozilla noted on September 16th.
The Beta 1 for Firefox 3.6 was initially planned for availability by the end of September 2009, and with the progress made by Mozilla so far it looks like, by the end of this month, users will be able to test drive the first post-Alpha release of v3.6. Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 was offered to testers in the first half of August 2009, more than a month ago. Read More»
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September 07, 2009 by
Jason
SpeedyFox is a free to use tool which lets you speed up firefox startup speed, faster navigation when browsing history, browse cookies more faster and in all the overall firefox interface much faster after running the tool.
We had written some other ways to speed up firefox before
- How to Double Firefox Speed,
- About:Config Tweaks For Firefox 3,
- New Tweaks for Firefox 3,
- Speed up your Firefox 3.0.1 – Part1,
- Speed up your Firefox 3.0.1 – Part2,
- Firefox Speed Tweaks,
- How to make Firefox load pages faster,
- Speed Up Your Internet With FireFox,
- Make Firefox Faster With Your Old Firefox Profile
This small application actually compacts the size of the SQLITE databases which store a lot of setting related to your firefox profile, there by customise the databases light to load and ensure faster speed of operations in firefox.
It has a very basic interface, you just need to select the firefox profile you are using [ normally that is the default profile for many people ] after selecting the profile click Speed Up My Firefox button Read More»
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This tips is dedicated to all the firefox lovers out there who are struggling with slow speed firefox and crashing issues. Firefox is one such browser who has been my favourite since the time I first tried to use Firefox 1.5 from that I have moved to firefox and it is the primary browser for me till this date, there are several improvements that have been done now the latest version of firefox is Firefox 3.5 which I using right now.
With time there are lot more things that have been changed in firefox which has made it a better and secure browser than before to use, but with new cool browser from google called google chrome which is far more faster than firefox in operation people has started moving towards google chrome because it is faster and easier to understand and use.
But as we all know google chrome is in development stage so it cannot provide some good features which are there in firefox like and it does not support much more extensions which provide great functions in firefox.
But new version of firefox 3.5.x crashes so often and does not even closes when you shutdown the firefox window as reported by some users it keeps running in the background and does not allow you to launch new firefox session. Read More»
Posted in Firefox | 1 Comment »
Since Firefox 3.0, bookmarks, history and most storage is kept in SQLite databases. Also, the default history time span was raised from 9 to 90 days as it became more discoverable and useful thanks to the awesome bar, so depending on your browsing habits it could represent some pretty large databases.
Aas any other database, SQLite databases become fragmented over time and empty spaces appear all around. But, since there are no managing processes checking and optimizing the database, these factors eventually result in a performance hit. So, a good way to improve startup and some other bookmarks and history related tasks is to defragment and trim unused space from these databases.
To do this:
Step 1: get sqlite3, a single file command line SQLite database manager, for your platform (available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X).
Step 2: Copy the downloaded binary to your profile folder where all your .sqlite files reside.
Step 3: Close Firefox. Read More»
Posted in Firefox | 1 Comment »
If you find yourself with very long startup times after upgrading to Firefox 3.5 (from say 10 seconds to the order of minutes), you may be experimenting a bug due to a change in how Firefox 3.5 gets the randomness it needs for security purposes on Windows.
The procedure involves scanning some temporary folders looking for bits normally added by OS and other applications operations. Firefox 3.5 looks for more files and deeper (more subfolders) for increased randomness, but it has led to unexpected results for users with too many temporary folders or files resulting in slow startups.
Try builds are still being generated with fixes to this bug, but users report a noticeable improvement after deleting their temporary folders and Internet Temporary Files (generated by Internet Explorer).
To clean temporary folders, check and delete all files [you can, some may be in use] from these:
Read More»
Posted in Firefox | 2 Comments »
Firefox 3.5 was shipped to the general public on June 30th, 2009, and now Mozilla is turning its attention to the next iteration of the open-source browser. Upcoming versions of Firefox will share a feature with rivals Chrome and Internet Explorer 8. Essentially Mozilla is looking to implement an enhancement designed to effectively split the browser into multiple processes. In this regard, the Electrolysis project has already kicked off, as Mozilla’s Benjamin Smedberg revealed in mid-June, 2009. If all goes according to plan, displaying web pages will be a task split between multiple processes, in future versions of Firefox. At the same time it’s not just about the web content; the graphical user interface of the browser and the plugins that expand Firefox will also be getting their own separate processes.
“There are several possible benefits of using multiple processes: Increased stability: if a plugin or webpage tries to use all the processor, memory, or even crashes, a process can isolate that bad behavior from the rest of the browser. Performance: By splitting work up among multiple processes, the browser can make use of multiple processor cores available on modern desktop computers and the next generation of mobile processors. The user interface can also be more responsive because it doesn’t need to block on long-running web page activities. Security: Read More»
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The wait is over! Firefox 3.5 has reached the end of its development process. The gold build of the open-source browser from Mozilla, formerly codenamed Shiretoko, was finalized on June 29, 2009, and is now available for download (links are live at the bottom of this article). Mozilla is planning to ship Firefox 3.5 today, June 30, but at the time of this article the availability of Firefox 3.0’s successor hasn’t yet been announced officially. Still, the final development milestone of Firefox 3.5 has already been wrapped up and the bits went live on Mozilla’s FTP servers. It is only a matter of Firefox 3.5 being released to web, but you needn’t wait, just grab Firefox 3.5 from the links below for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
“The team here at Mozilla has been working hard on creating features, enhancing performance and adding other awesomeness to Firefox 3.5, and we’re very excited about sharing it with the world,” revealed Mozilla’s John Slater on June 29. Read More»
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