Last week, Mozilla decided to rename its next Firefox release code named
Shiretoko, from Firefox 3.1 to Firefox 3.5 due to significant improvement and bug fix made to the current version. Due to this changes, its actual release date has been moved forward. Mozilla Evenglist Chriss Blizzard tweeting, it probably going to be out in the next 2-3 months. In case you’re expecting the next release of Firefox in near time, move on or probably try other browser?
At the mean time, Firefox most recent beta, Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 has just been released few days back, with another beta to come as well as few release candidate before the final release unleashed to the world. Don’t get confused with the Beta name, which still named after Firefox 3.1, instead of the planned actual release name Firefox 3.5. I believe it has something to do with the standard, in order to maintain the beta naming sequence.
This latest beta bring improvement on things such as below.
- Improved the new Private Browsing Mode, including the ability to “Forget This Site” from the History sidebar.
- Improved performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
The last time Firefox get major release dated back to June last year, with the introduction of Firefox 3.0. Since then, rival such as Safari 4, Internet Explore 8 , Chrome and Opera now with turbo, has step up the game with faster, more powerful and feature rich browser.
It could be interesting to see how Firefox 3. 5 fared againts other rivals on benchmarking test. But that have to wait another 2-3 months.
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click to enlarge
The folks at StatCounter just release the statistic of how web browsers are performing for the period of July 08 to March 09. Internet Explorer continue its dominance with 63% market, drop 8% from 68%, while Mozilla Firefox gain 2% to 27%.
IE experience lowest ever percentage of Internet Explorer usage had in recent years, thanks to its own image. It has something to do with the bad perception that tech savvy internet users had, toward Microsoft and its product, including Internet Explorer which is slow, bug-happy and malware-magnet. The emergence of better and open source web browsers such as Firefox and Chrome also contributing to the loss when users are looking for more secure, openness and promote standardization web browser.
The new StatCounter Global Stat is useful for in depth view of the stat. It is flexible, as you can filter the statistic based on period and region as well as the statistic type as bar or line statistic. There is option for you to download the data in .CSV format, or turns the statistic to image (.JPG).
Please note, this stat built from the data collected ONLY from websites that running StatCounter script. Hence it didn’t provide overall pictures of how this web browsers are performing.
Global
Asia
In verall, Asian countries still favor Internet Explorer over Mozilla Firefox with market share 74.72% to 20.79 respectively.
Malaysia
Unlike Asian statistic, Malaysian internet users are more favorable toward Mozilla Firefox compared IE with almost 36.61% to 59.13% market share respectively. For Firefox, this percentage is higher than Firefix global stat. The trend showing Mozilla Firefox is consistently capturing more percentage, while IE is consistently losing its market to Firefox and other rivals.
You’ll no longer seeing boring blank page when opening new tab, on incoming release of Firefox. Other browser such as Opera, Chrome and Safari has their own new tab page style for sometime, but Firefox as the 2nd most used web browser only planned to introduce it on its next release.
The new tab (also called About:Tab) consist of 2 main elements, called ‘quick-access bar’ on the right, and the ‘contextual actions’ on the upper left.
Closer look what it got.
quick-access bar - Showing the frequently visited sites and shows related items like feeds. It stay in faded gray until you move your mouse over it.
Contextual action -Mozilla describe it as
Generally, you’ll select some text and open a new tab to search for that text. The new tab provides a big button so that becomes a one-click action (in the future, it will use your default search provider). If you’ve selected an address, the new tab provides a one-click action to map it. If you’ve selected a URL, one-click action will open it.
It can recover website that you close unintentionally too.
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One common issue with Firefox is, it is utilizing too much memory in the long usage, and not releasing it back after the tabs closed. It even took sometime to fully released the memory when it was closed.
This tip however manage to solve this problem. While it still maintain the memory rate it use before, it will at least release back the memory upon minimization.
On my quick test below,when Firefox maximized, it is utilizing 101,149kb memory and 28% CPU. Once the screen minimized, the memory consumption immediately dropped to 29,444kb with 19% CPU.
After running it for 2 days, I’m more than happy with the whole performance. It’s not an issue with powerful computer powered by multi core CPU with huge memory, but for old computer owner with less memory that still want to use Firefox, this is great help indeed.
Use with caution however, since some commentators point out this tweak, has slightly effecting the computer performance.
Firefox screen maximized with 14 tabs opened - 101,149k
Firefox screen minimized with 14 tabs opened - 29,444k
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I’m not sure how long has it been there, but when i discover it, I think this is cool. Now, another Chrome’s feature available in Firefox. You can perform any search by just typing anything into your Firefox’s address bar. Remember, the performing search from address bar is using Google by default. There are 2 ways how it works.
First, it works like Google’s Feeling Lucky. Searching any key phrase will return and open a new website automatically. My search for ‘ezera‘ bring me to ezerasurf.com
Secondly, it works just like normal search. Type any key phrase will return the search result.
I believe this functionality come with Google Toolbar although I don’t see it being introduced on the latest Google Toolbar 5 blog post. It might has been there before, only me that didn’t notice about it.
Have you notice this before?
