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Mozilla seems to be taking its time bringing out Firefox 3.6, but the release candidate is finally here. Is it worth the wait?
In the last round of news about Web browser market share, Firefox was the only big name to suffer a drop, though only slightly from 24.7 percent to 24.6. This came in the face of new competition from the rising Google Chrome, which, at 4.9 percent, recently nudged past Apple Safari's 4.5 percent. Further, Mozilla has been taken to task for missing its deadline to get Firefox 3.6 out before the end of 2009, but I have no problem with a software maker waiting to get things right.
Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate 1 is now publicly available, and the final release is expected by the end of the month, according to my latest information from Mozilla. I've put the new browser version through its paces to see whether it was worth the wait and whether it can still stand up to Chrome. Though this hands-on isn't as thorough-going as a full-on review, all indications point to a yes on both counts.
Firefox is no longer the fresh-faced new kid on the block, but it still has a lot to offer that you won't find in any of the alternatives: It's the only browser with a massive library of free extensions, leading support for new Web standards such as HTML 5, CSS 3, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), and WOFF Web fonts. Firefox 3.6 adds more of this kind of support, along with a built-in Personas feature, which lets users very easily and quickly customize the look of the browser.
Mozilla also claims faster JavaScript performance for this version, and that it now warns users if any add-ons are out of date. It also prevents third-party software from installing itself as a Firefox component rather than through the add-ons manager, which should prevent crashes. I installed the new browser on a couple of machines and ran some tests to share with you my findings on its improvements.
Installation
Instead of installing itself separately as the Firefox betas did, the release candidate actually becomes your main version of the program unless you specify a new folder for it. Mozilla's official documentation states that the release candidate will be identical to the final release of 3.6, and it will actually update itself to be so when that version becomes the default Firefox version.
The sub-version has already undergone a healthy five beta test versions. Over 70 fixes were made to that beta to get to the release candidate. "As a release candidate, this is considered to be stable and safe to use for daily Web browsing, and represents the features and content that will be in the final product release," Mozilla's blog post states. But keep in mind that Firefox 3.5 required two release candidate versions. So I'm not going to rate 3.6 until it's finally final.
When I first ran the release candidate, a Mozilla page displayed touting its several new features and links that demonstrate them—Personas, fullscreen HTML 5 video, Web fonts, and add-on checking.
Interface
The interface remains virtually unchanged from version 3.5—look to upcoming releases for changes on that front. One difference is the now-included Personas icon in the lower left corner of the main program window, a small fox head. This gives you access to the Personas capability, which has already been available as a browser add-on, or extension from Mozilla. It lets users dress up the window borders with colors and images. Personas are actually more limited than the Theme add-ons, which can also change navigation buttons.
Performance
Startup time has been a longtime bugaboo for Firefox which has often taken five times as long as Internet Explorer or Opera to get up and running. It's particularly a problem the first time you run the browser after a system boot up—a "cold startup." To test this, I used an older system so that differences would show up more clearly. The results:
Clearly Firefox still has some catching up to do in this area, and Mozilla admits that that is one of Mozilla's design goals for version 3.7.
JavaScript performance has been a hot area of contention among browser makers, with Google Chrome the new speed leader. On the Sunspider Javascript benchmark, Firefox 3.6 came in at 808.6ms on my 2.9GHz Core i7 system with 4GB DDR3 RAM, ahead of version 3.5's 1077ms—a 25 percent improvement. The new version of Firefox still trails Google Chrome's time of 585 on the same system. But Firefox actually wins a couple of subtests: bit operations and math.
Memory use has long been a strong suite of Firefox. Chrome and IE split tab content among separate processes, while Firefox's single process is often smaller than the combined memory footprint of those browsers. Though it has crash recovery, Firefox lacks IE8 and Chrome's separate processes for tabs, which mean one bad site won't take down your whole browsing session for those browsers. My results with 10 media-heavy pages loaded in tabs: Firefox 3.6 RC—230MB, Chrome 3—275MB, and IE8—309MB. So Firefox still can claim leadership on this front.
On the Web Standards Project's Acid3 Browser Test, Firefox scored 94 out of 100—far better than Internet Explorer's 20, but Microsoft claims that passing some Acid3 tests would constitute a security compromise. One thing you don't need to worry about with Firefox is compatibility with existing websites: Pretty much every Web developer targets the browser and makes sure his code displays correctly in it. I didn't encounter a single incorrectly rendered site in using the new version.
Standards Support: HTML 5 and More
New standards support is one area where Firefox can claim a big advantage over Internet Explorer. HTML 5 video and audio, open downloadable Web fonts, SVG graphics, and WOFF (Web Open Font Format) are industry leading. But HTML 5 video, for which Firefox has standardized on the open Ogg Theora format, has yet to gain widespread use. Its advantages are clear: It doesn't require a plugin, and Web developers can create pages where other objects on the page can interact with the playing video—unlike Flash movies total separation from anything else on the page. If the open video format can gain momentum, we'll see a flourishing of neat Web video functionality. Some video sharing sites such as DailyMotion.com already support it, as does the lesser known tinyvid.tv. Mozilla has also put up a page demonstrating what's possible with HTML 5 video.
Another open, royalty-free initiative is open Web fonts, supported by the WOFF standard. This allows Web page creators the ability to use unique fonts that can be downloaded to users' browsers on the fly. Browsers that don't support the standard, such as Internet Explorer replace the creative font seen in Firefox with a default sans serif font in Internet Explorer.
Other new standards being championed by Firefox are drag-and-drop from the OS; the new HTML 5 File API, which allows web apps to access local files (and recognize their type); and the ability for a site to detect a device's orientation, if the device is equipped with an accelerometer.
Despite slight slowdown in its adoption and competition from Google Chrome, Firefox is still a very appealing browser choice. And though it's yielded the JavaScript speed crown to the likes of Google Chrome and Apple Safari, it's still far faster in this measure than market leader Internet Explorer. Firefox's thrifty use of memory, near-infinite customizability through extensions, compatibility with existing sites, and support for forward-looking Web standards make it an excellent option for everyday browsing. We'll take another look at Firefox 3.6 when the final release is available.
Startup time has been a longtime bugaboo for Firefox which has often taken five times as long as Internet Explorer or Opera to get up and running. It's particularly a problem the first time you run the browser after a system boot up—a "cold startup." To test this, I used an older system so that differences would show up more clearly. The results:
| (Seconds) | Firefox 3.6 RC1 | Internet Explorer | Google Chrome |
| Cold Startup | 12 | 3 | 4 |
| Warm Startup | 1.8 | 0.8 | 0.7 |
JavaScript performance has been a hot area of contention among browser makers, with Google Chrome the new speed leader. On the Sunspider Javascript benchmark, Firefox 3.6 came in at 808.6ms on my 2.9GHz Core i7 system with 4GB DDR3 RAM, ahead of version 3.5's 1077ms—a 25 percent improvement. The new version of Firefox still trails Google Chrome's time of 585 on the same system. But Firefox actually wins a couple of subtests: bit operations and math.
Memory use has long been a strong suite of Firefox. Chrome and IE split tab content among separate processes, while Firefox's single process is often smaller than the combined memory footprint of those browsers. Though it has crash recovery, Firefox lacks IE8 and Chrome's separate processes for tabs, which mean one bad site won't take down your whole browsing session for those browsers. My results with 10 media-heavy pages loaded in tabs: Firefox 3.6 RC—230MB, Chrome 3—275MB, and IE8—309MB. So Firefox still can claim leadership on this front.
On the Web Standards Project's Acid3 Browser Test, Firefox scored 94 out of 100—far better than Internet Explorer's 20, but Microsoft claims that passing some Acid3 tests would constitute a security compromise. One thing you don't need to worry about with Firefox is compatibility with existing websites: Pretty much every Web developer targets the browser and makes sure his code displays correctly in it. I didn't encounter a single incorrectly rendered site in using the new version.
Standards Support: HTML 5 and More
New standards support is one area where Firefox can claim a big advantage over Internet Explorer. HTML 5 video and audio, open downloadable Web fonts, SVG graphics, and WOFF (Web Open Font Format) are industry leading. But HTML 5 video, for which Firefox has standardized on the open Ogg Theora format, has yet to gain widespread use. Its advantages are clear: It doesn't require a plugin, and Web developers can create pages where other objects on the page can interact with the playing video—unlike Flash movies total separation from anything else on the page. If the open video format can gain momentum, we'll see a flourishing of neat Web video functionality. Some video sharing sites such as DailyMotion.com already support it, as does the lesser known tinyvid.tv. Mozilla has also put up a page demonstrating what's possible with HTML 5 video.
Another open, royalty-free initiative is open Web fonts, supported by the WOFF standard. This allows Web page creators the ability to use unique fonts that can be downloaded to users' browsers on the fly. Browsers that don't support the standard, such as Internet Explorer replace the creative font seen in Firefox with a default sans serif font in Internet Explorer.
Other new standards being championed by Firefox are drag-and-drop from the OS; the new HTML 5 File API, which allows web apps to access local files (and recognize their type); and the ability for a site to detect a device's orientation, if the device is equipped with an accelerometer.
Despite slight slowdown in its adoption and competition from Google Chrome, Firefox is still a very appealing browser choice. And though it's yielded the JavaScript speed crown to the likes of Google Chrome and Apple Safari, it's still far faster in this measure than market leader Internet Explorer. Firefox's thrifty use of memory, near-infinite customizability through extensions, compatibility with existing sites, and support for forward-looking Web standards make it an excellent option for everyday browsing. We'll take another look at Firefox 3.6 when the final release is available.
(from internet)
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