RSSA real beta process at work: Mozilla fires up Firefox 3.6 Beta 2
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 10, 2009, 5:45 PM
After several weeks of delay for the release of Firefox 3.6 Beta 1, you might say the Mozilla team had some ground to make up. Flying squarely in the face of any commercial company that says it gets bogged down with so much user feedback, the organization accelerated the release of the public Beta 2, in response to 190 major issues with Beta 1 detected and reported by a multitude of users.
Betanews has only had the public Beta 2 up for the last hour, so we can't draw too many conclusions just yet. What we are noticing is that the browser's general responsiveness to the user seems smoother and snappier than the
current stable version 3.5.4 (our tests on 3.5.5 are pending). While any 3.5 version is worlds more reliable than version 3.0, running ordinary tasks in Google Chrome appears noticeably faster, if not to a stopwatch than to our eyes. Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 appeared to have more of its game face on, and Beta 2 would appear to have its pants zipped up and its shirt tucked in.
For reasons we never quite discovered (and that we'd be willing to accept had more to do with Betanews.com than Firefox), the new Ctrl+Tab thumbnail preview feature had difficulty rendering the Betanews front page in Beta 1. That problem seems to have disappeared in Beta 2, so our thumbnail now shows up in miniature in the Windows 7 taskbar and in the new Ctrl+Tab selection pane.
We haven't yet run Beta 2 through every benchmark test on every platform, but we've just completed an early round of tests on Windows 7. So far, Beta 2 is the best performing Firefox we've ever tested, overall. On our new CRPI 2.2 scoring system, it registered a score of 14.63, compared to a 24.63 score for our most recent test of the stable Google Chrome 3 (not a typo there, the difference is exactly 10 points). Our last test of stable version 3.5.4 scored 13.88 on Win7 (we'll test stable 3.5.5 soon).
But not everything is faster with Beta 2; there are certain elements of its execution profile that are somewhat faster, and others that are somewhat slower. For example, our tests show that Beta 2 is faster at loading pages, and at accessing that first element of the page, but not necessarily at getting that critical onLoad() JavaScript event fired. That event has been a secret to Apple Safari's success. The faster that event loads, the faster the browser can start executing code even while the remainder of the page is still downloading and being rendered. Beta 2 scored an 8.69 in our CSS rendering test on Windows 7 versus 3.5.4's 10.48, which may be an indicator of the effect of bug fixes -- maybe more stable, but slower. But Beta 2 scored a 4.38 on loading everyday pages versus 3.5.4's 2.96; and Beta 2 scored 5.81 on rendering old-style HTML tables versus 3.5.4's 4.27.
Mozilla looks like it's concentrating on improving those elements that everyday users see and feel without a stopwatch (or without Betanews calculating everything to the n-th degree), and it's making headway there.
There are obvious changes to the calculation profile, suggesting changes in the JavaScript engine, perhaps for reliability and security. If you look at the speed of individual methods and instructions unto themselves, it's improved nicely: 43.50 in Windows 7 on the TestWorld instructions test versus a Firefox 3.5.4 score of 41.92. However, put those instructions to work with algorithms, and those faster instructions don't scale up the same way: Beta 2 scored a low 7.46 on the new JSBenchmark classic algorithmic test battery, while 3.5.4 scored a 9.14.
Still, the overall score for Beta 2 is a few tenths of a point higher than for Beta 1, suggesting that Mozilla's making the right tradeoffs. The organization has not publicly announced Beta 2's availability at the time of this writing, though a confirmed public Beta 2 build was downloadable from Mozilla's servers. Yes, we tested to make certain this wasn't a Release Candidate masquerading as a public beta (it's happened before). "Private" preview builds of 3.6 Beta 3 are already available.
I'm running 3.6 Beta 2 and I haven't found a single problem with it.
After running a few comparison tests myself (between 3.5 and 3.6) I found 3.6 to be faster. It loads JavaScript, jQuery, and AJAX at a much faster rate. Furthermore, the performance of those languages are much better. Facebook does not lag anymore, and DeviantART does not hold up the machine every time a deviation loads.
Works like a charm! :)
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|Well, blah blah blah. The new Safari is now blah blah blah blah already. Blah blah Chrome is more blah blah blah than blah blah was yesterday. FF beta is the most blah blah blah in the blah blah now that it has blah. Of course IE8 is the blahest of them all because of the blah blah in its blah blah. My question is, where is the graph that shows all this blah blah. Wyzo and Opera are pretty much blah blah now that FF is now blahest. Of course I use FF cause I'm feeling blah today.
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|Hurling is an official GAA Game in Ireland that is noted as one of the fastest games in the world. Whilst it is a very physical game, it does strive to get safer by making Hurling Helmets Compulsory. This is far easier said than done, but it is beginning to have an effect.
Injuries that occur during hurling, especially during training sessions include Scalp Scars lacerations, Skull fractures and Breaks, Broken Cheekbones, Severe eve injuries leading to blindness, Scars and deep cuts to the face, Teeth extractions, Broken Jaws. Remember, if you are playing Hurley then you and your team must wear Hurling Helmets.
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|Cant believe my eyes , 3.5 is going faster than 3.6 :O LOL , whats the point of 3.6 if they already have a lot of horepower left for 3.5 ?
Anyways , im on Pre beta 3 now , and as usual its going gr8 for me :)
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|I'm not installing until I see a graph.
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|lmao...
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|Even though you're probably joking, a part of me kind of agrees :x
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|Actually, I just got back from vacation.
I was able to use all those millionths of a second that I saved on the faster load times from following those graphs to take a cruise.
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|People brought jokes! =)
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|Latest stable version of FF is 3.5.5, not 3.5.4 as you reported.
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|You're right, of course -- 3.5.4 was the latest stable version that we've had an opportunity to test, we'll be putting 3.5.5 through its paces soon.
-SF3
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|Seriously does testing all this bring in enough hits to pay the bills? These articles are getting somewhat stale. Just thought I'd login to betanews on the new firefox to say this. Back to Chrome!
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|What about extension and add-on compatibility???
I can't do without my add-ons and extensions!!!
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|Well I am running Fx v3.6b3 with 68 extensions installed with no issues.
Just get Mr. Tech's Toolkit extension to force compatibility if need be.
You should be able to tell when an extension is actually broken vs. not being compatible with a particular version of Fx and if not you should not run Fx beta releases.
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|There is an addon called nightly tester tools that integrates with the addon manager. It will override all addons that wont work with the latest versions so that they will. It works very well check it out.
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|Out of my 33 extensions only 5 or 6 of them worked in v. 3.6 beta2...
Needs better extension support....
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|"Needs better extension support...."
No... needs authors who actually care about updating their extensions to work with every single beta release.
There are some that simply cannot be bothered to put forth the effort to update their extensions until the next "final" release Firefox is available.
There are, of course, ways around that though... as with most every previous version.
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|If the authors don't care, then that is an Achilles heel in Firefox. What good are the extensions if they are disabled or cause instability on upgrade of the browser?
Perhaps Mozilla needs to pay back some of the top tier extension writers as a bigger incentive.
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|@yountmj: You're right. It seems a lot like those Flash developers who target only a single version, even though subsequent versions work just fine.
It's not as though the beta test doesn't last long enough for extensions developers to test.
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|@ mjm01010101:
How exactly is that an Achilles heel for Firefox? It's a public beta for crying out loud.. That's like blaming Microsoft whenever Creative releases crappy drivers...
They're released to obtain feedback on features, improvements, and what still needs fixing pertaining to *gasp*... Firefox, not it's myriad of extensions.
I cannot recall one single extension from any author that was not eventually updated to work with each and every major non-beta/-alpha/-nightly (pre-)release of Firefox... eventually.
Beta releases were not meant for every day use by everyone. They are meant for testing purposes... and I cannot believe this has to be explained to you.
There are plenty of disclaimers during download and installation that informs each and every user of this one simple fact:
"Important Information
Please read before downloading
* This is pre-release software: you may encounter compatibility problems with some websites and add-ons."
Like I said, those who have the desire to use each and every new beta release as their every day browser have the ability to force most extensions to work with the latest versions of Firefox for which they were not intended.
Stable versions of Firefox do not (to the best of my knowledge) ever prompt to be automatically updated to the latest beta version. When the next stable version is available, the previous stable version will notify the user.
In other words, for most average users of Firefox, this whole "broken extensions" issue is a non-issue.
You say Achilles heel... you couldn't be further from the truth. Extensions are exactly the reason why so many people still continue to use Firefox. At least it has the ability to use extensions. Enjoy your relatively extension-less Chrome...
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|Use nightly tester addon. All your addons will (generally) work.
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|It makes no sense to update Addons and themes for every beta release available as if you look at nightly build changelogs you can see there are constant changes that just makes all the work done on the extension or theme useless.
I update my 3 themes for the betas 2x a month and after the official release only if a supported extension has a layout change.
If you are paying for an extension or theme gripe away if not then be happy anyone is taking the time to create and maintain them at all.
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|Just FYI, you're using the old Firefox logo as the big picture for this article (although at least it's the "new" old logo, not the old old logo from before; this one was just introduced with 3.5).
It's not a huge deal, but it's a pet peeve of some people. In any case, you can easily tell the difference between the two (or three) logos; most notably, the new logo is significantly glossier on the top of the globe.
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|not a huge deal at all...
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|What, no "actual beta news" logo??
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|I ran that with Tim's story yesterday on Kindle for PC...don't want to overdo it.
-"Actual" SF3
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|By all means, Scott: Overdo it.
In fact, feel free to remove the "Viewpoint" article to make more room.
We won't mind.
Really.
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|I don't your comment about the document onLoad event "while the remainder of the page is still downloading and being rendered". It's not meant to, it's only meant to fire after everything has finished loaded. I think Mozilla does provide a custom document onReady event that fires after the page has finished rendering but before other elements like images have finished downloading. But that is a non-standard event which orther browsers like IE does not have. There are various workarounds out there for creating a cross browser onready event (since the standard does not define such an event). So if Safari does work the way you suggested then it sounds like a bug and would affect javascript that relies on all elements having been downloaded like getting the height and width of an image file.
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|Looks like you're right, Safari's onload event does fire too early, thanks for letting me know I'm a web developer and that causes problems for some of the scripts I've created for a number of sites I've deployed. The name of the Firefox event that fires at the same time as Safari's load event is DOMContentLoaded. The specification for the standard load event is here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM...groupings-htmlevents-h3
To clarify my previous post "onReady event that fires after the page has finished rendering" should say "onReady event that fires after all the document objects (DOM) are loaded and available to javascript", the document of course can only be fully rendered after all content is downloaded.
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|As I mentioned to BetaNews earlier today, Firefox Beta 2 and 3 are available as a nightlybuild. I installed Beta 2 and click check updates, to a surprise Mozilla wanted me to upgrade to 3 for better security and stability. That's odd, so i made the switch now I'm using the latest build.
This means just download Beta 3 since 2 wants to upgrade.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2b3pre) Gecko/20091110 Namoroka/3.6b3pre
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|I'm not sure why your particular installation of Beta 2 informed you of the availability of Beta 3, but the one I just installed tells me that there are no updates available.
Additionally, http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html lists Beta 2 as the most recent public release.
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|To clarify: Here is where you download Beta 3
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2b3pre) Gecko/20091111 Namoroka/3.6b3pre
http://ftp.mozilla.org/p...ly/latest-firefox-3.6.x/
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|the ftp link is not working.. wht happened
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|@tigger4046:
Beta 3 pre is not beta 3 but it's past beta 2. Note the "pre" in the information.
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