Why not just skip 4, 5, 6, and 7 instead? Just go straight to version 8!!! =p

I've had nothing but headaches with the latest "stable" version of Firefox. Beta version runs with no problems. Go figure.

Just been reading over at ZDNET Uk, that your favourite browser, that would be Firefox, was tops for bugs in 2008, but quickest at fixes,more vulnerabilities last year than IE, Safari and Opera combined, but it dealt with flaws quicker than Microsoft. So what do you want, a boat full of holes, or a boat full of holes and a barrel of tar ? Me I'll go with Chrome, and throw the rest overboard. Chrome rocks, always wanted to say that, for the gang from the Opera forums, posting "Opera rocks" is considered a detailed review, and critique of their beloved browser.

I wish Mozilla would add Cascade and Tile tab buttons like Opera browser has. I like watching a video in one tab while surfing the web in another and have both visible at the same time. You can kind of simulate this with the Split View Addon but Opera has done it much better.

I do not care what version Mozilla Foundation calls it as long as it works.

I could not agree with you more. They make way too much of all of this, it is a browser for God sake, it is not the return of Jesus. I think some software makers need to get over themselves as being so very important. Other browsers work just as well as Firefox and yet all are different. I will say, I favor FireFox over all the rest, but I do grow tired of all the silly hype over it.

You may think that it doesn't make a shred of difference to you (or the general Joe Shmoe on the street) but it matters to corporations that need to support Firefox for their web applications. There's a plethora of documentation, sales, marketing materials that need to reflect this change accurately to inform the customer what versions will be supported by the companies apps.

Therefore, you, the customers, can be properly informed of the supported versions when you use the web app. If your bank states it supports FF3.1 (even though it's 3.5), will you complain that they should be supporting the newer 3.5, when in fact they are, but the techpubs folks didn't get the message to change the literature/suppport statement?

Put in that perspective, does it matter to you NOW?

"Does it matter to you NOW?"

Nope. Not a bit. Corporations will stick with the lowest common denominator (eg. IE) and if it works with others it works, if not...Oh well.

Hear hear!

I've had it with the marketing hypesters and their Terminal BS. Make sure it's cooked and THEN get it out the door. Call it "ToeNail Clippings 1.0" for all I care.

Oh really "Mr PC-Tool". I work for a corp that takes this seriously, as our worldwide customer base needs this information to be accurate.....their businesses depend upon it.

So, I guess you don't work in the international business world, having to develop cross-browser applications for IE, FF, Safari, Opera? It's in this space where this matters. All the work to support the common denominator (which is not IE) irrelevant? The common denominator is that it works, with the version you claim, and sticking to the W3C standards is only 80% of the way there.

"Oh really "Mr PC-Tool"."

Really.

"So, I guess you don't work in the international business world, having to develop cross-browser applications for IE, FF, Safari, Opera?"

You're right. I don't.

I work in a an organization that has standardized on IE. (The fact that FF actually works in almost all cases is largely irrelevant, though I am happy it does) This saves time, money, effort, and patience, and virtually guarantees compatibility with any workstation within (or even outside of) our organization.

"All the work to support the common denominator (which is not IE) "

One has to wonder what it is you're smoking....

You guys code *for* opera???

*laughing*

What a waste...

I never said we code *for* Opera....those are your words. We code for W3C compliance, and then test cross-browser for all those mentioned above. When we find breakage, 90% of the time it's in IE, the rest is Safari. So we have to conditionally branch code *for* IE.

This, for your information, is how the rest of the world develops web apps....real web apps. When you don't have the luxury of forcing all of your user base to use one browser, like you and IE.

I code for standards. Modern browsers support standards. Problem solved.

I'm hopeful that coding for browsers will soon be a thing of the past.

Settle down before you have a stroke.

I still do not care what it is called as long as it works.

"I never said we code *for* opera"

and I quote...

"having to develop cross-browser applications for IE, FF, Safari, Opera?"

develop for...opera.

Really, what was I supposed to think there? :-)

Inside or outside user-base doesn't matter. If you code specifically for WC3 standards, you fail. You code for IE first (the most used worldwide), and then tweak it for the rest. Pretty basic stuff,...or so we believe here.

it still doesn't matter. It's unfinished, until it's officially released (ie not in beta stage) the version number IS irrelevant. If you're crazy enough to start making ready to go documentation while a product is still in beta, where things can still change drastically, that's not very good business sense. You'll have to update that documentation ANYHOW when it's officially released.

In Poland standard-based browsers are used by ~ 65% web user (by standard-based I mean FF, Opera, IE 7+ and a little Safaris and Chromes), so we code for them first and then hack the code to work under remaining ~ 35% of IE 6. The hacking part sucks but IE 6 is getting less popular every day so in a year or two when it's popularity will cross ~ 5% we will stop doing it (and throw a big party :).

But I know that FF in US is much less popular than our about 30-40% in Europe so I if I would be an American web developer in would celebrate every news about possibilty of FF gaining popularity - such as this. FF 3.5 sounds much better than "mere" FF 3.1. :)

I'll be ecstatic if they have finally resolved the remaining memory leak issues.

Yes! They really need to fix that. It happened to me the other week tskkkk.

Makes sense. The next FF is fast. Been testing on a 6 year old XP box and it renders faster than my 2 year old Vista box with 3.0.7.

That's because anything is faster on XP.

firefox 3.0.7 is fast on vista, what with its milisecond load time, rendering isn't an issue if you tweak things, but hopefully firefox 3.5 is just better all round

"That's because anything is faster on XP."

Sorry to hear it, hasn't been my experience at all.

@psycros:

..and you're calling firefox a troll in the DTV topic?

Pot., meet kettle.

At least he had a basis for his opinion other than "I must hate on MSFT at all times because it makes me look Kewl!"...