The PC Report

In a follow up to our previous post on HTML5 we now have a video showing a speed comparison between Firefox 3.7, Internet Explorer 9, Opera (unspecified version) and Chrome 6. The latest test preview of IE9 utilises hardware acceleration as well as a new JavaScript engine and better HTML5 support. The Firefox 3.7 Alpha also uses hardware acceleration that matches IE9′s in terms of performance, and Chrome 6 tries to use its engine but ultimately fails miserably.

Most notable from the video below is that Firefox 3.7 actually beats IE9, which recently has been shown to be a speed demon, by around 5%. Both IE9 and Firefox 3.7 used the least CPU power during the test as well. As these browsers are in testing phases one would hope that by a final version things would be even smoother and faster and hopefully with interface improvements (*cough* Firefox *cough*).

It’s quite surprising to see Chrome in last place when it comes to browser speed considering that it was the fastest browser around when it was released and consistently beats non-beta Firefox and Internet Explorer versions in the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark. This could be due to (as stated in the video) an early implementation of hardware acceleration or it could mean that Firefox and IE9′s devs are just better at coding these features into their browsers.

We wait in anticipation of the full releases of all these browsers

Firefox 4 is set to be quite a big release as it includes an entire user interface (UI) overhaul, and today we’re getting some updates on the progress of the new UI set to be included. This new theme is supposed to reflect a modernized browser as well as retaining visual integration, a streamlined UI and cross-platform consistency where possible.

The theme is still a work in progress, but below we have some new screenshots of what you may see in the next iteration of Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux as well as current progress on features.

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Firefox Lorentz beta is out now. The main goal of this project is to prevent plugin crashes from crashing your browser. This is a feature that is already being used in other browsers such as Chrome (the Sandbox feature) and will probably be built into the Firefox 3.7 release. This beta release will work on top of FireFox 3.6 without breaking backwards compatibility.

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If you have poor quality internet you might run into trouble when you attempt to download large files. Almost any time I download a file larger than 50 MB the download will get cut off and tell me the connection to the server has failed. If I click retry it tries to download the entire file again.

I thought everyone knew how to resume a broken download but it amazed my friend when he saw me do it so now I’m sharing this with everyone here.

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I find myself using this really simple add-on for Firefox all the time. Basically what it does is when you highlight text in a passage/title/link/whatever, then drag and drop it anywhere, it will search Google in a new tab for the highlighted text. It also works with unlinked URLs – just highlight an unlinked URL such as google.com, drag & drop it and it will automatically go to the URL – and photos – just drag & drop to download the image (you can disable that if you like).

You’ll find yourself using it a lot if you’re a Firefox user, so head over to the QuickDrag add-on page now to download it.

There have been several betas and release candidates, but Firefox 3.6 is now finally ready for the general public to update to. For current users you will be happy to know that 3.6 is 20% faster than 3.5 thanks to better JavaScript performance, start-up times and responsiveness. A new feature called Personas has also been included, which is simple browser theming with a single click and no restart.

To download/upgrade to the latest version of Firefox, head over to the Mozilla website to grab it. The full list of updates can be found below:

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Today it appears as if Mozilla has decided to completely change the way they release new versions of Firefox. They have removed Firefox 3.7 from the development schedule and added a completely new process in its place. Updates will be released more frequently which add new features and security; these updates will be released every “four to six weeks” rather than with the bigger updates. Major releases, such as Firefox 4.0 due for release at the end of the year, will be rarer.

Director of Firefox, Mike Beltzner, thought that the old way of releasing updates was too slow and when many features were released at the same time, show-stopping bugs were more likely to appear. With the new process bugs will be less likely and we will get new features much faster, such as the new updated “Lorentz” which will put add-ons in a separate process to reduce the chance of a crash.

If you’re wondering where the next Firefox disappeared to, Firefox 3.7 will become just another normal update in the new 4-6 week update schedule. Firefox 3.6 is on-schedule and will be released sometime in the next week or so.

We’ve seen a few mockups for the Firefox 4.0 user interface re-vamp before in July, and now we’re getting some more. These latest shots come from Mozilla dev Stephen Horlander’s personal blog where he shares heaps of info regarding the latest changes to the Firefox UI. He does mention, though, that these changes will likely be present in Firefox 4.0 and that no UI re-vamp will occur in Firefox 3.7.

It appears as though Mozilla is taking cues from both the Ribbon interface we see in Windows applications such as Wordpad, Paint and Office 2007/2010 as well as Google’s Chrome browser. One thing does stand out in the new screenshots is the application button, which is said to replace the menu toolbar that fills up space on older Firefox versions. This application button is being tested in many locations (below).

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Ah, it’s so nice to see Internet Explorer finally de-crowned as the world’s most popular browser. In the latest statistics provided by StatCounter Global Statistics we are seeing a very slight margin to Firefox 3.5 over Internet Explorer 7, a great milestone for Mozilla. Of course, these stats count each version of the browser separately and when you add all the Microsoft browsers together IE still comes out on top, but hey, it’s still a milestone for Firefox.

It was five years ago today that Mozilla launched version 1.0 of their browser: Mozilla Firefox. More than 1 million people flooded to download the new browser and escape the grasps that Internet Explorer had over the internet browsing realms. Little did they know that five years later, Firefox would grow to a user base of 330 million and a 24% market share.

To celebrate the 5th year that Firefox has been around for, Mozilla has been hosting parties around the world thanks to the “Light the World with Firefox” campaign. Anyone can join the fun and you can win some cool Firefox stuff. Head over now SpreadFirefox to get involved, or to just wish Firefox a happy 5th birthday.