Firefox 3.5 out soon

Firefox 3.5 is nearing release. According to the release notes, it has "Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine". Well, maybe: I found that Firefox 3.5 on Mac OS X crashes less frequently, but it does still crash and when it crashes it still has startup problems.

Fortunately, they've added a feature that helps with that. When Firefox can't start, it puts up a "Well, this is embarrassing" window - and yes, it is embarrassing - when will Firefox really be stable? That windo lets you choose what tabs to reopen or to give up and start a new session. I've found Gmail to usually be the problem; deselecting that will usually (not always) let Firefox start up correctly.

The idiotic un-awesome bar is slower and more annoying than ever. It regularly locks me up when I fat-finger an address. I seriously cannot understand why so many reviewers gush about this.

I'm not the only one that thinks the Awesome bar is clunky and slow - here's someone offering an Awesome Bar Accelerator (no, I didn't try it).

Like Chrome and IE, Firefox now has a "private browsing" mode. Unlike Chrome, which lets you open a specific "icognito" window or tab, Firefox private browsing affects everything once it is turned on. I don't have much need for private browsing, but I would think that the best way to do this would be to offer both specific windows and every window/tab

If it were not for extensions, I wouldn't use Firefox. I try to remember to use Safari for Gmail; that eliminates a lot of trouble. If I forget and do load Gmail in Firefox, it often hangs. With the new JavaScript, it doesn't crash the rest of Firefox, but you do have to wait (and wait... and wait) until Gmail either loads or Firefox gives up. Safari never has such problems.

Oh well: can't live with it, can't live without it. Crappy as it is in some ways, Firefox has enough "must have" features that most of us choose to put up with its problems.

Tony Lawrence 2009/06/29 Rating: 4.0