Over the last year or so, Firefox has become better known in tech savvy circles for its relatively poor performance and mediocre memory management. Chrome's insane speed and Internet Explorer 8's overall improvement have also dinged Firefox's reputation. But now, Firefox 3.5 is almost ready to go.
I downloaded the latest beta, Firefox 3.5 beta 4, to explore it for myself. I used it on two different PCs. The first was my workhouse Windows XP SP2 system, and the other was my Dell laptop. The XP box was a Dell Inspiron 530S with a 2.2-GHz Intel Pentium E2200 dual-core processor, 4GBs of RAM, a 500GB SATA drive and an Integrated Intel 3100 GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator). For laptop, I used a Gateway GT5622 desktop with a 1.8GHz Intel Pentium E2160 dual-core CPU, 3GBs of RAM, a 400GB SATA drive, and an Intel 950 GMA.
On both systems, installing the browser took less than three minutes. Once installed, I found that my two must-have Firefox extensions the Google Toolbar and XMarks were both working.
However, on Windows, I found that two other extensions were DOA. These were the AVG Safe Search 8.5 malware detector and the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.0. I wasn't too surprised by either one. The AVG program has had issues with other versions of Firefox and the .NET Framework program has always been a pain.
Unlike Google Chrome, Firefox has a mature family of extensions. I really like Chrome a lot, but it's still taking baby steps when it comes to using extensions for added functionality.
Where Chrome still zooms by Firefox is when it comes to rendering speed. That's especially true when it comes to JavaScript-heavy pages. Firefox 3.5's TraceMonkey JavaScript rendering engine is much faster than what you'll find in the Firefox 3.0 series and Internet Explorer doesn't belong in the performance conversation.
Still Chrome 2.0's V8 JavaScript engine beats TraceMonkey handily. Using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark on the Microsoft windows xp system, Firefox 3.5 was almost twice as slow as Chrome 2.0 at the benchmark with a recorded time of 1,225.6-millisecond to Chrome 2.0's 704.0. If speed is what matters the most to you, Chrome is the browser for you.
On the other hand, after running Firefox for days and with multiple windows and tabs, I found that on both Windows and Linux, Firefox is finally not hogging memory. Even with the debugging code that must be in a beta, I found that Firefox is no longer leaking memory. That's good for both the browser's stability and its security.
Firefox now supports embedded Ogg and WAV video and audio format without the need for a helper program. It also far better privacy settings so you can use your own, or any other, computer without leaving any traces behind of what you've been doing.
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Second Google phone in Australia next month
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