Firefox 3.5 beta 4 Out

If you’re into browsers and betas, you’ll likely want to go have a look at the Firefox 3.5 beta 4 release. Most interesting aspect to me?

JavaScript, the “J” in “AJAX,” is sped up dramatically in Firefox 3.5 with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. Web applications are much faster than in Firefox 3.

I haven’t had much time to experiment yet, but JavaScript heavy sites do seem to be faster. There are quite a few other features in the beta as well, check that earlier link for a big list.

[beta download site]

I have noticed one little odd “glitch” with the beta. (Unfortunately, I can’t get a screen shot of it.) When I’m using Firefox b4 and pause the mouse, a little white rectangle pops up below the mouse cursor. If I move the mouse, it goes away.

This seems sort of familiar – heck, I’ve probably blogged about it in the past, but a quick search of my own site didn’t turn it up (I could be using the wrong terms though). This Google Groups post describes the exact same issue though. I’ll disable all add-ons later and see if that clears it up.

Speaking of add-ons, betas and testing: Don’t forget the Nightly Tester Tools add-on. This’ll help get all your extensions working again with the beta.

Possibly Related posts:

Clayton Sin

April 29th, 2009 at 8:15 am · Reply

The problem I have had with beta releases is they tend to expect us to find the bugs for them. I am not sure I can spend the time everytime they don’t test things properly themselves. Who can forget the huge build up to Firefox’s mega launch and the bugs we all found?

Chris

April 29th, 2009 at 9:08 am · Reply

The problem I have had with beta releases is they tend to expect us to find the bugs for them.

That is exactly why there are beta programs: Test and find bugs. If you don’t want to be involved in that process, then you definitely want to avoid betas! Unhappy about the quality of the last release? Well, if more people were willing to beta test…

Go to that download link and check out the “Important Reading” section at the top of the page

Gerardo

July 1st, 2009 at 7:37 pm · Reply

Hi. I was having the same problem. I started to disable each complement. Its turn off when i disable the Google Bar from Firefox 3.5.
The issue also involves no seeing the title tag in links/images (tooltips). Downloading the latest Google Bar solved the problem for me. I can hover the mouse over the anchor text “Nightly Tester Tools” in the above post and i can see no “glitch”, but the correct yellow tooltip.
I hope this could help you. Nice blog, by the way!