Firefox 3.5 - A Downgrade?

[Sully1800]

Wardrop -

I agree that sometimes it appears that change is made just for the sake of change, almost as if the programmers are just trying to "look busy." (PBWiki certainly did that this year.) In reality, however, change is inevitable and not everyone will like all the changes. We simply have to deal with it. May I suggest that you contact the Mozilla team and ask to be a beta-tester for upgrades. I'm not sure if they let the public beta-test or not, but many companies do. This way you would be able to give feedback before the fact rather than after.

Oh, by the way - as a teacher I can't resist . . . We read from left to right as we move top to bottom (as you stated). So our eyes move down as they move to the right. Mozilla's logic is correct.

[teoli2003]

You don't need to request to be a beta-tester. Beta, and alpha, versions are all public, just download them. Even daily pre-alpha version are publics. Look at the Builds forum here where to find them and how to report problem.

But beware nightlies, alpha and beta versions are tests version, and sometimes they just don't work, erase your date, erase your HDD, make your computer explode, rape your wife and abuse your children. So backup your important data, even if most of the time everything work finely.

Next alpha version is scheduled for August (Firefox 3.6 alpha 1).

[san40k]

This summary should make a good bug report for FF3.5:

I too noticed this change, which in my opinion, takes away from FF's usefulness.
I want website links that open in a new window to open in the same tab (unless I middle-click), and links from Tbird or another external program to open in a new tab.

The above is configured in FF 3.0 with the following combination of options:
browser.link.open_external;3
browser.link.open_newwindow;1
browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction;0

Exact same set of options doesn't work in FF 3.5 as expected: external links are being open in existing (active) tab, not in a new tab of a existing window

[James]

May I suggest that you contact the Mozilla team and ask to be a beta-tester for upgrades. I'm not sure if they let the public beta-test or not, but many companies do. This way you would be able to give feedback before the fact rather than after.

I guess you missed the Firefox Builds section here, as Firefox Builds is probably one of the most active place where testers hang out and discuss nightlies, Alaha, Beta, Release Candidates for the past years. For Firefox 3.5 there were 8 Alpha, 4 Beta, 3 RC builds beside the daily nightlies. The Trunk nightlies are of the early development of Firefox 3.6 which has yet to hit Alpha1 stage. Basically learn how to do at least separate installs and separate Profiles for each builds before trying.

Firefox is open source and easily accessible as one can use any build from the latest bleeding edge hourly to building their own builds from source.


http://www.mozillazine.org/about/

[Brimfulof]

This is really frustrating me too. I didn't play around with any advanced settings in earlier versions of FF, but my links from external applications used to each open in a new tab. It seems to me this is just what one would want it to do. Here is my use case, I can't imagine it's unusual:

Going through email newsletters (e.g. the Register, forum digests, etc.) click all the links of the articles I think I might be interested in. Then go to FF, where each article is opened in a seperate tab. Read articles, closing tabs as I go.

Now I have to open each article, switch to FF, read it or reject it, and then switch back to Outlook to continue reading the newsletter.

Has anyone got a fix? I'm really not keen on changing my default browser to Chrome, I like my FF add-ons too much.

[Bluefang]

Do you still have problems in safe-mode or with a new profile?


And FYI, after doing some poking around, I found that browser.link.open_external was removed. Now browser.link.open_newwindow controls both links and external applications.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=324164

I currently have
browser.link.open_newwindow - 3
browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction - 0
and external links do open in new tabs.

[Brimfulof]

Thanks very much Bluefang. That seems to have done the job!

I've never fiddled around with the config files before, but had just read (and done) this:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securi ... ecurityfix

So I had an idea how to do it this time.

Thanks again.

[hotnoob]

well, if you think that 3.5 is such a horrible downgrade... you could solve your problems by simply downgrading or rather "upgrading" your firefox browser...

this article explains how and where to get downgrade to an earlier firefox version
http otnoob.isgreat.org/?p=103

[malliz]

As if anyone is going to be dumb enough to click on a link from a first time poster.