Firefox 3.5

Last updated

Mozilla Firefox 3.5
Developer(s) Mozilla Corporation
Mozilla Foundation
Initial releaseJune 30, 2009 (2009-06-30)
Final release
3.5.19 (April 28, 2011;12 years ago (2011-04-28))
Preview release Non [±]
Written in C++, XUL, XBL, JavaScript, [1] CSS [2] [3]
Engine Gecko
Operating system Windows
Mac OS X
Linux
BSD
Solaris
OpenSolaris
OS/2
Platform Cross-platform
Size 9.4 MB (Linux)
17.2 MB (Mac OS X)
7.7 MB (Windows)
(all archived)
Available in 75 languages
Type Web browser
FTP client
Gopher client
License MPL/GNU GPL/GNU LGPL/about:rights
Website www.mozilla.com/firefox
Firefox logo, 2019.svg
Market share overview
According to StatCounter data
December 2023 [4]
This box:
Browser % of Fx % of total
Firefox 1 ——
Firefox 2 ——
Firefox 3 ——
Firefox 4 ——
Firefox 5–9 ——
Firefox 10–16 2.35%0.08%
Firefox 17–23 ——
Firefox 24–30 ——
Firefox 31–37 ——
Firefox 38–44 ——
Firefox 45–51 ——
Firefox 52–59 3.28%0.11%
Firefox 60–67 ——
Firefox 68–77 ——
Firefox 78–90 0.60%0.02%
Firefox 91–101 0.90%0.03%
Firefox 102–114 3.88%0.13%
Firefox 115 and 115 ESR 13.43%0.45%
Firefox 116 0.30%0.01%
Firefox 117 0.30%0.01%
Firefox 118 3.58%0.12%
Firefox 119 9.85%0.33%
Firefox 120 41.19%1.38%
Firefox 121 14.33%0.48%
Firefox 122 ——
All variants [5] 100%3.35%
The results of the Acid3 test on Firefox 3.5 Acid3Fx3.5.png
The results of the Acid3 test on Firefox 3.5

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 is a version of the Firefox web browser released in June 2009, adding a variety of new features to Firefox. Version 3.5 was touted as being twice as fast as 3.0 (due its TraceMonkey JavaScript engine and rendering improvements). It includes private browsing, has tear-off tabs, and uses the Gecko 1.9.1 engine. It was codenamed Shiretoko during development, [6] and was initially numbered Firefox 3.1 before Mozilla developers decided to change the version to 3.5, to reflect the inclusion of a significantly greater scope of changes than were originally planned. [7] It is the last major version to support X BitMap images.

Contents

Estimates of Firefox 3.5's global market share in February 2010 were around 15–20% [8] [9] [10] and rose rapidly in July 2009 as users migrated from Firefox 3.0. From January 2010 it began to decline as users migrated to Firefox 3.6. Between mid-December 2009 and February 2010, Firefox 3.5 was the most popular browser (when counting individual browser versions) according to StatCounter, [11] and as of February 2010 was one of the top 3 browser versions according to Net Applications. [12] Both milestones involved passing Internet Explorer 7, which previously held the No. 1 and No. 3 spots in popularity according to StatCounter and Net Applications, respectively.

Due to the January 2010, well-publicized vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, the German, French, and Australian governments had publicly issued warnings to Internet Explorer users to use alternative browsers, at least until a fix for the security hole was made. [13] [14] [15] The first browser they recommended was Mozilla Firefox, followed by Google Chrome.

Development

Even before the release of Firefox 3.0 on June 17, 2008, Firefox 3.1 was in development under the codename "Shiretoko". It was planned to include new interface features such as tab previews, tag auto-completion, HTML 5 <video> tag support, and CSS text shadows. [16]

Alpha

The first Alpha was released on July 28, 2008. [17] A new tab switching behavior was implemented, that switches to the most recently used tab instead of the adjacent one. When switching thumbnails are displayed so the user can preview the tabs before switching to them. The Awesomebar was also improved to have filtering by Bookmarks and history. The Gecko engine was updated to include CSS3 features and includes the HTML Canvas text API. [18] The Alpha release showed an 18% improvement in the Acid3 test over Firefox 3.0, scoring 84/100. [19]

Version 3.1 Alpha 2 was launched on September 5, 2008, implementing the HTML 5 video element support and preliminary support for web worker thread, enhancing the speed of some JavaScript computations. [20]

Beta and release

On October 14, 2008, the first beta of Firefox 3.1 was released. [21] It included a new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which is not enabled by default, and the implementation of the W3C Geolocation API. [22] Beta 2 was released on December 8, 2008 and included a new private browsing feature. [23] The new tab switching behavior and interface was dropped at this beta, since the developer found it needed more work. [24] Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 was released on March 12, 2009, [25] [26] followed by Beta 4, the first to be labeled as version 3.5, on April 27, 2009. [27] [28] On June 8, 2009, Mozilla released Firefox 3.5 Preview (labeled 3.5b99) in order to receive additional testing before it became the release candidate. [29]

Release Candidate 1 was released as an update to Firefox 3.5 Preview users on June 17, 2009. [30] Released Candidate 2 was made more widely available on June 19, 2009, [31] followed by a third RC on June 24, 2009. Firefox 3.5 was officially released on June 30, 2009. [32] [33]

Features

Firefox 3.5 uses the Gecko 1.9.1 engine, which adds features that were not included in the 3.0 release. These include support for the <video> and <audio> elements defined in the HTML 5 draft specification, including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio. [34] [35] The goal is to offer video and audio playback without being encumbered by patent issues associated with most plugin and codec technologies. [36] Other features new in Firefox 3.5 include a private browsing mode, native support for JSON and web worker threads, and many other new web technologies. [37] Multi-touch support was also added to the release, including gesture support like pinching for zooming and swiping for back and forward. [38] Firefox 3.5 also features an updated logo from the previous releases. [39]

A minor change for Version 3.5 is the default search engine in Russian language builds, which uses the search engine Yandex rather than Google, after a survey of Russian Firefox users indicated they preferred Yandex. [40]

The first update, 3.5.1, was released on July 16, 2009. It solved some vulnerabilities detected after the final release. Another update, 3.5.2, was released on August 3, 2009, followed by version 3.5.3 on September 9, 2009, version 3.5.4 on October 27, 2009, version 3.5.5 on November 5, 2009, version 3.5.6 on December 15, 2009 and version 3.5.7 on January 5, 2010.

Starting July 14, 2009, the upgrade to 3.5 was offered to users of Firefox 3.0 through the automatic internal "push" update mechanism.

End of life

Security and stability updates for Firefox 3.5.x were scheduled to end in August 2010. However, Firefox 3.5.12 was released on September 7, 2010 [41] and Mozilla continued shipping incremental stability and security fixes up to build 3.5.19, released on April 28, 2011. [42] With the release of Firefox 3.6.18, Mozilla issued an update to move remaining Firefox 3.5 users to the new browser, [43] finally ending support for 3.5.

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Inc, Rietta. "Rietta". Rietta. Archived from the original on August 4, 2009.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  2. ↑ Walsh, David (July 10, 2008). "Firefox 3's Internal Rendering CSS".
  3. ↑ App themes and skins Archived May 23, 2009, at the Wayback Machine userstyles.org
  4. ↑ "Top 12 Desktop, Mobile, Tablet & Console Browser Versions on Dec 2023". StatCounter Global Stats.
  5. ↑ "Top 9 Desktop, Mobile, Tablet & Console Browsers on Dec 2023". StatCounter Global Stats.
  6. ↑ "Firefox 3.1 "Shiretoko"". June 12, 2008. Retrieved June 12, 2008.
  7. ↑ Mike Shaver (March 6, 2009). "Shiretoko (Firefox 3.1) being renamed to Firefox 3.5". Newsgroup:  mozilla.dev.planning. Usenet:   mailman.34.1236360325.4415.dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org.
  8. ↑ "Browser Version Market Share". Net Applications. February 2010. Retrieved March 5, 2010.
  9. ↑ "Global Web Stats". W3Counter. February 2010. Retrieved March 5, 2010.
  10. ↑ "StatCounter Global Stats". StatCounter. February 2010. Retrieved March 5, 2010.
  11. ↑ Firefox 3.5 is world's most popular browser, StatCounter says, Nick Eaton. seattlepi blogs. 2009-12-21. Retrieved 2009-12-22.
  12. ↑ "Newschannel.com - Breaking News, World News, US News and Video". www.newschannel.com.
  13. ↑ France, Germany warn Internet Explorer users TVNZ, January 19, 2010
  14. ↑ "Why you should change your internet browser and how to choose the best one for you". The Independent. London. January 18, 2010. Archived from the original on January 21, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2010.
  15. ↑ Bourke, Emily (January 19, 2010). "Govt issues IE security warning – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)". Australia: ABC. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
  16. ↑ Paul, Ryan (June 15, 2008). "Mozilla prepares for Firefox 3 release and plans for 3.1". Ars Technica. Retrieved September 29, 2009.
  17. ↑ beltzner (July 28, 2008). "Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 now available for download". Developer News. Mozilla. Retrieved September 29, 2009.
  18. ↑ Paul, Ryan (July 30, 2008). "First look: Ars reviews Firefox 3.1 alpha 1". Ars Technica. Retrieved December 16, 2009.
  19. ↑ Percy Cabello (July 29, 2008). "First step to Firefox 3.1: Alpha 1 is here". Mozilla Links. Retrieved July 29, 2008.
  20. ↑ Paul, Ryan (September 5, 2008). "First look: Firefox 3.1 alpha 2 officially released". Ars Technica. Retrieved December 16, 2009.
  21. ↑ "Firefox 3.1 beta 1 now available for download" . Retrieved November 11, 2009.
  22. ↑ Paul, Ryan (October 14, 2008). "First look: Firefox 3.1 beta 1 officially released". Ars Technica. Retrieved December 16, 2009.
  23. ↑ "Don't leave a trace: Private Browsing in Firefox" . Retrieved December 25, 2008.
  24. ↑ Paul, Ryan (December 8, 2008). "First look: Firefox 3.1 beta 2, now with private browsing". Ars Technica. Retrieved December 16, 2009.
  25. ↑ Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 now available for download
  26. ↑ Shankland, Stephen. "New beta paves way for Firefox 3.5". CNET.
  27. ↑ Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 now available for download
  28. ↑ Shankland, Stephen. "Mozilla releases Firefox 3.5 beta". CNET.
  29. ↑ "Firefox 3.5 Preview". Archived from the original on June 11, 2009. Retrieved July 22, 2009.
  30. ↑ Firefox 3.5 beta users will receive update to early release candidate
  31. ↑ Firefox 3.5 release candidate now available for download
  32. ↑ Firefox 3.5 is now available for download
  33. ↑ Shankland, Stephen (June 30, 2009). "Mozilla releases Firefox 3.5". Webware. CNET. Retrieved July 3, 2009.
  34. ↑ Eric Shepherd (May 28, 2009), Media formats supported by the audio and video elements, Mozilla developer center, archived from the original on May 4, 2012, retrieved October 11, 2009
  35. ↑ MozillaWiki (March 18, 2009), Firefox3.5/Features, MozillaWiki, retrieved October 11, 2009
  36. ↑ Dan Warne (May 7, 2007). "Firefox to go head-to-head with Flash and Silverlight". APC Magazine. ACP Magazines Ltd. Retrieved January 18, 2008.
  37. ↑ "Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Release Notes". website-archive.mozilla.org.
  38. ↑ Kim, Arnold (December 10, 2008). "Latest Firefox 3.1 Beta Adds Multi-Touch Support". Macrumors.com. Retrieved January 17, 2009.
  39. ↑ Alex Faaborg (May 15, 2009). "Creative Brief for the New Firefox Icon". Archived from the original on April 26, 2012. Retrieved May 30, 2009.
  40. ↑ Shankland, Stephen (January 9, 2009). "Firefox in Russia dumps Google for Yandex". CNET News . Retrieved January 10, 2009.
  41. ↑ "Mozilla Firefox 3.5.12 Release Notes". website-archive.mozilla.org.
  42. ↑ "Mozilla Firefox 3.5.19 Release Notes". website-archive.mozilla.org.
  43. ↑ "Releases - MozillaWiki".
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