Firefox 3 released

Kizzume · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:53 pm Post subject: Firefox 3 released

Yeah, I'm sure I'm a little late on it, but I was happy that they released it. This means that animated png files are going to start happening soon. It seems to load a number of pages faster than the previous main release.

Kizzume · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:04 pm Post subject:

Oh great, adblock and adblock plus aren't working on it. EXTRA lame!

But I guess I wasn't late on it. I guess today was the release date, so adblock should be updating soon.

Hey guess what--there's a beta available of adblock plus that works with firefox 3

http://adblockplus.org/devbuilds/

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1124

Sweet. I just love adblock. What's the story with Firefox 3 though...? What are the differences? I already like firefox fine-- I sort of wish they would stop changing it (if they have.)

Kizzume · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:19 pm Post subject:

They keep improving the rendering engine.

This site, for instance, uses several layers of png files. 3d games use TONS of alpha-layer transparencies (like png files, which can have varying levels of transparency, unlike a gif file which only has a "cutout" mode where one pixel can either be completely clear or completely opaque) but never have a problem with slowdowns JUST because of it--the slowdowns are generally from too many polygons. Browsers on the other hand struggle a bit with that. GIF animations also slow down browsers to a crawl if they take up too much of the screen, but games can usually handle them without a problem.

Every new version they come out with for Firefox seems to be a major improvement in the rendering engine. I really don't understand why there hasn't been an attempt to make a browser completely OpenGL or DirectX reliant, to where the main processor doesn't handle any of the displaying of the graphics, much like a game engine. Imagine perfectly smooth-scrolling webpages, no framerate degradation, and then imagine the possibilities of page debugging at that point too--if you could see all the layers in a 3d mode so you can visually see exactly how a page is constructed.

One of the things that this new version of Firefox has added is the usage of animated PNG files. Now there can be animated things that blend perfectly with the background instead of having a nasty edge to it all the time.

For instance, here's an animated firefox logo:

If you don't have Firefox 3 or a newer build of Opera which I guess recently added this ability, this will look just like a regular static png file.

Kizzume · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:24 pm Post subject:

And check out this page too:

http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/08/better-animations-in-firefox-3/