Just Released

• Firefox 3.6b3 – November 17th

Schedule this Coming Week

• Firefox 3.6b4 — ??

Future Release

• Firefox 3.0.16 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.5.6 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.6 – Year-End 2009
• Firefox 3.7 – Spring 2010

Mozilla Release Beta 3 of Firefox 3.6 late Tuesday afternoon. This release includes some 90+ bug fixes, here a few:

• A new API will now allow add-on developers access Firefox’s geolocation features. (See Doug Turner’s post)
• As expected,  tab previews on Windows 7 taskbar has been pulled back. This is a real disappointment: there will be no support at all for some of Windows 7’s most welcomed features: jump lists, download progress in the task bar (a la IE8), and now no tab previews.
• In the security/stability front, the Firefox components directory is now locked down, which means no third party provider will be able to write to Firefox’s components folder. More details in Mozilla Developer Center.
• The extensions.checkCompatibility preference becomes less relaxed. In the past, it has been abused by users as a way to force incompatible extensions to work with newer Firefox versions. The preference is still there but it will have to be more explicit. For example to force them to work with Firefox 3.6, you wll have to add extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6 and set it to  false. For future versions you will need to set extensions.checkCompatibility.3.7 to false and so on. See Dave Townsend’s post for more details.

Current Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 or Beta 2 users can upgrade via the Check for Updates option in the Help Menu.

Source: Mozilla Links

ADDONS.MOZILLA.ORG (AMO)

• Download Source Tracking
• Self Hosted Add-ons
• Pledge Drives and Subscriptions
• Reviews are humming along

  • Need Seamonkey reviewers

• AMO 5.4

  • Enhanced Localization
  • GetSatisfaction for Add-ons
  • Release Channels

• Compatibility up to 49%

  • Add-on compatibility reporter emails going out this week
  • 2200 add-ons, 24,000 reports

FIREFOX

• Firefox 3.0.16 / Firefox 3.5.6
  • slushy code freeze for both releases
  • still have a couple of patches to take
  • otherwise, on track for mid-December release

• Namoroka (Firefox 3.6)
  • beta 3 refresh should be coming Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning
  • beta 3 includes a components directory lockdown feature – johnath to blog about the details early this week
  • code freeze for RC1 is scheduled for Wednesday but might be at risk; come to the Platform meeting tomorrow to discuss.
• Firefox 3.7

  • preliminary explorations on 3.7 work continue, see the projects page for more details.

GECKO

• Gecko 1.9.2
  • News from the CrashKill front:
    • Today’s discussion will be about how to determine if 3.6 will crash less than 3.5.x and 3.0.x. The way we do our crash report throttling makes comparing releases difficult–we have to guess on about five different variables when comparing releases.
    • Reminder: We now have the ability to block specific DLLs from loading. For the list of DLLs we intend to block, see bug 525103.
  • News from Electrolysis:
    • 4 blockers until out-of-process-plugins (OOPP) land in mozilla-central preffed off, hopefully this week… lots of small issues being found, but few major ones.
    • Firefox 3.7 to have OOPP enabled by default, Windows and Linux. There will be no multi-process tabs, nor mac support.
    • demo of Fennec with multi-process tabs available: beginning additional work to make it less hacky
  • GFX:
    • Hardware-accelerated rendering has been on everyone’s mind.
      • The Layers API has been pretty much finalized, and Robert O’Callahan and Bas Schouten have been looking into what will be necessary to implement it. Please take a look and see if the Layers API fits your needs!
      • Bas Schouten continues to tear things up. His mostly-complete DirectWrite font backend, bug 517642 has been enhanced with a new Direct2D cairo backend, bug 527707. Direct2D will be our first mainstream hardware accelerated backend.
    • WOFF, the Web font format pioneered by Mozilla, has been a big hit. John Daggett and Jonathan Kew attended ATypI 2009 in Mexico City to talk about it and other font-related developments, and John has a blog post about their presentation.
    • Also on the subject of fonts: Jonathan Kew and Behdad Esfahbod have been working on Harfbuzz, an advanced OpenType font shaper. Most recently, they spent a week in Toronto sprinting on the library, which we’re going to use for more consistent and performant font shaping on all platforms. You can learn more in bug 449292 or in Behdad’s blog post.
    • Jeff Muizelaar has been working on creating a scrolling performance test suite which the Graphics team wants to use to measure and improve Gecko’s interactive scrolling performance. If you know of any sites that are slow to scroll, please tell us in bug 527728.
  • Blockers:
    • P1: 4
    • P2: 50
    • P3: 0
    • Other: 28
  • Team blocker numbers:
    • Layout: 7
    • Content: 8
    • GFX: 6
    • JS: 31

THUNDERBIRD

• TBird 3.0RC1 (Shredder)
  • No Report

Complete Meeting Notes

Just Released

• Firefox 3.6b2 – November 11th

Schedule this Coming Week

• None

Future Release

• Firefox 3.0.16 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.5.6 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.6 – Year-End 2009
• Firefox 3.7 – Spring 2010

Mozilla has pushed out Beta 2 for Firefox 3.6 on November 10th. This update contains over 190 fixes from the last Firefox 3.6 beta, containing many improvements for web developers, Add-on developers, and users. The Mozilla community appreciates your feedback and assistance in testing this preview of the next version of Firefox. Your beta software will update itself periodically, and eventually will be updated to the final release itself.

The Beta of Firefox 3.6 / Gecko 1.9.2 introduces several new features for users to evaluate:

• (New in this update) A mechanism to prevent incompatible software from crashing Firefox.
• Users can now change their browser’s appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
• Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
• Support for the WOFF font format.
• Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
• Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.

Users may either update via Help >> Check for Updates or downloading via the source link below.

Source: Mozilla Developers News

ADDONS.MOZILLA.ORG (AMO)

• Total compatibility up to 45% with 3.6.* (up from 34% last week)
• Hard work on the update queue has reduced it from 201 on 11/1 to 129 today.

  • Wait time is now down to roughly one week and we hope to get it under a week soon
  • We’re going to focus on nomination queue with goal of getting both down to manageable levels

FIREFOX

• Firefox 3.5.5

  • short-cycle release
  • shipped on Thursday!

• Firefox 3.0.16 / Firefox 3.5.6
  • patches still need to land (7 for 3.5.6, 4 for 3.0.16)
  • still lots of blockers needing patches (14 for 3.5.6, 5 for 3.0.16)
  • code freeze is tomorrow at 11:59pm PST

• Namoroka (Firefox 3.6)
  • Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 now has over 200,000 daily users; this is the fastest beta adoption we’ve ever had.
  • Nightly and beta users are encouraged to help us by reporting add-on compatibility
  • zpao’s “session restore optimization” patch landing this week for real for real
  • main development focus is on Firefox 3.6 Blockers
    • open blockers | not including “crashkill”
    • of the 15 non-crashkill bugs only 6 need patches, the rest are in review and ready to land
  • last week at the development and delivery meetings we decided to issue frequent updates to Firefox 3.6 Beta users on that update channel; aiming for the first update to be this week with:
    • DLL blacklisting patch (see bug 524904
    • syntax changes for CSS gradients (see bug 513395)
    • cycle-collector patch to stop cycle collection instead of crashing (see bug 521750)
    • other changes since beta codefreeze (link coming)
• Firefox 3.7

  • No Report

GECKO

• Gecko 1.9.2
  • News from the CrashKill front:
    • Now that we’ve shpped dbaron’s patch for bug 521750, we’re starting to see more movement from vendors who are causing the issue. Last week, I received responses from Move Networks, Relevant Knowledge (comScore), and DTToolbar and they claim to be making the required fixes to keep them from crashing the world.
    • For problem binaries where we can’t find fixes, we’ll be using dll blocklisting to keep them from loading. For details see bug 524904. This has landed already, and we’ll see it in the betas.
    • For the list of dlls to block, see bug 525103.
  • Blockers:
    • P1: 3
    • P2: 59
    • P3: 1
    • Other: 16
  • Team blocker numbers:
    • Layout: 6
    • Content: 12
    • GFX: 12
    • JS: 23

THUNDERBIRD

• TBird 3.0RC1 (Shredder)
  • No Report

Complete Meeting Notes

On November 9, 2004 Firefox 1.0 was released.

“After a halt of 5 years , innovation became again part of the game and it hasn’t stopped since then bringing on millions of users, locales, communities, and equally importantly, competitors: Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Opera are all in the game of exploding the web again, and maybe not breaking it this time.”

Edit: Mitchel Baker’s memories of this day back in 2004.

Source:Mozilal Links

Just Released

• Firefox 3.5. 5 – November 6th

Schedule this Coming Week

• None

Future Release

• Firefox 3.0.16 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.5.6 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.6 – Year-End 2009
• Firefox 3.7 – Spring 2010

Firefox 3.5.5 was released today and addressed several stability bugs that may lead to crashing in very specific cases like sites that use a GIF image as their favicon. See complete Release Notes for full details.

Auto-updates should be occurring in the next 24-48 hours, otherwise users may get the latest update by going to Help menu and selecting Check For Updates. Also, a reminder from Mozilla Developer Network, If you’re still using Firefox 3.0.0.x, this version is no longer supported and contains known security vulnerabilities. Please upgrade to Firefox 3.5 by downloading Firefox 3.5.5 from www.firefox.com.

Source: Mozilla Links

Note: Some release and scheduling changes were announced in today’s Weekly Status Meeting

Schedule this Week

• Firefox 3.5.5 – November 6th

Future Release

• Firefox 3.0.16 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.5.6 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.6 RC1 – Late November 2009
• Firefox 3.6 – Mid December 2009
• Firefox 3.7 – Spring 2010

NOTE: The US and many other countries ended Daylight Savings Time early Sunday morning and returned to Standard Time. So now the Update meeting with be at 19:00 UTC (the “new” 11am PST) Monday.

ADDONS.MOZILLA.ORG (AMO)

• Thanks for coming to last week’s meetup, about 40 people showed up and a good time was had by all
• Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 was launched last week along with the new Add-on Compatibility Reporter
  • 3600 active users
  • 363 reports of incompatible add-ons, 857 reports of compatible ones
  • Currently about 54% of usage is compatible with some version of Fx 3.6 but only 39% are marked as compatible with 3.6b1 and above.

FIREFOX

• Firefox 3.0.15 / Firefox 3.5.4
  • shipped last Tuesday!
  • 3.5.4 stability issues caught after push…

• Firefox 3.5.5

  • scheduling a short-cycle release
  • developers jumped on creating fixes and had them ready by Friday evening (yay!)
  • hoping to start builds today or tomorrow

• Firefox 3.0.16 / Firefox 3.5.6
  • code freeze is November 10 at 11:59pm
  • please work on your blockers
  • targeting mid-December release

• Namoroka (Firefox 3.6)
  • Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 shipped on Friday, check out the plea for feedback or release notes.
  • Nightly and beta users are encouraged to help us by reporting add-on compatibility
  • zpao’s “session restore optimization” patch landed on trunk, should be moving to branch shortly
  • main development focus is on Firefox 3.6 Blockers
  • last week at the development and delivery meetings we decided to issue frequent updates to Firefox 3.6 Beta users on that update channel; aiming for the first update to be this week with:
    • DLL component directory lockdown and blacklisting patch (see bug 524904 and bug 519357
    • syntax changes for CSS gradients
  • some questions were raised about the schedule for Firefox 3.6:
    • code freeze for RC is targeted at November 18th
    • RC release estimated for late November
    • final release estimated for early-to-mid December
• Firefox 3.7

  • No Report

GECKO

• Gecko 1.9.2
  • Fun times in CrashKill meetings:
    • dbaron has a patch in bug 521750 that will potentially fix 5-15% of crashes due to thread badness + cycle collector. This is going into release as soon as possible.
    • Other crash patches, from newer bugs: Font crash on startup: bug 524462, and a gif encoder crash: bug 525326
    • Will be talking about metrics and tools in today’s meeting, along with individual bugs.
  • Blockers:
    • P1: 4
    • P2: 83
    • P3: 1
    • Other: 9
  • Team blocker numbers:
    • Layout: 12
    • Content: 20
    • GFX: 10
    • JS: 19

THUNDERBIRD

• TBird 3.0RC1 (Shredder)
  • 3.0rc1 still has 22 blockers
  • RC1 build tomorrow seems unlikely; more news on tomorrow’s Tb3 call

 

Complete Meeting Notes

There has been some revisions to the Speedup Firefox 3.5 Startup article. Inifox no longer seems to exist and the application was only in Spanish. This application would vacuum the Firefox databases. A big thanks to Gareon at Go Firefox! I have found there is now an add-on which will vacuum your place.sqlite database for you and from within Firefox. More information can be found on our Wiki: Speedup Firefox Startup.

While I did download the Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 release last night, I have finally got around to getting it installed. My system has been a bit problematic for the better part of the day. I also was having some issues with FEBE as well, but those seemed to be related to my profile which I had carried over from Firefox…well I have no idea what Firefox version I started this profile with. I’ve got all my add-ons, passwords, bookmarks and a couple other (except I don’t think my about:config settings carry) items backed up ready to import. So with the first run of Firefox 3.6b1 I was presented with this splash/welcome page:

Now a couple things I discovered as well on this first run. Persona is already built-in so all you need to do is follow the link and pick what you want your Firefox wants to wear. I say built-in as it is not an installed add-on. However I discovered a couple surprising things when I went to the add-ons manager, Google Gears was already installed (though not compatible with Firefox 3.6 Beta 1). However, I was shocked to discover the Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant add-on was pending install (after restart). WTF! It is already installed as version 0.0.0! First off I thought Mozilla had block that add-on and further is a clean install of Firefox with a new profile. I canceled the pending install and disabled the one that is installed.

Just Released

• Firefox 3.0.15 – October 27th
• Firefox 3.5.4 – October 27th
• Firefox 3.6b1 – October 30th

Schedule this Coming Week

• None

Future Release

• Firefox 3.0.16 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.5.5 – December 15th
• Firefox 3.6 – Year-End 2009
• Firefox 3.7 – Spring 2010

As mentioned last week on the Changes Coming to Our Main Site post, we’ve been upgrading our existing site. We are please to announce the first two sections of The Firefox Extension Guru’s Wiki are now live! So far the Tips & Tricks section of the main site has been migrated over to the Wiki. Also, most of the tweaks have been migrated over as well. Yes, most of the tweaks. This was because there were a few tweaks that really only applied to the early builds of Firefox 2. Most of the fixes provided by those tweaks were implemented by Mozilla in the final releases of Firefox 2 and have carried over into Firefox 3.0, 3.5 and the upcoming 3.6 releases.

The final migration is going to be the extensions section. Still evaluating the best way to migrate this section over. This is going to be a long and tedious process as that section needs a lot cleaning up before it can be moved on the Wiki. At this time the best estimate is going to be mid-November.

You can access the Wiki from the link below the logo in the upper right coroner of the blog or via the Wiki link from the main site.