Firefox 3.5 First Impressions

After months of release candidate testing, Mozilla released Firefox 3.5 just days ago. If you're a current Firefox user, upgrading is as easy as clicking Help>Check for Updates up there in the menu. And if you're on a different browser all together, you can download the Firefox installer here, or stick around to read more about some of Firefox 3.5's features and newfound speed past the break.

I'm a Firefox fan from way back, all the way to late 2004 when Firefox 1.0 was released. Between the tabbed browsing, built in pop-up blocking, and library of plug-ins, I was hooked from the start. Other great features of Firefox have been support across a range of operating systems, constantly updated security, and live bookmarking, and all have kept me from switching off Firefox to a different browser like Opera, Google's Chrome, or Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7/8.

Speed is Important!

All these features came with a price, though. Firefox 2 was notorious for memory leak, and long browsing sessions across multiple tabs would slow down a system because of how Firefox cached recently visited pages. Firefox 3 improved on this, and was almost three times as fast as Firefox 2, but still was a bit slower than some alternative browsers. Firefox 3.5 is more than twice as fast as Firefox 3 by some benchmarks, and my anectdotal experience with it in the last couple of days has been very positive.

But don't take my word for it. CNet is calling it the third fastest browser in the world at rendering JavaScript (a code structure that many modern sites are built off of), just behind Safari 4 and Chrome 2.

Some New Features

In addition to the speed boost, Firefox 3.5 includes some hotly anticipated new features. Atop the list is private browsing. By switching into "private mode," you can surf the web without recording any history, storing cookies (tools sites use to track your activity), remembering passwords, and more. They've improved the security features, including an anti-malware filter for suspected phony sites, and have always been reliably fast to fix any security holes found in their browser. And one new feature that I'm looking forward to trying out is the integration with Google Location, so that sites can point me to targeted local content without me entering additional information (a feature that any user must allow on a site-by-site basis to prevent any loss of privacy).

Try Something New!

If you've never used an alternative to Microsoft, or are just curious as to what you're missing, why not give Firefox 3.5 a try? It's a solid browser that you can customize to suit your needs, and the new speed and features make it a great option if you're considering switching. It's easy to do, and after a brief install Firefox will even help you import your existing bookmarks!

What are your thoughts? Sound off about Firefox 3.5, or even about why you have your own favorite browser- Leave a comment below!