[Teh Intarweb] Mozilla Firefox 3.05 is chock full of new features, including enhanced security and customization--but most exciting of all are its performance upgrades: Not only does it sport a lean, mean memory footprint but, according to its Website, "hundreds of memory leaks are now remedied."That's right: All the while we forward-thinking, space-age open-software early adopters were setting the Web aflame with our customizable user-agent strings and scriptable pop-up blockers, the old, bad versions of Firefox, with their hundreds of memory leaks, were sucking up our precious, precious RAM. A new "garbage collector" makes the need for good programming practices a thing of the past--so be prepared for some big, bloatsome improvements in v3.1!
Now, I love open-source, and I love Firefox. But you know how your whole system sometimes slows to a snail's pace? Think of Firefox as Ebenezer Scrooge, as unwilling to relinquish unneeded memory blocks from its tight fists as Scrooge was to "deallocate" his excess Pounds Sterling for Bob Cratchit's Christmas bonus.
With v3.05, we hope to see that Firefox finally realizes how to keep Christmas well. Fingers crossed.
(Brandon Burt)
