Buggy Mozilla Firefox 3.5 A Rush Job?

Firefox Web browser new functionality and features HTML

But with the good comes the bad: Mozilla Firefox 3.5 is plagued with bugs, so much so that users are pleading with Mozilla to get on with Firefox 3.5.1 already to get the kinks out of it. Firefox is now rushing to fix the bugs to appease angered users.

But apparently, the bug fixes aren't expected for another several weeks. But according to a host of bloggers, the fix is needed now to right wrongs like slow load times, crashes caused by the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine and more than 50 other foul-ups.

According to TGDaily.com, Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1 isn't due until at least mid- to late-July but that will likely only fix at least three of the 55 bugs in the new Web browser. TGDaily said Mozilla might be holding off on a major Firefox 3.5 update until Firefox 3.5.2.

With so many bugs out there, why didn't Mozilla wait to unleash Firefox 3.5 on the masses? More than 8 million copies of Firefox 3.5 have been downloaded since the updated browser became available on June 30. Wouldn't it look better for Mozilla if it had released a less buggy Firefox 3.5?

Granted, you're not going to catch everything on the first pass, but releasing a new browser with 55 bugs is a little bit sloppy.

It would stand to reason that Mozilla would work the kinks out of the browser well before releasing Firefox 3.5 into the wild. It would also make sense to make the first major 3.5 update the next one, as the bugs are garnering a great deal of attention.

"It's seriously bugged is what it is," posted Jeremy on hothardware.com July 1. "My Firefox load time went from a heartbeat or two to 50-60 seconds. First time, second time, didn't matter if it was pre-fetched or not. Numerous other people are having the same issue as well judging from their forum."

"I've seen the same issue on both my Vista x64 machine and my XP machine at work," added Jeremy. "I downgraded both and am back to happy browsing. Hopefully Firefox 3.5.1 hits soon and resolves whatever the issue is."

With the public scrutiny coming down hard on Mozilla Firefox 3.5, it leads us to believe that Mozilla rushed the Firefox 3.5 browser into users' hands.

Mozilla is even catching on. On the Mozilla community quality assurance Web site, quality.mozilla.org, visitors are welcomed by a banner headline that reads: "Firefox BugDay " Catch Missed Blocker, Critical, and Major 3.5 bugs!"

The site indicates the bug catching will start July 7.

"We will try to narrow down any important bugs that were missed, or were regressions from Firefox 3.5, and get them into a point update quickly," reads the call to action on quality.mozilla.org. "Triage, what is it? Well, simply put, Triage is taking a bug, making sure it has enough information to reproduce, and ensuring that it is in the proper component. After that you should try to reproduce the issue. Problems that are easily reproducible (such as a crash that occurs every time you visit a certain Web site), are more valuable than those that are impossible to reproduce. If you can reproduce a bug, please add a comment to the bug or recommend in #bugday that the bug be confirmed."

Despite the bugs and the rush to market, Firefox 3.5 makes great improvements over the previous versions. Firefox 3.5 ups speeds, adds more support for HTML 5 for video, a new Private Browsing mode and Location Aware browsing.