Feb 14, 2009
Google Gears for Firefox 3.1
Firefox 3.1b2
Google Gears 0.5.4.2
You know what would be really faboo? If the devs for Google Gears figured out it was worthwhile looking at the non-compatibility issue with Firefox 3.1 and Google Gears. I know, I know, it’s free software and there are a million other things to get to. And they’ve said (unofficially) that by the time Firefox 3.1 gets out of beta they’ll be ready. The only reason I’m asking is this:
There are now a preponderance of sites out there now that are JavaScript heavy. All Google products, Facebook, MySpace, and yeah, WordPress – especially the admin backend which is now AJAX supercharged. So when you’re dealing with these sites a lot it really makes a big difference having a browser that can crank through the JS routines and render the damn page already. This is why I’m working with the beta version of Firefox 3.1 (actually, now the OSX optimized version, Shiretoko – there are Windows versions out there too) which has the Tracemonkey JavaScript engine enabled. It’s quite fast; incidentally I’m also testing WebKit, the Safari engine development version which is right up there too.
Anyway, FF 3.1 makes a big difference in shaving off my waiting time, especially here in WordPress-land. And incidentally, the kind folks at WordPress have incorporated Google Gears functionality to offload the download…load. Works great on WebKit/Safari, but since the Gears guys haven’t worked out the FF 3.1 compatibility yet, we’re still waiting.
Not a big rush, really…but it’s Valentine’s Day. Blow me a kiss, boys.
I’d love this as well… if anyone has a workaround for this problem (besides going back to Firefox 3.0) I’d like to hear it. I love the MacBook multitouch features in 3.1b2.
Yeah, as far as I can tell, it’s a non-trivial compatibility issue. God knows, the Firefox devs, bless their black little hearts, sometimes make changes which unintentionally hose the add-on devs. My faith in human nature leads me to believe that if they could avoid it, they would and that their hearts aren’t really that black.