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Firefox 3.5 And Its Questionable Image Enhancement

Written by

Marcus Hochstadt

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When I installed Firefox 3.5 last week I was immediately impressed by one of its improvements: When viewing the source code of a Web page URLs in that source are now underlined and clickable.  And the best news is when you click on a link you’ll get to see that page or file! Wow, very neat and time saving. :-)

There’s also a questionable enhancement, however…

Did you notice that images on some Web sites appear darker than before or when viewing with a different browser? For example, go to istockphoto.com and you’ll see that all of their images are darker now, when viewing with Firefox 3.5.

My coder, Pat Heard, educated me on this new “feature.” I was asking him because the face image in the footer of MyGermanCity.com appeared darker. Pat pointed me to a thread in the Mozilla forums that provides a fix.

What I did, however, was I simply opened up the image in Adobe Fireworks, re-saved it and voila — the image now appears correctly again.

Why or when do images appear darker in FF 3.5? I’m not completely sure, but my guess is when you save images with an ICC profile or in an CMYK instead of RGB color set.

—Marcus Hochstadt

Comments

44 responses to “Firefox 3.5 And Its Questionable Image Enhancement”

  1. wilhb81 Avatar
    wilhb81

    Marcus, I would like to know, have you encountered any crash with the new Firefox 3.5 version? I have the problem, soon after I upgraded it a few days ago. I’m really frustrated about it right now…

    Reply
    1. Marcus Hochstadt Avatar
      Marcus Hochstadt

      Nope, no crash yet. It’s running just fine.

      Reply
      1. wilhb81 Avatar
        wilhb81

        Thanks for the reply, Marcus. I’ll look through the troubles. If I have inspected the causes of the crush, I will surely tell you all here!

        Reply
        1. Larry Brauner Avatar
          Larry Brauner

          Hi Marcus!!

          Good to “see” you.

          The crashing of Firefox 3.5 seems to be related to the Google Toolbar.

          When I deactivated the toolbar, the crashes stopped.

          Larry

          Reply
  2. James Avatar
    James

    although i haven’t noticed that thing about the image, just like wilhb81, i’ve encountered the same problem with the new firefox… firefox crashed more than a couple of times but it does not happen that too often… also, does it not seem like it takes a little longer to load sites, most especially streaming videos? it’s fast becoming frustrating, i’ve been a huge firefox user after switching from ie, i might have to go back to using ie since it’s been doing great so far… plus many people have been raving about the new ie recently…

    Reply
  3. Kelowna Marketing Avatar
    Kelowna Marketing

    I have not yet upgraded to 3.5 as I have heard some of this buzz.

    One thing I haven’t heard yet is if there are any glitches with plugins and toolbars added in a previous version?

    I’m a fairly recent Firefox user, so perhaps I’m wrongly projecting some of my previous IE experiences onto FF, but there are few things that bug me more than an upgrade that costs me a lot of frustration and time over a period of several weeks! So, I usually drag my feet on any upgrade and wait till the kinks are worked out. (Saved me a lot of grief when I chose not to upgrade from XP to Vista…)

    Reply
  4. George Carr Avatar
    George Carr

    I haven’t seen any crashes so far, it seems fairly stable. Better than some of the previous versions at least.

    George

    Reply
  5. Jess SEO Avatar
    Jess SEO

    I didnt know how to fix this!! thanks for the tip I hoing to do that right now!

    Reply
  6. bisnis internet Avatar
    bisnis internet

    I am not paying attention about this when upgrading firefox, i will check and try it. thanks for info.

    Reply
  7. Yamcha Potter Avatar
    Yamcha Potter

    nice thoughts.. but i dont see any crashes till now..! so i dont think there’s any problem to use firefox!

    Reply
  8. BETK Avatar
    BETK

    I didnt know how to fix this!! thanks for the tip I hoing to do that right now

    Reply
  9. Simon Wilby Avatar
    Simon Wilby

    I never check that image enhancement of FF. However, the firefox 3.5 really looks good and much faster when loading my page. That is a great update.

    Reply
  10. william Avatar
    william

    Marcus, I noticed once I upgraded the previous version to the newest one, I always facing the crash problem! Is there any good methods to overcome this hassle?

    Reply
  11. ryanto Avatar
    ryanto

    Lol . It is awesome view of you mate. I even don’t notice about dark images on Mozilla 3.5. But I still claim that Mozilla is still the best browser

    Reply
  12. Publicidad Avatar
    Publicidad

    I have that problem with images, and trying to find a fix for that in forums i found out that theree are thousands of people who have the same problem.

    Looks like they have some huge bug there.

    But they will fix it soon, they always do…

    Reply
  13. Cynthia Avatar
    Cynthia

    Well, I started to get annoyed with FireFox once it stopped saving my bookmarks. Yes, I was able to fix it, but come on guys…

    Reply
  14. Mardi Avatar
    Mardi

    I use firefox 3.5. And I am not experiencing problem

    Reply
  15. Julian Bradder Avatar
    Julian Bradder

    Oh dear – is Firefox beginning to get fat and bloated as it evolves?

    Reply
  16. Dhir Avatar
    Dhir

    Marcus,

    Few days ago I have upgraded to 3.5 version, I have faced some problems. Now all cleared. I don’t have any problem. Sometimes, I think, the problem with our computer or operating system.

    -Dhir

    Reply
  17. John Davis Avatar
    John Davis

    I think FireFox is feeling the pressure to up there game since the competition is getting better. But those Oregonians do make a great browser. You can’t beat there plugin-in’s even if there’s some flaws.

    Reply
  18. gabriele Avatar
    gabriele

    Image resolution changes in Internet browsers and computers:

    When I had a very old PC with a small screen I edited all my images to become lighter.
    Why?

    When uploading from my digital camera or from real photos, they looked so dark on my low resolution screen which I could not turn up higher.

    My daughter once said: “Mom, why did you turn my photos so light?” I answered that they looked so terribly dark in my PC.

    Now, having a very large modern screen the opposite happens.

    I see light photos in my browser or in my PC when I edit them. I send a page with photos to a friend. He tells me my one picture was so dark he couldn’t see it.

    He has one of those small notebooks with a small screen.
    So, I do not think the problem of dark and light photos is due to browsers. It all depends on the computer resolution which surfers have. Hence, less in a small sceen notebook and more on a large screen one.

    This really is a problem. We now need a feature for all computers where we can automatically turn pictures of the Internet lighter or darker.

    Can we ever win?
    It’s a mere question of higher IT technology.

    Gabriele

    Reply
  19. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Try Chrome, the best browser by far.

    Reply
    1. Marcus Hochstadt Avatar
      Marcus Hochstadt

      Chrome? Never! Not that Google already know enough about my life, but using their browser they would know way too much. So a clear no-no from me!

      Reply
  20. Chris Peterson Avatar
    Chris Peterson

    Hi Marcus,
    That’s great tip!
    However, how can we help those who are currently using such kinda images on their blogs that would look darker on FF? I am sure, there would be some solution.

    Reply
    1. Marcus Hochstadt Avatar
      Marcus Hochstadt

      Hi Chris,

      I thought I did provide a solution with my above post, didn’t I?

      ~Marcus

      Reply
  21. Megan Avatar
    Megan

    My firefox has been giving me more trouble than I care to admit. I have changed the name from firefox to a few that isn’t rated for this site. I think it appears to be working a little better. But honestly I am using different browsers until I can figure out how to get it working faster, and how it will stop locking my computer up on me.

    But I will agree the source code element with the URL’s underlined hyperlinked is pretty darn cool

    Reply
  22. jj-momscashblog Avatar
    jj-momscashblog

    I love Firefox, but how about help with malware virus with updating the newer versions of WordPress? I got dumped with the dreaded “Reported Attack Site” and was down for three days going back and forth asking for forgiveness from Google and then going back to my Host co. and telling them that Google still found malware viurs. So should we always update when WordPress comes out with a newer version, which seems like every other 4-5 months?

    Reply
  23. Andrew Gaswint Avatar
    Andrew Gaswint

    I didn’t know how to fix this one! Thanks for posting your solution! Oh, and the person that said to “Use Chrome”… NEVER! Stay far away from that one.

    Reply
  24. Web 2.0 Avatar
    Web 2.0

    Well Firefox is the best browser for sure but there are still Internet Explorer users, why do they still use it? Don’t they know about Firefox? Are they stupid? No idea but Google Analytics show that 20% of my visitors are using IE, and I always have to check my site with IE when I use something new :(

    Reply
  25. Forbrukslån Avatar
    Forbrukslån

    THANK YOU! Man, this have been such a major pain, with sites looking darker. Finally, the solution!. :)

    Reply
  26. Trevor Ford Avatar
    Trevor Ford

    I am using firefox 3.5 for a long time. And i am not facing any kind of problem while using it. But this post will really help me if there is any problem in the future.

    Reply
  27. R Kumar Avatar
    R Kumar

    I have been using Firefox 3.5, version 3.5.5 to be precise for some time now. I never experienced anything of the sort. Or, maybe I never noticed it.

    Reply
  28. Dena Avatar
    Dena

    I recently upgraded two systems to Firefox 3.5. To the best of my knowledge, I thought that both were similarly equipped. However I found that one exhibited this problem and one did not.

    After about a week, I noticed that the problem had resolved itself – I had not changed a thing. I suppose I should just chalk it up to the wild, wonderful internets…

    Reply
  29. Tanah Murah Avatar
    Tanah Murah

    I Didn’t notice yet and don’t know to fix it before read this article.i’v seen the different now! thanks for the information and solutions.

    Reply
  30. Anders Holm Avatar
    Anders Holm

    I’m “still” using FF 3.5 and I’m glad that I’m not the only one that have thought this…

    Reply
  31. dan Avatar
    dan

    Really? I haven’t had any problems with firefox. I’ve had a lot of problesm with internet explorer. Hope it doesnt happen to me but at least now i have some advices to look onto. Thanks!

    Reply
    1. Rob Avatar
      Rob

      True. IE does seem to stop responding, or freeze and it tends to restart a a lot.

      Reply
  32. Zrii Avatar
    Zrii

    Mine has been crashing day in and day out. I’m getting sick of it!

    Reply
  33. Peter Avatar
    Peter

    I have not noticed that images got darker. However I noticed the source improvement, which I consider to be quite useful.

    Reply
  34. bian Avatar
    bian

    hi Marcus,
    I like Firefox 3.5 with the speed of your site, but sometimes there is a problem, when I open many tabs in the menu, and Firefox 3.5 closed, very annoying. it seems to be no improvement

    Reply
  35. Daniel Sharkov Avatar
    Daniel Sharkov

    For the time I’m with Firefox, which is more than two years now, I am rarely experiencing crashes or bugs. Now with Firefox 3.5 there have been no problems at all. So in my opinion it is an improvement over the older versions. As for the image quality, I can’t really see any difference. Overall Firefox is the better browser at this time – less crashes, less bugs and faster loading times.

    Reply
  36. wind Avatar
    wind

    i use IE, Moliza Firfox, google chrome and so on at the same time, MF does good in safty and versatility, but it runs too slow. btw, my MF also crash often, i shut down it and restart it if that happen, and sometime the restarted one run faster.

    Reply
  37. Lawn mower Avatar
    Lawn mower

    Firefox 3.5 was the worst version of Firefox i’ve come across. Version 6 is available now, however i’m still using version 4 as i find it’s the best and most reliable out of the lot.

    Reply
  38. Garrett Avatar
    Garrett

    I agree the older firefox systems are still the best. Let’s not follow the way of windows with their many versions and many fails as well. 

    Reply

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