Thread: Firefox 5.0 is out    

they're trying to keep up with Chromes rapid releases, that's all


Firefox apes Chrome with rapid dev cycle

In a GitHub draft document entitled Mozilla Firefox Development Specifics, Mozilla has revealed its plans to rival Google Chrome's breakneck development schedule. There will now be four update channels: nightly, aurora (a new channel that aims to be more stable than nightly, but offer a similar update frequency), beta (with weekly updates, depending on found issues) and release. The last of those anticipates a new major Firefox update every six to twelve weeks. Despite Firefox 4 only recently arriving, Mozilla already plans to release Firefox 5 in June.

This increase in pace should give Mozilla the boost it needs as it finds itself under fire from a major new release of Internet Explorer and the rapid turnover of Chrome. By upping the frequency of major releases, new features can be added more quickly and easily, and those deemed immature for public consumption can be held back, in the knowledge that the next major update is only a couple of months away.

Standards advocate and edgeofmyseat.com director Drew McLellan was positive about the Mozilla announcement. "I'm all for more frequent browser updates, provided it doesn't add unnecessary burden on end users. Firefox has always automatically updated without requiring much effort, which is great because frequent updates and an arduous upgrade process quickly turn off users and stop them upgrading all together." (Indeed, Mozilla states that the new plan involves a "silent update" mechanism, automatically upgrading the browser once a new version ships.) From a development standpoint, McLellan also considers this a smart move on Mozilla's part: "The more browsers are frequently updated, the faster the pace of competition. Provided that implementations are solid and not rushed, that can only be a good thing for users and developers alike."

Maybe 5.0 will be less buggy than 4.0. I upgraded at work from 3.6.17 and had nothing but crashes left and right and had to go back, which prompted me to not even attempt getting 4.0 at home.

That was fast. I just upgraded Pale Moon (my primary browser) to the 4.0 branch...

honestly, i dont remember... i know people on bg said somethin about it, but i dont even bother with plugins anymore other than texty and chrome to phone... i wish they had phone to chrome though

People with certain Asus models couldn't use page down and page up to scroll. Instead, for some reason it was hot keys to Back and Forward so I went back to 3.6. I hope 5.0 fixes this problem because it makes scrolling pages miserable. Actually used Chrome because of it but then hated how much stuff spybot was picking up so I went back and downgraded.

This particular update's magnum opus is the introduction of libjpeg-turbo, a library which speeds up the rendering of jpeg files by about 3.5 times.

If you browse 4chan, or just threads/sites with a lot of large jpeg images, this will be a huge, noticeable improvement. If not, well, you won't notice it.

Firefox already has versions up to 7.0a1 in the public development cycles. I'm using the Nightly release trunks, meaning I'm on 7.0a1. Expect at least that much to come out this year.

Originally Posted by Tymon

This particular update's magnum opus is the introduction of libjpeg-turbo, a library which speeds up the rendering of jpeg files by about 3.5 times.

If you browse 4chan, or just threads/sites with a lot of large jpeg images, this will be a huge, noticeable improvement. If not, well, you won't notice it.

Firefox already has versions up to 7.0a1 in the public development cycles. I'm using the Nightly release trunks, meaning I'm on 7.0a1. Expect at least that much to come out this year.

He linked me this browser, it's fast as SHIT and very sleek.

sounds good for RIT

Loving the App Tabs. One of those simple yet ingenious little additions.

Wait, sorry if I missed it, but did FF4 ever make it out of beta? Last I heard it was like beta 13... or was that the version number?