Firefox 5.0

Firefox 5.0 released today.

Lol. Why would they release it so soon after FF4? I bet they haven't included half the things planned for 5.

Edited by deleted (Wed 22-Jun-11 17:31:38)

i think they are just trying to catch up version wise to Chrome and Internet Exploder.

People think that chrome and Internet Exploder must be better than Firefox because they have higher version numbers. TBH, to a certain extent they are right. not sure about internet Exploder because i use IE 9 for 2 hours and then uninstalled it.

Chrome or Iron in my case is a different kettle of fish, it starts up super quick, it load pages super quick, it don't crash any where near the amount of time Firefox 4 does.. the best thing is that if I update Iron, the plugs ins I am usinf still works, something that Firefox seems to have problem with.


i still got FF3.5 installed, and I do use it for some stuff, but iron is my main browser.

That's mainly because all the extensions for chrome are just glorified webpages. Addons in firefox are significantly more capable. Fwiw, most extensions do still work if you just tweak the install rdf version number. I think mozilla force addon devs to only include compatibility up to the current version in the rdf.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

i think they are just trying to catch up version wise to Chrome and Internet Exploder.

Well FF4 and 5 have no difference here:

http://html5test.com/results.html

FF6 though. That's looking better.

In reply to a post by 12eason:

Lol. Why would they release it so soon after FF4? I bet they haven't included half the things planned for 5.

get used to it, their plan is a major version every few months now. Personally I think its crazy but lets see how it works out.

I guess the question is why they have dropped support for 4 but continue support for 3. Was 4 such a disaster that they want to forget it or is the 5 moniker just a marketing rebranded of 4.1?

Have they dropped support for it?

Yep
FF4 has reached "end of life"

It's only been out 5 minutes! What a joke.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

It's only been out 5 minutes! What a joke.

I agree.

It does seem they just want a higher version number.

Mozilla, a global, nonprofit organization dedicated to making the Web better, today released a new version of Mozilla Firefox for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. The new version of Firefox comes on the heels of the wildly successful release of Firefox 4, which had more than 200 million downloads on Windows, Mac and Linux and millions of downloads in the Android Market.

Mozilla�s shift to a rapid release development cycle delivers cutting edge Firefox features, performance enhancements, security updates and stability improvements to users faster.

The latest version of Firefox includes more than 1,000 improvements and performance enhancements that make it easier to discover and use all of the innovative features in Firefox. This release adds support for more modern Web technologies that make it easier for developers to build amazing Firefox Add-ons, Web applications and websites.

In reply to a post by 12eason:

That's mainly because all the extensions for chrome are just glorified webpages. Addons in firefox are significantly more capable. Fwiw, most extensions do still work if you just tweak the install rdf version number. I think mozilla force addon devs to only include compatibility up to the current version in the rdf.

I got a couple of chrome extensions and they are not glorified web pages and even if they are., that is not the point. the point is that extensions from one FF may not work with another version and that can get annoying.

Having worked with 5.0 for a while I find that it is an improvement over 4.0.xxx which would take about a minute to recover if multiple tabs were open and accessed later. That was an improvement over 3.6..xx which had to be closed down and terminated through task manager before able to restart the program.

Having read some less then complimentary reports about FF4, I have decided to do my usual thing: wait for them to pick out the bugs and have stable version....
....and so I probably won't ever update my FF 3.18 !
Regards,
Martin

The 5.0 upgrade took no time at all for me, and no difference to my browsing experience. It feels more like 4.x

Use the "Add-On Compatability Reporter" add-on and you can force implementation of "incompatible" add-ons. I have been running FF5 since the first beta was launched a few weeks ago and only have issues with a couple of add-ons. Most that are marked as only compatible up to FF4 work fine on FF5.

In reply to a post by AEP:

I guess the question is why they have dropped support for 4 but continue support for 3. Was 4 such a disaster that they want to forget it or is the 5 moniker just a marketing rebranded of 4.1?

Version 4 updates have historically always had issues - DOS 4 (every PC manufacturer ignored it, except for Toshiba), dBase 4 (again ignored in favour of earlier version), iPhone 4 (antenna problems), I could go on...

Be interesteing to see how long Thunderbird 4 lasts before moving to 5, or even, how long it takes to get to TB4

It's just a version number. Who cares? Chrome is on version 12 already.

In reply to a post by joconnell:

In reply to a post by AEP:

I guess the question is why they have dropped support for 4 but continue support for 3. Was 4 such a disaster that they want to forget it or is the 5 moniker just a marketing rebranded of 4.1?

Version 4 updates have historically always had issues - DOS 4 (every PC manufacturer ignored it, except for Toshiba), dBase 4 (again ignored in favour of earlier version), iPhone 4 (antenna problems), I could go on...

Be interesteing to see how long Thunderbird 4 lasts before moving to 5, or even, how long it takes to get to TB4

Thunderbird 4 will be retired when it starts leaking.

In reply to a post by Sark:

It's just a version number. Who cares? Chrome is on version 12 already.

Chrome releases a new version every time one of their devs sneeze though. I don't think it's wise for mozilla to copy them (again). FF gets many more minor version updates than any of the other browsers. I think most people aren't stupid enough to compare browsers on the frequency of their major version updates.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

The 5.0 upgrade took no time at all for me, and no difference to my browsing experience. It feels more like 4.x

It does for me, but only slightly. I have browser.sessionstore.max_concurrent_tabs set to 0, so that when I load up FF it doesn't pull in every background tab and only loads them when I switch to them. Now the pages load in the most clumsy way possible, loads of blacking out etc.

In reply to a post by OpenAccess:

Having worked with 5.0 for a while I find that it is an improvement over 4.0.xxx which would take about a minute to recover if multiple tabs were open and accessed later. That was an improvement over 3.6..xx which had to be closed down and terminated through task manager before able to restart the program.

i always close multiple tabs, never close the browser with them open, so that is not a problem for me.

Not sure if I want to try 5, 4 was awful and I don't really want to go that hassle again. 3.5 is working fine for me at the moment.

In reply to a post by Sark:

It's just a version number. Who cares? Chrome is on version 12 already.

chrome makes you update, you got no choice with chrome it updates without you knowing, I don't like that idea.

at least with Iron I have the choice to update to the latest version, the problem is it won't let me know when a new version is out.
Firefox does give you the choice as well, but i found on my FF 3.5 that even after telling it not to update or tell me there is a update it still tells me now and again. Come to think of it that is getting more often.

FF6 gets released in August!

Jesus, the firefox roadmap used to be a list of technical code milestones and targets, now look at it; https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Roadmap it's a managers wet dream full of buzzwords and pointless infographics. They've lost the plot.

You and I have our disagreements, but I'm with you on this one

The "How to ship faster" bit is fascinating... loosely translated it seems to read as "We'll supply what we supply, and if it doesn't work or you don't like it, tough"

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

It's only been out 5 minutes! What a joke.

I tried explaining this on mozilla forums and the amount of abuse I got from fanboys was unreal. The moderation on there is aweful as well, they allowed people to verbally abuse me, I sniped back and got moderated. That was the end of my brief contribution to those forums.

My view is/was that whilst enthusiasts will happily update regurly even daily following beta/alpha/nightly updates, the mainstream user will not tolerate regular updates, ff3 to ff4 has a GUI change which I object to (as well as others) and with every major version update there is a chance in a change of how the app operates, GUI changes and new bugs been introduced as well as plugins stopping working. I often deliberatly wait at least a month for a new major update of an app to stabilise and can be quite a bit longer, with this new policy I could well always be a major version behind.

The reason FF3 is not EOL yet, is because FF4 was released under the new policy whilst FF3 wasnt. FF3 will be EOL eventually but I got no idea when.

For me FF4 has some nasty showstoppers, hence I am still not using it for anything other than testing. FF5 'partially' fixes a major memory leak in FF4. But the other showstoppers are still there for me.

The new policies are a panic to copy google, chrome has regular major version updates, also the GUI changes are to copy chrome as well, eg. removing the (in my opinion) extremely useful down arrow next to back button and removing the menu bar.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 06-Jul-11 07:50:54)

I hate the chrome GUI and think that Firefox's blatant copying of it was a step too far.

I have taken a copy of 3.6.18 and stuck it somewhere safe in case I need to reinstall it.

Thanks for reminding me to do that, now done

In reply to a post by billford:

You and I have our disagreements, but I'm with you on this one

I've changed my mind.

In reply to a post by 12eason:

In reply to a post by billford:

You and I have our disagreements, but I'm with you on this one

I've changed my mind.

That's what I thought would happen

Edited by billford (Wed 06-Jul-11 10:58:59)

removing the (in my opinion) extremely useful down arrow next to back button and removing the menu bar.

Its there, Just point at the back button and hold down your left mouse button, the menu will appear.

Now why has the behaviour of my FF4 changed? When I type in a URL and hit enter, it does not go to the page, but waits for me to click the green arrow.

I have been using Firefox for years, but am close to giving up on it now. My major problems, which have recurred many times and mysteriously gone away, are the FF thread not closing when you exit, and wild disk activity for no apparent reason while a thread is open. Another occasional prob is failure to start, with continuing wild disk activity and a running thread but with no visibly running program. I am currently on V4, going to try V5 and if these problems manifest then I'm going to try Chrome.

In reply to a post by philippercival:

Now why has the behaviour of my FF4 changed? When I type in a URL and hit enter, it does not go to the page, but waits for me to click the green arrow.

Odd, mine works just fine..

Database consolidation probably. Do you keep a large history?

In reply to a post by 12eason:

I've changed my mind.

Hopefully this one's better.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

Thanks for reminding me to do that, now done

If you want an old version just go to File Hippo
http://www.filehippo.com/download_firefox/

Thanks, that's where I went and got it.

In reply to a post by 12eason:

Database consolidation probably. Do you keep a large history?

Thanks for that. I didn't realise that this could be the cause, what does the consolidation process do? I clear the history out periodically, but haven't done so for a while, guess what I'm going to do next? BTW install of 5.0 fixed it anyway, but suspect that's temporary.

Compacts old stuff, re indexing etc. It can thrash the disk a bit but leads to faster start times.

The "How to ship faster" bit is fascinating

Indeed - there is an element of "want what you get because you aren't going to get what you want" to it but it looks to me more as though they've picked cheap and quick(to market) out of the "cheap, fast, works" triad.

In reply to a post by 12eason:

Compacts old stuff, re indexing etc. It can thrash the disk a bit but leads to faster start times.

I've deleted my history, we'll see what happens. Thanks!

In reply to a post by philippercival:

removing the (in my opinion) extremely useful down arrow next to back button and removing the menu bar.

Its there, Just point at the back button and hold down your left mouse button, the menu will appear.

Now why has the behaviour of my FF4 changed? When I type in a URL and hit enter, it does not go to the page, but waits for me to click the green arrow.

you mean the function is there but not the button, holding down the left mouse button instead of a single click is way less productive and quite a hassle if on a laptop as well. considering the button took a tiny bit of space the decision to remove it was truly baffling. As said in an earlier post it was simply to copy chrome. Other annoying things are eg. when trying to highlight the full address in the address bar it instead just selects part of it.

Er, you can right click to get the history.

eta; and selection works in the following order: first click is full select, next click is deselect, double click is select word, triple click is select all again.

Edited by deleted (Thu 07-Jul-11 09:37:24)

Googling blamed AVG Safe search and sure enough turning it off cures the problem.

There's another problem - it says that Freecorder 4 is incompatible. (Freecorder works well in IE9.)