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Firefox Update Kills Bugs, Adds Mac Support

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the best-of-all-worlds dept.

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "Several vulnerabilities are fixed in version Firefox 1.5.0.2, which was released on Thursday. In addition to security patches Firefox now includes some stability enhancements and, as expected, includes native support for Apple Computer's Macs with Intel processors. Secunia has a detailed advisory about vulnerabilities fixed with this release."

12 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Themes and extensions keep working by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    This time around, almost all extension and theme authors got the version dependency right, so unlike after the previous update, your extensions and themes won't be disabled. It's a security update, so do install it.

    1. Re:Themes and extensions keep working by christopherfinke · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is because the maxVersion in the extensions for 1.5.0.1 in the majority of cases is 1.5.0.*, so if your extensions work with 1.5.0.1 and 1.5.0.2, they'll be compatible with any future security upgrades for this branch.

  2. What's new in Firefox 1.5.0.2 by anandpur · · Score: 4, Informative

    From Burning Edge:
    http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/1.5 .0.2.html

    1. Re:What's new in Firefox 1.5.0.2 by Wannabe+Code+Monkey · · Score: 3, Informative
      264787 - [Mac] Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab Next/Previous Tab Keyboard Shortcuts no longer work (worked in Firefox 1.0.x).

      Thank God! I've been waiting for this, I couldn't for the life of me understand why this no longer worked on the mac version. I also just found out that you can change firefox's keybindings to be emacs-like on any platform. Actually that article shows you how to change the keybindings to be like anything you want, they just use emacs as an example.

      --
      We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
  3. Some leaks fixed by EggyToast · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here's the big ones, IMO, from a mac user's perspective:
    • Memory leaks
    • 321283 - Using Find causes documents to leak.
    • 323532 - Leak when using history autocomplete.
    • 323377 - Lots of leaks in nsInternetSearchService.
    Numerous times would I come home to see Firefox using over a gig of memory and eating up about 40% of my proc cycles. A quick quit/restart of the app would fix it, but still -- I regularly close tabs and don't develop long histories on multiple open tabs, so it didn't make any sense.

    I just hope that those leaks are the ones I was actually experiencing...

    1. Re:Some leaks fixed by bahwi · · Score: 3, Informative

      They fixed a serious bug that was affecting me in the moz branch, that was ported over to the xulrunner nightlies. Apparently I was creating too many JS Obj's and crashing out the system. Now it works perfectly with my thousands of javascript objects, mwa-ha-ha. =)

      But seriously, it's a CRM app loading stats from an XML source on the server side, and when using E4X you get an XML Object for each XML file(or entry, depending) so it's easy and quick when running yearly stats to generate a bunch of objects. But now it works like a charm, smooth, and fast. The only prob is it's a 1.8.0.2 nightly, not a release. But working is working.

  4. Yeah by springbox · · Score: 4, Informative

    The original poster might want to read this: Firefox "Memory Leak" is a Feature

  5. Mac Support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just to clarify, Firefox has long had Mac support. This distribution adds Universal Binary support so that Firefox is now native for Intel Macs.

  6. Re:It still leaks! by hal9000(jr) · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have found most of the memory leak issues are when using Java applets. Oh, and parsing a 35Mb XML file, memory usaged soared to over 1.5 GB and kept climbing.

  7. Re:"Fixes some security issues"? by YU+Nicks+NE+Way · · Score: 3, Informative
    That's what I thought, too, but, in fact, no. Per Secunia's summary of sources:

    1, 9, 10, 12, 18, 20) shutdown
    2) Igor Bukanov
    3) Bernd Mielke
    4) Alden D'Souza
    5) Martijn Wargers
    6) Bob Clary
    7) Tristor
    8) Michael Krax
    11, 14, 21) moz_bug_r_a4
    13, 16) TippingPoint and the Zero Day Initiative
    17) Claus Jørgensen and Jesse Ruderman
    19) Georgi Guninski
    Metasploit isn't mentioned anywhere.
  8. FF configuration to reclaim leaked memory by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's the URL I got it from:
    reclaim leaked memory

    In case this poor bastard's site gets Slashdotted, here's the trick:

          1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
          2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
          3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
          4. Now select True and then press Enter.
          5. Restart Firefox.

    Once you've restarted, and been using FF awhile, minimize it, then bring it back, and the system (under Windows, anyway) will have reclaimed leaked memory (often LOTS of it). A new notice on that page says this works with Thunderbird, too, so I'll have to try that when I get to work.

  9. Re:It still leaks! by Dan+Ost · · Score: 3, Informative

    Set browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers to 0 and see if that helps. If it does, then
    you're not dealing with a memory leak (or at least, not an accidental one...they put this
    in there on purpose).

    I'm running 1.5.0.1 on gentoo linux (no gnome or kde) and experience no memory leak. I often
    leave it running for days and, while my memory footprint varies with usage, it doesn't appear
    to be behaving baddly (memory usage always approaches a base level after I finish most of my
    browsing).

    --

    *sigh* back to work...