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For Firefox 4, You'll Need To Wait Until 2011
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla said that it will not be releasing Firefox 4 RC, or the final version, before early 2011. Apparently, the bugfixes in the current beta take up much more time than anticipated. Mozilla is working on the feature freeze release Beta 7, which has 14 bugs left. The beta 7 is about six weeks behind schedule and will be released 'when it is ready,' according to Mozilla. It seems as if the original schedule, which estimated that Firefox 4 RC would be released in the second half of October was a bit too optimistic. Microsoft, by the way, released a new IE9 platform preview (PP6) at PDC 20910 today."
Nothing wrong with releasing it when it's done.
...version 4 will 64-bit native? A quick googling shows that they planned to implement it, but I can't find a confirmation that FF4 will come in a 64-bit version.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
No need to wait. I have my dear Chrome!
I don't mind waiting for FF, because it comes with a lot of versions. Unlike Chrome, which changes their version up an entire whole number every 11 minutes.
activestudios web design
And by that time Chrome will be at version 12 or 13
RGdot.com
I use a Mac, and Firefox is the buggiest browser I've ever used on my machine. While it's vastly superior to IE on a PC, Google Chrome is overall the best browser going.
...at PDC 20910 today.
Isn't that 90210?
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
I use IE6 exclusively and have for years. Nobody needs pesky add-ons, ad-blocking and tabbed browser functionality.
I'm one of the 4.5% of the users out there who STILL use it and say sorry, but IE6 is browser for me!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
You could have predicted this lateness because the Firefox folks seem to think "beta" means "Let's add new features every couple of days". I've been using Minefield on and off for several months and it got a lot less stable once it hit the "beta" stage, about the same time that they started changing a bunch of things and adding a bunch of features. Before it went to "beta" it had been fine for a long time, but several times since the beta stage I've had to revert to 3.6.
Yes, I realize I'm using nightlies and should expect bugs, etc, but the traditional definition (not that it is relevant any more) of "beta test" is that the software is basically complete and is being tested for stability and regression, _not_ that it is in a mode where new features are being added on a weekly basis.
I'm looking forward to Firefox 4 and am sure it will be good overall when it's finally done, but the progress in this period of development has not filled me with a lot of confidence that this will be any time soon.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
And wait until 20910 for IE9?
a couple of thousand of us have been watching you surf since one of the many bored hackers decided to install the streaming remote desktop on your pc about 5 months ago just for fun. how do you get any work done with all those pop ups?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
*Rocking back and forth*
Ayyup.
Nothing wrong at all.
*whittles*
They could just finish it and hold on to it too.
*rocks a bit more, snaps his galluses*
Ayyup.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I've wanted a way to draw in a browser - I mean really draw, not just use divs as pixels - for a long time now. Finally it's here! WebGL is really smooth now, I've been watching it in the latest minefield builds. Some guy in IRC posted a demo city drawing that had 24k faces and still rendered smooth as silk. 2d drawing on a canvas is also very nice - very easy to use.
This is the dawn of a new era of killer web content. My guess - within two years, WebGL will be the highest paying job in web dev.
A few more months is nothing, I've been waiting years for this ;-)
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
I'll just switch to that browser instead, since it has the same core as Firefox 4
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Be bold: release the final version before the release candidate. You can release the final version on schedule in 2010, and then slip the RC to 2011. That's the kind of innovative software development methodology we should expect from Mozilla.
Why is a universal truth, understood by everyone, marked as flamebait?
yo
The last really stable version of Firefox was called Firebird 0.7. It amazes me that it's become so popular when it's such a horrible resource pig. Were it not for the video downloader add-on I'd never use it at all.
Then again, most people are stuck using Windows, and Internet Exploder sets a mighty low bar...
Caveat Utilitor
You forgot to call them "whipper snappers" and yell at them about the whole lawn situation.
I encourage everyone using beta 6 to use the nightly version (http://nightly.mozilla.org/) as their main FF experience. The JS is 10 times faster on most public benchmarks and the boomarks and profile data are not affected even when switching back and forth between 4.0 and 3.6.
I have both installed: 3.6 that comes with my Linux distro and 4.0 unzipped in my home folder and being updated every morning automatically.
Mozilla Firefox likes to blame Adobe Flash for the memory leaks / CPU hogging, and Adobe Flash likes to blame Mozilla Firefox...
Personally, I don't care WHICH one is causing it, it just needs to be fixed! When Firefox gets above 1.7 gigs of RAM usage is crashes on me, and I have 16 gigs of RAM, which SHOULD be plenty.
-Myke
No, no. It rolls over from 2009 to 20010
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
You don't know what you don't know -- Donald Rumsfeld
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
... doesn't foul up your printing parameters like most of the previous "upgrades" have managed to do. 'Cuz I just love tracking down all of my saved passwords and rebuilding my FF configuration from scratch after an upgrade turns all of the fonts on my printed webpages into something that looks like they were taken from an old CGA adapter's output.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Checklist so far, from beta1 to beta6:
- Disk Trashing. A lot. To death. No fix.
- Cookies eating. All erased. Randomly. No fix.
- Very few extensions ready. Raw back Firefox riding. Valkyrie needs extensions, badly. Can't use it.
"Back to Firefox 3", is it the only way ?
(Firefox4 progress looks like Vista's).
-- Rastignac was here.
I finally got tired of FF 3.6 causing my entire windows 7 Pro x64 PC to slow to a crawl after running a few hours so this last weekend I looked to see if they had released a 64 bit version and sure enough...they haven't. Fortunately Vector 64 took the time to recompile the source and I was able to download and install it. Getting the Beta Flash (Square) drivers from Adobe wasn't too hard. They work well but YMMV. I run Greasemonkey with numerous scripts and all seem to be working as expected. I have had it running for several days and now when I go check memory usage it is sitting at ~450MB right where it was when I launched it. The whole browsing experience is more fluid. Of course with all that beta code there are hiccups but they are much less frustrating than constantly fighting for control of my machine.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
They just want to wait 'til 11.11.11 to give it a cool release date.
That's literally two months away!! OMG how could a software release schedule ever be allowed to slip by two months? What will the retailers do now that it won't be on shelves in time for Christmas?!
I just hope it's not too far into January. Especially not Jan 31. The flying car from the magazine ad I ordered back in 1972 was scheduled for delivery on that day.
-1 silly.
Firefox runs out of address slots - hence the crash.
Standard 32-bit environment programs are only able to utilize 2GB of RAM for their process; and trying to exceed that will always result in a crash. This is also part of the reason why +4GB of RAM suffers such severe diminishing returns; because theres few 64-bit programs (which are capable of using tons more RAM), and even fewer 32-bit which are designed to be capable of addressing 4GB of RAM.
2GB for a large program leaves 2GB for background tasks and the system - which is more than enough. More RAM doesn't do anything for the large program cap, and the background programs don't need it. The effects of this 2GB limit is becoming very apparent in a lot of new games; I've seen a few such as WoW crash - and others are having to be more restrictive about the size of the (loaded) environments.
What's amazing is how it has been progressively heavier, but yet loses functionality. There's no bookmark/cookie/password sync anymore (which was really nice in Netscape), no email or nntp support, and with Firefox 4, gopher:// will be gone too. And don't suggest using plugins for the lost functionality -- that will lead to an even bigger footprint.
Code bloat attacks pretty much any long-lived app that isn't controlled by one or two people, but Firefox has bloated more than most apps. Sure, it has many nice features too, but it's not just features, but layers upon layers of abstractions.
>"Microsoft, by the way, released a new IE9 platform preview (PP6) at PDC 20910 today."
Kewl? Does it run on any other platform besides MS-Windows yet?
Very true. The really ironic thing is that the browser/mail-news-client they now call "seamonkey" was the original Mozilla browser and they actually spun off Phoenix (changed to Firebird, and now Firefox) to create a slimmer, faster browser!
Caveat Utilitor
You can mod clang_jangle troll, but everything said in that comment is true and you can't change that, slimey troll with modpoints!
Currently there are 17 bugs open. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=blocking2.0%3Abeta7 The good thing: 6 hours ago there were 18 bugs ;-)
Try Freemake Video Downloader. It works quite well.
Because fuck Opera and fuck everyone who can't stop gushing about it whenever someone mentions a fucking web browser. No one cares what fucking browser you use.
See what happened there? Flame. Catch AIDS. Smooches!
as Firefox copied it in just about every single way. Hey Firefox, remember when you laughed at us Opera users for having a unique URL attached to each tab instead of just one URL above the tabs? Well, we told you so!!! :-) Oh yeah, enjoy our cool new all in one Menu button like you do our tabs!! Hopefully soon you can have your private browsing tabs in the same Window like us too without having to close down and restart your whole browser.
Since Mozilla is not including WebM support in any versions of Firefox before 4.x, it's disappointing to see how long WebM support is being delayed as compared to Chrome or Opera. With the video codec landscape in the shape that it's in, I feel like Mozilla should have at least strived to get WebM in the 3.6 series.
"It'll be ready when it's ready" as we say in slackware circles.
I believe more software projects should adopt this policy.
Thats a strange comment. Whats amazing is unless your a potential developer of the program you would care. What is true is that Firefox has got FASTER and has added features I USE. Reduced memory usage(the lowest) and significantly removed memory leaks. Bloat has become just a comment you level at programs. If you could point at several thousand lines of code they could remove I'd care.
Is it does it. I'm not saying its not true, but I use my browser for weeks without any problems. I do use Linux, but I don't think Windows is the problem. Firefox has a lovely feature that you can close the browser, and you can restart it and continue...Why don't you do that.
And it still probably won't be able to pass the Acid3 test. Firefox has turned into a piece of crap that people use instead of using something worse, like IE. Mostly, the average user thinks that running Firefox will prevent them from getting viruses. For most people who understand browsers, there is Safari and Chrome.
Yes, worthless to the entire 1% of you who don't use Windows AND needs to download from video sharing sites AND doesn't know how to do apt-get install youtube-dl (or the equivalent) AND doesn't know how to use WINE.
Oh wait, you're one of those bandwagon users who doesn't actually know how to do anything, you just run an alternative OS purely so that you can say that you do.
Thank god they didn't copy the godawful UI...or the every Net Application in one place.
Perhaps Opera should go Open Source maybe then it will get more love, Especially since Chrome and Firefox now work on mobile Phones, At least its better than IE
Let me get this straight: You're complaining about bloat, but you insist on retaining a feature no one uses? Isn't an unnecessary feature the definition of bloat?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I don't really like the FF4's GUI... maybe it's just me... I prefer FF3's or even Chrome's.
It seems like the guys at Mozilla "lost" their direction some time ago. I mean, I remember 2004 when Firefox first came out - I was so excited that I could finally ditch IE (yeah, i know Opera was around for a long time but somehow I never got to like it). Compared to IE, Firefox was blazing fast, light and secure. Fast forward a few years later... and it seems like the tables have turned. Chrome is so much faster than Firefox that I simply can't look back. And I'm not talking about the damn javascript benchmarks which everyone seems to be posting all over the Internet; the general program and system responsivness is light years ahead. Starting the browser, opening tabs, opening websites, everything is faster on Chrome. Even switching or dragging tabs around is prefectly smooth on Chrome while Firefox has delays. Not to mention the superior interface (which everyone seems to be copying now). In the meantime Mozilla releases new versions on a slow schedule and sometimes buggy as hell (version 2.0 or 3.0 kept crashing for me). The program's memory issues have become a subject for jokes all over. This is not the Firefox I fell in love with so many years ago. I think the future looks grim for Mozilla... they are alone on a market surrounded by software giants (Microsoft, Apple, Google) and they lost their biggest advantage (being the rebel, the alternative). I think it's a matter of time until they slowly get "eaten" by the rest.
While Windows has an exceedingly good 32-bit emulation layer, and Intel CPUs make that possible, it still isn't as fast as 64-bit native code. The CPU has to switch out to a special emulation mode, which takes some extra cycles, there is some translation to do, which takes some extra cycles, and not all the new features are available. So memory aside, it is still best for performance to be 64-bit native. You can see that with Prime95. It shouldn't get any faster on a 64-bit system since it is all FP but it does slightly. That is in part because there's less overhead, and in part because there's access to some new things like more general purpose registers (which compilers use without special effort on the programmer's part).
So while I agree, it is not critical, we don't need all 64-bit apps right now, it is the direction we should be moving. Native 64-bit apps run the best.
Besides, it might be nice someday for OSes to be able to ditch their 32-bit emulation layers. Won't happen for a decade or more I'm sure, but it'll never happen at all if people don't release 64-bit apps.
And we need the move to happen sooner rather than later if we want a hope of ditching the compatibility any time soon. Even if every app went 64-bit today, it would be years and years before an OS could realistically jettison the 32-bit layer, because people would need to keep running older apps. So it would be good to get on this shit now rather than later so maybe in a decade or two we can get rid of the 32-bit layers.
As an example of how long this shit can stay around if you don't work at it, look at the 16-bit issues. 64-bit Windows doesn't have a 16-bit compatibility layer. There is good reason for this because the one that is in 32-bit Windows wouldn't work, you can't access the processor mode needed from long mode. So they'd have to redo the whole thing in a much more complex emulation manner which is not even remotely worth it.
Well should be no problem right? I mean 32-bit has been around for a long time, and everyone really went 32-bit in 1995-1996 with Win95. You'd have to have amazingly old apps to have a problem...
Ya not so much. People were still using 16-bit installers because "It still worked," and shit like that. You can find stuff from not that long ago that will fail to work completely on 64-bit Windows because it has 16-bit parts. Usually just the installer (and MS has some workarounds for that) but sometimes it'll be something like the main app is 32-bit but it has a 16-bit helper or whatever.
This same shit will go on with 64-bit as well, but a major step to making it easier and faster is for companies to stop being retarded and start putting out 64-bit versions of their stuff. Nobody is saying stop with 32-bit versions, there are still lots of 32-bit systems, just put out 64-bit versions as well. Yes, there may be problems with things like plugins. Guess what? Gotta have the 64-bit versions before 64-bit plugins are useful!
The audio industry has been dealing with this since there more memory IS needed. Yes, it has been a pain and no the process isn't complete yet, but these days most software ca be had 32 or 64-bit, including plugins, and you use the ones you need.
"Firefox runs out of address slots - hence the crash."
Firefox crashes often occur when you are not using the computer, when no one has touched the keyboard or mouse.
Most people are happy using Windows. Only basement dwellers get "stuck" with it.
Re your sig - hating someone for using a Mac is always right, being an arrogant bitch is not always wrong.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Err it was done to split the browser from the mail client.
Last I checked Firefox does not operate as mail client by default (one could always make/use a plugin or extension for it, but so could they for chrome and even IE actually)
IOW you're proud of your bigotry and happy with you ignorance, check.
I think the problem is mainly add-ons adding to the bill and making the install sluggish... like old Windows installs that have lots of registry issues that slow them down. I'm thinking of just uninstalling Firefox and redoing the whole thing except for my bookmarks and passwords.
Sand's overrated... it's just tiny little rocks.
Didn't you hear me? Fuck you and fuck Opera.