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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!
And by that time Chrome will be at version 12 or 13
RGdot.com
So... Are you saying chrome is FireFox 4.0, or that chrome allows for time travel?
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.
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
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;
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.
So... Are you saying chrome is FireFox 4.0, or that chrome allows for time travel?
Um, let me check my Charlie Chaplin DVD collection and I'll get right back to you on the time travel bit ;-)
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.
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_
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.
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.
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
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 ;-)
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.