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Firefox 4 the Last Big Release From Mozilla
nk497 writes "Firefox 4 will be the last major browser release from Mozilla, as it looks to mimic Chrome's speedy release schedule — echoing previous statements that Firefox 7 would arrive this year. "What we want to do is get the power into users' hands more quickly," said vice president of products Jay Sullivan. "For example, the video tag was shippable in June — we should have shipped it." That new schedule is also why Firefox 4 has had 12 betas, he said. Mozilla also said future versions of Firefox would feature a stronger "do not follow tool", as the current one is a "non-technical solution"," Sullivan said. "All you're doing is raising your hand and saying 'I don't want to be tracked.' There's no technical teeth.""
I thought it meant that Mozilla wouldn't have more releases, period. I'm sure I'm not the only one who read it that way--a much better headline would have been "Mozilla to have faster release schedule following Firefox 4" or somesuch.
You should use the new JetPack API so you don't need to update your plugin every time a new version of Firefox is released. Better yet, release a plugin that tells all the other plugin developers to use JetPack.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Rapid-update philosophy sounds good for early adopters and hobbyist users (does Chrome have much traction in the corporate environment?)
But what about corporate environments that require software to stay stable and on fixed known-working versions? For example, Firefox 3.6 broke compatibility with a plugin that we have widely distributed at our site, and the solution to this issue requires another mass deployment. We've had similar issues with Java's auto-updater breaking compatibility with some applications (and no, we're not an IE6 shop).
Doug
As if having to support 3 major browsers wasnt a web design nightmare enough..now to support multiple versions of each..yay. I can hear it now.. well.. it looks ok to me, but I got a support email that it looked like (random crap) for this person, looked like (wierd problem) to my other friend and this (random thing) didnt work for one of my friends at work.. see about that will you? Oh.. they all said they used FireFox if that helps.
That way we can avoid this "you have a higher number than me" syndrome. Ubuntu 10.10, Office 2010, Windows 98, etc.
End this nonsense.
Geez, I've been on the FF4 beta for like 5 months now almost. IMO it's much better and stable. Almost all of my extensions work in it too.
If your extension doesn't work with 3.6, edit your install.rdf file and change the MaxVersion to 3.6 (or wildcard)
DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
> What's wrong with that?
It makes the lag to shipping new web-facing features and performance improvements too long. As a result you end up with situations like the current one, where Firefox 3.6 is significantly worse than the already-shipping competition (except IE8) in various performance and standards-compliance metrics... while the builds as of June of 2010, say, were much better than 3.6.
This isn't about version numbers; it's about getting new features into the hands of users faster and not gating feature A, which is completely done, on feature B, which might get done sometime.
With shards of broken glass embedded into the top of the wall...
and machine gun nests on the other side of the wall...
surrounded by a moat filled with sharks with FRICKIN' LASER BEAMS IN THEIR HEADS!!!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
First of all, kudos to Google for finally going with MSI. It's like providing an RPM and makes everyone's life easier.
Now, that said, the situation with respect to delayed updates is fundamentally different because Chrome hasn't provide security updates for older versions. You're essentially running snapshots all the time. Any IT department would have be bonkers to follow that model.
The OP is saying that the way the headline is phrased makes it sound as though this is the end of the Firefox browser.
"BSD is dying" is a meme that has been floating around for years.
The walled garden is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by an iGrue.