Firefox 5 In Aurora Channel

blair1q writes "Mozilla.org has added a new intermediate development state, Aurora, to its Firefox development chain. Coming between Nightly-Build and Beta, it adds a fourth sense to the meaning of 'the current version of Firefox' (the Release version fills out the trope). And now they have populated the Aurora channel with what will eventually become Firefox 5. The intent is to reduce release-version cycle times by allowing more live testing of new features before the integrated code gets into a Beta version. The inaugural Aurora drop includes 'performance, security and stability improvements.' Firefox 5 is scheduled to enter Beta on May 17, and Release on June 21. Downloads of all of the active channels are available from the Firefox channels webpage."

Comments

Only half as good as Chome

[Billly Gates]

I have Chrome 10!!!

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[IB4Student]

I have IE 10

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Luckyo]

I have 3.6, and it seems I'll be sticking to it until this "my version number is bigger then yours" insanity finally ejaculates and comes back to being a quality release rather then "lookie how fast we can release miniscule updates" like a premature ejaculator competition.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Arancaytar]

Eventually they will all switch to a YYYYMMDD release number. Until someone first gets the idea to use a Unix timestamp instead.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Homburg]

The only proper version number is the 40-digit git commit id.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[portalcake625]

Hand in your geek card, Mozilla uses Mercurial.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Billhead]

It DOES affect the software when they start adding bloat just to get a jump on their competitors with a new version number.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[fukapon]

Don't foget biggest one, Opera 11!

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Jugalator]

Won't happen. What *is* insanity today, however, is sticking to a yearly or bi-yearly release cycle when the HTML standards evolve faster than that. Shorter cycles implies less features indeed, but this also means that there's not as much to test before each release, so the risks of following the evolution of the web better isn't increased despite following it better.

This is basically a very simplified version of the Chromium dev's motivation to move to this.

But it's of course more fun to think it's a version number game. However, just wait 'til Chrome 27 and you'll see that version numbers will lose their meaning soon enough, just like Google and others intended.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[thegarbz]

So you missed Firefox 4.0, the last major release then ;-)

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Gadget_Guy]

What *is* insanity today, however, is sticking to a yearly or bi-yearly release cycle when the HTML standards evolve faster than that

Seriously? We are still waiting for CSS3 to be finalised 12 years after the first draft was released. The precursor to HTML5 began its life in 2004 and HTML5 itself had its first draft release in 2008.

As a web developer, I wouldn't want to create a site that relied on people using a browser that was only a couple of months old. Sure it might work for Firefox and Chrome users, but what about the smaller browsers that can't keep up or the ones in embedded devices and phones.

On the other side of the coin, as a web user I don't want to have to constantly upgrade my browser to suit the latest whiz-bang HTML requirements of web developers. I upgrade my systems to benefit me, not anyone else.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[FatLittleMonkey]

I have 3.6, and it seems I'll be sticking to it until this "my version number is bigger then yours" insanity finally ejaculates

<Sigh> Just close your eyes really tight, and say "It's version 3.8! It's version 3.8! It's version 3.8!" and click download. And then stop whining about something that was completely arbitrary to begin with.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Robert Zenz]

You'll be waiting a very long time...did you look at the average computer user in the last time? Most are believing that 64Bit will double the performance...becuase it is twice as much as 32Bit...

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[multipartmixed]

4.0 is a major upgrade from 3.6, not a miniscule update. I suggest you download it. There are significant perf improvements, in the JS engine and elsewhere.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[clang_jangle]

Actually, there's always going to be plenty of room for improvement. We're very fortunate to have firefox for reasons that transcend preference, and we should be glad to see this intensive development effort. A truly FOSS web browser becoming a de facto standard benefits everyone. It certainly lit a fire under microsoft, and look at the newer versions of IE. Not my cup of tea, but way better than they were pre mozilla.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[kelemvor4]

Preferably they will just use milliseconds since epoch, for example 1302867763. That way there's never any confusion on the release order ;)

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[kelemvor4]

Chrome users do. Apple users probably do as well. If you haven't learned by now that there's more to selling software than quality and functionality then you probably own an Apple. They've been successfully selling software because it's trendy for years.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Omestes]

I forked Firefox just to add larger version numbers!

Firefork changelog:

200.0.1: Changed version number to 200.0.1
80: New feature! Version number now 80!
63: Bug fix: new version number!
7: New feature, dynamic version numbering geared for competitive synergy, current version number updated to show immensity of new versioning social media.
6: New and improved version number! Now renders about the same as other browsers. OpenGL support (only for version number on about pane at this time).

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Omestes]

I would, but I, personally, can't stand Firefox4... ahem... 3.8. They added bloat (the new tab system... panorama, or whatnot), they removed a feature I liked (ability to modify previously clicked links). The GUI is ugly as sin, trying to compete with Chrome/Chromium but completely failing (why the hell does the menu button hover above everything, wasting space?). Why look like Chrome, there should be some variation out there. The interface still feels clunky and slow compared to even the newest iterations of IE.

I don't know where Mozilla went wrong, but they have. Their focusing more on "sexy' than functional these days, at times it seems that their willing to sacrifice their original base users (techies and geeks) for greater popularity among normal users. I don't see why, its not like they get anything for having my grandmother use their browser.

I've started to install Chrome on my friends and families computers instead of Firefox, especially since Ad Block has become almost as functional as Firefox's. I've even toyed will alloying my father to use the new version of IE (decided against it, I still don't trust it).

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[FatLittleMonkey]

I would, but I, personally, can't stand Firefox4... ahem... 3.8.

FF4 would be 3.7, FF5 would be 3.8.

They [did bad things]

The OP was acting as if all those things were somehow caused by the change from N.n versioning to N versioning. I was trying to point out that the previous versioning system was completely arbitrary, and the new versioning system is completely arbitrary. Calling it version 5, or 4.1, or 3.8, or 1.12.2, doesn't make the slightest difference to the actual product.

willing to sacrifice their original base users (techies and geeks) for greater popularity among normal users.

Gasp! The monsters!

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Elbereth]

Yeah, we all understand that version numbers are arbitrary. However, there are certain problems with the current system:

1) It's not internally consistent. This bothers some people. It doesn't bother others. I would guess that some people were using version numbers to decide when to update, for example, and this kind of versioning system doesn't really lend itself to such things, since every minor update to the browser is now a major release. Personally, I think it's a bit silly, but it doesn't offend me like it seems to do others.
2) Some people perceive this as a win for marketers and a loss for engineers. This seems to be more of a IT thing. Average consumers won't care. People in IT, who always thought that Mozilla/Firefox was "their" browser will feel somewhat betrayed, however. It's basically perceived as a shift in demographics, from geeks to grandmothers. It's human nature to fight against that.
3) Loss of identity. When Firefox apes Chrome, it becomes a half-assed, "me too" product, rather than forging its own trail. Most critics are afraid that Firefox will continue down this path, eventually becoming irrelevant. Why does the world need both Chrome and a Chrome wannabe? This, I think, is the strongest criticism of Firefox 4, the new versioning scheme, and the list of planned features.
4) It reeks of an inferiority complex. "Hey, guys, our version number is less than half of theirs! We better inflate it, so that we can catch up!" This just looks pathetic to many people. It should be ridiculed by the community, in my opinion. It's a bad idea, makes the product look bad, and gives people the wrong idea about Firefox. It says to people that Mozilla is running scared and fears becoming irrelevant.

Pros:
1) It may spur faster development of the browser. However, a faster release cycle could just be made part of the mission, without all this marketing nonsense being added. Why not release 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9 this year, with the same features? It would accomplish the same thing, without causing people to doubt Firefox's continued relevance.

Is it so bad to inflate the version number? No. It's not the end of the world as we know it. However, there's no good reason to do so (other than a return that infinitely stupid "you need a version 4 browser to view this page"). Windows NT was born at version 3.1, and Slackware jumped from version 4 to 7. Both were widely ridiculed by geeks. Rightfully so, in my opinion. It's sheer marketing nonsense, and deserves to be branded as such. Having three major versions released in one year is stupid. It sounds desperate, like a marketing stunt. And I don't know about anyone else, but when products start resorting to these kinds of theatrics, I start to write them off as relevant.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Omestes]

Gasp! The monsters!

And my point was; this is pointless.

What do they get for having millions of grandmothers use their browser that they didn't get for hundreds of thousands of geeks using it?

Also, alienate the geeks at your own risk, the only reason that Firefox is so widespread now is that these hundreds of thousands of geeks stuck it on their grandmothers' computers. Geeks could as easily jump ship and start spreading Opera or Chrome, or even suggesting using IE9 (doubtful, but possible since IE9 isn't... erm... bad).

My experience in the last 20-30 odd years of computing tells me that software is transitory. You might have the #1 browser today, but in 2-5 years you could be struggling to maintain #2.

But then again, I'm still not sure why Mozilla really cares about being "sexy" and popular. Choice isn't about the supremacy of the underdog, its about having multiple tools that do the job differently, which leads to innovation. Which I think we're at risk of losing at the moment.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Omestes]

If I wasn't posted, I'd mod you insightful. You pretty much summed up most of my thoughts and opinions on the matter, but so much better than I've been doing. Good job!

Average consumers won't care.

You over-estimate "average consumers", I'm afraid. In a lot of people's minds "bigger number = better". This is at least true with the non-geeks I personally know.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[blair1q]

If the standard is evolving at a faster rate than the implementation, then the standard is not really a standard.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[FatLittleMonkey]

And my point was; this is pointless.

And my point was; refusing to upgrade because of the version number is the sort of retarded obsessive geek stupidity that hurts open source projects.

You want innovation, then scream every time they move a fucking button. When a browser has the sort of market share of Firefox, nothing the devs do will be respected. Especially because it's popular with geeks. Make it easier to use, and they scream about dumbing it down "for Grandmothers". Remove the menubar by default, and the same fucktards whine about having to press one extra key to show it again. Add a feature, and they scream about bloat and demand a minimalist Firefox where you use extensions to add features. Remove a feature, and they scream about having to download an extension!

Look at the whining about the Chrome-like tabs-on-top change in FF4. A single setting in about:config apparently switches it back. But from the noise, you'd think Firefox turned every website into OMGPonies!

If you want to use Chrome, go and use it. If you want to fork Firefox, go for it, others have. If you want to use IE9, you know you can, thanks to the threat from Firefox and the features MS stole, it's actually a useful product.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Luckyo]

Worth noting that I haven't "missed it", it's just that like many other who mainly want a stable browser where all their add-ons "just work" and a familiar look and feel, upgrading to latest version is an exercise of epic stupidity. Half of your add-ons won't work, there are no well documented ways to remove the new UI crap that firefox people seem to think we all get horny over and so on.

Personally, I'm not even touching FF4 until there is an easy way to revert all UI changes with minimal hassle. Most of my add-ons should work since it's been a while since release, but one look at the UI converted me to "FF UI designers have no clue" camp.
And of course, as it is traditional for FF now, there is no way to easily tell browser to go with the old UI. That is possibly the worst part of it. In this regard, FF devs make windows team behind vista look good.

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[thegarbz]

So what you want is the major versions to disappear and any major changes too? *rolleyes*

Some people are hard to please. Thanks but FF4 seems to be the best release thus far and not one of my 15 plugins isn't working. As for the UI changes ... clicking "Firefox" > "Options" > "Menubar" is too hard?

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[kmoser]

I support FOSS Libya!

FTFY

Re:Only half as good as Chome

[Luckyo]

Sorry, last time a major change occured (awesomebar), there was no way outside about:config editing to disable the damn thing.

In the end, I ended up just getting an add-on because it was easy.

Before that, we had nice flat menus that for some reason lost 3d effect. Apparently "microsoft's fault". Strange considering no other programs, nor previous versions of firefox had any problems but whatever.

Fixed with an add-on.

Before that...

P.S. Still can't disable personas completely. Ended up removing all personas-related sites from whitelist, but the module still eats memory. Thanks firefox. Fluffy bloat is always appreciated.

So, what reason do I have to upgrade to 4? It adds some nice engine upgrades at a cost of essentially broken UI that I will have to fix (revert to 3.6 one), and will most likely break the crucial (for me) finnish spell checking add-on again (it's always been a bit slow on updates). Sorry, a little bit of speed is just not worth it, espcially since I'm not getting most of it anyway being an XP user.

Sometimes I get a feeling that firefox team really forgets that many of us just want a working, reasonably fast browser with a lot of customizability and slow enough on updates so we don't have to re-customize the entire thing from defaults because of yet another update.

Re:Wait-- whaa?

[the linux geek]

Even more bizarrely, the trunk directory now contains builds of Firefox 6. Two years ago, these "major releases" would have been point releases at best.

CSS3 Animations

[ablaze]

and it has -moz-animation and @-moz-keyframes support. Works great! Special thanks to David Baron for his work on this.

Re:I'm really getting sick of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why Corporate America wont touch a .0 release and waits for service packs before upgrading.

Software quality has gone down the tubes. I would tend to argue (flameware here) that Ubuntu is beta level when it's releases have come out until a few weeks after the updates get it stable. Just my opinion since you cited it

Current version

[Malc]

it adds a fourth sense to the meaning of 'the current version of Firefox'

No it doesn't, most of us aren't testers. If you want to use the latest development build, alpha build, beta build or release candidate, do so, but don't pretend it's a release. That's just hyperbole at best. Me? I'll wait for the next release, and thanks to all you folks who are prepared to run intermediate builds in the form of mass QA.

Re:Current version

[BrokenHalo]

I've only just upgraded to FF4.0, although I did use the betas for a while. Thing is, some of my extensions only work with "official" releases, and I don't have time to work out how they should be re-written to work with a beta.

Re:Current version

[multipartmixed]

> I don't have time to work out how they should be re-written to work with a beta.

There's a setting in about:config that you can use to turn off extension version checking. Most of the time, this is enough, IME. And I bet given the new release cycle, that 99% of extensions written for 4 work with 5.

Re:Current version

[multipartmixed]

Wow, you're a real fuck tard, aren't you?

Firefox extensions are aftermarket products. That means it is not mozilla's job to fix them, but rather the extension author.

When was the last time you saw larry wall patching people's perl scripts? Does Bill Joy fix your java programs when they break because Java got an update?

Grab a brain, moron.

Re:Current version

[lwsimon]

I'll usually download a Beta and try it out a bit, and will install and move to RC1 when ti goes live. I figure that, as a "power user", I can at least give intelligible bug reports when something breaks. It's the least I can do in return for a free, awesome browser.

Re:Current version

[blair1q]

I didn't pretend it's a release. There's a release channel that lets you download versions called "Release" so that this mistake won't happen.

It is a version, however. At any one time, there's a current Release version, a current Beta version, a current Aurora version, and a current Nightly Build version. I list them here in the order by which they get "more current" as you go down the list. The first three are downloadable by anyone in the public to use. Beta and Aurora come with feedback features enabled, so that you can report bugs and other observations or desires. Nightly Build is internal, clearly so that changes can be unit tested and any requirement or regression testing can be done on the new integration to catch obvious bugs before handing the program to J. Random Gefingerpoken for itinerant stress and unintended-consequence testing.

If you don't want it, that's fine. Get the current Release version. No skin off my mouse.

Re:Google insists that Chrome is faster?

[IB4Student]

goatse

Re:Google insists that Chrome is faster?

[Billly Gates]

Not the ones I have seen. In Linux, Chrome wipes the floor off of FF as FF is not hardware enabled and uses direct2d and directx for acceleration. I use Chrome over Firefox 4 on my 3.5 year old laptop because sites like msnbc.com have lots of javascripts which make FF 4 unresponsive in comparison.

This demo here is much faster with Chrome. IE 9 wont run it however. Micorosft has their own 3d demo showing IE 9 ahead in their fishtank tool.

IE 9 seems to render html sites with javascript and html the fastest while chrome loads them quicker on my system. Firefox 4 is still quite an improvement over Firefox 3.6 but it is no longer in the lead from what I see. Scrolling on slashdot is the chopiest with it.

This is all getting slightly ridiculous...

[DeusExInfernus]

I'm getting rather tired of everyone paying more attention to release dates, version numbers, and now the names of production and testing phases than the quality of the actual product/program.

Re:This is all getting slightly ridiculous...

[rvw]

I'm getting rather tired of everyone paying more attention to release dates, version numbers, and now the names of production and testing phases than the quality of the actual product/program.

I think this is a pretty useful one - for developers at least. Now it's much easier to keep two copies of Firefox next to eachother. One is the normal release, stable, like FF4 now. The other is in alpha or beta, and shows where it's going. Firefox developers can use and test it, website developers can see how their site looks in the upcoming release.

There is only one problem that I see, you cannot run them next to eachother, and that is because they both have the same process name (I suppose). I have Firefox 4 running, tried to start Aurora, and it refused. Of course I could close FF4, but that is annoying if you read your mail in it, if you need to unlock the master key etc. So I hope they can manage to rename the process name.

Re:This is all getting slightly ridiculous...

[BZ]

> Now it's much easier to keep two copies of Firefox
> next to eachother.

This was always just as easy as now. Nothing has changed in this regard.

> There is only one problem that I see, you cannot run
> them next to eachother

Sure you can; just have them use different profiles. See http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing%20profiles

Re:This is all getting slightly ridiculous...

[rvw]

did you try -no-remote or FoxTester?

Thanks for the tip! On my mac (at home) it doesn't work, but at work I use Ubuntu, and I think it'll be very useful there.

Don't CLICK ON LINK

[Billly Gates]

It is good old fashioned goatse.cx.

Moderators please do your job

Fourth Sense

[dimethylxanthine]

"it adds a fourth sense to the meaning..."

Is that like a fourth state of matter? What are the other three senses of the 'the current version of Firefox' anyway?

----
Sorry, you're foreign.

Re:Fourth Sense

[DeusExInfernus]

I think I've become too desensitized to BS; I didn't even wonder about that...

Re:Fourth Sense

[bemymonkey]

Senses of meaning, i.e.:

"Something or other is meant in the sense that..."

Re:Fourth Sense

[blair1q]

There was a link to them. And descriptions of them in the summary and in TFA.

Do we have to start licensing computer users now?

Actually, I think I know what happened. You don't know the meaning of the word "trope", so you didn't understand that the sentence containing it was closing the meme for you. Pay attention in school in your next life.

Oh god another version

[AmiMoJo]

So they want to have two months between major versions, and expect all add-on developers to update and test, all web developers to check their layouts, web site and magazine editors to update their tutorials, useful forum posts to be obsolete, people get used to the new UI...

WTF is this shit?

Re:Oh god another version

[syockit]

It worked with Google Chrome. So why not?

Re:Oh god another version

[wunderbus]

No. Instead, they want developers to do the same thing they're doing with Chrome now, which is to develop for the current version of the browser, which adheres to the most accurate specification of HTML. That specification is improved constantly, and you wouldn't want to use a browser that implements HTML incorrectly.

Re:Oh god another version

[gertin]

Shorter release cycles also means less radical changes from release to release. So, add-on developers should in theory have to do less work with each new version as compared to 3->4. The same goes for web developers, I doubt any radical changes will be done to Gecko in release cycles as short as 6 weeks.

Re:Oh god another version

[delinear]

For most sites Firefox traffic is much higher than Chrome traffic. Add to that the fact that Chrome is using Webkit anyway so will benefit from prior testing and development for Safari and it's far less risky to churn out major releases. At the moment Firefox is in a sweet spot where it's stable enough and with a big enough user base that I can justify supporting it to clients. If we get to the point where I'm having to support 3 or 4 versions of it with the later ones potentially breaking stuff that was working previously it's going to be a lot more difficult for me to make that case. Besides, Chrome has always pitched itself as leading the way on the experimental side of things (see Chrome experiments), while Firefox is meant to be the stable, open source alternative to IE. I expect things to occasionally break in Chrome but I'm always surprised when they break in FF.

Re:Oh god another version

[delinear]

The issue isn't the bigger number, it's the risk that the tendency to want to justify the bigger number will lead to bloat, and that the smaller timescales will lead to bugs. With a minor revision nobody cares if all you did was tidy up some code to execute a little more efficiently, but with a major release people will want to know what added benefit it brings - that means a drive for additional functionality which needs sufficient time for implementation and testing (and no, that doesn't mean using your audience as guinea pigs). It doesn't matter how well you've coded your site if the browser is introducing its own bugs (see IE6 for evidence of this).

Re:Oh god another version

[Bert64]

Less testing to be done since each update will bring with it less changes...
You won't need to do more testing, you will need to do less testing more often.

Re:Oh god another version

[AmiMoJo]

FF4 is a good example of why they need a longer testing period. In early betas they moved the link destination URL from the bottom of the screen in the status bar to the right hand side of the address bar. It was a really jarring change because everyone is used to instinctively looking in the lower left corner for link URLs. For the RC it was moved back to the lower left, but it took many beta versions to be discussed and sorted out. If they were in a rush to get V4 out we would now be stuck with it mis-feature and FF would be worse for it.

Can't we just have a quality, stable and fast browser that doesn't jump on every bandwagon and constantly try to "innovate" for the sake of it? The new tabs-in-titlebar feature of FF4 is a perfect example of this - Chrome is doing it so let's copy them and save a few pixels! More of the web page is visible now! What, you were looking at the page title in the title bar? On a narrow screen the tabs are too small to display the title? The Firefox menu is harder to use than the drop downs we removed? Not having the tabs where they have been for the past 7+ years is annoying? But... But... 16 extra pixels of web page man!

Re:Oh god another version

[hedwards]

Constantly? I'm sorry, but that's incredibly stupid, having to release a browser ever few months because neither the web developers nor the W3C can figure out how to branch revisions or handle updates gratefully is hardly a reasonable thing to have to work around.

Re:Oh god another version

[BZ]

> but with a major release people will want to know
> what added benefit it brings

For what it's worth, not a single developer I've talked to is worrying about that. The current plan is to release things as they're ready and not worry about what version number marketing decides to put on it.

Re:Oh god another version

[BZ]

1) There will be work going into handling add-on compatibility more smoothly than before. There are plans to bump the compat version on AMO-hosted add-ons automatically, unless they're flagged as possibly being broken. In the latter case the add-on developer will be asked to update it, of course.

2) There should be much less in the way of churn between versions for web developers, reducing the need to check layouts.

3) There should be much less in the way of UI churn between versions, reducing the need for updated tutorials and people getting used to new UI.

In particular, Chrome has been on a rapid release cycle for a year now; how much has their UI changed in that time?

Re:Oh god another version

[AmiMoJo]

We will have to wait and see I guess. Historically Mozilla likes to break^H^H^H^H^H improve the UI with every major version. If they are no longer doing that and the changes will be more minor then all they have achieved is version number inflation.

I think this is what people can't understand. Either they plan to carry on with similarly big changes with each major version number (bad) or they are just inflating the version number for some inexplicable reason (pointless). I stand by my original question: WTF is this shit?

Re:Oh god another version

[BZ]

> If they are no longer doing that and the changes
> will be more minor then all they have achieved is
> version number inflation.

No. What they have achieved is getting web features into users' hands quicker. Please don't confuse web features and UI features.

As a simple example, WebM support was done in July 2010 or so, but didn't end up in a final release until March 2011. That's 8 extra months of having to watch Youtube via Flash for users. There are lots and lots of web-facing features which don't change the UI at all in Firefox 4 that could have shipped in summer 2010 or in fall 2010. Doing June and October releases last year would have been really good, but the infrastructure just wasn't in place for that at the time.

Re:Oh god another version

[AmiMoJo]

Why not just include WebM in a point update then? In fact that would be a better solution IMHO because it would allow backend stuff like WebM to be introduced quickly and still allow plenty of time to beta test UI changes. Look at how many betas FF4 went through and how much the user interface stuff was revised.

Re:Oh god another version

[wunderbus]

Many of the improvements to HTML are bug fixes - changing the spec to reflect what browsers already do, rather than what the spec previously (and incorrectly) said browsers did.

More importantly, very, very, very few (best to think "zero") changes to HTML break backwards compatibility. Browser vendors can't do that because it would break the web, and so the HTML spec can't do that because the spec describes what browser vendors have implemented.

Mozilla wants to offer more frequent updates so that their users can enjoy a better browser on average. No one has to "work around" this. I think you're ascribing features of normal desktop software, where major and minor versions of software have a particular meaning, to software based on or meant for viewing the web, which rightfully flouts all the laws of desktop software design. The web is not static, and it updates without your permission.

Re:Oh god another version

[BZ]

Because the old promise for point updates was that they did not significantly change internal APIs (not true for the way WebM was integrated) and were generally limited to security and stability fixes (something that WebM clearly is not).

All that's happened is that this promise is gone. There is no more "minor" vs "major" update distinction. Updates are just updates. They add features, or not, if none are ready; in that case the update will just have security patches. Updates can always change internal APIs.

Re:Oh god another version

[AmiMoJo]

Which brings me back to my original point: The release cycle is too fast to get UI changes properly debated and tested. FF4 was bad enough.

Re:Oh god another version

[BZ]

There's quite a bit of discussion about how to do UI changes in this setup, yes. I don't think anyone is planning to roll out sweeping UI changes within a single 18-week cycle; they would land on mozilla-central, get disabled after the aurora merge, and keep getting disabled until people are happy with them on mozilla-central. Just like any other big feature, by the way; just because something is in mozilla-central doesn't mean it ends up in the next final release.

Chrome has so far sidestepped this issue by not making UI changes, for the most part.

Re:I'm really getting sick of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

'Seize' was the beta version of the word. The production version is 'cease'.

Re:Bah! Firefox is bad after all

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, I don't care what FF5 does if there's no status bar in FF4+. I'll keep using FF3.6 until they pry it from my cold, dead fingers if I can't find a new browser with a native status bar (screw the idea of having to install a plugin to get a status bar).

Re:Bah! Firefox is bad after all

[dakameleon]

Goatse

(dude, seriously, you tried it like 3 posts prior as haxor32)

Re:Or

[ThatsMyNick]

Yeah, its totally ripping of Chrome

Re:I'm really getting sick of this.

[atari2600a]

Damnit I knew spell check was lying to me D:

Re:I'm really getting sick of this.

[Seumas]

They can't make Firefox 5.0 the Alpha, becauseFirefox 6.0 is already the Alpha:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2446957

Please win back the long-time users

[scragz]

I've been with Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox from the beginning; custom builds, bug reports, tech evangelism, extensions/userscripts; I have made more than one offline XUL application for personal use (JS application programming before it was cool!); the whole ten meters. It had been so good for so long.

In 2008 a few things happened. 1. The extremely sensible and welcome features added in the 2.x release cycle, coupled with the unique browser landscape, ended up derailing the original goals of the project (streamlined browser, minimal yet viable for mainstream use, with robust extension capabilities for anything else anyone could want) back into some ridiculous browser arms race; 2. I switched to OSX and I think the memory problems are even worse there; and 3. Chrome started shaping up to be everything I wanted technically, with its new extension and built-in userscript support (even if it was inferior), its sandboxing, and its sort of remotely sane memory usage, even if it didn't have the warm fuzzy feeling I had from my closeness to the Mozilla project.

I am still so guilty about my switch to Chrome but I spend so much of my life in a browser window that I really had to go the practical route.

And since then it's just been getting worse and worse, with all resources going into either JS performance to keep up in benchmarks or features to be able to add some more bullet points to a release announcement. All anyone wants is better memory management, and then tab sandboxing would be nice after that since Flash/Silverlight can really bring down an embedding process. Give us some core improvements that aren't marketing driven and move all the AWESOMENESS into extensions that can be disabled after install! That's all anyone (on /.) wants.

Re:Please win back the long-time users

[Anonymous Coward]

All anyone wants is better memory management, and then tab sandboxing would be nice after that since Flash/Silverlight can really bring down an embedding process.

I think what you mean is that all you want is "memory management and tab sandboxing". There are other users out there who actually do want/like the new features being developed. For instance, I'm an enthusiastic user of Firefox 4's new Sync feature (it's very useful to be able to open tabs from other computers!) and tab groups. I'm glad they added those features. I want them. (Not saying tab sandboxing wouldn't be nice, too.)

My point is only that products change over time, and Firefox's mission has indeed changed. They are no longer servicing the subset of users they initially were. You may view that as a bad thing, but I don't really see the problem... Especially since we have a bunch of different browsers competing. So those who do indeed want a more minimal browser, focused on performance rather than on features/add-ons, can use Chrome. You shouldn't feel guilty about it: people change, software changes, the goals of software groups change. That's fine.

You are welcome to advocate for the kind of browser that you like. But please don't assume that your desires reflect everyone else's desires. I, for one, keep enjoying the majority of the upgrades the Mozilla team is pushing into the product.

Re:Please win back the long-time users

[Omestes]

Replying to a troll... nothing good can come of this.

Chrome memory usage is much worse than Firefox.

Its higher overall, but not worse. So far I haven't noticed any large leaks on Chrome, unlike Firefox. Also Chrome has 1 process = 1 tab or extension, which does push up its memory usage a bit, but also gives a ton more stability and security. Its a trade off I'm willing to take, at least. When I close a tab in Chrome, 99% of the time that memory is cleared back, in Firefox it often just lingers there allocated but useless. I can leave Chrome open over night and in the morning it uses roughly the same amount of memory that it did when I left, this often isn't true of Firefox.

So yes, it uses more memory, but it uses it better.

google fanboy.

Anyone who uses the term "fanboy" is a moron who probably should be ignored. If someone likes something you don't, then that doesn't make them a "fanboy". Obviously, tough, you are a "Firefox fanboy", by your own logic, and thus we should discount all of your opinions on that fact. Actually, then, everyone is a "fanboy", and this no one's opinions matter in the slightest.

Its a goddamn free browser, who the hell cares what anyone uses (as long as it isn't IE6)? Does his using Chrome affect your life negatively? Usually "fanboy-ism", and its converse "anti-fanboy fanboy trolling" is about standard cognitive dissonance (you put time and money into a product, therefore it is the best, otherwise your decision process would suspect, since you obviously only choose the best.), but this is a free browser, who cares?

Me, I don't want your chrome because it is market driven and no one sane would run a web browser by an ad broker.

Good for you? Why should I, or anyone else, care? You have your subjective preferences, I have mine, someone else has theres. We're talking about technical aspects of browsers, so your opinion (or anyones elses) is meaningless unless backed by fact within the domain of the actual discussion.

Good luck with your doubleclick browser, your advertising for them, and your ad-blocking.

I haven't really seen much evidence for much data really being sent home in Chrome yet. Most of it is just "typed search" data, which Google would generally get if you used their web based searched with cookies on. You can also disable much of the tracking, if you want. Yes, I distrust Google too, but so far I have no actionable evidence worth moving on to other products. For the truly paranoid, use Chromium. You can plow through the source and see if its being evil behind your back, and most of the other "Google bits" aren't there. I'm a fan of Chromium, personally.

I switch browsers based on my own personal preferences, like everyone else. I am not a "fan boy", the Chromium project could die tomorrow and I wouldn't be terribly sad. Firefox could die, and I probably wouldn't care outside of nostalgia (I too used it since Phoenix, and up until Firefox 3.0, where it started to wander off path). I have Firefox 4 and 3.6 installed on 3 computers right now, I have Chrome or Chromium on 3 computers. One has Opera (I always try every release to see if I like it yet). One has ReKonq, and one has Safari, as well. I try all of them from time to time, to see which works the best for me.

Re:Please win back the long-time users

[UnknownSoldier]

Completely agree. FF 4 has jumped the shark.

- Took forever to address the memory leak; devs constantly ignored it in 1.x and 2.x. (Hello, a web browser should NOT consume 1.5 gigs when no tabs are open when it has been runing for a month.)
- Keep breaking plugins/extensions. Useful extensions like SunCult (shows Moon Phases) is broken 3.6. (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/sun-cult/)
- The UI team can't focus on _useful_ tab management, such as giving me a list of ALL tabs across ALL windows, color coding duplicate tabs, etc. Why the hell do I need a ton of plugins for this functionality??
- Removed the ability to resize the bookmarks dialog and down-sized it to be near useless. (WTF?)
- Removed the ability to use the arrow keys to scroll up/down Tools, PageInfo, Media. (Another WTF?)
- Move the home & reload button (WHY? FF is NOT Chrome!)
- Took forever to make tabs multi-threaded. (Hello, one TAB should NOT stall the WHOLE dam browser.)

If I wanted to use Chrome, I would use Chrome. I use FF because it was fast, small, extendendable, and did the MAJORITY things RIGHT Out-Of-The Box. This ePenis versioning is stupid. Focus on thing that people do _day_to_day_.

This reminds of something I ran into work recenetly. I wrote a bash (cygwin) script that was using "tail +#"; it broke on a colleague's machine because he was using a newer version of tail that required "tail -n #" -- WTF?

As great as Open Source is, it also sucks* -- stop breaking functionality when the old version worked fine.

* I work on a popular Open Source Emulator in my spare time.

Re:Please win back the long-time users

[BZ]

Flash is already sandboxed in its own process in Firefox; not sure about Silverlight.

Re:Please win back the long-time users

[Shin-LaC]

I also use Chrome on OS X, and the big feature that enabled me to switch was Keychain integration. I used Safari before, and the ability to share passwords between the two browsers has been invaluable. This feature has been requested for Firefox years ago, but never delivered. Until it is, I can't consider it a serious contender on OS X.

Re:Please win back the long-time users

[archen]

I've been using Mozilla since back when Mozilla was actually the browser (suite). I've been thinking of switching to Chrome myself, but I wouldn't say there's anything to feel guilty about. The point of Firefox wasn't about the browser at all, but an open Internet that followed standards. The fact that we can use most any browser and have pages render (mostly) the same means that it's succeed, even if the browser itself has turned into something we're unhappy with. Being able to use Chrome was part of the freedom that Firefox pushed for.

Stupid

[Lunaritian]

Easier to just get rid of version numbers and use a rolling release system.

Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[Co0Ps]

What the fuck Mozilla... Firefox 4 is crashing 20 times a day for me. I'm not even joking, here's a copy paste from the 7 last entries of my about:crashes

bp-... 2011-04-14 20:01
bp-... 2011-04-14 19:59
bp-... 2011-04-14 19:05
bp-... 2011-04-14 19:05
bp-... 2011-04-14 19:00
bp-... 2011-04-14 19:00
bp-... 2011-04-14 18:31

Basically I've switched to chrome now to be able to to my work. Your new strategy is fucking ridiculous. Build a quality browser instead of jumping onto the "we must increment the major version number faster than the others" bandwagon. Once upon a time the major version number was only incremented when you restarted a project from scratch. Nowadays that number doesn't mean anything anymore - to anyone. I don't know what major version number chrome is and I don't care either - and I don't think most people don't know or care.

You can start plan new features when you've fixed all the bugs. Planning for version 5 when your browser can't even run 10 minutes without crashing is ridiculous.

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[NaiveBayes]

From the article: 'performance, security and stability improvements' Where did you get the idea that Firefox 5 wouldn't focus on stability?

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[Inda]

In the name of clarity, I will post my about:crashes log from my new FF4 install below.

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck Mozilla... Firefox 4 is crashing 20 times a day for me. I'm not even joking

What are the people that keep complaining about Firefox crashing all the time doing that I'm not? I've seen Firefox crash, sure, but maybe 10-15 times a year, not 20 times a day - and I'm doing everything with it that I could want of a browser. I don't have hundreds of extensions installed, but I've got a fair few common ones, so it doesn't seem to me that they're the source of the differences...

What am I missing?

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[multipartmixed]

Are you able to post a link to one (or more) of your crashes on the crash stats web page?

It sounds like you're having an unusual experience, hopefully somebody will look at your crash reports. I run 4 all day, all night, and have for months. I haven't had a crash since beta 8 or so (and that was OOM related)

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[Fnkmaster]

I agree, this is fucking ridiculous. The rule with browsers has always been "wait for the point release or the 0.5 release for stability". Now Mozilla has done away with those niceties - so FF4 is a steaming pile of instability still and they are going to call the bugfix release FF5. This is retarded. It's Firefox 4.1. I fear this new naming convention is going to drive everybody away. The only way I can be won back right now is a stabilized version of FF4. I still love Firefox 3.6, and am still running it on my desktop at home, but I can't stick with that forever.

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

This is my entire crash log dating back to when I originally installed FF on my current work laptop:

11-04-2011 09:19
21-03-2011 14:18
23-12-2010 09:09
29-11-2010 09:34
09-11-2010 12:29
09-11-2010 12:28
08-11-2010 11:25
03-11-2010 09:51
22-09-2010 12:48
22-09-2010 12:48
28-07-2010 16:00
23-07-2010 04:44
29-06-2010 13:49
29-06-2010 13:49
27-11-2009 14:47
01-09-2009 14:21
19-08-2009 11:14
27-07-2009 15:33
24-06-2009 10:07
15-05-2009 14:53
26-03-2009 12:53
29-07-2008 09:41
20-06-2008 08:57
02-06-2008 10:33
21-05-2008 10:46

25 crashes in a span of 3 years and I use plenty of extensions. You must be doing something very wrong.

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[multipartmixed]

Please tell me you had crash dumps turned on. This behaviour is unacceptable. Hopefully the FF team can figure out how your plug-ins were getting angry and tame them.

FWIW, I run AVG with FF4 on XP, zero issues. But I'm not really a windows guy, so I don't use it much.

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[perryizgr8]

from his experience with ff4.
incidentally, i'm facing the same problem. leave open ff4 for ~90 min, crash. this was not happening in any of the beta builds. dunno why now.
posting from ie9, which is rock-solid, fast but not customizable at all.

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[BZ]

> bp-... 2011-04-14 20:01

Mind including the whole crash id, or even just the link? I'd love to fix your crash, but I sort of need to know what the crash is to do that...

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[Co0Ps]

This is the most common signature: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=637304

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[BZ]

Thanks!

I assume you're not using the "kikin" addon mentioned in the bug?

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

You just want to see the nasty bug- and malware-ridden sites I've been visiting from work ;-)

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[Co0Ps]

Nope - I'm using firebug though.

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[BZ]

That shouldn't have the same effect; Firebug doesn't inject any binary code.

Re:Firefox 5? Fix firefox 4 first.

[asvravi]

FF4 crashes about 10 times everyday for me too. Just found it may be related to the Testpilot extension that comes installed by default (look up the linked bug reports in your about:crashes page).

Re:I'm really getting sick of this.

[jrumney]

What is wrong with simultaneous Alphas of Firefox 5.0 and Firefox 6.0? Surely it's better than coming up with another non-standard term for a pre-release state that is neither a Greek letter, nor a plain English word, so who knows where the hell it fits into things?

Or if they are really convinced that their users are too thick to handle two Alpha's at once, they'd have been better off redefining the May17 release as a Gamma release (if an RC is too conventional for them) and calling this the Beta.

The Firefox I used to know....

[zixxt]

The Firefox I used to know was a focused, speedy and stable little browser that did its job really well and could be extended to do even more. But how time changes things now when I want a fast speedy and stable browsing experience I load up Chrome when I'm working in Linux and gasp IE9 overtook Firefox as the browser of choice for speed and stability when working under Windows 7. I tried FF4 since the early betas, and yes the speed is good at first but since the fonts are out of wack on my system with FF4 I need to turn off hardware acceleration which makes FF4 lose its sexiness and why I downgraded back to Firefox 3.6.16. Please return to your roots Firefox I miss you.

Re:The Firefox I used to know....

[hedwards]

That's not Firefox's fault, it's most likely the drivers on your system. I don't have any trouble with fonts, and a lot of other people don't. Just run the grafxbot that you can find in the addons page and it'll tell them what's going wrong.

Unfortunately videocard drivers vary wildly across the numerous combination of OSes and vendors.

New strategy!

[Psicopatico]

Adding a revision number every couple of months is still not enough.

Wait until some clever software architect discover he can represent numbers as powers of two: this could be a Firefox 32 discussion! And by summer we may discuss about Firefox 64!
Using binary notation is noteworthy too.

Mozilla is killing extensions

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

With this new release schedule I see on very pesky problem surfacing: as a major number is getting increased every six or so months, only actively maintained extensions will be working (unless you hack extensions compatibility in about:config, but most users will never do that).

Firefox is very popular due to its extensions and by changing the rules of the game, Mozilla is killing most of the extensions. It'll be interesting how this situation is going to turn out. One obvious solution is not to increase a major number internally (I still strongly believe that the new schedule was devised to make Firefox more prominent in the world of web browsers where Opera is already at version 11, IE will soon turn 10, Google Chrome will soon become number 11).

No Home button

[jez9999]

I physically wince at that. I frequently use the home button to pull myself to my homepage on multiple different tabs (it has links leading off to various places). The first thing that needs to happen here is an extension restoring the Home button. They could just hide it instead of removing it. The UX team has basically taken over at Mozilla, and they like changing stuff to suit their whims.

Re:Google insists that Chrome is faster?

[jmac_the_man]

[Chrome wi]pes the floor off of FF as FF is not hardware enabled and uses direct2d and directx for acceleration. I use Chrome over Firefox 4 on my 3.5 year old laptop because sites like msnbc.com

Appeal to emotion.

Where's the appeal to emotion here? That he reads MSNBC?

By the way, a lot of the others are wrong too.

Funny thing + don't know if want

[surveyork]

Well, let's see. Now we have stable release, beta release, aurora release and nightly release, right? Which is similar to --but not the same as-- the former stable release, beta release, alpha/Minefield/nightly. I guess we'll get used to the new status quo. Nitpick: the icons for nightly and aurora make sense, but the icon for beta is the same as the icon for stable. Also, I was using Minefield 4.2a1 and 2 updates ago it digi-evolved to Nighly 6.0a1 + new icon. Surprising. Then I found out about the new version scheme.

Re:Wait-- whaa?

[foobsr]

... life cycle of a butterfly. ...... Think about that.

I thought along these lines: "phase out: To bring or come to an end, one stage at a time." (TheFreeDictionary ).

CC.

More like mozilla fatfox

[partyguerrilla]

You'd think they'd go about fixing those 10 year old memory leaks somewhere in between all this development bureaucracy. In b4 "I have 16TB of RAM, who cares?"

Please make it not SUCK so badly on the Mac!

[forrie]

Since switching to the Mac, I've been very disappointed with the performance of Firefox on the Mac platform. My co-workers are dumping FF for Chrome, and I'm "almost there".

I hope Aurora (FF5) will finally fix these problems.

What is it with v5 and Aurora?

[markhb]

Wasn't "Aurora" the name of the prototype sidebar-like-thing (or maybe it was a sidebar on steroids, or the original RDF reader?) that was intended to go into Netscape Communicator 5? How is it that the name comes back two app-series later (with Mozilla/Seamonkey in between) just in time for Firefox version 5?

(The original version was in the original Netscape open-source codedrop and was abandoned with the switch to nglayout and XUL, which became Mozilla/Seamonkey and Netscape 6).

Webbrowser in top secret aircraft?

[witherstaff]

Darn, I was hoping this article would prove the Aurora existed. Of course browsing the web in a military airplane seems dangerous.

Aurora is the name of a top secret airplane that has been denied for a decade and a half although it did show up on a budget line item once.

Re:4.0

[TaoPhoenix]

I agree that 4.0 was big news, and I followed the betas for 4.0 because I wanted an early warning of "the state of things to come".

However since these 3 month releases are indeed more like minor point versions, I'll likely go back to the style I use for MS Op Systems, and only use about every second-third one.

Plugins Nightmare with Versions!

[plastick]

I just went through addon hell with version 4 (going back to 3.6).

If they are going to go crazy with version numbers, at least fix the issue with version numbers and addons!

It's a beta universe

[UBfusion]

Unfortunately this is the world we are living in, it is a beta universe. Some companies (e.g. Skype) even get rid of the 'alpha' concept and choose to call all of their versions 'beta'. Can you suggest any "finished" free product that was relatively stable and bug free before the next version was released? (not that commercial products are significantly better...)