Mozilla Ships Firefox 5, Meets Rapid-Release Plan

CWmike writes "Mozilla delivered on Tuesday the final version of Firefox 5, the first edition under the new faster-release regime it kicked off earlier this year. The company also patched 10 bugs in Firefox 5, including one in the browser's handling of the WebGL 3-D rendering standard that rival Microsoft has called unsafe. Firefox 5 looks identical to its predecessor, Firefox 4, but Mozilla's made changes under the hood. Mozilla has denied copying Google Chrome's upbeat schedule but analysts have noted the similarities and pointed out the need of all browser makers to step up the pace. Because of the shorter development cycle, Mozilla called out relatively few new features in Firefox 5."

Comments

More work for plugin developers

[tom17]

It seems this new schedule will create more work for plugin developers. My FF upgraded itself today to FF5 and I have plugins that don't work. FireGestures and VMware are two to start with.

Will this now happen every few months?

Re:More work for plugin developers

[SilverHatHacker]

+1. I didn't even notice I had been upgraded to FF5 until I found a plugin that wouldn't install. Back in the day, a major version number increase would have come with a couple noticeable new features, but all we get here is a speed increase and a DNT checkbox.

Do fewer things and do them better?

[ackthpt]

That's an admirable and sensible approach. What would be nice, too, is not to ship a product with all the new stuff defaulted to Enabled, a fault I continue to find with Microsoft and Google - "Hey, we like this new hack, let's foist it on our unsuspecting users and turn a deaf ear to them when they howl."

hey, that's dangerous talk there! We need thousands of new features, right now, and damn the bugs!

Re:Do fewer things and do them better?

[MozeeToby]

On the other hand, this release includes essentially zero new features. Calling it a major release and incrementing the primary version number for what is essentially a security update is confusing to the point of making version numbers useless. This release doesn't even deserve a 4.1 IMO.

Re:Do fewer things and do them better?

[ShakaUVM]

>>Calling it a major release and incrementing the primary version number for what is essentially a security update is confusing to the point of making version numbers useless. This release doesn't even deserve a 4.1 IMO

Agreed.

I think the FF devs are just trying to be like Google, and use major version numbers for every minor update they conduct. Terrible, terrible.

Re:Do fewer things and do them better?

[ShakaUVM]

>>There is such a thing as modifying the product in ways which improve efficient user interaction and use of system resources. Why shouldn't such an approach be considered a valid Full Release, rather than cramming in more "New" and unwanted/unnecessary "features"?

It's the difference between how Google has been versioning Chrome, and, well, how everyone else does it. Remember how excited people were for Firefox 4? Nationwide rollout? Interactive map showing you where all the downloads were coming from? Now try to imagine this excitement over a product whose changelog is: "We sped up javascript and 3D stuff 10% and broke some of your addons."

This is getting silly

[Rising Ape]

We're at Firefox 5 already? Doesn't seem like five minutes since Firefox 4. Used to be that an entirely new version number meant it was definitely worth taking the time to upgrade, but at this frequency how do we know which are the important ones?

Why not 4.1?

[Retron]

Yes, a few tweaks but it looks largely the same. Beats me why they didn't just call it 4.1!

Re:Why not 4.1?

[Teun]

1. When you buy a new computer Windows is on most pre-installed.
2. When a European, there are some 500 million, starts up a new Windows computer he needs to select a browser from a list.
3. The ~90% of Europeans that don't understand computers will like to get the best and select the browser with the highest number.

4. Conclusion, Mozilla needs to get to a higher release version.

5 FINAL???

[pla]

Damnit, we need to get rid of this "rapid release" BS.

I've finally gotten 4 configured the way I like; and prior to that, I completely skipped over v3.

People don't want cutting edge web browsers. They want them to work, and they want them to look and feel the same for years at a time. Add support for new media types, tweak the rendering engine, but leave everything else alone!.

And that doesn't even consider how this crap breaks plugins... Literally half the plugins I currently run, I had to edit the install.rdf just to get around the damned version check (after which, they all work just fine of course).

How about a version 4 that people like?

[Kjella]

Preliminary for june 2010-2011 here. Changes from May:

Chrome: +1.08%
IE: -0.25%
Firefox: -0.79%

After six months in the lead in Europe, Firefox is now again behind IE. They're backing on every continent except Africa (+0.2%). I don't think rapid-fire will work any better if you don't have the bullets.

Seriously, a computerworld link?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

WTF slashdot? We get a link to a computerworld writeup about the new release, instead of the release notes and download link?

Re:Which dumbass analysts are these?

[iteyoidar]

Because we need more UI changes for the sake of UI changes. In Firefox 6/Chrome 14 tabs on the side will be the new "thing". Firefox 7 will move the URL window onto the scroll bar to gain another 12 pixels of vertical space, since nobody actually uses the URL bar. By January 2012 Firefox 14 will have moved the Firefox button on top of the minimize/maximize/close buttons since Steve Jobs says nobody runs programs in windows anyway. By March 2014, we will have come in a full circle and both Firefox 65536 and Chrome infinity will both have tabs back below the address bar and old school square IE6 navigation buttons.

Why didn't they just call it Firefox 14?

[Tridus]

Since the version numbering scheme is total nonsense anyway (this is hardly a major change over 4, it's more like 4.1) why not just leapfrog over everyone and call it Firefox 14? Then Chrome will have to play catchup!

FF5 release notes

[Nerzhul]

In case you're wondering what's actually new:

- Added support for CSS animations
- The Do-Not-Track header preference has been moved to increase discoverability
- Tuned HTTP idle connection logic for increased performance
- Improved canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance
- Improved standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL, and canvas
- Improved spell checking for some locales
- Improved desktop environment integration for Linux users
- WebGL content can no longer load cross-domain textures
- Background tabs have setTimeout and setInterval clamped to 1000ms to improve performance
- Fixed several stability issues
- Fixed several security issues