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Firefox 7.0 Beta Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the another-day-another-version dept.

An anonymous reader sends word that the first Firefox 7.0 beta has been released. One of the big areas of focus for this version will be performance enhancements. One optimization "Reduces memory use and improves performance areas including responsiveness, startup and page load time, even in complex websites and Web apps." Another addresses one of Firefox users' long-standing gripes: "The JavaScript garbage collector works more frequently to free up memory and improve performance when you have many tabs open or keep Firefox running for a long time."

2 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. They're ALL Betas by Jonathan+C.+Patschke · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the big Bugzilla thread about version numbers earlier this week:

    Users cannot sit on Firefox 4.x They will be updated to the latest version when they open the About dialog (or sooner) because all* but the current Firefox release are unsupported versions in the new rapid release cycle. Those not current versions do not not get critical security updates except via the current version. Firefox users will not be spread across Firefox 4, 5, 6, etc. They will be on the latest version or they will be about to be on the latest version.

    Effective expiration, lack of bugfixes, and rapidly replaced by newer versions with bugfixes? By any practical definition, there is no stable version. They're all betas from here onwards. The whole notion of a release isn't that it's bug-free, but that it's supported for a reasonably-long period of time.

    --
    Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
  2. Re:FIrefox 8 Alpha... by markjhood2003 · · Score: 5, Informative

    3.6 is is the long-term release as far as I can tell. It still gets updates for security fixes. I just updated to 3.6.20 a few days ago.