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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."

5 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. Re:enough already with the version bloat! by Millennium · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's more that the beta for 7 comes out pretty much the instant 6 is released. One of the more interesting aspects of the Mozilla development process is that they essentially have a pipeline of four "releases" going on at once: Current (stable stuff, now 6), Beta (code being stabilized, now 7), Aurora (testing and major bugfixes, now 8) and Nightly (new feature work, now 9). When it comes time to do a new release, Current gets booted out, Beta and Aurora get promoted, and Nightly coughs up a build that becomes the new Aurora. It would actually be a pretty good system, except for the part where they forgot about maintenance releases and long-term support.

  2. 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.
  3. Why should I care? by kbrannen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Really, why should I care about FF any more? They're killing us and themselves with all of these major version releases. As many others have pointed out, it's painful when dealing with web development, plugin usage, or even just to know what version is "latest". And that doesn't count all the pain with the major bugs that just languish while the UI is endlessly tweaked for no good reason (exactly why was the status bar removed?).

    I'm sorry FF, but I'm sticking to the 3.6 series. As soon as that doesn't work anymore because of 1 OS upgrade too many, I'll stop using FF. If you can get things fixed and find sanity again before then, I'll stay. Otherwise, it's been a good 8 years we've had together.

  4. Re:FIrefox 8 Alpha... by arose · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It should not be up to the developers to dictate how I use software on MY system.

    Then get the source and do whatever the hell you want. YOU don't get to dictate what THEY do.

    --
    Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
  5. 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.