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Firefox 16 Released: More HTML5 Support
Today Mozilla released the final version of Firefox 16, which includes a number of new tools for developers. "A number of HTML5 code has been 'unprefixed,' which means that Mozilla has decided it has matured enough to run in the browser without causing instability. The newly unshackled HTML5 includes CSS3 Animations, Transforms, Transitions, Image Values, Values and Units, and IndexedDB. Two Web APIs that Mozilla helped to create, Battery API and Vibration API, are also now unprefixed. These changes help keep Firefox competitive, but it also sends a signal to developers that Mozilla thinks these are good enough to begin baking into their sites. It's a strong endorsement of the 'future-Web' tech." Here's the complete change list and the download page.
What information does the CNET article contribute on this matter, exactly? Why not at least link to Google News? Why contribute to the Web becoming a pile of ads and sharing buttons? Why, Slashdot, why?
Cue the whine brigade complaining that firefox is "Bloated". These are the same people that complain that firefox is behind the curve for not adding new features all the time.
Whatever your complaints, I still find myself coming back to firefox because of the addons. Chrome is getting better and many of the most popular ones are there - But it's still not there. Some addons have reduced functionality because of the more restrictive API, or they're not well developed enough yet for Chrome. The more obscure, but damn useful ones are pretty much firefox only.
I think there's something wrong with this version of Firefox. I just updated, and not a single one of my plugins was disabled because of incompatibility!
Maybe someone should make a "Firefox Nostalgia" plugin. It detects when firefox is updated, and generates a random "The following plugins have been disabled..." alert window.
They're calling it quits? Or did you mean the "latest" version of Firefox?
"Final" and "Latest" both have specific, though different, meanings. "Final" indicates that a particular build is considered the official release for a specific version of a piece of software; contrast "final" with "alpha", "beta", and "release candidate". "Latest" indicates that there is no more recent version of the software available.
Thus, while a mature software package can have many "final" versions, there is only ever one "latest" version of that piece of software (discounting programs with multiple release vectors and channels, where each release vector will typically have its own "latest" version--i.e., you can have a "latest" nightly build and a "latest" official release for the same project.)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The command line feature looks very cool. It'd be even better if that could be controlled from outside Firefox, basically making Firefox scriptable -- for automated Firefox testing, Website testing, taking screenshots, etc.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Not all instability leads to crashes. If something is unstable, it means it isn't stable. "Stable" means it's not changing. A feature whose exact implementation is expected to change in the near future. This might mean that a few edge cases are known that will render funny, or maybe the code just isn't clean enough for the devs' preference (as though that would ever stop a release...).
Prefixed features are a warning to developers. They say "This is coming, but it might still be screwy". Someone using the prefixed feature shouldn't complain when their masterpiece website suddenly looks different in the next release of the browser because they were abusing a flaw in the implementation.
As a concrete (hypothetical) example, consider animating the rotation effect on a square image. If the browser is built to compute the layout before applying rotation, nothing else on the page will move. If the layout comes after the rotation, blocks could move around as the rectangular dimensions of the image's block change. Regardless of what behavior is standard, a developer could rely on the other. Having a prefix warns him that it's not quite finished.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Chrome's built in flash player uses 80% cpu on a quadcore where as IE and Firefox use 30% via adobe's on plugin.
I welcome Firefox 16. I'm sorry I ever left you.
On the upside, pages with background colors will no longer flash white like they do in chrome. YAY.
Chrome is bad.