Mozilla Firefox 6 Released Ahead of Schedule 415
BogenDorpher writes "Mozilla is currently on schedule to release Firefox 6 on August 16th but it looks like the final version has already been signed off and is unofficially available on Mozilla's servers."
Re:too late (Score:4, Interesting)
Firefox has been fired. (Score:1, Interesting)
I was a long-time Firefox user, I even was part of Spreadfirefox.com and was a "Zealot" that managed to convert my Mom and brother to it and when I was at college I got the IT admins to install it back in the bad old days of IE6. But Firefox has lost its way. Its peak was 1.0 to 3.6. The memory leaks, the obsessive addon breaking, the theft of the status bar and ignoring its users and wasting 80 million dollars a year is the last straw. I uninstalled Firefox this week, and have switched to Chrome on my main PCs and Safari on my iPad. I might even go back to IE when Windows 8 comes out due to the promising platform previews.
Netscape died a horrible death, and Firefox seems to be repeating it. Hopefully enough concerned users fork the Firefox 3.6 code and "re-pheonix" it before it's too late.
Re:Major versions? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Meaning that if one wants stability, FireFox and Chrome are probably not for them.
IE and Opera started looking so much more attractive now. Even Netscape 4.7...
Re:STOP (Score:4, Interesting)
Everybody who still uses 3.6, raise your hand.
*raises hand*
Re:Plugins (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately six of the plugins I rely on (yes, those plugins that are supposedly the #1 reason to use Firefox over less customizable browsers) don't yet even support Firefox 5. Everytime that "update Firefox" box comes up, I check, find six plugins outstanding, and back out of it.
Update too fast and you will leave users behind.
I used to encourage Firefox use in my shop... I gave my users the choice of IE and Firefox, and back when IE had that huge list of old unpatched holes, I told my users that I preferred FireFox if they were so inclined.
I've taken FF off of the approved list. The upgrades are coming too fast, and breaking too many things (mostly plugins, as the parent poster noted).
Re:Rapid Release - a Tradeoff (Score:5, Interesting)
Chrome deals with this by having a limited addon API that does remain stable. This limits what addons you can write for Chrome, but it does make 80% of addons possible and with less upgrade hassle.
Firefox is moving to allow that approach with the jetpack SDK. However addons that don't use that SDK are relying on internal Firefox APIs, and the power and flexibility that that gives does mean they are at risk for breaking. Note that Mozilla's addons website will automatically check the code of addons hosted on it for actual API incompatibilities, and auto-mark as compatible addons that are not at risk. So a lot of addons 'just work' because of that. But still, some addons do rely on changing APIs, and some addons are not hosted on addons.mozilla.org, so the authors need to manually update them.
Re:Rapid Release - a Tradeoff (Score:3, Interesting)
What's important is to have LTS release for the enterprise. Like FF4, FF8 could be LTS. LTS means security fixes. Also have MSI packages for those lazy admins that can't create one themselves. That's mostly all that is needed and just need ONE guy at Mozilla, not even full time, to please the internet and enterprise.
I agree 100% that Firefox should have an LTS release. Also that we need MSI packages. However, I want to clarify that it would be a lot more than one person can do: It is a lot of work to maintain a stable release, you need lots of QA for every update and for every single OS it will run on. You also need support from other parts of the organization, from build infrastructure to technical documentation. Overall it is a significant effort to really do it seriously and properly.
I am less sure how hard it is to make MSI packages, I don't run Windows and never used that stuff myself.
Re:Rapid Release - a Tradeoff (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think I have ever been arrogant about Firefox. I feel the opposite actually - typical neurotic geek over here. So it's hard for me to understand what you mean: I think it's a humbling experience to be a dev in a big open source project like Firefox, I keep trying to do my best to improve the product so users like you will like it. When that doesn't happen, it makes me sad and I doubt myself. So I don't know why you think Firefox devs are arrogant - I feel exactly the opposite.
Again, sorry that you are so upset about this. I wish I could do something to help.
Re:Why not just wait for version 7? (Score:4, Interesting)
Changing banks is quite a lot hard than changing browser. I know from experience several years ago of changing my bank for not supporting anything other than IE6.
On the other hand, I do expect my bank to be fairly conservative in the rate at which it makes site changes (unless to patch a security issue); I understand that testing, validation and sign-off of new versions takes quite a while in a large organisation and I realise that operations people may want to schedule upgrade to a new version of the site for a particular time with some notice.
I don't work in finance, but I do deliver web-based systems, and have been wondering what to do about the rise of Chrome and its frequent silent upgrades. My strategy on projects has been to promise support for the most important IEs (soon, I hope, that won't include IE6), the last couple of major Firefoxen, and current Safari. Chrome is on a best efforts, should work but no guarantees, basis which has worked while it had fairly small share.
Now that Firefox moves its update regime in the same direction as Chrome (incidentally, as it's been doing in many choices for interface, multiprocess Electrolysis work, etc.), it's less clear what to do. I can deliver a version that works with the current Firefox, but I couldn't promise in a contract that it'll continue to work with as yet unreleased versions. If I deliver a site tested with Firefox 6 today (and tested, but not certified, with the FF7 branch) then it'll still sound out of date by the end of the year when we're all on FF9 or FF10.
Mozilla's answer is that we should all just forget about version numbers and trust that the stream of updates probably won't break things (and if it does it'll be for good reasons -- honest). All well and good but doesn't fit with the way many organisations manage things. Since 4.0, I've stopped evangelizing about Firefox; Mozilla have become yet another software company who cause me grief rather than something to be proud of.