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Firefox News

Firefox 8.0 Beta Available 305

Posted by Soulskill from the another-day-another-version dept.
An anonymous reader tips news that Mozilla has released the beta version of Firefox 8, only a few days after going live with the final version of Firefox 7. According to the announcement, the big changes this time around include the ability to use Twitter as a default search engine, more versatility in restoring tabs on startup, and improved user control over add-ons. "Users will receive a one-time notification to review and confirm third party add-ons they want to keep, disable or delete. When Firefox starts and finds that a third-party program has installed an add-on, Firefox will disable the add-on until the user has explicitly opted in, giving users better control over their Web experience."
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Firefox 8.0 Beta Available More

Firefox 8.0 Beta Available

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  • Im confused (Score:4, Funny)

    by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @11:20AM (#37567466)

    Is 'firefox' a browser or a unit of currency in Italy?

  • are you kidding me? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hymie! ( 95907 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @11:23AM (#37567516)

    I was just about to point out that I had to revert to Firefox 5.X because Firefox 6 broke a web site I need.

    Then I read this:

    the ability to use Twitter as a default search engine,

    and I'm seriously wondering why I don't run Opera or Chrome.

    Oh, right. FoxyProxy is the reason why I don't run Opera or Chrome.

    • I switched to Opera this week. bye bye chrome and firefox.....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mcvos ( 645701 )

        Are people switching TO Opera? I'm in the process of abandoning it. It used to be an amazing browser, way ahead of the curve. But all its interesting features have been copied by everybody else by now, and too many websites just don't work well in Opera.

        • Like which websites? I've used Opera consistently for about 7 years now. It used to not work with a few sites, but it's been a while since I've come across anything that is actually broken. And it still has a large number of uncopied features (like a mail client) which I've simply become used to having around. Ever since it added extensions, I really think there isn't a good reason to use Firefox anymore (aside maybe from an extension that hasn't been ported yet.)

    • and I'm seriously wondering why I don't run Opera or Chrome.

      Have you checked out Chrome's release schedule? You get new versions weekly (more or less). The last updates were 18th and 21st of September (three days between them, tada!)

      The only difference is that Firefox uses simple, consecutive integers and Chrome's version numbers look more like IP addresses.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MechaStreisand ( 585905 )
        No, the difference is that Chrome doesn't fuck with things on every new version, and Firefox DOES.

        • Why is that I run nightly and I have not encounter any problems? What are those things that were fucked in the last release ?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Creepy ( 93888 )

            Extensions. They invalidate them every major revision and they've been revising on a schedule where many of these plugins aren't keeping up. It was much better when there were point releases that didn't break the extensions, but now they're broken every 3 months and the vendors can't keep up.

        • Chromium does, they're just doing it at a more frequent rate. People acclimate to minute changes made very often (every few days) over bigger/more changes made at once (even if it's every few weeks instead of every year or so).

          eBay changed the color on the background of a part of a page from one color to another - IIRC it was yellow to purple - and users flipped so much they changed it back. Then, over the course of several weeks, they did many intermediate colors, changing it a couple days a week. Sudde

      • Bug fixes and security patches can come out days apart, but it is six weeks between release numbers for Chrome.

    • Re:are you kidding me? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) * on Friday September 30, 2011 @11:55AM (#37568042) Journal

      The really sad thing? The other week, the latest release of Firefox 6 decided that it wanted to intermittently crash my Nvidia drivers. Until I figured out I could fix this by disabling the hardware acceleration option (which has absolutely zero impact on performance anyway), I was coming to the conclusion that rather than Opera or Chrome, if I was going to switch, it would be to IE. Having not used it for years, I was pretty shocked at how much it had improved in the interim.

      That said, I think there's some deep part of me that would just find it hard to trust IE.

      But yes, Firefox has long since passed the point where a new version meant "oooh, new features" and reached the point where it means "oh god, what have they broken or ruined this time?"

      • If Firefox is able to crash your Nvidia drivers, it's the drivers - or possibly the Windows graphics subsystem - that are fucked, not Firefox.

        I know this is irrelevant to you as the user, but we're on /.

      • You probably want to get new drivers. If a userland piece of software is able to "crash your drivers", sounds like most of the blame goes to nVidia.

      • Re:are you kidding me? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Waccoon ( 1186667 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @01:36PM (#37569570)

        I developed the exact same problem with my ATI drivers after updating to Calalyst 11.7. Blue Screens of Death after watching exactly 3 YouTube videos under Adobe Flash.

        I disabled hardware acceleration in Flash and now the system is perfectly stable.

        I'm still using Firefox 3.6.x

        So, either Flash is the culprit, or there's something wrong with trying to use "hardware acceleration" (of what?) through the overlay that Firefox is using. Does Opera/Chrome/IE have similar problems? I've just accepted that Flash itself was the problem, and haven't tested any other browsers.

    • Re:are you kidding me? (Score:4, Informative)

      by BZ ( 40346 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @11:55AM (#37568056)

      Is there a bug on file on this? We try really hard to not break websites, obviously; if we broke something without realizing it we would _really_ like to know.

      • Re:are you kidding me? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rubycodez ( 864176 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @01:51PM (#37569778)
        The BUG is between your comrades right ear and left, they are DESTROYING a once-good software because this version churning breaks plugins, breaks access to web sites, and break use with other web-fronted softwares. Your team is ignoring user needs and flying off on a ridiculous tangent that does the users no good. People are getting fed up with this crap and ditching Firefox. Your project will LOSE MONEY that it gets based on user share. Tell them to quit being ivory tower dumb-asses working in a vacuum and start taking heed of the real world of users.

    • Re:are you kidding me? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MrZilla ( 682337 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @12:11PM (#37568304) Homepage

      I tried switching from FF3 to FF6 recently. I did not like it at all.
      Currently been running Chrome for a few days, it's OK, but has some irritating issues (for me).

      Will try Opera next week.
      Then IE.
      Then I will give up and move to some deserted island and avoid modern browsers for ever.

      • Now it sucks up processor and memory faster than Firefox using some "Safari Web Content" process.

      • I'm right there with you. I'm sticking with FF3.6.x until end of life then off to Opera it is. I could care less about rapid release but the UI issues make FF4+ more of an annoyance than anything.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by LordLimecat ( 1103839 )

        You could always go back to the older browsers. You can still download Phoenix 0.5 (aka pre-firefox firefox) right here [mozilla.org], and Firefox 1.0 here [oldapps.com]. Im pretty sure you will discover that its a case of "the grass is always greener", though.

        And of course, theres always lynx.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nkh ( 750837 )
      I installed Firefox 7.0 recently because I needed a SQLite manager and it's available as an add-on. But I'll stay with Chrome for the moment to browse the web, it's fast, stable and has all the features I need.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      This is something that makes me wonder as well. The only reason I still use FF (3.6 in my case) is add-ons.

      If Opera supported FF add-ons, or had alternatives for all my current add-ons, I'd switch now and never look back.

  • Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by loftwyr ( 36717 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @11:25AM (#37567554)

    With Firefox releasing betas/alphas and new releases every few weeks, why are we covering this? Can't we just have the ever six week release story and maybe another one if they do something innovative?

    Chrome is on version 15 but I don't see a story here every number change.

    • Because it gives Slashdot a way to garner page hits from the inevitable Firefox hatefest.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        Which is a shame, as a couple of years ago firefox was a slashdot baby that everyone loved.

    • Maybe in version 8 they can add support for Page Up and Page Down. It's not working for me on version 7 right now.

      • You have to press the keys with your finger. HTH.

      • along those lines, why can't i right click the scroll bar and select TOP or BOTTOM like in so many other programs? This has always driven me crazy when i'm on a loooong page and want to get back to the top where the navigation crap is.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 0123456 ( 636235 )

        Maybe in version 8 they can add support for Page Up and Page Down. It's not working for me on version 7 right now.

        It seems to have disappeared somewhere between 3.6 and 7.0. I guess it was a confusing feature so they had to remove it.

      • What are you talking about? Works fine on my Mac.

    • Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Baloroth ( 2370816 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @12:09PM (#37568278)
      This was my reaction too. This isn't even a release, it's a beta. AFAIK Firefox constantly has a beta out, it shouldn't be news to anyone on this site.

    • Because people still have to complain about the version number, so they up vote this stuff. It's important to them, because they want people to switch to Chrome.
      Oh yeah, Chrome versions are worse and its released more often, but that's beyond the point. The point is to bash, flame, troll, the competition. That's what people like.
      And then again, that's why this story is up voted.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tridus ( 79566 )

      Agreed. FF release builds are barely news worthy at this point. A new beta most certainly is not.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      Because there are young geeks out there that still care about messing with betas and don't know everything about all the topics Slashdot *has* posted in the PAST.

      When I was a first year undergrad, just getting to learn Slashdot, I remember reading about the beta (maybe alpha) here. I downloaded it, installed it, and followed every single beta release after that. I installed it on other peoples' computers. There were other beta programs announced and I tried those, too. I watched the BetaNews feed in hopes o

    • Can't we just have the ever six week release story

      How about we skip that step altogether and start ignoring these "major" releases. I mean, whooptidoo I can use twitter as a search engine. That's major release worthy.

      one if they do something innovative?

      Only if it hasn't been done before...

      The only thing making Firefox still relevant for me is the extensions. And quite frankly, that's on the decline too.

  • Fuck it. I may as well do up a script to check out the latest nightly updates and re-build FF every day for me.

  • Third Party Addons... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nschubach ( 922175 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @11:27AM (#37567594) Journal

    Users will receive a one-time notification to review and confirm third party add-ons they want to keep, disable or delete. When Firefox starts and finds that a third-party program has installed an add-on

    I assume this include Microsoft stealth adding extensions to the browser?

    IE: Windows Media Player Plugin

    • Think Flash....

      • Mozilla blog mentions that it's for addons, which are different from plugins (plugins use NPAPI - Flash, Java, Shockwave, etc. - vs XPIs). They are separately listed in the addons manager for that reason. At this point, I'd say it probably doesn't apply to plugins, but the page doesn't give enough context to determine that.

    • Users will receive a one-time notification to review and confirm third party add-ons they want to keep, disable or delete. When Firefox starts and finds that a third-party program has installed an add-on

      I assume this include Microsoft stealth adding extensions to the browser?

      IE: Windows Media Player Plugin

      Yeah, addons that added themselves outside the normal system weren't always removable (through Firefox) and Firefox never asked about them. Yahoo Toolbar, Bing, etc.

      Change for the better. Users who don't explicitly want something are unlikely to approve it (since it's disabled by default), and users who don't know better are more likely to ignore it (again, disabled by default). I think you'll have few "click-throughers" that will check the box to enable the addon then hit continue.

      However, they're tal

      • Yeah, addons that added themselves outside the normal system weren't always removable (through Firefox) and Firefox never asked about them. Yahoo Toolbar, Bing, etc.

        The toolbars were always extensions, and removable-- unless they were installed in a system-wide fashion, in which case you need to manually remove them from the firefox program folder.

        However, they're talking addons at this point (Adblock Plus, BetterPrivacy, Greasemonkey, Skype etc.) - NOT plugins (Flash, Shockwave, Java [except the Console, which is an addon], etc.).

        Addons is a parent category that includes Extensions (Adblock and the rest) and Plugins (flash, etc). You can see this when you go to the firefox menu-- the "addons" entry takes you to a list of extensions and plugins. The "get addons" is referring to the fact that all extensions are, in fact, addons. Think "square is a re

  • What third-party addons? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Friday September 30, 2011 @11:42AM (#37567854) Homepage
    The addons I want to keep? Sorry, I've never had this experience. It's more like, "the addons I want to permanently disable as they won't be updated to the latest version because the creator finished his project and moved on with his life". Seriously, a browser whose entire idea is 'you can extend it' combined with constant compatibility-breaking updates?

    • They have a new add-on update thing for exactly this reason.

      Previously, all add-ons were marked "incompatible" by default on a major version change and authors needed to test their add-on and explicitly mark it as OK for it to work. This caused the painful loss of add-ons during major updates that you mention.

      The new system scans the source code for every add-on automatically and flags as compatible all those which don't touch parts of firefox which have changed. As a result, as long as the author of th

    • Allright, allright, I think I just need to add my experience: that since FireFox 5, updates have never broken ANY of my plugins. The list of plugins I use is below. I don't know what plugins are affected but all this ranting on Slashdot may just be symptomatic of this being Slashdot and nerds using weird hacked together plugins that scratch a particular itch and are realistically speaking, fringe. Can you name any popular plugins that have been broken since the recent high speed updates? You know what, I'm

  • wow (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    oh wow. twitter as a search engine? you sure it doesn't warrant an even BIGGER version number? like say 15? it's a major enhancement to the search bar after all

    • The development cycle is better but using major numbers is stupid and has rendered it meaningless IMO. Chrome ratchets up the version number similarly, they just don't trumpet it and instead silently update (which Mozilla is deeply opposed to).

      Honestly I think the default option should be default stealth update like Chrome and, during install, ask if people want continuous silent updates. Let the nerds opt out if they have concerns and let everyone who doesn't like to know about every update get it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tridus ( 79566 )

      Why don't we just round it up to an even Firefox 2147483648?

  • I mean, how much money have they spent on cakes?
  • You know how annoying it would be to have to stop and look for your tools because someone's pet monkey would sneak away with your tools? Well Firefox seems to have become that pet monkey. I'm deep into some project, and suddenly I get some upgrade notice and I have to review which updates are now broken? Oh then I got to find out what else is broke? Firefox, give us a break!! Er wait don't! You've been giving us plenty of broken tools, web sites.

  • Oh Christ. Cue 100+ support calls.

  • We're finally taking a break from the Microsoft/Apple bashing. Always refreshing to have a new company to hate.

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