For unknown reasons, my work computer (still on Windows XP but Win 2007 is coming any day now) won't let Firefox higher than 8.X run. 9.X or 10.X just freeze when starting up.
Firefox has launched a new version release system, creating an ESR for enterprises, organizations, etc. which is released once in 7 Firefox usual releases (Firefox 10, 17, 24, etc.), so that they don't have so much trouble (it must be horrible to find that two new versions have appeared as you are updating...). See a submission which didn't get to the front page [slashdot.org] for more details.
Firefox has launched a new version release system, creating an ESR for enterprises, organizations, etc. which is released once in 7 Firefox usual releases (Firefox 10, 17, 24, etc.), so that they don't have so much trouble (it must be horrible to find that two new versions have appeared as you are updating...). See a submission which didn't get to the front page [slashdot.org] for more details.
In addition to the ESR Firefox (which is basically like an Ubuntu LTS in how it works), Firefox 10 also marks addons as compatible by default. These two things solve much of the update annoyances.
FF11 will remove the UAC prompt on Windows, which will be a further improvement in 6 weeks from now.
Oh, but the bug reports do. Apparently they're going to "work around" UAC by running yet another background updater. Just what I need. Another background updater running at startup, slowing Windows boot, just to "work around" Windows security.
Somehow, the idea of "working around" security feat
Actually, there are links to two bugzilla issues in that link of yours that explain how they intend to do it (I won't link them here so/. doesn't drive bugzilla down).
It appears they intend to create a Windows service that runs as Administrator that will perform the updates, thus bypassing UAC.
It just doesn't prompt you, and ask for your permission.
Firefox actually started this rapid release schedule in response to Chrome's process. A large factor in the adoption of this process was likely due to Google's heavy involvement in Firefox and it's primary sponsor funding an assload of Firefox's cash flow. In fact a lot of what Firefox does not, seems like an active pursuit to become more like Chrome, whereas when Chrome started out, it essentially seeme
Every time you users are hit by the "release early, release often" that you always wished, I hear you moaning.
"It's time to upgrade again."
Attitude of that sentence somehow doesn't fit on shlashdot for me. I hoped that it was _here_ where people can appreciate the last "big" and still free browser.
I actually like it, but I have acute versionitis, I use git/hg/etc more than apt-get...so I don't count. The transition from latest versions has been quite smooth actually. No addons here (30+) failed to load in about 3-4 releases (beta channel).
With releases, keeping version numbers, you know, USEFUL is something we'd all like.
I'm ok with software updating often. However I'd like to have some easy idea of how large an update it is and version numbers are supposed to do that. Firefox used to do the multi-dot system of major.minor.fix. So if something went from say, 3.5.8 to 3.5.9 I knew it was just bug fixes, no testing needed just deploy it. However going from 3.5.9 to 4.0 tells me there could be some major changes and I need to look at it.
Now I have no fucking idea. There's a new "major" version like once a month, some which seem to be changed not at all, this one which seems to have made some non-trivial changes. Rather a pain in the ass to deal with in a large deployment setting, and confusing to users either way.
Imagine if MS did this with Windows, if every patch Tuesday brought a "new" Windows version out. However sometimes a new product would ship and be totally different. So you have a situation where Windows 3652 to 3653 is just a patch for XP but 3654 is Vista and is totally different.
FF's versioning is nonsensical and is just number envy as far as I can tell. "Let's do really big numbers so we look all new and shit!"
I'm going to quote myself from another forum; it's slightly old so the version numbers don't match what is current, but the idea is still the same. I'll also have you note that nowhere was there a guarentee that 3.5.x or 3.6.x releases were bug-fix-only releases; there were some rather significant feature changes and additions in both lines' "minor" versions.
Meanwhile I have Chromium 15 installed, which sounds just as bad. The rapid release schedule is desirable for progress of web technologies. Keeping traditional versioning schemes doesn't really work with that. Otherwise it'll be 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, etc... until what? 4.32? By then 4.32 might seem like a big enough step from 4.0 to have warranted several "major" version bumps, even though the change will seem minor compared to 4.31, and that minor compared to 4.30, and so on. (Emacs predates the browsers... it skipped from version 1.12 to version 13 when the authors realized they may never leave 1.x otherwise, essentally that first number became meaningless)
To both Google and Mozilla's credit, they have seriously downplayed the prevalance of the version number. What matters now is that users are up to date, and by most common installation modes, that happens fairly automatic for both of them. How many people can really tell that they're on Firefox 8 without having to open Help>About, or that they're on Chrome/Chromium 15 without opening its about dialog? Probably not many.
tl;dr: the old versioning system doesn't work. To top it off, Mozilla doesn't actively advertise version numbers either. Much of the hate seems to be generated by Slashdot feeling compelled to note that Firefox got an update.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Thursday February 02, 2012 @12:35AM (#38900011)
So... your argument is that because Mozilla failed to post the major updates with a correct increment to the major version number sometimes that it is reasonable to move to a system that always fails to increment the major version number correctly?
On the other hand, if they just kept the same version, you'd have something like Linux where all the changes between 2.6.0 and 2.6.40 were incremental enough not to merit a major version change, yet the differences between versions 2.4 and 2.6 were completely dwarfed by the differences between 2.6.0 and 2.6.40.
I'm not a software engineer, but from what I've noticed, it seems that once a product becomes mature enough (ie. once it does pretty much everything you expect), the version numbers become less significant as at that point as each revision is mostly just changing things under the hood, tweaking performance/security/stability/etc.
I think that works well for the kernel, which isn't actually a end-user visible system, plus it's a cumulative system where you can expect that if you have a kernel bigger than x.y.z then all is well. For GUI software I'd very much recommend a "redesign.features.patch" pattern where
"redesign" means we've moved things around, no guarantees about anything "features" means we may have added some menu items, expanded some dialogs and such, but if you knew how to use the old functionality you should still be able
I hoped that it was _here_ where people can appreciate the last "big" and still free browser.
Maybe it's because we remember when Firefox (then called Phoenix) was the small, lightweight, nimble browser that saved us from Mozilla's insanity ? Unfortunately it has gone over to the dark side.
I realize that it isn't a very popular around these parts, but quite a few websites still use this critter and are unlikely to stop using it in the near future. Meanwhile they're implementing antialiasing for WebGL and OpenGL ES acceleration, features that aren't in common use yet.
Hum...
This is the web we're talking about. It should be access to content first, then the frills.
This is working fairly well on Nightly [mozilla.org] and Aurora [mozilla.org]. On Beta (11) soon.
Adding Flash to Firefox was a considerable amount of work. Adobe and Google rather drastically re-wrote NPAPI. The only documentation on how Flash worked on Android is the Android source. This work represents several hundred person hours to get it working.
TBH Flash support is in the current release version has a pref for flash on 2.2 and 2.3 but the experience is rather poor, hence it being disabled with no UI to enable it. about:config change plugin.disable to false. Judge Flash progress against the Nighty or Aurora builds. The Beta 10 or release 10 builds are not representative of the Flash experience for 11+.
I wish I was joking. IE 6 as a precent of desktop web browser views went up [arstechnica.com] by 0.72% last month. FF as a whole went down, as did Chrome.
Not sure where they got their figures from, but I imagine it's something to do with country figures etc. being updated, which can lead to such odd jumps. At StatCounter [statcounter.com] IE6 continued down from 1.78% to 1.56% and Chrome grew a lot. Firefox is on the downward trend though, though not as bad as IE. In fact at last month's rate of change (with all the dangers of extrapolation) Chrome would overtake IE as the world's #1 web browser in four months, at least according to StatCounter. They seem to disagree with 10-
A version bump doesn't mean much these days, but this version is a big improvement. It's suddenly much more responsive and there's a very stylish built-in inspect tool if you press Ctrl+Shift+i. Also, Safari-style 3D transforms are implemented at last!
Could a Slashdot editor please add to the summary info about the Extended Support Release [mozilla.org] for organizations released at the same time, and the new built-in web developer tools [mozilla.com]? Even a link to a website with coverage about the new changes to Firefox [pcworld.com] would do.
I'm sorry but if you want a slashdot editor to do that, you ned to phrase it in a way that allows them to hit the right combination of buttons for the banana to drop.
Personally, it hasn't been an issue for me (with my old, highly-customized profile), but one of the new features listed in the not-so-technical release notes [mozilla.org] is "Most add-ons are now compatible with new versions of Firefox by default". This seems to be the major issue most people have with their quicker release cycle, so hopefully it'll alleviate some pain there.
Older versions of Firefox (Firebird? Phoenix?) had a separate version number just for extensions, which would've avoided these issues. However, it would create a confusing second version number completely unrelated to the browser version, and they always seemed to set it to the same number as the browser version anyway.
As for my personal upgrade anecdote, I set "extensions.checkCompatibility.10.0" to False just to be safe. When I restarted Firefox, I got the box asking which addons I wanted to enable and disable (with my current settings pre-selected). I clicked OK and Firefox 10 opened up, looking exactly the same as 9.0.1 (which I have customized to look and act almost exactly the same as 3.6).
Fuck off with the crazy versioning already. Otherwise, we're going to have to start using scientific notation to represent Firefox's version # in a few years. They'll just start skipping to the next 1000-level release # whenever there's a major update - "Firefox 2E3 ?! What the hell happened to 1.78E3 thru 1.99E3?!
can we all just please move to a date-time version system for software?
to me, firefox is just firefox, not firefox [number]. any software with the same name but a different version number is still just the same software to me, because it generally has the same overall basic function - even if it's found better ways or interfaces for doing so. it's not like firefox 9 was a browser but 10 came out and was all like "being a multi-tool web interface is lame, I'm gonna be an auto-cad clone now, so I need a new n
I still care about Firefox--it was the first real challenger to Internet Explorer since Netscape was dethroned, and it's such a nice browser... but Chrome just feels faster and more modern.
I guess considering that Google funds the Mozilla Foundation, the two browsers are not exactly competitors, and yet they are. Well, if Firefox slimmed down enough, I might switch back, since browsers are so functionally interchangeable these days, but for now I'm happy where I am. Sorry, Firefox team!
This isn't a problem on your average desktop, but it blows ass on older machines, laptops, and netbooks that don't have the resources or the newer technologies that help offset the fact that Firefox is fat
This isn't a problem on your average desktop, but it blows ass on older machines, laptops, and netbooks that don't have the resources or the newer technologies that help offset the fact that Firefox is fat
Firefox does have issues with being leaky. I came into the office the other day and it was using over 700MB RAM with about six tabs open. A restart fixed the issue, but Chrome doesn't have that problem. Then again, Chrome doesn't have side tabs (Tree Style Tabs), which is a must for having many tabs open. Tree Style Tabs is the only thing keeping me on FireFox.
Currently, Firefox is using 417 MB for 9 tabs. The second largest memory hog on my system is Notepad++ at 96 MB.
Currently, Firefox is using 417 MB for 9 tabs. The second largest memory hog on my system is Notepad++ at 96 MB.
You're lucky you don't work with IBM software.
My local WAS instance regularly goes above 1.2GB ram usage.
RAD is happy chewing up 600 odd MB
Plain old eclipse doesn't usually need more than 300M
Dunno, I've never had that issue. 6 months ago, my entire machine had 512 megs. Yes, you read that right. FF3.x did just fine on that. System software is Debian Squeeze, fully patched/updated. And no, the box isn't slow or anything noticeable.
I rarely have more than 3 or 4 tabs open, tho - maybe that's the secret. If I need to refer back to something that bad, then I just "save page as" or "print to file".
Well, right now, Firefox 9 on my work system is using 568,948K of RAM and I have 73 tabs open. It has been open all day, with heavy usage for most of it. I sometimes put my work box to sleep instead of turning it off.
I personally find that Chrome is better at managing small numbers of tabs and Firefox is better at managing many tabs. If I have saved around 10 tabs on each, Chrome always starts up within two seconds and loads all saved tabs quickly, and uses around half the RAM Firefox does. Firefox takes around 10-15 seconds or so before it's fully ready and uses twice as much RAM as Chrome does. In this way Chrome is a lighter and faster browser. However, if I have more like 50 saved tabs in both, then I find Firefox is ready to go sooner and uses far less RAM (30-40%) than Chrome does.
Some people find Firefox is fine, others find it is a huge hog. I get this behaviour on all my systems on which I have both installed (ranging from Atom based to Sandy Bridge machines), but I have had friends say they have the opposite experience I do. So it depends on the user and the sites they visit, the number of tabs people keep open, the extensions they have installed and their browsing habits.
We care because there are substantial performance gains in recent Firefox versions and Firefox 10 finally addresses the plugin situation in a reasonable manner. Sure 3.6 will continue to work but you're missing out... but feel free to keep your head in the sand.
I never thought I'd say it but it looks like the new release schedule is finally starting to pay dividends. Now if we could just get Mozilla to play better with the enterprise.
Of course they could have kept to exactly the same release schedule without completely changing the definition of "major version number" to the point that they now have no way of telling people when a real, serious, actually major change is happening.
You hate the new UI? I love it! More screen space devoted to web pages instead of interface. Chrome may have started this trend, but Firefox is keeping up.
I used to use addons to do the things newer versions of Firefox now do much better. Tried autohide addons for the menu bar and status bar, and they worked but not flawlessly. Settled on an addon that put the entire menu on a button next to the URL bar-- worked better than the menu autohide. Now I don't have to install any of that anymore. Anothe
You upgraded to 3.6? I tried 3.0, got tired of losing data, and downgraded back to 2.0. I tried 3.5, got tired of losing data, downgraded back to 2.0, poked around in Bugzilla until I found the relevant issue, noticed that the problem was not fixed in 3.6, and did not attempt the upgrade.
The most important bug that was keeping me from updating was finally fixed in, umm, I think version 8, maybe 9, but by then I had kind of lost interest in the upgrade treadmill, so at the moment I'm currently still using 2.
I tried 3.0, got tired of losing data, and downgraded back to 2.0. I tried 3.5, got tired of losing data, downgraded back to 2.0
Pray do tell what this mysterious critical data losing bug was that has you scared in a corner clinging to FFx 2.0 while tens of millions of other people have somehow managed to use every version since without a problem?
An example of "the right kinds of things", which would make me WANT to upgrade, would be something like,
Does "the right kind of thing" include not being vulnerable to exploits that were discovered after December 18, 2008?
If you really wanted a 64 bit version of Firefox you woud have already found and downloaded it since they've been building one for a while. Don't blame them for not walking up to you and handing it to you on a silver platter.
Finally, an Acoholics Anonymous mode! So, will this sense when I'm drunk off my ass and about to post something really stupid - aka posting while drunk?!
No, it's simply a mode in which the dwarves drawing lines in your graphics card walk with their brushes in a straight line instead of staggering along a jagged line like drunkards.
Why not, if e.g. Chrome does it right? Why should I care if the online document I'm viewing is HTML or PDF? I just want to see it, I don't care about minute implementation details.
Can't update on my work computer (Score:2)
Re:Can't update on my work computer (Score:5, Funny)
You need to edit your computer's maxVersion entry to read 10.0.*
Re:Can't update on my work computer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can't update on my work computer (Score:5, Insightful)
When did FF go from being the crown jewel of OS to absoloute dogshit?
Never?
Or are you making the mistake of paying too much attention to Slashdot trolls?
"Firefox n released"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Firefox n released"... (Score:5, Funny)
"'Firefox n released' is not a story" is not a comment.
Re:"Firefox n released"... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
| is not a pipe.
Re:"Firefox n released"... (Score:4, Insightful)
And nothing of value was gained.
Before any jokes appear (Score:5, Informative)
And FF10 also makes addons compatible by default (Score:5, Informative)
Firefox has launched a new version release system, creating an ESR for enterprises, organizations, etc. which is released once in 7 Firefox usual releases (Firefox 10, 17, 24, etc.), so that they don't have so much trouble (it must be horrible to find that two new versions have appeared as you are updating...). See a submission which didn't get to the front page [slashdot.org] for more details.
In addition to the ESR Firefox (which is basically like an Ubuntu LTS in how it works), Firefox 10 also marks addons as compatible by default. These two things solve much of the update annoyances.
FF11 will remove the UAC prompt on Windows, which will be a further improvement in 6 weeks from now.
Re:And FF10 also makes addons compatible by defaul (Score:5, Insightful)
FF11 will remove the UAC prompt on Windows, which will be a further improvement in 6 weeks from now.
That actually missed FF11, and is slated for FF12 [mozilla.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Firefox 10 also marks addons as compatible by default.
Actually, when I dropped out of the sandbox and attempted an upgrade the most useful addon I have was declared incompatible.
Password Hasher.
I'm just going to take a look now that I've been reminded and see if it will update without moaning.
Re: (Score:2)
FF11 will remove the UAC prompt on Windows, which will be a further improvement in 6 weeks from now.
How the hell do they intend to do that?
No, wait, let me guess - they intend to install it in the user directory like Chrome does. I have to guess, because the feature description sure doesn't explain how it would work [mozilla.org].
Oh, but the bug reports do. Apparently they're going to "work around" UAC by running yet another background updater. Just what I need. Another background updater running at startup, slowing Windows boot, just to "work around" Windows security.
Somehow, the idea of "working around" security feat
Re:And FF10 also makes addons compatible by defaul (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, there are links to two bugzilla issues in that link of yours that explain how they intend to do it (I won't link them here so /. doesn't drive bugzilla down).
It appears they intend to create a Windows service that runs as Administrator that will perform the updates, thus bypassing UAC.
Re:And FF10 also makes addons compatible by defaul (Score:5, Informative)
The Maintenance Service does not run at startup, but only when Firefox itself instructs it to do. It's installed with Startup type set to "Manual".
Seriously, before you whine at least take the time to read the damn bug.
Too slow (Score:5, Funny)
That's way too slow to keep up with firefox. ESRs should have been 4,8,16,32,...
Re: (Score:2)
I actually thought this was a joke before reading the follow-on commentary.
That's a problem.
Chromium master race (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Chromium master race (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you think Firefox got the idea from?
Re:Chromium master race (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously from Windows. I mean, they went from 3.1 to 95! No idea how they pulled that one off.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't use logic against people who don't think in logical terms.
And avoid people who use terms like "master race"
lolwut (Score:2, Insightful)
Chromium gets updated as frequently, if not more.
It just doesn't prompt you, and ask for your permission.
Firefox actually started this rapid release schedule in response to Chrome's process. A large factor in the adoption of this process was likely due to Google's heavy involvement in Firefox and it's primary sponsor funding an assload of Firefox's cash flow. In fact a lot of what Firefox does not, seems like an active pursuit to become more like Chrome, whereas when Chrome started out, it essentially seeme
Re:lolwut (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Chromium doesn't auto-update at all. You're thinking of Chrome.
Chromium also doesn't have a lot of the built-in BS that Chrome has, such as a PDF reader (Okular works just fine, thank you), and stats reporting.
OMG guys (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time you users are hit by the "release early, release often" that you always wished, I hear you moaning.
"It's time to upgrade again."
Attitude of that sentence somehow doesn't fit on shlashdot for me. I hoped that it was _here_ where people can appreciate the last "big" and still free browser.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually like it, but I have acute versionitis, I use git/hg/etc more than apt-get...so I don't count.
The transition from latest versions has been quite smooth actually. No addons here (30+) failed to load in about 3-4 releases (beta channel).
Re:OMG guys (Score:5, Insightful)
"Release early, release often" is intended for testers and bleeding-edge users, not end users who just want a stable product.
It's not as though there have been any user-noticeable changes between 3.6 and 9 other than them buggering up the GUI.
Re: (Score:2)
"Release early, release often" is intended for testers and bleeding-edge users, not end users who just want a stable product.
Pretty sure that was also John Holmes' personal philosophy.
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here 'til Thursday.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, then, see you next Thursday.
Also (Score:5, Insightful)
With releases, keeping version numbers, you know, USEFUL is something we'd all like.
I'm ok with software updating often. However I'd like to have some easy idea of how large an update it is and version numbers are supposed to do that. Firefox used to do the multi-dot system of major.minor.fix. So if something went from say, 3.5.8 to 3.5.9 I knew it was just bug fixes, no testing needed just deploy it. However going from 3.5.9 to 4.0 tells me there could be some major changes and I need to look at it.
Now I have no fucking idea. There's a new "major" version like once a month, some which seem to be changed not at all, this one which seems to have made some non-trivial changes. Rather a pain in the ass to deal with in a large deployment setting, and confusing to users either way.
Imagine if MS did this with Windows, if every patch Tuesday brought a "new" Windows version out. However sometimes a new product would ship and be totally different. So you have a situation where Windows 3652 to 3653 is just a patch for XP but 3654 is Vista and is totally different.
FF's versioning is nonsensical and is just number envy as far as I can tell. "Let's do really big numbers so we look all new and shit!"
Re:Also (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to quote myself from another forum; it's slightly old so the version numbers don't match what is current, but the idea is still the same. I'll also have you note that nowhere was there a guarentee that 3.5.x or 3.6.x releases were bug-fix-only releases; there were some rather significant feature changes and additions in both lines' "minor" versions.
Meanwhile I have Chromium 15 installed, which sounds just as bad. The rapid release schedule is desirable for progress of web technologies. Keeping traditional versioning schemes doesn't really work with that. Otherwise it'll be 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, etc... until what? 4.32? By then 4.32 might seem like a big enough step from 4.0 to have warranted several "major" version bumps, even though the change will seem minor compared to 4.31, and that minor compared to 4.30, and so on. (Emacs predates the browsers... it skipped from version 1.12 to version 13 when the authors realized they may never leave 1.x otherwise, essentally that first number became meaningless)
To both Google and Mozilla's credit, they have seriously downplayed the prevalance of the version number. What matters now is that users are up to date, and by most common installation modes, that happens fairly automatic for both of them. How many people can really tell that they're on Firefox 8 without having to open Help>About, or that they're on Chrome/Chromium 15 without opening its about dialog? Probably not many.
tl;dr: the old versioning system doesn't work. To top it off, Mozilla doesn't actively advertise version numbers either. Much of the hate seems to be generated by Slashdot feeling compelled to note that Firefox got an update.
Re:Also (Score:4, Insightful)
So... your argument is that because Mozilla failed to post the major updates with a correct increment to the major version number sometimes that it is reasonable to move to a system that always fails to increment the major version number correctly?
Re:Also (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if they just kept the same version, you'd have something like Linux where all the changes between 2.6.0 and 2.6.40 were incremental enough not to merit a major version change, yet the differences between versions 2.4 and 2.6 were completely dwarfed by the differences between 2.6.0 and 2.6.40.
I'm not a software engineer, but from what I've noticed, it seems that once a product becomes mature enough (ie. once it does pretty much everything you expect), the version numbers become less significant as at that point as each revision is mostly just changing things under the hood, tweaking performance/security/stability/etc.
Re: (Score:3)
I think that works well for the kernel, which isn't actually a end-user visible system, plus it's a cumulative system where you can expect that if you have a kernel bigger than x.y.z then all is well. For GUI software I'd very much recommend a "redesign.features.patch" pattern where
"redesign" means we've moved things around, no guarantees about anything
"features" means we may have added some menu items, expanded some dialogs and such, but if you knew how to use the old functionality you should still be able
Re: (Score:3)
I hoped that it was _here_ where people can appreciate the last "big" and still free browser.
Maybe it's because we remember when Firefox (then called Phoenix) was the small, lightweight, nimble browser that saved us from Mozilla's insanity ? Unfortunately it has gone over to the dark side.
Still no Flash in mobile ... (Score:3)
I realize that it isn't a very popular around these parts, but quite a few websites still use this critter and are unlikely to stop using it in the near future. Meanwhile they're implementing antialiasing for WebGL and OpenGL ES acceleration, features that aren't in common use yet.
Hum ...
This is the web we're talking about. It should be access to content first, then the frills.
Re:Still no Flash in mobile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still no Flash in mobile ... (Score:5, Funny)
Web developers must realize that the future is HTML5.
And IPV6. And "Strong" Artificial Intelligence. And maybe The Singularity. Or the Eschaton.
Re:Still no Flash in mobile ... (Score:4, Funny)
Steve, is that you...?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Adobe have discontinued Flash for mobile browsers [zdnet.com]. Those technologies you mention make up its replacement.
Re:Still no Flash in mobile ... (Score:5, Informative)
Flash is a plugin. Bug the people who make it -Adobe, not Mozilla- if you want to use it on mobile devices.
Re:Still no Flash in mobile ... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is working fairly well on Nightly [mozilla.org] and Aurora [mozilla.org]. On Beta (11) soon.
Adding Flash to Firefox was a considerable amount of work. Adobe and Google rather drastically re-wrote NPAPI. The only documentation on how Flash worked on Android is the Android source. This work represents several hundred person hours to get it working.
TBH Flash support is in the current release version has a pref for flash on 2.2 and 2.3 but the experience is rather poor, hence it being disabled with no UI to enable it. about:config change plugin.disable to false. Judge Flash progress against the Nighty or Aurora builds. The Beta 10 or release 10 builds are not representative of the Flash experience for 11+.
Under actual news, IE 6 market share grows. (Score:4, Informative)
I wish I was joking. IE 6 as a precent of desktop web browser views went up [arstechnica.com] by 0.72% last month. FF as a whole went down, as did Chrome.
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure where they got their figures from, but I imagine it's something to do with country figures etc. being updated, which can lead to such odd jumps. At StatCounter [statcounter.com] IE6 continued down from 1.78% to 1.56% and Chrome grew a lot. Firefox is on the downward trend though, though not as bad as IE. In fact at last month's rate of change (with all the dangers of extrapolation) Chrome would overtake IE as the world's #1 web browser in four months, at least according to StatCounter. They seem to disagree with 10-
I like it (Score:5, Informative)
A version bump doesn't mean much these days, but this version is a big improvement. It's suddenly much more responsive and there's a very stylish built-in inspect tool if you press Ctrl+Shift+i. Also, Safari-style 3D transforms are implemented at last!
1403 issues resolved (Score:3)
From their release page, I count 1403 issues resolved for this release.
That's a hell of an engineering effort for a six-week release. Kudos, Firefox devs.
Incomplete summary (Score:5, Informative)
Could a Slashdot editor please add to the summary info about the Extended Support Release [mozilla.org] for organizations released at the same time, and the new built-in web developer tools [mozilla.com]? Even a link to a website with coverage about the new changes to Firefox [pcworld.com] would do.
Re: (Score:3)
Summary with important info? You must be new here.
Re:Incomplete summary (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry but if you want a slashdot editor to do that, you ned to phrase it in a way that allows them to hit the right combination of buttons for the banana to drop.
Re:Incomplete summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Could a Slashdot editor please add to the summary info about teh Koch brothers payola [mozilla.org] for organizations relased at the same time, and the new built-in government tracking software [mozilla.com]? Even a link too a website with coverage about the Apple iPad vs. Google Android [pcworld.com] would do.
Fixed your post to meet slashdot editorial standards.
Addons now compatible by default (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, it hasn't been an issue for me (with my old, highly-customized profile), but one of the new features listed in the not-so-technical release notes [mozilla.org] is "Most add-ons are now compatible with new versions of Firefox by default". This seems to be the major issue most people have with their quicker release cycle, so hopefully it'll alleviate some pain there.
Older versions of Firefox (Firebird? Phoenix?) had a separate version number just for extensions, which would've avoided these issues. However, it would create a confusing second version number completely unrelated to the browser version, and they always seemed to set it to the same number as the browser version anyway.
As for my personal upgrade anecdote, I set "extensions.checkCompatibility.10.0" to False just to be safe. When I restarted Firefox, I got the box asking which addons I wanted to enable and disable (with my current settings pre-selected). I clicked OK and Firefox 10 opened up, looking exactly the same as 9.0.1 (which I have customized to look and act almost exactly the same as 3.6).
Firefox 4.10 (Score:3, Insightful)
I prefer to think of this as Firefox 4.10 (or 3.10?)
Your welcome everyone (Score:2)
I just upgraded everything to firefox 9 last night ...
Oh for crying out loud... (Score:2, Funny)
Fuck off with the crazy versioning already. Otherwise, we're going to have to start using scientific notation to represent Firefox's version # in a few years. They'll just start skipping to the next 1000-level release # whenever there's a major update - "Firefox 2E3 ?! What the hell happened to 1.78E3 thru 1.99E3?!
date-time version system (Score:2, Interesting)
can we all just please move to a date-time version system for software?
to me, firefox is just firefox, not firefox [number]. any software with the same name but a different version number is still just the same software to me, because it generally has the same overall basic function - even if it's found better ways or interfaces for doing so. it's not like firefox 9 was a browser but 10 came out and was all like "being a multi-tool web interface is lame, I'm gonna be an auto-cad clone now, so I need a new n
So, no 9.1 then? (Score:2, Insightful)
Major version numbers should be for major features, not for bug fixes.
Version numbers gone (Score:3)
Major version numbers should be for major features, not for bug fixes.
For better or worse, Firefox doesn't use versions numbers anymore. They're only numbering releases now - versioning is gone.
I personally like version numbers, but we can't complain about Firefox doing version numbers wrong when they're not longer using version numbers.
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Funny)
if it was called Firefox X I would totally be on board! or maybe FirefoX.
If it was called FireAsaDotzler I'd be 100% behind it.
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Funny)
if it was called Firefox X I would totally be on board! or maybe FirefoX.
It' would have to be FirerfoXXX for me to get on board. The XX stuff is a bit lame for my perverted tastes.
How does it compare to Chrome? (Score:3, Insightful)
I still care about Firefox--it was the first real challenger to Internet Explorer since Netscape was dethroned, and it's such a nice browser... but Chrome just feels faster and more modern.
I guess considering that Google funds the Mozilla Foundation, the two browsers are not exactly competitors, and yet they are. Well, if Firefox slimmed down enough, I might switch back, since browsers are so functionally interchangeable these days, but for now I'm happy where I am. Sorry, Firefox team!
Re:How does it compare to Chrome? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if Firefox slimmed down enough
Actually if you download the Chrome and Firefox installers, you will see that Chrome is twice as large.
There are various definitions of "slimness", each browser wins on some, unsurprising because both of these are good browsers.
Re:How does it compare to Chrome? (Score:4, Informative)
chrome RAM usage on http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/02/01/1840252/firefox-10-released [slashdot.org], only tab open - 99mb across 4 processes(chrome.exe x4)
This isn't a problem on your average desktop, but it blows ass on older machines, laptops, and netbooks that don't have the resources or the newer technologies that help offset the fact that Firefox is fat
Re:How does it compare to Chrome? (Score:4, Interesting)
firefox RAM usage on http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/02/01/1840252/firefox-10-released [slashdot.org], only tab open - 243mb across 2 processes(firefox.exe, plugin-container.exe)
chrome RAM usage on http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/02/01/1840252/firefox-10-released [slashdot.org], only tab open - 99mb across 4 processes(chrome.exe x4)
This isn't a problem on your average desktop, but it blows ass on older machines, laptops, and netbooks that don't have the resources or the newer technologies that help offset the fact that Firefox is fat
Firefox does have issues with being leaky. I came into the office the other day and it was using over 700MB RAM with about six tabs open. A restart fixed the issue, but Chrome doesn't have that problem. Then again, Chrome doesn't have side tabs (Tree Style Tabs), which is a must for having many tabs open. Tree Style Tabs is the only thing keeping me on FireFox.
Currently, Firefox is using 417 MB for 9 tabs. The second largest memory hog on my system is Notepad++ at 96 MB.
Re:How does it compare to Chrome? (Score:4, Funny)
Currently, Firefox is using 417 MB for 9 tabs. The second largest memory hog on my system is Notepad++ at 96 MB.
You're lucky you don't work with IBM software.
My local WAS instance regularly goes above 1.2GB ram usage.
RAD is happy chewing up 600 odd MB
Plain old eclipse doesn't usually need more than 300M
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Dunno, I've never had that issue. 6 months ago, my entire machine had 512 megs. Yes, you read that right. FF3.x did just fine on that. System software is Debian Squeeze, fully patched/updated. And no, the box isn't slow or anything noticeable.
I rarely have more than 3 or 4 tabs open, tho - maybe that's the secret. If I need to refer back to something that bad, then I just "save page as" or "print to file".
Re:How does it compare to Chrome? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, right now, Firefox 9 on my work system is using 568,948K of RAM and I have 73 tabs open. It has been open all day, with heavy usage for most of it. I sometimes put my work box to sleep instead of turning it off.
I personally find that Chrome is better at managing small numbers of tabs and Firefox is better at managing many tabs. If I have saved around 10 tabs on each, Chrome always starts up within two seconds and loads all saved tabs quickly, and uses around half the RAM Firefox does. Firefox takes around 10-15 seconds or so before it's fully ready and uses twice as much RAM as Chrome does. In this way Chrome is a lighter and faster browser. However, if I have more like 50 saved tabs in both, then I find Firefox is ready to go sooner and uses far less RAM (30-40%) than Chrome does.
Some people find Firefox is fine, others find it is a huge hog. I get this behaviour on all my systems on which I have both installed (ranging from Atom based to Sandy Bridge machines), but I have had friends say they have the opposite experience I do. So it depends on the user and the sites they visit, the number of tabs people keep open, the extensions they have installed and their browsing habits.
Re: (Score:3)
chrome RAM usage on http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/02/01/1840252/firefox-10-released [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org], only tab open - 99mb across 4 processes(chrome.exe x4)
Since you mention Process Explorer - did you account for memory pages shared (e.g. from same .exe and referenced DLLs used) across those processes?
Re:How does it compare to Chrome? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that memory mostly a cache? so if your machine has less memory it will try to use less so it doesn't run out of memory on the machine?
and if your pc has oodles of memory it will use it, thereby increasing performance.
unused ram is worthless. software using ram as a cache is a good idea if done right.
dont complain if it uses too much memory - only complain if it doesn't free it when you need it for something else.
Re:How does it compare to Chrome? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How does it compare to Chrome? (Score:5, Funny)
That is unless your ass actually is Process Explorer
That would explain a lot about Process Explorer.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Set
'When firefox starts'
to be
Show my windows and tabs from last time''
and tick the checkbox
'Don't load tabs until selected'
This vastly reduces the RAM used by Firefox, I often carry over a 100 tabs from one login to the next.
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Insightful)
?
Plods along on 3.6 still...
We care because there are substantial performance gains in recent Firefox versions and Firefox 10 finally addresses the plugin situation in a reasonable manner. Sure 3.6 will continue to work but you're missing out... but feel free to keep your head in the sand.
I never thought I'd say it but it looks like the new release schedule is finally starting to pay dividends. Now if we could just get Mozilla to play better with the enterprise.
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they could have kept to exactly the same release schedule without completely changing the definition of "major version number" to the point that they now have no way of telling people when a real, serious, actually major change is happening.
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Informative)
Now if we could just get Mozilla to play better with the enterprise.
The first Extended Support Release is based on Firefox 10: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/ [mozilla.org]. The FAQ [mozilla.org] outlines the life cycle for the ESR builds.
Re: (Score:3)
You hate the new UI? I love it! More screen space devoted to web pages instead of interface. Chrome may have started this trend, but Firefox is keeping up.
I used to use addons to do the things newer versions of Firefox now do much better. Tried autohide addons for the menu bar and status bar, and they worked but not flawlessly. Settled on an addon that put the entire menu on a button next to the URL bar-- worked better than the menu autohide. Now I don't have to install any of that anymore. Anothe
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I tried 3.0, got tired of losing data, and downgraded back to 2.0. I tried 3.5, got tired of losing data, downgraded back to 2.0, poked around in Bugzilla until I found the relevant issue, noticed that the problem was not fixed in 3.6, and did not attempt the upgrade.
The most important bug that was keeping me from updating was finally fixed in, umm, I think version 8, maybe 9, but by then I had kind of lost interest in the upgrade treadmill, so at the moment I'm currently still using 2.
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried 3.0, got tired of losing data, and downgraded back to 2.0. I tried 3.5, got tired of losing data, downgraded back to 2.0
Pray do tell what this mysterious critical data losing bug was that has you scared in a corner clinging to FFx 2.0 while tens of millions of other people have somehow managed to use every version since without a problem?
An example of "the right kinds of things", which would make me WANT to upgrade, would be something like,
Does "the right kind of thing" include not being vulnerable to exploits that were discovered after December 18, 2008?
Re: (Score:3)
Do you also not have a Facebook account and do you refuse to use texts? AKA who gives a shit?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I am on mosaic
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Funny)
i am on telnet. beta.
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Funny)
*smoke*
*smoke*
*smoke*
Re:And we care because... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Funny)
(whacks oodaloop over the head with a bone, shrieks loudly)
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Funny)
(Uses protein expression between clusters of cells)
Re:And we care because... (Score:4, Funny)
(is not)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
UGUAAGAGUGGAAGGACAGAUUAG
Re: (Score:3)
42
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I set the entire universe in motion with carefully designated laws such that it was inevitable that the following message would be expressed:
It is truly beautigul.
Re:And we care because... (Score:5, Funny)
i know
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If you really wanted a 64 bit version of Firefox you woud have already found and downloaded it since they've been building one for a while. Don't blame them for not walking up to you and handing it to you on a silver platter.
Re:End of Fark? (Score:4, Funny)
Finally, an Acoholics Anonymous mode! So, will this sense when I'm drunk off my ass and about to post something really stupid - aka posting while drunk?!
No, it's simply a mode in which the dwarves drawing lines in your graphics card walk with their brushes in a straight line instead of staggering along a jagged line like drunkards.
Re:youtube (Score:5, Funny)
Youtube only exists in Firefox?
Re:List of bugs fixed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Wow thats a lot of bugs fixed in this version (Score:5, Funny)
Where is the list of bugs introduced with this upgrade?
In the "What's New" Section of Firefox 11.
Re: (Score:3)
Why not, if e.g. Chrome does it right? Why should I care if the online document I'm viewing is HTML or PDF? I just want to see it, I don't care about minute implementation details.