Firefox 10 Released 364
Taco Cowboy writes "It's time to upgrade again. Firefox 10 is out and here's a list of bugs fixed in the new version."
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Firefox 10 Released
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One man's constant is another man's variable. -- A.J. Perlis
"Firefox n released"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Chromium master race (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you think Firefox got the idea from?
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!
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.
It's all new! (Score:0, Insightful)
We don't fix bugs, we release new versions! This time we put a '10' on the box on Flynn OS I mean FireFox.
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 seemed to be a version of Firefox staple gunned on top of WebKit.
Chrome is up to like version 18. I bet you started using it somewhere between 4 and 9.
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:Still no Flash in mobile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Firefox n released"... (Score:4, Insightful)
And nothing of value was gained.
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: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.
Mod parent up. (Score:1, Insightful)
This.
It's Google's fault; a stupid version number arms race.
Firefox 4.10 (Score:3, Insightful)
I prefer to think of this as Firefox 4.10 (or 3.10?)
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 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].
So, no 9.1 then? (Score:2, Insightful)
Major version numbers should be for major features, not for bug fixes.
Re:List of bugs fixed... (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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?
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: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.
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: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, 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: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?