Monday, June 20th 2011
Mozilla Expedites Firefox Development Cycle, New Release Tomorrow
There must be some latent value in version number. Close to 3 years old, Google Chrome is already at version 14 in its developer channel. The grand old man of web-browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE), which has a much slower release cycle, is at version 9. The second oldest browser in production, Opera, is at version 11. That leaves Mozilla Firefox, which is relatively newer to the market, but crawled its way past generations by versions 1.0x or 0.5x, with 0.0.1x in near-monthly minor updates. With the browser-wars hotting up as Google Chrome maintains its breakneck development cycle and MSIE regained competitiveness with version 9, Mozilla Firefox is ceding market-share. Perhaps this is pushing Mozilla to speed up its update cycle.
In Mozilla's case, this seems more like an version number inflation, because Firefox 4 was released just this March, and has only had one minor update since (4.0.1). The group is already looking to release the next "big release", Firefox 5, on 21 June, 2011. Its file locations on Mozilla's FTP are already leaked. Unlike with older major releases where each comes with a changed user interface, layout, or at least new icons; Firefox 5 user interface is identical to that of Firefox 4. The changes here are a faster webpage rendering engine, improved HTML5 support, the ability to pin bookmarked webpages to the Windows Taskbar a-là MSIE 9, and a built-in Adobe PDF reader a-là Chrome.
DOWNLOAD: Mozilla Firefox 5 (Win32)
Source:
The Tech Journal
In Mozilla's case, this seems more like an version number inflation, because Firefox 4 was released just this March, and has only had one minor update since (4.0.1). The group is already looking to release the next "big release", Firefox 5, on 21 June, 2011. Its file locations on Mozilla's FTP are already leaked. Unlike with older major releases where each comes with a changed user interface, layout, or at least new icons; Firefox 5 user interface is identical to that of Firefox 4. The changes here are a faster webpage rendering engine, improved HTML5 support, the ability to pin bookmarked webpages to the Windows Taskbar a-là MSIE 9, and a built-in Adobe PDF reader a-là Chrome.
DOWNLOAD: Mozilla Firefox 5 (Win32)
29 Comments on Mozilla Expedites Firefox Development Cycle, New Release Tomorrow
Which is at 6.02a if anyone wants to get it too.
(No updates have been unstable thus far)
@Red_Machine: agreed. Google Chrome's version number race is annoying, as there's barely any functional and cosmetic difference between them, even if there is under the hood.
Download the one in the English the rest of the world uses:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/5.0/win32/en-GB/
I just hope Opera won't follow this stupid route as their version numbering makes the most sense for now. Jumps by 0.1 are for hotfixes, jumps for 0.50 are for larger changes and whole number changes are for complete overhaul and a bigger step forward. Easy to follow and it just makes sense. Like it did for Firefox before version 4.0...
EDIT: and definitely see some speed improvements.
MSE is light and tell me how often do you actually have to scan your system, i only need to scan once every 5-6months and always turn up clean with mbam and mse so seems kinda worthless to have a resource hog AV that well since im not a complete moron on the internet downloading from every link possible will need the extra 4-5mins of my life back cause i get a virus every day like my uncles wife.... even with Kaspersky she gets viruses... Users the biggest difference in Viruses infecting a machine an A/V cant stop user stupidity.
On another note, FF5 fixes the blurry fonts issue. Settings are now found under pre-installed addons.
And most of my addon now refuse to load, good job Mozilla. Yes, I know there's a workaround for it, but end user shouldn't required to do it just because they feel like joining the stupid race with Chrome.
I no longer feel that Firefox is MY browser and it's a little saddening - most recently they enforce radical interface changes with not even a CHOICE to the user - based on OTHER browsers that I have obviously chosen NOT to use as I'm still using Firefox.
I may as well just USE chrome now - it's lighter anyway.
Everything that made Firefox DIFFERENT, and hence gave it value, is slowly evaporating away as it chameleons itself into the common swamp of samey-samey design - it's no longer unique...
... it's no longer attractive. :(