Firefox 5 beta arrives for desktop and Android

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Firefox 5 beta arrives for desktop and Android

FYI some plug-ins and extensions have not been updated

Hoople

1:12 am on Jun 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

[arstechnica.com ]

Mozilla has announced the availability of the first Firefox 5 beta release for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Android. The new desktop version includes a built-in release channel switcher and support for CSS animations. The new mobile version introduces support for the Do Not Track header and a number of other improvements.

engine

4:39 pm on Jun 21, 2011 (gmt 0)

Mozilla Firefox 5 Released With Do Not Track Across Platforms [blog.mozilla.com]

Mozilla, a global, nonprofit organization dedicated to making the Web better, today released a new version of Mozilla Firefox for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. The new version of Firefox comes on the heels of the wildly successful release of Firefox 4, which had more than 200 million downloads on Windows, Mac and Linux and millions of downloads in the Android Market.

travelin cat

5:16 pm on Jun 21, 2011 (gmt 0)

I hope they fixed the memory leak problem on the Mac. For the first time in years I had to leave FF for another browser due to all the problems found in version 4.

ChanandlerBong

7:00 pm on Jun 21, 2011 (gmt 0)

agreed. Sick and tired of opening FF on about 90k of memory, looking at it an hour later and seeing it's crept up to 200/250k. Saw it at 600k once! :-O

Panthro

7:36 pm on Jun 21, 2011 (gmt 0)

Why use FF when there's Iron!

MarvinH

8:43 pm on Jun 21, 2011 (gmt 0)

Why use FF when there's Iron!

For me it's because of a few plug-ins I use that are available for FF, and likely not available for Iron (I admit, I haven't checked).

But I'm not updating my FF 4.x unless forced to. A new version usually breaks a functionality of some plug-in, and I have to spend a while searching for a solution. I'll wait a little for FF5 :-)

incrediBILL

10:56 pm on Jun 21, 2011 (gmt 0)

FF has been a memory hog for quite some time and they don't seem to have a clue how to fix it as it just bloats and bloats until it starts paging. I just shut it down every few days and start all over again.

johnnie

11:52 pm on Jun 21, 2011 (gmt 0)

Nobody surprised by the speed at which these major version increments are released? Seems to me like v4 was a major fiasco and they wanted to abandon the fork as as soon as possible.

koan

12:09 am on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

Seems to me like v4 was a major fiasco and they wanted to abandon the fork as as soon as possible.

Care to expand a bit more? v4 seems fine to me, although I disagree with some UI decisions, nothing major. I'm really surprised there are talks of v5 already, it seems v4 was just recently released. The v3 generation lasted a very long time.

incrediBILL

5:50 am on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

I actually rolled back out of V4 because some things still weren't working, one was a show stopper for me, will have to see if they fixed it in the final version of 4 or maybe just skip to 5.

graeme_p

6:26 am on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

I think major version increments are coming faster, simply because MS and Google are incrementing major versions faster and its seen as necessary to match that.

Of course, whether any of them are advancing any faster is another question.

FF does tend to use a lot of memory, but its well worth it for the extensions. Restarting it once every day or two (on Linux) solves the problem.

frontpage

11:38 am on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

I am running FF 5.0 right now and all of the plugins I use like NoScript, AdblockPlus, Squint, etc are working fine.

tangor

11:59 am on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

I just shut it down every few days and start all over again.

I shut it down twice a day... also never run more than two tabs at a time... perhaps I'm not straining it enough? Have to admit that my bite on the web is perhaps smaller than others as I've never run into fail or paging as others have noted.

Quick poll: How many tabs open to do you maintain, or cause to be opened when starting Firefox?

Hoople

2:00 pm on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

I usually run with 5-8 tabs open. Ubuntu Linux 11.04. I usually restart FF 1-2 times a day to address the memory usage. I never leave FF open overnight as it's sure to swell to taking nearly all of available memory.

For me FF 3.5x was a memory pig that FF 3.6x addressed. FF4 used more memory than 3.6x but wasn't as bad as FF 3.5x. FF 5 for me seems about what FF 3.5 was memory wise.

My only concern thusfar is some extensions/plug-ins aren't working - notably the Google Toolbar.

frontpage

3:00 pm on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

Wow, people leaving Firefox open all day? I exit after every use.

I have Firefox delete my cookies/history/flash cookies when the browser closes as I don't feel its too secure to leave a browser open when not around.

incrediBILL

4:36 pm on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

also never run more than two tabs at a time

I have a bunch of tabs open, sometimes 2 windows full of tabs.

It bloats but takes a while to get sluggish, usually a couple of days.

I don't feel its too secure to leave a browser open when not around.

Not secure in your own house?

Just me and the wife here, if it's not secure with just us then when? ;)

graeme_p

8:56 pm on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

I have ten tabs open at the moment, I often have twenty or more (which is why one of the many extensions I have installed is tree style tabs).

I lock my login if I am not around, mostly in case the three year old decides to press some keys at random.

frontpage

10:20 pm on Jun 22, 2011 (gmt 0)

Not secure in your own house?

Just me and the wife here, if it's not secure with just us then when? ;)

I am referring to work. We deal with very private personal information and law enforcement from time to time. So, our software will automatically lock if you leave it unattended for more than a few minutes and you must log back in.

johnnie

12:14 am on Jun 23, 2011 (gmt 0)

Care to expand a bit more?

I can't, it's just a gut feeling that something didn't sit well with the developers. I mean, isn't it a tad unusual to jump major versions so quickly?

koan

3:27 am on Jun 23, 2011 (gmt 0)

isn't it a tad unusual to jump major versions so quickly?

Version 4 lasted 3 months. I've tried to search for the reason but I can't find anything official. I know it caught some add-ons developers by surprise.

frontpage

2:32 pm on Jun 23, 2011 (gmt 0)

isn't it a tad unusual to jump major versions so quickly?

New Marketing Philosophy

"With the launch of Firefox 5, Mozilla has implemented its new rapid-release development cycle. The idea behind it is for the organization to release new versions of Firefox several weeks apart to get updates into users' hands faster than ever. Though some are keen on the idea, others are concerned that Mozilla won't support previous versions long enough. Realizing that, it's incumbent upon Web users to keep in mind that Firefox 5 will be overshadowed in several weeks."

According to Mozilla, Firefox 5 has more than 1,000 improvements. However, the vast majority of those are bug fixes.

keyplyr

11:45 pm on Jun 23, 2011 (gmt 0)

I have ten tabs open at the moment

I have eleven.

koan

3:41 am on Jun 24, 2011 (gmt 0)

new rapid-release development cycle

What's wrong with calling it 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, etc? I find it highly annoying to jump to new major versions in a matter of weeks just for the sake of creating some buzz. To me, if a version doesn't last at least a year, it was botched.

Seb7

10:34 am on Jun 24, 2011 (gmt 0)

I hear many users cursing FF4 in our office, which is why I'm still on FF3.6. FF does seem to be getting more and more buggy. I hope FF5 is better, as they really do need to fix these things and also catch up with all the new CSS standards. (I much prefer chrome at the moment.)