Um.. Firefox 5 is out. Did you guys know ?

I was wading through the sci/tech news section on my native Android news/weather app and came across an article from Computer World that Firefox 5 was released yesterday (well, the 21st). Here's the article :

Mozilla ships Firefox 5, holds to new rapid-release plan - Computerworld

Normally, FF would show updates like this, but this time around the update wasn't brought to attention. Not only that, but when manually checking, it didn't even show the normal update dialog. Though this could be the new way updates are done if you don't have it set to check automatically.. not sure how I have that set to be honest. Upon checking though, this is what comes up: (check screen cap)

I'm not updating though, since it will render a couple of my extensions useless. I wish that the Mozilla devs were a lot more forthcoming and communicative with their extension devs so that things weren't broken in updates. Especially now that they're going to be so aggressive when it comes to update roll outs.

What I don't get though is why they'd go from 4.0.1 right to 5.0 ?! That seems crazy to me.

Doug

Next major update is all. The new version came out as 5 Beta different o 4.

News to me. Haven't been using firefox lately though. >_>"

Yes - I knew. It's been bugging me to download the beta for several weeks now - which of course - I continue to refuse to do.

I only use FF for Zotero and until I know it will not hiccup with FF5 - I will stay at FF4.

FF5 has a few minor new features, but despite the name isn't really a major version change at all. It's now on a "rapid development cycle" like Chrome, which means that Firefox 6 will be out before plug-in devs have time to update their stuff ... literally, it will be out before summer is over, and will be unlikely to have any significant new features.

As you can tell, this annoys me. Call me old-fashioned, but major version numbers should mean something seriously different.

Agreed with Chas and I am old fashioned also on that. It really bugs me Mozilla is rushing like this. Very hard on the plug in Devs. FF5 does work well though.

I got the RC, BUT, there is the official FF5 out now that is NOT a Beta! No issues so far.

But Mozilla, Slow down a bit! Give the Devs a chance to catch up!!

Exactly Chas and D. My sentiments in a nutshell.

D.

Hoping the upgrade will fix my 1password FF integration which broke with the latest 1password update.

Razormac said:

Hoping the upgrade will fix my 1password FF integration which broke with the latest 1password update.

Click to expand...

Hmmm - it shouldn't have?? Mine works with FF4. Take a look here - http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-applications-games/237749-1password-firefox-4-a.html

BrianLachoreVPI said:

Hmmm - it shouldn't have?? Mine works with FF4. Take a look here - http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-applications-games/237749-1password-firefox-4-a.html

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I did all the fixes and resets recommended and so far the 1password plugin no longer works in FF (no problem in Safari) on my machine.
Not certain where the issue is (went as far as to uninstall and resin tall FF but no success).

EDIT: 1Password has a new update to provide Lion and FF5 support. installed it and it fixed my problem (though I am still running FF4).

Doug b said:

I'm not updating though, since it will render a couple of my extensions useless. I wish that the Mozilla devs were a lot more forthcoming and communicative with their extension devs so that things weren't broken in updates. Especially now that they're going to be so aggressive when it comes to update roll outs.

Click to expand...

dtravis7 said:

Agreed with Chas and I am old fashioned also on that. It really bugs me Mozilla is rushing like this. Very hard on the plug in Devs. FF5 does work well though.

I got the RC, BUT, there is the official FF5 out now that is NOT a Beta! No issues so far.

But Mozilla, Slow down a bit! Give the Devs a chance to catch up!!

Click to expand...

I think this is where the flaws in the extension system come to light when there are drastic changes to the browser. Chrome releases new major versions every six weeks and rarely do I hear people complaining about broken extensions. Say what you will about Chrome but extension support between releases is never an issue. Sometimes gradual development eases the pain.

My guess though is that since FF5 is "minor" relative to other major releases, many extension devs will simply have to change the supported versions found in the extension config. For those that aren't aware, when you develop an extension, you have to explicitly state which versions are supported in the config file. You can see that here in this tutorial for anyone who's interested. My guess is that the lack of major overhauls will make this transitions much easier and only require slight changes to the config file for many.

I predict Firefox to go the way of the dodo within the next 3 years.

Mozilla exists because Google bank rolled it. How much longer do you think Google will pour money into Mozilla when they're pushing Chrome?

I hope not. The more the merrier I always say.

schweb said:

I predict Firefox to go the way of the dodo within the next 3 years.

Mozilla exists because Google bank rolled it. How much longer do you think Google will pour money into Mozilla when they're pushing Chrome?

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Funny you should say that cause I pretty much jumped shipped and moved over to Chrome. >_<"

I still use Firefox but only when Chrome doesn't render a page correctly and that's rare.

schweb said:

I predict Firefox to go the way of the dodo within the next 3 years.

Mozilla exists because Google bank rolled it. How much longer do you think Google will pour money into Mozilla when they're pushing Chrome?

Click to expand...

Google's contract with Mozilla runs through to the end of November and it's anyone's guess what will happen after that. I do think that Mozilla is hoping for a renewal - last I heard, Google is responsible for 85% of Mozilla's revenue (through search royalties and making Google the default search engine). See here for more. My guess is that Google will keep the relationship - it's mutually beneficial. I remember reading somewhere that Google has no intention of stoping their funding as they seem to be very okay with the existence of Firefox and the health of the Mozilla foundation (can't find the source right now).

chas_m said:

FF5 has a few minor new features, but despite the name isn't really a major version change at all. It's now on a "rapid development cycle" like Chrome, which means that Firefox 6 will be out before plug-in devs have time to update their stuff ... literally, it will be out before summer is over, and will be unlikely to have any significant new features.

As you can tell, this annoys me. Call me old-fashioned, but major version numbers should mean something seriously different.

Click to expand...

Agreed. My gut feeling is they are doing this to try to boost their share by generating hype (it's here… the latest and greatest betterer than ever!). It smacks of desperation, and they may very well be desperate if it looks like Google is about to pull the plug. Never mind how they have long been riding the wave of discontentment with Internet Explorer over the years, and MS seems to finally be getting off their duffs and working hard on polishing that turd.

I hope Mozilla does not go the way of the "Dodo" because that would mean no more development for "Thunderbird". I don't use or even like FF but T-Bird get's a lot of use here.

lifeisabeach said:

Agreed. My gut feeling is they are doing this to try to boost their share by generating hype (it's here… the latest and greatest betterer than ever!).

Click to expand...

I have to disagree. This release has no hype - the point of this thread was to point out the lack of hype around this release. I bet a significant number of Firefox users have no clue that Firefox 5 is now the major version. Mozilla didn't help either as there was absolutely nowhere near the hype in this release as there was for version 4.

Mozilla is doing what Google has rightly been trying to do all along - attempting to make version numbers irrelevant. Version numbers are arbitrary anyway. It could easily be argued that each major release of OS X deserves a major bump in version number instead of incremental bumps in the minor version (10.0 -> 10.1 -> 10.2, etc) given that we see hundreds of new features with each release (except for perhaps SL). The point here is that version numbers largely have no meaning except what a software developer gives to it. The Linux distro Slackware for instance jumped from version 4 to version 7 to account for the marketing of others which just goes to show the arbitrariness of version numbering (source). In the grand scheme of things, who cares what version number it is?

vansmith said:

I have to disagree. This release has no hype - the point of this thread was to point out the lack of hype around this release. I bet a significant number of Firefox users have no clue that Firefox 5 is now the major version. Mozilla didn't help either as there was absolutely nowhere near the hype in this release as there was for version 4.

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Well perhaps "hype" isn't quite the right term, but certainly it's intended to portray this is a new major release. Maybe they just feel that "only" being on Firefox 4 looks bad compared to, say, Internet Explorer 9. *shrug* I know when I saw Firefox 5 was out, at first I was like "Ooooh… I wonder how much better this is!" even though I don't really even use it much.

The Linux distro Slackware for instance jumped from version 4 to version 7 to account for the marketing of others which just goes to show the arbitrariness of version numbering (source). In the grand scheme of things, who cares what version number it is?

Click to expand...

Exactly what I'm saying… it's all marketing. As for who cares… I personally hate being manipulated by marketers.