Mozilla releases Firefox 5 Beta1

[Pontos]

So, they have already pulled out the first beta for Firefox 5.
Not even one month after they started post-FF4 development. What could they possible add to justify a jump in the major version in such a short amount of time?

When they said they would make FF5, 6 and 7 come out fast they weren't kidding.

I'm ok with their recent change of development organization (mozilla-central being the main development channel and having last minute changes, mozilla-aurora packing proven-to-work stuff from the dev channel to be released, and mozilla-beta having that stuff tested before releasing to public), but this is kinda pushing it a bit.

[Jamesrt2004]

I like it (:

[3NZ0]

Not even one month after they started post-FF4 development. What could they possible add to justify a jump in the major version in such a short amount of time?

They have decided to push development faster by splitting into dev channels. Probably due alongside many other reasons to recover from chrome eating a fair few supporters.


There is now a nightly (nightly), a tested nightly that is posted 6 weeks less often than nightly (aurora), beta which is another 6 weeks behind and then the offical version.

[Pontos]

They have decided to push development faster by splitting into dev channels. Probably due alongside many other reasons to recover from chrome eating a fair few supporters.


There is now a nightly (nightly), a tested nightly that is posted 6 weeks less often than nightly (aurora), beta which is another 6 weeks behind and then the offical version.

I know about the new dev channels (I mentioned them in the first post). What I'm wondering is if this pace is a good idea.

Firefox 5 will most likely be not much different than FF4 given the minimal time of development it will have.

[Ouchy]

I know about the new dev channels (I mentioned them in the first post). What I'm wondering is if this pace is a good idea.

Firefox 5 will most likely be not much different than FF4 given the minimal time of development it will have.

What's wrong with giving users immediate features and bug fixes? As long as the releases are sufficiently tested (which they should be given their new branch system), this will work fine.

[saaya]

they arent releasing FF 5 6 and 7 quickly, they just renamed their releases...
a revision is now a version, isnt it?
and a subrevision is now a revision...

marketing, whatever... i just hope they fix the F11 fullscreen bug and make all keyboard browsing shortcuts/commands work again... then id be happy, regardless of how they call it, FF 9.2 whatever... just make it work :P

i think there are too many n00bs out there, so recently a lot of companies are racing for revision names...
Chrome is already at version 11! wow, they must be much better than IE and FF which are still at 9 and 4...

[nn_step]

I'd much prefer that they release a version of Firefox, stripped to the core but provides the core functionality that people expect via plugins.

[Zaskar]

The new development hierarchy is great, it is just like the way Debian does its releases. They have their very stable branch that only gets security fixes, they have their relatively stable branch that receives tested updates from their development branch, then then they have their sometimes unstable/untested bleeding edge Sid branch.

Just means you probably should start using Aurora instead of normal Firefox for non mission critical use.

[ColonelCain]

Minefield (what is now the Nightly more or less) was up to 4.0 alpha 15 (or so) by the time the official release of FF4 happened... so don't worry.

Just look at how fast Chrome canary build has moved up in numbering, current is 13. something.

[RejZoR]

Firefox 5 heh, where by old standards this could be Firefox 4.1. Would make a lot more sense than whole new number.

Btw, stable Firefox 4.0.1 was just released.

[Nikolasz]

Btw, stable Firefox 4.0.1 was just released.

Good info. Many thanks for my neighbour

[XSAlliN]

Firefox 5 heh, where by old standards this could be Firefox 4.1. Would make a lot more sense than whole new number.

Btw, stable Firefox 4.0.1 was just released.

Yes - but google changed all that... based on their database info, when judging a newly release product most people take in consideration even the numbers representative to that product as a "positive change" (bigger number = better product).

[Nikolasz]

(bigger number = better product).

And money works that way too.
Im not beta fan boi, and im not first releases fan, i like to be, "what i got to do with it"

[3NZ0]

I know about the new dev channels (I mentioned them in the first post). What I'm wondering is if this pace is a good idea.

Firefox 5 will most likely be not much different than FF4 given the minimal time of development it will have.

Of course. There are a number of problem with ff4 that annoy me, 20 tabs with addons disabled uses 500mb, after some time idling this grows to about 1-1.5gb. Same tabs in chrome, again without any addons - under 300mb.

The problem is lessened to an extent using the alpha and pre-beta builds so quicker development is only a good thing.

I stand by my original statement. Chrome is good, very good. It's also being worked on very quickly the beta/dev/canary push out new versions with great speed. Firefox needs to adopt this approach too.

[Pontos]

Of course. There are a number of problem with ff4 that annoy me, 20 tabs with addons disabled uses 500mb, after some time idling this grows to about 1-1.5gb. Same tabs in chrome, again without any addons - under 300mb.

The problem is lessened to an extent using the alpha and pre-beta builds so quicker development is only a good thing.

I stand by my original statement. Chrome is good, very good. It's also being worked on very quickly the beta/dev/canary push out new versions with great speed. Firefox needs to adopt this approach too.

Sure, but call it FF4.1 (which, ironically enough, is exactly what it was called before the name and development scheme change), not FF5...

This is pretty much what Saaya and XSAlliN pointed. This new naming scheme is just a marketing move to fish the average unsavvy people that gets interested in a product when it has a noticeable change in its numbering.
We have to "thank" Google Chrome for that indeed.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for this new pace in development, releasing more often with an smaller amount of additions and changes.
What I'm against is that they are bumping the mayor version in each of those. It completely devalues the meaning of having a new mayor version.

[Sparky]

they arent releasing FF 5 6 and 7 quickly, they just renamed their releases...
a revision is now a version, isnt it?
and a subrevision is now a revision...

marketing, whatever... i just hope they fix the F11 fullscreen bug and make all keyboard browsing shortcuts/commands work again... then id be happy, regardless of how they call it, FF 9.2 whatever... just make it work :P

i think there are too many n00bs out there, so recently a lot of companies are racing for revision names...
Chrome is already at version 11! wow, they must be much better than IE and FF which are still at 9 and 4...

What F11 fullscreen bug? I haven't heard of it, so I just put my FF 4.0 in full screen and it seems to be working ok. What should I be looking for? I don't use fullscreen mode much.

I'm not aware of many keyboard shortcuts I use for browsing, other than new tab/close tab, so I can't comment there.

[XSAlliN]

Type this in address bar:

about:mozilla

^^

[Sparky]

Type this in address bar:

about:mozilla

^^

lol.. what the heck .

[chispy]

I just updated my old FF from old 3.6 to 4.0.1 today and they are talking about FF5 already

[Aerwidh]

Type this in address bar:

about:mozilla

^^

Heh, what is this stuff?

[N19h7m4r3]

Type this in address bar:

about:mozilla

^^

Oh snap!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mozilla

[takamishanoku]

The book of Mozilla has been in there for ages.

[RaZz!]

Type this in address bar:

about:mozilla

^^

there are a few other easter eggs as well, e.g. about:robots

[Clint]

Oh well, rename is the game today. "Fresh" iterations and spunky names are the future. Why not go all in and add "FTW Murderer Gorilla Pitbull" as well...?

[saaya]

What F11 fullscreen bug? I haven't heard of it, so I just put my FF 4.0 in full screen and it seems to be working ok. What should I be looking for? I don't use fullscreen mode much.

I'm not aware of many keyboard shortcuts I use for browsing, other than new tab/close tab, so I can't comment there.

don't know what triggers it, but after a short f11 stops working. It doesn't trigger fullscreen and much worse, doesn't kick you back to normal view either. The view -> fullscreen button still works, but only to enter fs mode as its not visible anymore when its active, so you can't use it to exit fs mode

I'm not sure what triggers it, could be streaming movies, could be s3 and s4 sleep and resume, could be closing several tabs while in fs mode... if you got a connection to da moz send me a private message and ill do some proper debugging

I found a way to exit fs mode BTW, I have to alt tab to another app, bring the Windows task bar up and right click on ff, and then press f11... iirc...

Maybe its only a bug on my system... I got the Windows task bar on top (a lot more efficient) and have it set to auto hide... since this is a laptop I'm using as my htpc and I want maximum screenspace on the 13 inch display and LG tv its hooked up to

There's another bug with that BTW, both Windows and ff are hiding their task bars and the Windows task bar usually doesn't show up at all unless I hit the Windows key. It's actually what I want so I never reported that bug ^^

About key shortcuts, they are Sooooooooooo awesome when browsing in fs mode.... you don't need a mouse to browse and read at all, very nice when reading news in the morning...

Alt plus home = stratagem (google)
(Alt) right/left = back/forward
(alt) up/down = top/bottom of the page
There are some more I don't remember as I couldn't use them for a while now : /

All of this worked with pre 3.6 iirc... or even 3.6? Hmmm