Posted on 08/17/2011 4:46:57 AM PDT by ShadowAce
At Mozilla the trains run on time. The open source group is out with its second rapid release browser today, providing users with improved functionality and performance.
Firefox 6, which is being officially released by Mozilla today, follows Firefox 5, which debuted in July. Both Firefox 5 and 6 are part of Mozilla's new rapid release cycle, which aims to deliver more browser updates with incremental features. Previously Mozilla had released major browser update on a less predictable cycle with long with development cycles of a year or longer in between releases.
While the new rapid release cycle does not present the same volume of new features as the longer release cycles, Mozilla is confident that the process is working.
"We’re refining our own process constantly and are seeing dividends with smooth transitions as a release moves from Aurora to Beta to release," a Mozilla spokesperson told InternetNews.com
The Aurora channel is Mozilla's development release for Mozilla and is followed by the beta and then finally the release. Work is often done in parallel on Aurora and Beta channels as part of the rapid release cycle methodology.
One of the key improvements in Firefox 6, which will further be expanded upon in Firefox 7 and 8, is performance improvements.
"With Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux, Panorama users will enjoy faster start-up times because tab groups are only loaded when selected," Mozilla's spokesperson said.
Panorama is a feature that debuted in Firefox 4, enabling users to group tabs. The Panorama feature began its life as a Mozilla Labs project known as Tab Candy.
Firefox 6 is also being released for Android users. The new Android release offers faster zooming, crisp text and reduced pixelation due to enhanced image rendering.
"There are even more improvements coming in Firefox Beta and Firefox Aurora," Mozilla's spokesperson said.
For developers, Mozilla is including a new tool called Scratchpad that is intended to make it simple to quickly enter, execute, test and refine JavaScript snippets in Firefox without needing to work in a one-line console.
"Scratchpad is a simple tool, and we want it to stay that way," Mozilla's spokesperson said. "We’re planning a handful of improvements to Scratchpad that will show up in Firefox over the coming months, but the simple text editor that runs JavaScript core will remain."
Firefox 6 will also support the Event/Source specification that is an emerging standard at the W3C.
"This specification defines an API for opening an HTTP connection for receiving push notifications from a server in the form of DOM events," the W3C specification draft states. "The API is designed such that it can be extended to work with other push notification schemes such as Push SMS."
Mozilla isn't the first browser to implement Event/Source. Both Chrome and Opera already support the draft specification.
The last version of Firefox for Android was disappointing; I’ll see if this one is any better.
I’ve been a whole lot happier since switching from IE.
The first step was admitting that I had a problem.
Chrome for me.
ChromePlus here. Switched from Firefox about 3 months ago.
Interesting—I hadn’t heard of ChromePlus before!
Chrome = 100% Google spyware. They know ever website you visit, search term used, etc.
At least with Firefox with Noscript, AdblockPlus, BetterPrivacy you can avoid tracking and spying.
If they have "incremental features" then why jump whole version numbers? I'm still running Firefox 3.6 so I've missed two "major" versions already.
Opera 11.5!
Opera 11.5!
So nice, it posted twice.
It has AdBlockplus, anon browsing,and mouse gestures built in. Search right from the address bar. I like the bookmark layout more than Firefox and I find I spend a lot less time messing around with addins than I did with Firefox. I go back to Firefox every now and then but keep on coming back to Chromeplus.
http://www.chromeplus.org/download.php
I bailed on Chrome the morning after I watched an “It gets better” ad sponsored by Google (specifically, Google Chrome) a few months ago. Gotta stand for something.
It seems like just yesterday that they were stuck on 3.xx
Mozilla is getting ridiculous with their rapid releases.
I just upgraded to 5 (bypassing 4 altogether) a few weeks ago.
I looked on their website, but could not find a definitive list of improvements/changes for 6. Is it worth the effort? One earlier review (from a year or so ago) indicated that 6 would be only minor improvements with 7 being some significant improvements.
I lost a few extensions/add-ons when I upgraded from 3.6 to 5. How many might I lose upgrading to 6? I don’t know — I may not bother to find out, unless I can find a good description of what is new/better in 6.
The search in the address bar is part of the regular Chrome. What’s your favorite of ChromPlus’s added features?
My experience with Microsoft Office and such is that over-featured software becomes a real issue, but useful features are, well, useful.
The search in the address bar is part of the regular Chrome. What’s your favorite of ChromePlus’s added features?
My experience with Microsoft Office and such is that over-featured software becomes a real issue, but useful features are, well, useful.
I never trusted Gill Bates and Gal Dore!
I do have IE on my PCs; but I don’t use it, mainly because so many pseudo-aMericans insist bad things will happen if I attempt to remove it...?????
I’ve got my own issues with Google. But is Microsoft any better? Certainly Facebook isn’t, though they’re not really relevant here.
Adblock, mouse gestures - might be some other features that it has that the regular Chrome doesn’t that I’ve forgotten.
I did not spend a lot of time analyzing the difference between Chrome and Chromeplus. I found Chromeplus, tried it, liked it, decided it was a more comfortable fit than Firefox and so adopted it. Browsers are not a big deal to me.
I’ve had nothing but trouble with FF5 - it would hang. Will 6 make it better or worse? I had to switch to IE and believe me, I want OUT. I have a new machine with 12 gigs of RAM, quad processors, and Win7 Professional.
This concern of ShadowAce - I got tired of that with Firefox.I guess I would say that Chromeplus fills all my needs out of the box. I haven’t added any add-ons at all. I was forever messing around with them with Firefox.
“I lost a few extensions/add-ons when I upgraded from 3.6 to 5. How many might I lose upgrading to 6”
I don't know--I'm still on 5.
“Oh, those c-r-a-z-y mouse gestures...heh!”
I’m not sure how to take that!(?) But page-back/page-forward gestures which are all I ever use - those are essential to me.
I honestly don't know which ones--if any--would be lost in the upgrade. I use several that seem to update themselves fairly quickly with each firefox update.
We'll see.
The other thing is software that’s constantly ‘on’, communicating on the Internet, and taking up too many resources. My Lexmark All-In-One software is like that—never anything else from Lexmark for me!
It actually does feel better.
Should you upgrade on the advice of someone using it for a whole minute?
Totally your decision :-)
I just installed FF6 and it locked up on FR ... not the best first impression but I'll give it a week and decide if it makes my primary or alternate browser (currently IE9[32bit] and FF5 (because my work apps function better on FF5 than Chrome).
Kinda sucks, even if the improvements are actually improving things...
“The other thing is software that’s constantly ‘on’, communicating on the Internet, and taking up too many resources. My Lexmark All-In-One software is like that—never anything else from Lexmark for me!”
You might want to get a freeware program called Winpatrol. All those programs make registry changes, and this software will not allow that without your approval, and will also help you identify which process is doing it should it get installed, and allow you to easily disable it.
http://www.winpatrol.com/download.html
They ran an ad implicitly admitting that their software sucks but promising to improve it in the future?
Some sort of update was installed, thinking it was for Windows & and Firefox has been upgephuqued ever since.
Groovy...
“It gets better” is an ad campaign by Hollywood stars (including Woody from Toy Story) for gays teen agers with low self esteem or who are thinking about killing themselves.
It’s really gay.
Each time I upgrade with Firefox, I lose extensions, some of which I use daily here on FR and other BB's (Word count plus, Tab X, BBCode and BBCodextra are just a few). However, there are two extensions you can use to test compatibility and one also forces use if they still work:
Mozilla add-on compatibility reporter
Of course, the purpose of add-ons is to make your browsing easier. When new versions of the browser seemingly come with the speed of light leaving functioning add-ons behind, then users are going to search for another browser to use which mitigates the whole purpose of add-ons in the first place!
Thanks for the tip. I am now running Winpatrol.
I’m a long time firefox user. I believe it was called Phoenix back then at version.2. If they were using the same numbering convention then as they are now, we’d be at version 452 now. This is redicuous. These are point releases not major versions. Major versions should only happen with significant API changes.
Many years ago they used to make bullet proof keyboards for IBM. You could drop them off a building, snap the keys back on, then use it. Loved the feel of those keyboards.
Yeah, sounds like a lot of crap, but the benefit is, that if you've been running with this setup for a while and a new version comes out, say Firefox 7. All you'd do is extract the package to /usr/local/firefox-7, delete the symlink to /usr/local/firefox, create a new one pointing to the new directory and you're ready to go. If you find it is not to your liking, to revert back to previous version, just remove your symlink, and create new one pointing to the directory version you want. I normally keep 3 versions on my box. Disk space is cheap, and newer versions aren't necessarily better.
Also, with the backup of your .mozilla directory, if the new version borks your profile (this has happened in the past), you can just wipe out your existing .mozilla directory and extract your saved version. I recommend you back this up at least once a week. I have a cron job that does this for me.
ridiculous. I really can spell after my coffee kicks in.
You’re welcome. It is very comforting to know you will be notified before any program makes registry changes!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.