Firefox 6 due next week
The next version of Mozilla's web browser, Firefox 6, will be officially released on Tuesday, August 16. There are no major UI changes; most of the other changes are under the hood. That's a welcome upgrade as Firefox 6 is reportedly 20% faster than Firefox 5. Also, while Firefox 6 does offer full screen support, it's not Lion-native fullscreen support, which is somewhat of a disappointment.
For those of you who don't want to wait till Tuesday, you can actually download the final release of Firefox 6.0 here from Mozilla's FTP servers.
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The next version of Mozilla's web browser, Firefox 6, will be officially released on Tuesday, August 16. There are no major UI...
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Prince David
I am still using 3 on my computers. I can't keep up.
August 15 2011 at 10:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI hate this massive version number update game.I am not sure what mozilla is trying to prove ,but their big jump keep making my plugins collection break because they aren't compatible with the latest version ,orca browser can support those add-ons so i intend to switch from firefox to orca .
August 15 2011 at 3:57 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI just paid $22.87 for an iPad2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $675 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, BidsGet.com
August 14 2011 at 9:58 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down ReplyI wish this were just 4.1.1; then there wouldn't have been compatibility problems with two Add-ons I use (HTML Validator and Google Toolbar). HTML Validator's site indicated issues with recompilation, which were eventually handled for Mac OS X by a contributor.
As a web developer, I rely on HTML Validator to check my work. I only used Google toolbar as a convenience to have a second search box (so I could use the firefox one for CPAN and the toolbar for google - yeah, I know, I can switch the firefox one on the fly from the dropdown, but I'm lazy).
Changing the version number instead of the point release number does not automagically create addon incompatibilities. It is actually necessary to modify the underlying code to create the incompatibility. That may or may not happen in any new release, depending on what they changed. As you are a web developer, I would have expected you would know that.
August 15 2011 at 4:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWill they get back to point-one releases after they've caught up with Internet Explorer?
August 14 2011 at 11:29 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyExpecting any "native" behaviour out of Firefox is setting yourself up for disappointment.
August 13 2011 at 10:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply
alansky
Firefox? What's Firefox?
August 13 2011 at 8:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply
Brian
It is like Safari, but better.
August 13 2011 at 9:29 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down ReplyThem's fightin' words.
August 14 2011 at 3:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate downIt's a collection of 1s and 0s compiled into a computer application that is used for navigating hypertext documents on the Internet's "world wide web."
August 13 2011 at 9:54 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI wish they would start releasing Firefox in the App Store. I only use it a few times a week, but there's an update that requires a relaunch every time I go to use it. I check the App Store every day for updates.
August 13 2011 at 7:58 PM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down ReplyI wish google would update their toolbar - still at FF 4 waiting for google toolbar to be updated
August 13 2011 at 11:32 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyToo bad for you. Googling a workaround yesterday would have you using FF 6 with the Google Toolbar still functioning today.
August 14 2011 at 1:08 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate downGoogle, not Mozilla, has discontinued the Google toolbar for Firefox.
http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/answer.py?answer=1342452&topic=15356%29
Due to Apple's restrictions, Firefox Mobile is not available on IOS devices. Check out Firefox Home.
August 14 2011 at 11:22 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyMozilla seems to be dead set on making version numbers meaningless - both Firefox 6, 7, and 8 all had alpha releases before 5 was released. There was a time when a version number increase meant something. Of course, with Microsoft doing similar (Windows 7 is neither version 7 nor the 7th major release - it's 6.1 and the 10th), could this spell the end of version numbers as we know it?
August 13 2011 at 7:47 PM Report abuse Permalink +2 rate up rate down ReplyNo kidding! I was a Firebird user back in the Firebird 0.6 days, and it took forever for that product to finally reach a 1.0 status. It took a while to get from 1.0 to 2.0 as well, but then 3.0 didn't trail near as long after 2.0, and it seems like 4.0, 5.0 and now 6.0 have been back to back to back within record breaking time (with less significant updates). Is Mozilla just increasing the version numbers for fun? What happened to point updates? As always, I'll hang back while I wait for all of my favorite extensions to support the new version.
August 13 2011 at 8:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replydo you think software development only happens in sequence/ they don't wait for a release to ship before starting work on the next one. the shop i work for is currently working on our next 3 releases. I'd say version numbers are less for customers, and more for developer sanity.... you have to name them something and I prefer regular numbers than animals (ubuntu), or snacks (Android). how the hell are you supposed to remember what version of software you were working on 3 versions ago if they're animals or food items? what came first panther, tiger or jaguar?
why do you even care? would your life be any different if FF 5.X instead of 6.0 was released next week?
I imagine though, these "next 3 releases" are far more of planning development than forking of the current version into a new one. After all, how can you possibly have a version 3 if you don't have a version 2 codebase yet? If version numbers are more for developer sanity, shouldn't they be used with some sort of consistency? Personally, I do think they're more for developer benefit, and Mozilla's/Microsoft's blowup of version numbering is purely for marketing. Firefox was up against Safari 5, Internet Explorer 9, and... well, Google is equally guilty, blowing up Chrome's version number when everyone else would've used a point release. Mozilla is inflating their version number to play catchup.
Also, those are possibly poor examples since Ubuntu, Android, and OS X all have version numbers coupled with publicly-labelled codenames.
Isn't this just 4.1.1 in real version numbering terms? Making a mockery of version number for incremental changes this is.
I'm still slumming it on 3.16 because far too many add-ons broke in 4 and now I have a v6 waiting to go? Nothing like being three major versions behind in less than a year.
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