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Mozilla pushes out final Firefox 5 test build

Silence of the browser lambs

Customer Success Testimonial: Recovery is Everything

Mozilla plans to release the next small-fry iteration of its Firefox browser next week.

Ahead of that, a release candidate version of Firefox 5 landed yesterday. The open-source browser-maker lists the following tweaks to the latest test build:

  • Added support for CSS animations;
  • The Do-Not-Track header preference has been moved to increase discoverability;
  • Improved canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance;
  • Improved standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL and canvas;
  • Improved spell-checking for some locales;
  • Improved desktop environment integration for Linux users;
  • WebGL content can no longer load cross-domain textures;
  • Background tabs have setTimeout and setInterval clamped to 1000ms to improve performance; and
  • The Firefox development channel switcher introduced in previous Firefox Beta updates has been removed.

Firefox 4 was released just three months ago, and versions 6 and 7 of the popular browser are expected before the year is out.

Mozilla recently rejigged its release schedule, in part to reflect Google's Chrome development cycle.

Big browser releases are now a thing of the past at Mozilla Towers. The org now prefers to iterate often with smaller changes between each new version. ®

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

Slow down lads...

Three major version releases in under a year? What's the freaking rush???

You already have the better browser. However, how about letting your developers catch up with your current browser before kicking up the version number.

I have not upgraded to V4 yet as 3/4 of my add-ons do not work with it. Here's a tip kids. The functionality I find in my add-ons is of more value to me than the browser. So unless you plan on building in the same functionality as my add-ons into the next version I am not upgrading.

That, or let add-ons WORK with future releases without having to be re-coded.

Switch to decaff, take your time and slow down the major version releases. Stabilize the version you have now, before moving on.

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Version number catch-up

I presume they are just trying to get Firefox version numbers to catch-up with IE, to help out consumers who think IE11 is better than FF3 because the number is higher.

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Conspicuous in its absence

Not really interested in an upgrade until I see "Fixed memory leaks" on the changelist.

When a browser with a single tab open can use more RAM than VirutalBox running a whole OS in it, something needs fixing.

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