Wow, that was fast. It was only in April that I was giving my review of Firefox 4 and now Mozilla is already releasing the Firefox 5 browser. Is there a major problem with Firefox 4? As it turns out, no.
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It turns out this is the plan by Mozilla and the way they’re going to be doing things from now on; at least until they get tired of doing it this way (that’s my prediction). Their expectation is to have a new release every 3 months to try to better keep up with quick and ever-changing web technologies. The fact that, in my opinion, Firefox 4 was much better than Firefox 3 (though one of my friends differs on that view) and now we’re switching to something else is slightly irksome, but it’s hard to gripe about someone that actually keeps improving on things that we’re not paying for, unlike my rant in January about many things being new and unimproved.
What’s new in this release? Other than a few cosmetic changes the only thing I’ve heard about is a few bug fixes. Frankly, that leaves me less than impressed, but it might turn out to be a big deal. This time around I haven’t heard anyone talking about reducing how Firefox hogs resources, and that’s a major difference in past browser updates. Also, I wish someone would work on updating the Adblock Plus add-on to better help us block things we don’t like such as popups and the like.
And, based on the speed that we’re now going to see, we can look forward to Firefox 6 and Firefox 7 coming out before the end of the year or possibly at the beginning of January; gush! This is the way things are going, so it’s probably a waste of time asking what your thoughts are about the speed of coming changes, but I’m going to do it anyway; how do you feel about all of this?
mozilla has copied the chrome model of three months release cycle.very tough competition.But,mozilla is heady on resources which need to be fixed soon.
I’d say so; at least some of my disabled plugins have created updates already.
Firefox 5.0 is not ready for prime-time. I’m too accustomed to my tool-bars, and neither Yahoo nor Google’s are compatible.
I can’t even disagree with you at this juncture; I think the updates are a bit fast.
Mitch,
I don’t use Firefox, have always just stuck with Safari so I don’t know enough about it to say what I would like. That being said, I think every 3 months upgrading is a little much if there isn’t going to be any significant changes.
Hi Mitch,
I didn’t like Firefox 4 during the first few days of its released but I think I got the hang of it now. I’m just thankful that my add-ons are still compatible on Firefox 5 because otherwise, the upgrade will really be disappointing for me. 🙂
Calli, I need to start remembering to check my add-ons before upgrading. This one wasn’t a security upgrade, so I easily could have waited as well.
i think no big difference betwen firefox 4 and 5…it same for me
This was really fast, I even didn’t had time to read an announcement about version 5. Quick just from 4 to 5, probably some security issues or many be incompatibility with too many add-ons.
Carl, according to the link, they had around 550 bugs, but nothing spectacular.
Thanks for update, Mitch, honestly I didn’t checked the link. My first thought was incompatibility, I am getting tired of Windows 7, yesterday I found that my DivX converter is not working and got few issues installing new software, insane.
I stopped using Firefox altogether ’cause it’s painfully evident there are serious memory management problems, and that’s been confirmed by the Mozilla team itself. The more it stays open the more memory it’ll end up sucking, and that’s just not acceptable. I am sticking to Chrome which I find far more responsive and memory-efficient.
Gabriele, I just don’t like Chrome for some reason (well, the tracking thing is a bit issue with me), but I might have to take a serious look at it if Firefox doesn’t follow through on its supposed improvements. You’re right, it’s definitely a memory hog; one day last week it was over a gig!
I don’t know what’s the hurry, but instead of having more versions release in a shorter time, I prefer having a good version released once per year.
Btw, Chrome has reached version 13.
So Chrome updates often as well Mia? Interesting indeed.
Don’t get me started on this topic. I could probably write a blog post about this myself. I don’t really understand why they have to update everything so often. It’s getting kind of annoying to me. I’m with Mia. Just give me one good version once a year.
DeAnna, looks like that’s not going to be happening anymore, and based on some of the comments, it’s a common practice with half of the browsers. And it looks like WordPress 3.2 will be coming soon as well.
Although the Firefox 4 is quite awesome and it works really well but if they are launching Firefox 5 then I think we should give it a try as it would surely have some new and improved features with some advances in overall browser performance. Thanks for letting us know about it.
I am always careful and concerned about new versions of firefox. I have gotten so used to so many plugins that firefox has, that now they are almost part of the browser for me.
Whenever there is a new version comes along, it is virtually guaranteed that many plugins will not work. It is quite painful to install/uninstall/reinstall to get back to the older version to get the older version of the plugin to work.
I always wait for a long time and make sure that the plugins are compatible with the new version before I hit that upgrade button.
Amanda, if they’re going to be updating every 3 months from now on, waiting a long time could put you many versions behind at some point. I waited a long time before going to FF3, and I never liked it. I’m of mixed feelings with this so far.
Dennis, I hated FF3, all versions, so I’m glad it worked for you. FF4 worked okay for me so I had no real need to change except, well, it was new. lol
I actually didn’t have any issue with FF4 except for its hogging memory, and I thought maybe FF5 would fix that, even though it wasn’t mentioned in any of the update information. Nope; and it took away from add-ons I liked.
Hi Mitch,It is another nice post by you.It is really interesting to know that Mozilla is releasing the Firefox 5 browser.I like firefox 4 and I think that I will get hang of firefox 5 soon.
Don’t take too long since FF6 is just around the corner.
A few days ago I install firefox 5, then the problems started. stops loading and doesn’t continue until I move the mouse
Hi Mitch,
Thanks for sharing. Its time for me to update from Firefox 4.0.1 to Firefox 5.0. Let see what features this new version provides. I hope it would be better than FF 4.
Regards.
John, I’ll tell you the truth, if you’re not having any problems with FF4 don’t update until the next one because there’s no real benefit in this one so far.
Hi Mitch,
Thanks for telling I am still using FF4 and not updated yet. But why not I update to FF5 is there any issue with it?
John, I’m just starting to notice that I can’t get into some of my affiliate programs because their sites won’t recognize the browser for cookies, even though I have it set up to receive all cookies. Also, it won’t retain cookies, so I’m having to re-add things all the time. Not their best version so far in my opinion.
Hi Mitch,
That information about FF% really sounds authentic. Well these type of problem mostly occurs with new versions, I hope this would be resolved soon.
Thanks for providing this information.
Regards.
No problem John; it’s what I do.
Hi Mitch…Thanks for posting this…Anyway, i have already used firefox 5 but still, I prefer to use the older one…I already used to it and it makes me more familiar than the new one…
Good post, and well-timed. I’m going crazy trying to decide on a browser to use, Mitch. As you know my computer recently crashed and I’m now taking a good hard look at what I’ve got on it and seeing what I can change to make it work better. My problem is I’ve a very old system that’s only got one Gb of memory and no room for more and can’t afford a new computer! So I’ve got to make do with what I’ve got. That said, I looked today at what RAM Firefox 4 needs compared with FF3, and it’s 512Mb compared to 128Mb so I’m thinking of going back to the previous version… problem is, when they stop supporting that one, which will be soon… what then?
I may end up having to go back to IE, which I hate!
These rapid changes don’t work for me at all. I’ve problems with concentration and memory (my own, I mean) anyway, and this stuff just makes everything so much worse. But the internet is built for younger people, I think. 🙁
Val, don’t worry about support issues from browsers. Security is a different matter, but if you have a virus protection program and a firewall program on your computer, any browser will do. Nothing will protect you if you go to a lot of bad sites, and I’m doubting that’s an issue you have. 😉