
Firefox 5 is now officially released - smash
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html
======
tzury
To the Mozilla developers in here:

Although I am not going to install this version on my laptop (I am a chrome
guy), I would like to take the opportunity and thank you for the great work
you have done for the internet users and web developers.

In the days before firefox+firebug, we were alerting all the way in order to
find an undefined / unassigned variable which was causing bugs and terror.

You have made the web a better place, you have made IE a better browser, and I
tend to believe, you also made chrome a better browser, and chrome developers
work harder by setting the bar that high.

~~~
demetris
What I most like in the story of Firefox is how, after bringing competition to
a field that had been stagnant for quite a while and after, thanks to its
impressive success, reviving that field, it now benefits itself from that
competition.

We are now at a time when ALL browsers, including Firefox, are getting better
and better thanks in large part to the increasing competition.

It has been a great journey thus far for Firefox. My best wishes to all
involved for better and better things in the future.

(Firefox user since v0.6 here. These days I also use Chrome and Chromium quite
a lot, especially on Linux, but Firefox remains my main browser.)

~~~
anedisi
another firefox since early beta user here. i do not remember the number of
machines i installed firefox on to, but i really like that there is
competition now and every version gets faster and better.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Another Netscape Navigator, err before that NSCA Mosaic user here, and yes we
walked to school uphill both ways.

I love firefox but have suffered with the memory issues for _years_. Please
free memory when I close tabs, or at least add a flush button so I can reclaim
the 500mb it balloons to in a day or two of heavy usage.

~~~
thristian
Current Aurora builds (which will eventually become Firefox 6) have an
improved about:memory page, which includes buttons that make Firefox run the
garbage collector:

[http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2011/05/23/a-better-
abou...](http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2011/05/23/a-better-aboutmemory-
stage-1-75/)

In my experience, hitting the GC button rarely makes any detectable
improvement. Right at this very moment my Firefox instance is using about
900MB of memory; hitting all three buttons in a row (garbage-collection,
cycle-collection, "minimize memory usage") brings the number down to 892MB,
~750MB of which is apparently allocated to "heap-unclassified" and the
JavaScript "gc-heap".

Work on reducing Firefox's memory footprint is ongoing; the most recent effort
I know of is MemShrink:

<http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2011/03/10/memshrink/>

...and it's beginning to make some progress:

[http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2011/06/22/memshrink-
pro...](http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2011/06/22/memshrink-progress-
week-1/)

------
andrewheins
This is a confusing feeling. The Firefox release mechanism makes this more
frustrating than friendly.

With Chrome, my browser automatically updates for stuff like this. I never see
it and always have the correct version.

For Firefox, I have to purposefully seek out the next version, and considering
I'm still upgrading some of my machines to 4.0 from 3.5 (I downloaded 4.0
yesterday on one machine), this is kind of annoying.

I'm not sure a quick release schedule works quite as well if you've got to
manually upgrade. I like Chrome for the same reason I sign up for automatic
bill payments - I understand it's important, but I don't want to have to deal
with it.

~~~
mbrubeck
Firefox does automatically download the next version in the background. It
prompts you to restart a while after the update is downloaded, but we're
working on making the prompting less intrusive than it's been in the past.
Also, I think you get a more intrusive prompt if the update will disable any
extensions.

See this article for some of the work we're doing to make add-on compatibility
work seamlessly in new versions:

[http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2011/04/19/add-on-
compatibili...](http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2011/04/19/add-on-
compatibility-rapid-releases/)

~~~
JadeNB
Where does it get the download? I seem to be one of the few left who _likes_
to upgrade manually—I like to give others some time to shake out the bugs
first—and so I use Firefox's notifications as a reminder to go and download
the file myself.

I'm running 5.0b7, and have been receiving notifications for a while (maybe 3
days?) that there was an update available; but <http://www.mozilla.com/en-
US/firefox/channel> and <https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html>
didn't have any upgrade available until today. Is there somewhere else to
look, or were my upgrade notifications erroneous?

~~~
saratogacx
Help -> About lets you know if there is an update and has an apply update
button to start it whenever you like.

~~~
JadeNB
Thanks, but (while that's a sensible answer to the question) it's not quite
what I wanted. I would like to be able to download the new version myself. Is
it really true that, up until today, it was possible to update from 5.0b7 to
5.0 within the browser itself, but impossible to download 5.0 directly? If not
( _i.e._ , if it is possible to download 5.0 directly), then I must have been
looking in the wrong places; where should I look?

~~~
mbrubeck
I'm pretty sure there were no releases between 5.0b7 and 5.0 final, so I'm not
sure why Firefox was prompting you to update. But in any case, you can
download any release manually from
ftp://archive.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

~~~
JadeNB
Thanks!

------
rradu
Best new feature: Multiple tab closing behavior is more like Chrome's now -
<http://www.theinvisibl.com/2009/12/08/chrometabs/>

~~~
pkamb
Love the Chrome-like tab closing behavior. Annoying that a tab has to have
focus to get the on-tab "X" though.

(EDIT: Only when #tabs > 9 it seems. Otherwise all tabs have the "X".)

~~~
username3
Middle click to close those tabs.

~~~
pkamb
Thankfully I can as my Thinkpad has a 3rd button. The majority of laptop users
won't be so lucky.

~~~
LordLandon
Hitting both buttons usually simulates a middle-click.

~~~
repsilat
If your drivers are clever you can do it with the trackpad, too - sometimes
tapping the pad with two fingers will middle-click. Less error-prone than
using the buttons.

------
MatthewPhillips
Elephant in the room is the ugly and unnecessary search box. It sticks out
like a sore thumb when you consider the effort Firefox has gone through to
clean up the interface.

side rant: what's up with search boxes that keep your previous search term in
the box. What's the point? iPad does this as well and it drives me insane. I
always just manually delete the entry after searching but I shouldn't have to
do that and I don't want guests to know my previous search.

~~~
albertsun
I like the search box because the URL history autocomplete of the main URL bar
is so much better in Firefox than any browser. I can type any part of a page
title or URL (not just the start) and it goes through and finds pages from my
history. I do that much more often than I search for things and so I really
like having them separate.

~~~
tomkarlo
Chrome searches your history and offers the search option, without requiring a
separate search box. It doesn't force you to use the start of the URL or
title, either, as far as I can tell.

~~~
albertsun
It kind of does but it doesn't work nearly as well, at least in part because
it clutters up the list of options with suggested searches.

~~~
tomkarlo
I have a ton of search engines installed but it only does one suggested search
in the list of options, as far as I can tell.

------
hugh4life
Better than normal update experience that's still nowhere near Chrome. The
Tree Style Tabs extension still works after the update...

Chrome is absolutely unusable for the amount of windows I have open at a time
and Firefox doesn't crash on me as much as it used to in order to warrant
having every page take up a separate process.

~~~
tapoxi
Have you tried enabling side tabs in Chrome? Works wonders for me.

~~~
thorax
I love Tree-Style Tabs, so had to try this out.

For anyone else who had trouble tracking down modern instructions for this:

    
    
      * Go to about:flags
      * Enable Side tabs (first option)
      * Restart Chrome
      * Right-click on a tab and chose "Use side tabs"
    

Not a treeview of collapsible tabs, but muchmuchmuch better than normal tab
view in Chrome. Thanks for mentioning that they had this.

~~~
petercooper
What version has this? I just tried 12, 13 and 14 (Canary) and I don't have
that option. I have "Tab Overview" as the first thing in flags. Is this a
Windows only thing, perhaps?

~~~
cbr
In osx I had to do:

    
    
         cd /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS
         mv "Google Chrome" "Google Chrome Binary"
         echo '#!/bin/bash
         exec "${0%/*}/Google Chrome Binary" -enable-vertical-tabs "$@"' > "Google Chrome"
         chmod ugo+x "Google Chrome"
    

This let me start chrome with the "-enable-vertical-tabs" command line switch.
Once it was started I needed to right click a tab and choose "Use Side Tabs".

~~~
jannes
Wouldn't this break after an update?

------
netnichols
Release Notes: <http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/5.0/releasenotes/>

~~~
mbrubeck
And for web developers, some more detailed notes at
<https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Firefox_5_for_developers>

By the way, if you are a web developer, I strongly encourage you to use the
Firefox Beta or Aurora channel:

<http://www.firefox.com/channel/>

~~~
Silhouette
> By the way, if you are a web developer, I strongly encourage you to use the
> Firefox Beta or Aurora channel:

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but if you're really expecting a lot of
professional web developers to do that, I think you're crazy.

Now that both Chrome and Firefox are on silly release schedules, we waste
enough time just keeping up with the breaking changes and random UI
rearrangements in day-to-day work. Who has time to spend reading yet another
set of release notes every few days, when there's a good chance that nothing
in them will be usable in production projects for several years anyway?

If you really want to drive progress, I implore you to stop this madness, and
allow a few months for the industry to consolidate so we have some sort of
standards to work with. You've made your point: the W3C is a dinosaur chasing
a snail riding on a tortoise and you can go faster. But until the new
technologies are standard enough that we only have to develop for them once
and we can rely on that development still working in a couple of years, all
your hard work is being wasted because we still have to write to the lowest
common denominator.

You are the new Netscape, Microsoft are the new Microsoft, and now there are
several other major browsers we all have to cope with as well. Going it alone
just doesn't cut it, whichever of you does it.

~~~
mbrubeck
Actually, one reason web developers can benefit from running pre-release
browsers is that you are in the best position to _prevent_ breaking changes
from happening. If a bug that breaks your web site makes it out to the 400
million people on our stable channel, then it's too late stop your users from
seeing it. But if you report the bug to the vendor when it first appears in
alpha or beta, you improve the chance it will be fixed before your mainstream
users ever see it.

~~~
Silhouette
I appreciate what you're saying, but unfortunately my clients pay by the hour,
and they aren't paying me to be a beta tester for your organisation. Even if I
wanted to help you, it would be deeply unethical for me to do so while
charging my clients for the time. And even if it weren't, please consider what
a huge amount of time it would take to download and install development builds
of every major browser regularly enough for this to matter. It's just not
practical for me, and I don't see how it ever could be for any other
professional web developer in a similar position.

Maybe if we were talking about a team of in-house developers responsible for a
single application or something it would be more realistic, but not for
freelancers or small agencies who get paid time and materials, which seems to
be most of us these days if my experience is at all representative.

------
ineedtosleep
Chrome user here since launch (who is also very entrenched into Chrome in
terms of workflow): Ever since FF4b, I've been nearing a full switch back to
Firefox, but the main deterring factor for me was performance. With FF5, the
performance increase is absolutely noticeable and I commend the Mozilla team
for their work. It's nearing a point where I'd like to switch back.

Now if only they can polish the Android browser a little more ;)

~~~
dangoor
We are polishing Firefox Mobile, too! It is releasing in sync with desktop
now.

------
atacrawl
Anyone using the Amazon S3 Firefox Organizer extension will be disappointed as
I am to discover that it doesn't work with FF5.

EDIT: Luckily, I had a moment of intelligence and copied FF4 before installing
FF5, so I would recommend doing that if you use S3Fox with any regularity.

~~~
windsurfer
You can probably hack the extension to support FF5. There haven't been too
many changes that should affect this.

~~~
trezor
_You can probably hack the extension to support FF5. There haven't been too
many changes that should affect this._

And hence the stupidity in adopting Chrome-style meaningless major version-
numbers when what is released is only a minor update. I know the IT industry
is highly fashion-driven, but that doesn't mean following fashions doesn't
have drawbacks.

This is Firefox 4.1 at best, but released as Firefox 5 with all the needless
addon breaking headaches that will bring, just because Mozilla wanted to be
more "fashionate". Great job guys. Great job.

I guess this another thing we can thank the Chrome team for.

~~~
carussell
> This is Firefox 4.1 at best, but released as Firefox 5 with all the needless
> addon breaking headaches that will bring

Point releases in the past have broken extension compatibility, so asking that
it be 4.1 instead of 5 wouldn't necessarily have the kinds of tangible
benefits that you seem to think it would.

------
lux
LOVE that pinned tabs stay open after reload, without resorting to hacks like
you have to with Chrome. That's about the only thing that persistently bugs me
in Chrome these days. All in all, FF5 is looking really good. Way to go!

~~~
RyanKearney
There's no "hack" to get pinned tabs to re-open in Chrome, they just do.

~~~
lux
Only if the last window you close is the one with the pinned tabs, otherwise
they're gone and there doesn't seem to be a "re-open pinned tabs" option to
retrieve them either. So at this point, the only effective solution is to use
the bookmark bar and avoid pinned tabs. After I erased them accidentally once,
I'm not wasting time with that "feature" again.

~~~
RyanKearney
Nope, then you go to recently closed tabs and you'll see a folder that says "6
Tabs" or whatever and clicking it will restore the window.

------
getsat
If I update, I'm going to have to manually edit the few extensions I actually
run Firefox for to increase their "max supported version" string to 5.x.
That's one downside I can see with this new release system.

~~~
mbrubeck
Most add-ons hosted by Mozilla have already been automatically updated for 5.0
compatibility:

[http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2011/04/19/add-on-
compatibili...](http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2011/04/19/add-on-
compatibility-rapid-releases/)

~~~
getsat
Cool. Glad they thought about that situation before switching to this new
release/versioning system.

------
typicaluser
I would like to upgrade from 3.6 on the Mac, but when I tested Firefox 5 beta,
it still seemed to have the same memory leak issue Firefox 4 has, i.e. I open
two tabs without any add-ons and with a half hour's time Firefox is using 250+
MB of memory.

~~~
oinksoft
Me too, I don't like the feeling that I am now two versions behind.

------
vessenes
Does it auto-upgrade, a-la Chrome?

Update, nope, it does tell you there's an upgrade, though (at least on OS X).
I think the next step for the FF team is getting those cool assembly-text-diff
things like Chrome has working. Until then, there's just fragmentation.

~~~
mbrubeck
Firefox does use binary diffs for updates, and has for years:

<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Software_Update:MAR>

It downloads the update automatically, but it will prompt you to restart a
while after the update is downloaded (if you haven't restarted on your own).
We are actively working on making the whole process less intrusive and more
seamless.

~~~
jamesgeck0
Still, Chrome's updates tend to be measured in kilobytes, and the update for
Firefox 5 was a few megabytes. There's room to shrink things.

~~~
gnaritas
Doesn't mean it's necessary. The size of the update matters little to the end
user as long as it's small and 5 megs is small for most people.

~~~
jamesgeck0
The update server was delivering the ~8mb patch at about 4kb/s this afternoon.
It took me several minutes to update.

Even when update servers aren't dying under heavy load, my internet connection
isn't very fast. There are many people who don't have fast connections, both
in the US and elsewhere. Programs downloading things in the background render
web browsing noticeably slower and make voip unusable. Update size matters.

~~~
gnaritas
It matters for some people, yes, like you, but for most, it simply doesn't. I
did say most in my original post as well.

~~~
jamesgeck0
Glancing at stats from Point Topic[1] and Internet World Stats[2], it looks
like only a quarter of the world's internet connections were broadband in
2009. If one is building software for a global user base, a fast connection is
not a given for most people.

1\. (pdf)
[http://broadband.cti.gr/el/download/World%20Broadband%20Stat...](http://broadband.cti.gr/el/download/World%20Broadband%20Statistics%20Q4%202009.pdf)

2\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_broadband_Internet_users)

------
angus77
Next time could we get a link to the list of changes rather than a download
page?

------
falava
Mozilla, just call it Firefox, and make it always updated to the last version.

~~~
mbrubeck
Yes, that's our basic plan. Updates are automatic and enabled by default, and
the official press release does not mention a version number anywhere:

[http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2011/06/21/mozilla-delivers-
new...](http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2011/06/21/mozilla-delivers-new-version-
of-firefox-first-web-browser-to-support-do-not-track-on-multiple-platforms/)

~~~
baltcode
But does FF5 work with firebug?

~~~
jcoder
FYI: On install, Firefox 5 said it was not compatible with Firebug 1.7.3 and
disabled it. I happened to be sitting next to 5 or 6 Mozilla devs at the
moment (open source bridge conf) and one of them told me to install Firebug
fresh from the site. I downloaded and installed the 1.7.3 xpi and it worked
without complaint. No idea what's up with that.

~~~
mbrubeck
Sounds like this problem is fixed now:
<https://twitter.com/#!/shaver/status/83595913628631040>

------
mikecane
OK, before I go get this, I have just one simple question: Is it as fast as
Opera 11.11? I just got done bitching about how slow FF4 is on my crap PC,
while Opera 11.11 is like absolute lightning on it. Why can't Firefox be that
fast if Opera can?!

~~~
mikecane
What, questions like that aren't allowed? I wasn't being snarky. What is it
that makes Opera so fast that Firefox can't do also? EDIT: And I want to be
clear too: I do not use the Turbo feature of Opera.

~~~
snarkyturtle
Opera is a lot better at being scalable from my experience. It works just as
well given limited resources and scales up to being able to use all the
resources of a powerhouse computer.

~~~
mikecane
Why can't Firefox do the same, though, is what I'm asking. Why cut off an
entire segment of low-end computers? Don't talk about bridging a digital
divide while also creating one!

------
uses
I was hoping to see the back button be clickable from the left edge of the
screen. It's a large oversight, in my view.

<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=571454>

~~~
thristian
If you right-click on the page, "Back" is usually the first item. It's a lot
quicker to get to than the Back button, even if it were clickable from the
left edge of the screen.

Long ago I removed all the navigation buttons from my Firefox toolbar; I much
prefer having room for larger URL and search bars.

------
tnorthcutt
For anyone who went to <http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/releases/>
looking for release notes and didn't find them, here they are:
<http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/5.0/releasenotes/>

And a complete list of bug fixes: [http://www.mozilla.com/en-
US/firefox/5.0/releasenotes/buglis...](http://www.mozilla.com/en-
US/firefox/5.0/releasenotes/buglist.html)

------
meow
I hope glow.mozilla.org will be back. I really loved watching those download
numbers fly by :).

------
peapicker
Probably won't be trying it, I've been using FF4, and then Nightly, but the
memory leakage is so hideous on FF since 3.x that i finally gave up -- after 6
hours use, FF4 and nightly would use 1GB ram, even after closing all but one
simple tab. Forced browser restarts.

Chrome is where I've ended up. If FF ever get the memory leaks straightened
out, I may switch back.

~~~
Perceval
Mozilla has launched a dedicated group to tracking down memory usage problems:
[http://www.internetnews.com/skerner/2011/06/mozilla-
launches...](http://www.internetnews.com/skerner/2011/06/mozilla-launches-
memshrink-eff.html)

------
kellishaver
Kind of nice to have Flash working again. It had stopped working for me when I
upgraded to 4 (Ubuntu 64 bit). I'd tried a few suggested fixes, none of which
worked, so I'd just resigned myself to having to open up Chrome any time I
wanted to view something that used Flash, which isn't often, but I'm glad that
issue is resolved.

~~~
postfuturist
Flash has been rendering badly for me on Ubuntu 64 bit since Firefox 4. It's
annoying enough that I just use Chrome. Firefox 5 has the same problem,
unfortunately.

~~~
kellishaver
Performance was fine for me, when it would work. It just wouldn't work. It
kept telling me I didn't have the plug-in installed.

That said, my computer has pretty beefy specs, so that may have something to
do with it.

------
tyng
What the.... I just ungraded to Firefox 4 not long ago, haven't even got used
to 4's interface (I use Chrome 99% of the time) and Firefox 5 is out...

I wonder what's the logic behind this release schedule

~~~
sthlm
Firefox has incremented the main version number rarely up till Firefox 4, but
planned to change this for 2011. An explanation of some of the benefits and
drawbacks are outlined here: [http://arstechnica.com/open-
source/news/2011/02/is-mozillas-...](http://arstechnica.com/open-
source/news/2011/02/is-mozillas-2011-roadmap-unrealistically-ambitious.ars)

In general it is always wise to not waste too much time interpreting version
numbers, as they often fail to reflect the pace of development that is
actually happening. The Linux Kernel has been around forever, but only
recently got bumped to 3.0rc1; Chrome on the other hand is already stable at
12.x.

~~~
smogzer
From a personal marketing perspective i guess they do this version rush
because the dummy "consumer" looks at a big number for comparison. Chrome
started pulling big numbers to surpass IE, and now firefox is doing the same.

~~~
mbrubeck
This is really not about marketing.

First off, Google rarely even mentions Chrome version numbers in its marketing
material, and neither will Mozilla. The <http://blog.mozilla.com/> post
announcing Firefox 5 does not mention the version number, and neither does the
main web site at <http://firefox.com/> \- also see Chrome's release
announcements at <http://chrome.blogspot.com/>

We actually care much more about delivering features and performance
improvements in a timely way than about having a big number before the dot.
"Just add one" is a simple rule that saves us from arguing about versions and
lets us spend that time improving the browser instead.

Non-technical users rarely even know about version numbers. Meanwhile, people
who have any experience in software know that version numbers are and have
always been arbitrary. Neither group would be "fooled" by a higher version
number, so why would we bother trying?

(Did MacOS really have "more" changes from 8 to 9 than from 10.3 to 10.4, or
does Apple just really like the number 10? Did Linux stop getting major
changes during the 2.4 series and suddenly start again with the release of
3.0? Is the Solaris 11 release more significant than the SunOS 5.11 release
even though they are the same thing? The "real" meaning of a version number
has always been whatever the developer wants it to mean.)

------
c4urself
Is FF planning on coming out with a auto-upgrade system?

~~~
mbrubeck
It's had one for years, and it's enabled by default. Firefox will
automatically download a binary diff in the background, and apply it the next
time you start the browser. If you don't restart for a while, it will
eventually prompt you to restart. (Much like Chrome, except that Firefox
currently uses a dialog box prompt while Chrome has a more subtle toolbar
icon.)

Previously there were two types of releases: "minor" releases which were
installed automatically because they contained security fixes, and "major"
releases which prompted the user to choose first.

Now there will be no more "major" or "minor" releases. All new releases will
be installed automatically, though I believe there is an exception if any
extensions are broken by a new release. _(EDIT: I mean, if any extensions that
you already have installed will be disabled by the update.)_

~~~
csulok
> auto-upgrade

he means silent.

~~~
sbierwagen
That would be a hell of a achievement then, since Chrome doesn't have silent
upgrading either. It still requires a reboot.

~~~
joejohnson
I don't think Chrome requires a reboot on OSX

~~~
sbierwagen
A restart*

As in, Chrome must be closed, and restarted.

Gosh, wish I had noticed that during the edit window.

~~~
joejohnson
Ah, true. I guess a restart and a reboot are effectively the same on Chrome
OS.

------
praptak
Congratulations. My first contact with Firefox still holds the #1 position for
the greatest impression a piece of software has ever made on me (sorry, Linux
:) )

It was called Phoenix (0.3 ?) then and was the pinnacle of elegance compared
to the uber-crappy IE and bloat-loaded Mozilla. If I remember correctly their
policy then was to make every consecutive binary release _smaller_ than
previous one.

------
methane
That looks pretty cool and I want to switch from Opera to Mozilla (can't
switch to Chrome as it doesn't work in Windows 7 64bit for me) and I want to
import my Opera's information to Mozilla. I click File->Import...->Opera->Next
and it shows just empty field. When I try to do the same with Explorer, it
works. So, what is the problem, could you give me a hand? Thank you.

------
Klinky
I need my vertical tabs on the right side of my screen, which is why I am
still stuck in Firefox 3.6 land.

~~~
nfg
TreeStyleTabs is working fine for me in FF4 (and mostly did throughout the
betas), does it not work on the right hand side?

~~~
mbrubeck
And it is already marked compatible with Firefox 5, as well as Firefox 6
(currently in testing on the Aurora/alpha channel) and Firefox 7 (currently in
development on the Nightly channel):

<https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/>

~~~
Klinky
Alright, took the plunge. I never liked tree style tabs much in the past, but
I've tweaked it abit here in Firefox 5, also got FireGestures & Firebug
updated too. Good stuff, we'll see if I stick with it.

------
tathagatadg
The IE team sent the Firefox team a cupcake poking fun at the new release
cycle ... [http://www.geekwire.com/2011/cupcake-firefox-5-microsoft-
fun...](http://www.geekwire.com/2011/cupcake-firefox-5-microsoft-fun-mozillas-
rapid-release)

------
unicornporn
Yes, but now I have to wait 4 months for all the extensions I'm using to
update (ie, change the "maxVersion" string) to v5.

~~~
thristian
That shouldn't be necessary. addons.mozilla.org and automatically bumps the
maxVersion string for extensions that don't touch features that changed in the
new version.

I'm currently using an Aurora build (what will be Firefox 6), and most of my
extensions are already marked compatible.

~~~
unicornporn
That's great! Didn't know about that change.

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theycallmemorty
App tabs seem like a pretty cool feature.

~~~
Fargren
I have been using them since FF4, they are really nice.

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chrisjsmith
Using it now. Looks the same as 4. All add-ons worked fine. Seems a little
faster but that might be because my previous firefox process had been up for
about 3 days and had gotten all slow.

~~~
weaksauce
Yes there must be some kind of memory leak or fragmentation that makes ff slow
after a few days of running. I see the same thing on os x mbp.

~~~
capnrefsmmat
Yes, there were a number of leak bugs fixed between 4 and 5, and the Mozilla
guys are chasing after tons more. They've created a project specifically to
chase down leaks and bloat issues, and you can see the various tracking bugs
there:

<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink>

More fixes will be in Firefox 6 and 7, it looks like. Here's a particularly
fun bloat fix that should be headed for 7:

[http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2011/06/21/you-make-
what...](http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2011/06/21/you-make-what-you-
measure/)

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johnx123
Thanks guys, but I'm not sure how you lost to Chrome

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SkyRocknRoll
Thmbs Up Mozilla Team !!

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egb
Still no flash auto-update like Chrome? Then I'm still Chrome-y!

