Firefox 4 is officially released; Latest: Firefox 5 Beta available (reply #34)

[1992casey]

I don't know what might be causing this.

 

Replacing your profile might be necessary. Do you have anything that's part of your Firefox installation that you might be particularly attached to, e.g. passwords, cookies, bookmarks, extensions, etc.?

[DuWayne Steurer]

What's with the rapid-fire browser releases? We've been on 3.x for what? Well over a year now? I can see pushing updates and whatnot, but 2 months seems like an awfully short lifespan for a browser. Are we sure these aren't more like 4.x updates that they're just renaming 5 and 6?

[1992casey]

Firefox is modeling its delivery system to be like that of Google Chrome. One of its Product Priorities for 2011 is:

1. Ship our new technology to users in smaller bundles, more frequently
   [li] Four technology shipment vehicles in 2011, including Firefox 4
   1. Achieve a regular cadence for shipping

   [/li]

The goal is to get technology to users more quickly by releasing a new version every two months. If a feature isn't ready for an upcoming version, it'll be delayed to the next rather than holding back the upcoming release.

 

Firefox 5 is supposed to introduce a silent update system much like Chrome's. Provided that the update feature is completed in time for Firefox 5, Firefox 5 users will be automatically updated to Firefox 6 when it's released in August.

[danzig6767]

How does Firefox get revenues since their browsers are free?

[1992casey]

Grants, donations, lots of revenue from Google in exchange for Google being the default search engine, and volunteer help.

 

danzig6767, is Firefox still acting up for you?

[1992casey]

Users of PowerPC Macs or OS X Tiger can now download TenFourFox, which is a version of Firefox 4 revamped to run on those older systems.

 

Download

links are at the bottom of the page I've linked to above. Note that

each processor has its own version of TenFourFox. While all versions

work on all PowerPC processors, a "wrong" version won't work as well as

the right one. Note that there are two G4 versions, meaning that you

should follow the instructions to make sure you know which kind of G4

processor you have.

 

It looks like the only people not covered would

be users of OS X Tiger on Intel Macs. However, all Intel Macs can run

either OS X Leopard or OS X Snow Leopard.

 

The developer of TenFourFox has submitted his

code to Mozilla, meaning that it's possible that the ability to use

newer Firefoxes on the PowerPC platform could be built into Firefox in

the future.

[danzig6767]

Grants, donations, lots of revenue from Google in exchange for Google being the default search engine, and volunteer help.

 

danzig6767, is Firefox still acting up for you?

I actually figured out my tabs issue with Firefox on my own. It was caused by the ASK toolbar was added with other updates and for whatever reason, that toolbar prevented the opening of new tabs. Once i removed the ASK program, problem was solved.

[NeedMoreFans]

One pet peeve with FF 4...on the "back" button, I can't seem to find a drop down of the past 10 or so pages I was on. That means I have to click the "back" button 3-4 times to get back to a page I visited earlier. Not a big deal, but it is a change from 3.xx.

[1992casey]

Right-click on the button, and you'll get the dropdown.

[berniebrewer4life]

The FF 5 Beta is out. One thing i have noticed:

 

You can switch between Beta, Release, and Aurora versions without needing to download the file separately(i think it's called a channel switcher).

 

Download here:

 

http://blog.mozilla.com/f.../2011/05/20/firefoxbeta/

 

 

I'm running it now, it's pretty stable, but obviously most of my add ons don't work.

[1992casey]

The channel switcher is an interesting concept. Chrome has been doing that. My only concern would be frequent channel switching while using the same Firefox profile. If you have a decent backup routine, that shouldn't be much of an issue, though.

 

I've been running Firefox 5 Aurora for a few weeks. From what I can tell, there won't be any visible differences between Firefox 4 and Firefox 5. Rather, the improvements are under the hood. I've been noticing that so far, Firefox 5 has been using somewhat less memory, for instance.

[1992casey]

A little more on Firefox channels…

 

As was mentioned earlier in this topic, Firefox has adopted a fast release cycle, with new versions of the browser being released every six weeks. Firefox 5 is scheduled to be released on June 21. Firefox 6 is scheduled for release in August.

 

Firefox channels refer to different stages of the development cycle. You can choose the channel which suits you best. The four channels:

• Nightly: The first place changes are tried out; expect bugs; updates released every day; no quality assurance testing; currently Firefox 6; should change to Firefox 7 in a few days; named "Nightly" rather than "Firefox" and has a special icon. It's very possible that a nightly version could be a total dud and whack out your Firefox profile.
• Aurora: Cutting edge; could have bugs, updates released every day, cursory quality assurance testing; currently Firefox 5; should change to Firefox 6 in a few days; named "Aurora" rather than "Firefox" and has a special icon. It's not likely that an Aurora version will be a total dud, but it's possible that noticeable problems could arise.
  
• Beta: New features are available before official release, more stable than Aurora; updates released every week, good quality
  assurance testing; currently Firefox 5; should change to
  Firefox 6 soon after the release of Firefox 5; named "Firefox" and has the traditional icon.
• Release: Stable; excellent quality assurance testing; updates every six weeks. Firefox 5 will be released on June 21; Firefox 6 will be released in August.

Emergency updates will be released as needed and will be applied simultaneously to all channels.

 

The channel switcher is currently available in the Aurora and Beta versions of Firefox. It allows you to switch between the Aurora, Beta, and Release versions. I'm sure that Nightly is left out of the switcher because it's too fragile to be offered so conveniently.

 

Note that when you change channels, you do a full download of the version you're switching to. That threw me the first time I tried it. The channel switch will take effect after a restart.

 

I assume that the channel switcher will be available in the Firefox 5 release. In the meantime, if you want to try Aurora or Beta, they can be downloaded from the Firefox Channels page.

[GAME05]

i have whatever the latest Firefox version is and have been using Firefox primarily because that's what i'm used to using. but it's been so incredibly slow that i think i'll soon be switching to Opera or Chrome because i'm tired of waiting forever for pages to load. a page on another tab still hasn't loaded and i've already typed this and read the previous comments. frustrating.

[1992casey]

In your Help menu, you'll see an item that says "Restart with Add-ons Disabled…." Try doing that and see if things improve. If they do, you'll want to replace your Firefox profile.

 

When you choose this option, you'll be presented with a list of checkboxes. They look creepy. I wouldn't touch them without knowing more about their effects.

[GAME05]

definitely appreciate the tip. i tried that and then it struck me that the Internet being the Internet, there's really no reason i should be having to tinker with a program (especially with my basic computer knowledge) when i could just pick up something else. Opera is immediately faster and Firefox has now been uninstalled.

[1992casey]

Opera's a good standards-compliant browser. Generally, any browser that's updated frequently and isn't IE is a good choice.

 

All browsers keep user data in some sort of profile. The others aren't as well publicized as Firefox's, and I don't know if they're known to cause the issues that Firefox's profile can cause at times or not.

 

The non-intuitive aspect of all this is that people try uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox without it doing any good. When they replace their profile, it generally does a lot of good.

 

Mozilla wants to add the ability to fix profiles during the installation process.

We should provide some way for users to automatically fix Firefox (by fixing their profile) during the installation process.

There are a number of serious Firefox issues (not starting, crashing,

unexpected behavior, lost toolbars and more) that can be solved by

fixing the user's profile. The problem is, fixing a profile is an

incredibly difficult task – see these two articles (1, 2)

for complete steps. Many users try to reinstall Firefox to solve these

issues but reinstallation doesn't do anything to the profile folder.

Providing this option on installation makes it both intuitive and

discoverable.

I don't think there's any work being done at this point, meaning that I wouldn't expect to see such a feature until at least Firefox 8. Replacing a Firefox profile (for most users) isn't as hard as the quote above makes it out to be. Generally, you can export your bookmarks and your move your old profile out to your desktop (in case you have to put it back). Firefox will automatically create a fresh profile, and you and import your old bookmarks. Once you're happy with your new profile, the old one can be deleted.

 

It gets hairier if you have a lot of custom settings and extensions. It's not hard to re-add extensions, though. And if settings changes are complicated, they can be backed up with Firefox Sync, which is built into Firefox 4 and above and available as an extension for Firefox 3.5 & 3.6.

 

If you have an automatic backup routine, it's generally easy to revert to an earlier Firefox profile that's known to be good. I get adventurous at times and do things I regret. Restoring a backup is a quick and easy way to fix the issue.

 

By the way, if you're still running Firefox 3.5, it should be updated immediately, preferably to Firefox 4. Its final update occurred a few weeks ago, meaning that it'll no longer get security fixes. Mozilla is actually going to force a major update on 3.5 users in a month, as long as they have automatic updates turned on. That's the first time a browser maker has ever made a decision to do that.