Firefox 5 is now officially released

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html

by smash • 15 years ago

373 204 15 years ago

vessenes• 15 years ago

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.

mbrubeck15• 15 years ago

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.

jamesgeck03• 15 years ago

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.

ordinary• 15 years ago

It automatically updated for me when I restarted it, without prompting. This is on Windows.

ineedtosleep2• 15 years ago

I can somewhat confirm this as well:

Ran Firefox, went to the about window and it was already downloading the update. It also does autoinstall, but you will get notified if you still have the default Vista/7 notification settings (i.e. 'Blah wants to run this. Yes or no').

andrewheins• 15 years ago

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.

nodata• 15 years ago

> always have the correct version.

Depends what you mean by "correct version". If your app isn't tested with 5, then it's not the correct version.

Firefox's release mechanism is the middle ground between IE's and Chrome's: you get updates, but you decide when, and they're not tied to the OS.

cdata• 15 years ago

In some ways, Chrome has reset the bar for updates. Google has shown that you can have silent background updates containing meaningful features that don't (in general) break add-on compatibility.

People may have felt deterred by this in the past, but I would argue that it has worked impressively well for Chrome so far, and makes older mechanisms seem clumsy and antiquated.

wccrawford• 15 years ago

Yeah, it seems to be a bit of a leftover from the days when each major version was radically different and customers would demand to stay on an old one.

I like Chrome's way much better, even though I admit it does play a bit of havoc with the enterprise-y types that don't use standards-compliant sites.

gnaffle• 15 years ago

I never changed any default settings, and still got a dialog box asking if I wanted to upgrade. And I'm glad I got that question instead of a forced upgrade, because some of my installed extensions weren't ready for FF5.

mbrubeck15• 15 years ago

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...

JadeNB3• 15 years ago

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?

asomiv• 15 years ago

How times have changed. Not too long ago people loathed automatic updates and some said they're boycotting Firefox for having an autoupdate feature.

Gormo• 15 years ago

Many still do. I've been using SRWare Iron and as my primary browser - it's Chromium with the privacy-compromising features removed - in part because I'm very uneasy about software being modified by stealth on my system.

In this era when the unfortunate trend in UI design is to make interfaces easier by making them less functional and less customizable, I also especially want a good look at redesigned major-version updates before I install them

netnichols• 15 years ago

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

mbrubeck15• 15 years ago

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/

Silhouette6• 15 years ago

> 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.

elehack• 15 years ago

Thank you.

Quite annoying that there isn't an obvious way to get the release notes when browsing to mozilla.com.

chrisjsmith2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

chrisjsmith2• 15 years ago

Had the same problem although Firefox usually crashed before I got a few days out of it.

capnrefsmmat2• 15 years ago

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...

Klinky2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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

mbrubeck15• 15 years ago

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/

egb• 15 years ago

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

atacrawl2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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

fishtastic• 15 years ago

I found a way to do this in XP. (Vista or 7 should be similar)

1. Open "Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\extensions

2. Find the folder for the unsupported extension, there should be a file called install.rdf inside.

3. Open the file and change the <em:maxVersion> to 5.*.

Might have missed something, but that did the trick for me.

trezor• 15 years ago

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.

mbrubeck15• 15 years ago

You can also use this extension to enable add-ons in new versions and tell the developer (and Mozilla) whether they need to be fixed or not:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/add-on-compatibilit...

atacrawl2• 15 years ago

Done and done. Thank you sir!

listic2• 15 years ago

Of the add-ons I used to have only 1 (RDS Bar) is not supporting FF 5. But, that's in addition to a couple that don't support FF4 yet.

megaman821• 15 years ago

Weird, I am actively using it right now with FF5.

c4urself• 15 years ago

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

mbrubeck15• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

> auto-upgrade

he means silent.

kanak• 15 years ago

> "I believe there is an exception if any extensions are broken by a new release"

Are you talking about extensions that I already have installed or any extension on AMO that might not work with the new version?

thaumaturgy3• 15 years ago

> All new releases will be installed automatically...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

...

Mind if I ask how you guys arrive at decisions like this one? We provide IT support services to individuals & businesses in three counties; automatic updates are, by far, not their favorite thing.

...actually, scratch that, nevermind. We have a new product coming out in six months and I think you just helped us sell it. Big time.

tyng• 15 years ago

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

daleharvey• 15 years ago

its moving more towards chromes rolling upgrades, luckily you are already familiar with them

The interface wont have as massive changes during faster releases

sthlm• 15 years ago

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-...

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• 15 years ago

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.

benedikt• 15 years ago

I read in Torvalds "Just for fun" that the version numbers for the Linux kernel were always supposed to indicate how far to the next major release it is. In the book he mentioned that it really tough when he bumped the version number up to 0.95 because he "only" had to implement the network stack..

falava2• 15 years ago

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

mbrubeck15• 15 years ago

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...

falava2• 15 years ago

Thanks! That is a great move, only the latest and greatest version around.

Equint• 15 years ago

Clever! I didn't actually notice that when I read through it.

baltcode• 15 years ago

But does FF5 work with firebug?

hugh4life2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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

thorax• 15 years ago

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.

hugh4life2• 15 years ago

I last heard about it a while ago... just tried it... nowhere near as good as TreeStyleTabs...

Chrome also just doesn't work well for me for the amount of windows I usually have open at a time. 70+ at least.

yqiang• 15 years ago

Are you on windows or osx? Would love to know how to get side tabs working on OSX.

listic2• 15 years ago

Wow, never encountered this problem. How many tabs in how many browser instances did you have?

marcocampos• 15 years ago

The worst for me in Chrome is trying to scroll while a site is still loading or you have tabs loading in the background. That damn bug hasn't been solved for 2 years and counting... (yes, I've filed a bug report)

tung• 15 years ago

Strange. For me, Firefox has unresponsive scrolling with background loading, but Chrome doesn't, which is a big reason I use the latter nowadays.

kakuri• 15 years ago

> Chrome is absolutely unusable for the amount of windows I have open

Odd, that's the exact reason I switched from FF to Chrome. I generally have about 20-40 tabs open, and FF is terrible for me with more than just a few open, while Chrome flies along gracefully.

I wonder what the cause for the widely varying performance experiences is?

starwed2• 15 years ago

Probably an extension you had installed.

yxhuvud• 15 years ago

More important is that tab kit still isn't fixed.

That damned plugin keep me in FF3, since tree style tabs are so goddamed ugly.

Edit: But looking at the page, it seems the developer posted an update yesterday promising an update in a week or two. yay!

jokermatt999• 15 years ago

There are several themes for TreeStyleTab available in options, and you can also use your theme's default tabs (which looks weird). I wish it was supported by default in Firefox, but oh well.

zalew• 15 years ago

> The Tree Style Tabs extension still works after the update..

that's always the most important information for me before i upgrade ff, so thank you!

mikecane4• 15 years ago

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?!

mikecane4• 15 years ago

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.

meow2• 15 years ago

Extensions! Lots of extensions (in my case anyway). But that's what I love firefox for :)

snarkyturtle• 15 years ago

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.

getsat3• 15 years ago

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.

capnrefsmmat2• 15 years ago

Not necessarily. Install this extension and you'll be able to use any unsupported extensions: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compat...

It'll also let you report their compatibility back to Mozilla and the extension developers so they know if the extension needs updating.

getsat3• 15 years ago

Awesome, thanks for the link. Didn't realize there was an extension to let you run extensions. :)

mbrubeck15• 15 years ago

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...

getsat3• 15 years ago

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

theycallmemorty• 15 years ago

App tabs seem like a pretty cool feature.

Fargren• 15 years ago

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

MatthewPhillips5• 15 years ago

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.

mbrubeck15• 15 years ago

You can of course customize the toolbars [1] to remove the search bar, since you can also search through the address bar. But unlike the search bar, the address bar does not show suggestions as you type, because of the privacy implications of sending everything you type there to a third party. (There are add-ons to change that if you want to.)

[1] http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/how-do-i-customize-toolb...

MatthewPhillips5• 15 years ago

Why ship with the redundant feature? Revenue?

personalcompute• 15 years ago

Not the intended purpose, but the search box has been very useful to me in the past as a quick second paste-buffer, much quicker than opening a text editor or anything to place it in.

redouane• 15 years ago

the search box is kept because it may be part of the deal with google i think

pkamb7• 15 years ago

The "search bar keeping your previous search term" issue has to do with the ownership of the search box. It used to be, when tabs were below the search box, that made sense. You'd be using the same one search box no matter which tab you were on, and thus it would always keep the same search term between tabs.

Now, with tabs-on-top, each tab contains its own search box. These should be unique, just like each tab has its own URL bar. It doesn't make sense at all that search queries are preserved between tabs. But that's the way Firefox still does it.

(Thinking about this now, I guess that's a different issue than the one you were talking about... why any search box saves any query after pressing "Enter". Still an annoying little quirk though.)

nazar• 15 years ago

I am not sure about FF5, but on FF4 though the search bar kinda seems to be related to the particular tab, it is still the common search bar and the things I searched while at one tab are displayed in every other tab. I am using Ubuntu 11.04/Firefox 4.0.1

pkamb7• 15 years ago

And the saving the search term thing is that way because that's how Google-the-website works. Search for something on google.com, and the Results Page shows that term in the box. The Search Box behavior was just carried over from that.

carussell2• 15 years ago

> Now, with tabs-on-top, each tab contains its own search box. These should be unique, just like each tab has its own URL bar.

The location bar is faked, too. Try focusing the location bar and ctrl/cmd+Z-ing through the values it's held since browser startup.

albertsun2• 15 years ago

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.

tomkarlo2• 15 years ago

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.

mixmastamyk4• 15 years ago

I like it but it needs some optimization or throttling. Would you believe the fans on my laptop go on full blast when I type in the url bar? Annoying.

colkassad• 15 years ago

Whenever I switch to another browser (such as IE at work because it is mandated for 'security reasons') that is the first thing I miss. In many cases I only type one letter before getting what I want.

starwed2• 15 years ago

If you use more than one search engine, keeping the term after pressing enter can make a lot of sense.

Example: If I search wikipedia and that produces no results, I'll google the same term instead.

That said, it would probably make sense for it to clear out after a few minutes, or after your interaction seems to indicate that you're done with that search term.

barney54• 15 years ago

It might not be necessary, but it is the one feature I prefer about Firefox than Chrome. I use it a lot and it is more handy to change search engines or to search other sites than typing those things in my hand in Chrome.

anant• 15 years ago

Everything you type in Chrome's single address bar is sent to Google servers. In Firefox, only the stuff you type in the search bar reaches servers for auto-completion, but the location bar is entirely local.

This is an important distinction for privacy, but you are right that we may need to come up with a better UI that unifies the two boxes whilst maintaining the distinction between a local and remote search. The "prospector" series of experimental add-ons from Mozilla Labs have some ideas in this area, most notably AwesomeBar HD: https://mozillalabs.com/prospector/2011/04/27/awesomebar-hd-...

typicaluser• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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

tzury• 15 years ago

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.

sagarun• 15 years ago

For the first time as a developer i used firebug today and avoided alerts in my js. Thank you firefox :-).

demetris• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

r0s• 15 years ago

It's amazing this wonderful FREE software has evolved the web so much.

Open standards build the web. Free tools create a vivid creative environment.

rradu• 15 years ago

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

dlikhten• 15 years ago

I will now transfer 1 UNC (UNicorn Coin) to the devs for this. Definitely a feature that should have been there earlier.

However there is a bug, clicking the X sometimes causes the need to click it twice because the first time it is ignored.

I havent seen this on linux yet, is it still ugly as all hell or did they improve it like they did with windows version?

yesimahuman3• 15 years ago

It is buggy with the x having to be clicked twice if you close too fast.

Edit: Try it yourself if you disagree.

pkamb7• 15 years ago

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".)

mixmastamyk4• 15 years ago

Try this: Turn off the x's as they just waste space. Then close tabs with a middle click or Ctrl+W.

username32• 15 years ago

Middle click to close those tabs.

pkamb7• 15 years ago

By contrast, for Chrome #tabs > 24

mixmastamyk4• 15 years ago

Feels like a step backwards to me. I preferred when I closed a tab it would resize immediately. Now I have to wait until I move the mouse away.

StuffMaster• 15 years ago

I much prefer Seamonkey's "tab close button on right" feature.

SkyRocknRoll• 15 years ago

Thmbs Up Mozilla Team !!

tnorthcutt• 15 years ago

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...

ineedtosleep2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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

methane• 15 years ago

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.

lux2• 15 years ago

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!

username32• 15 years ago

What is the purpose of pinned tabs in Chrome if they aren't pinned after reload?

RyanKearney2• 15 years ago

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

lux2• 15 years ago

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.

uses• 15 years ago

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

thristian3• 15 years ago

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.

msujaws• 15 years ago

I'm actively working on this issue. Feel free to add yourself to the CC list so you can be notified of any changes.

meow2• 15 years ago

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

peapicker• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

Mozilla has launched a dedicated group to tracking down memory usage problems: http://www.internetnews.com/skerner/2011/06/mozilla-launches...

angus77• 15 years ago

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

kellishaver2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

kellishaver2• 15 years ago

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.

unicornporn2• 15 years ago

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.

thristian3• 15 years ago

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.

unicornporn2• 15 years ago

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

johnx123• 15 years ago

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

praptak• 15 years ago

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.

tathagatadg• 15 years ago

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...

Firefox 5 is now officially released

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