SillyDog701

[Fulvio]

As usual, I hang on old versions, and test new ones. I have 3.6.17, 4.01, and, also the new 5.0, all with different profiles. I am not going to touch Aurora, the future Firefox 6, as I had bad initial experiences. As I read on this blog, it appears that the final version Firefox 5 is near, but what do I have? The usual Help|Check for Updates is missing, although Help|About Firefox has a Check for Updates button, which will, promptly, will download the entire file, no incrementals here, without asking if I want it. Then it will do the usual restarting. So far, three updates, and no incidents. But, what is going on? Checking Help|About Firefox has been telling me that I have Firefox 5, and no other detail. Why this secrecy?
And look at the date:

20100101 Firefox

listed here.
So far, one annoyance, i.e. if I close this site, I will have to login (first letter of my username is sufficient). Although I select to remember the ID info, FF 4 has me enter, at least, part of the username.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0

[Fulvio]

Here goes another update. Daily? I cannot get any info from Mozilla.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0

[Edward]

Did you notice the Gecko revision date on it (same as with version 4.0x): 20100101

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20110429 Iceape/2.0.11

[James]

You know, guys... I just don't care anymore. I'm sick and tired of playing around with alphas and betas. They're a complete waste of my time and energy. As for completed versions... when FF 5 comes out... fine. But I'll stick with that until FF 6 final is released. What is the point of constantly updating/upgrading/patching/ etc etc etc? I am NOT their guinea pig tester and I've no desire to screw my computer up any more than it already is. The way new versions now pop up every few months is a complete joke.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1

[DJGM]

I guess that shows one advantage of open source based software, you're free to choose to test all the
latest code with betas, alphas and nightly builds as a member of the testing community, helping out
with efforts to find and squash bugs. or to simply play it safe, and only run the finalised binaries.
There's also the choice of grabbing the source code and building it from scratch.

It is of course always advisable to keep your pre-release installs separate from the finalised installs
should you choose to be on the cutting edge, keeping up with the latest developments. Then again,
there's nothing wrong with the choice of sticking with finalised stable builds.

Ultimately, it's all about choice. Choice is good.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20110608 SeaMonkey/2.1

[Edward]

You know, guys... I just don't care anymore. I'm sick and tired of playing around with alphas and betas. They're a complete waste of my time and energy. As for completed versions... when FF 5 comes out... fine. But I'll stick with that until FF 6 final is released. What is the point of constantly updating/upgrading/patching/ etc etc etc? I am NOT their guinea pig tester and I've no desire to screw my computer up any more than it already is. The way new versions now pop up every few months is a complete joke.

And this is one of the reasons why I switched to Debian Linux. They support the current versions of Icedove (Thunderbird), Iceape (SeaMonkey) and Iceweasel (Firefox) longer than Mozilla (and in the case of SeaMonkey, the SeaMonkey Council) does and they were asked to rebrand them.

I don't have to update as often as I did with the other Linux distros I've used over the years. In fact, it was almost two years after Debian 5 (Lenny) was released, before Debian 6 (Squeeze) was. I'm on the Debian Security Advisory e-mail list, so I know when updated packages with security fixes are being released.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20110430 Iceape/2.0.11

[James]

If I had the brains to run Linux, Edward, I would. I'm a neophyte and I'll always be one... plain and simple. It doesn't matter that I've been running a computer for 15 years now. The truth is... my interests lie elsewhere so I try to keep things as simple as possible so that I can understand what I'm doing (which isn't always the case ).

Anyway, This version jumping is silly and no doubt it was begun by Google Chrome and Mozilla felt they had to respond.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1

[Edward]

There is one thing I do not like about Google Chrome (or in the Linux world, Chromium). If one of the plugins is out-of-date (most notably, Flash), it will not load in any Flash ads or applets until the user tells the browser to.

In the Linux world, there is an open-source plugin called Gnash which does the same thing (display Flash ads/applets), but some sites that use Flash do not work well with Gnash, unfortunately.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20110430 Iceape/2.0.11

[Antony]

Anyway, This version jumping is silly and no doubt it was begun by Google Chrome and Mozilla felt they had to respond.

Thank you James. Like I mentioned in another thread, some would feel bad that version 5 (soon 6) is out already and he/she is still using version 3.6.

There are, without a doubt, some users spend a great deal of their computer time each day checking for updates. Apart from those who can't live without the latest version of whatsoever software, much rush in version numbers would certain give the IT guy at organisations (enterprise or not) a big headache. Or better yet, simply dump Firefox all together since it will be hard to keep up to date.

Mozilla/Firefox has been known to use dirty tactics to force (or trick) people to rush for their latest version.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110420 AlexaToolbar/alxf-2.11 Firefox/3.6.17

[James]

I entirely agree, Antony. Version jumping of this magnitude is simply ridiculous and serves no real purpose other than "keeping up with the Joneses" (in this case, Google Chrome). And I've seen more than one computer messed up because a person simply had to have the latest and (perceived) greatest update... even a nightly build that had glitches and bugs but was on the cutting edge. Other than our use (as Greg points out) to assist in ironing out these bugs for Mozilla, it really is insane to simply download every beta and alpha that comes down the pike.

Why Google felt the need to rush headlong into this new numbering system is beyond me. And why Mozilla believed its only response was to reciprocate is incredibly foolish.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1

[DJGM]

TBH ... I don't care about version numbering, since it doesn't matter what version number any piece
of software has, as long it's all up to date with regards to security patches and general bug fixing.

I've long regarded software version numbering on mainstream software as pointless marketing faff.
The way Google does the version numbering for the Chrome browser simply reinforces this view,
and the same goes for Mozilla deciding to follow suit. If Chrome followed a version numbering
at a more realistic pace, it'd be upto about version 3.x or 4.x at the most by now.

The imminent release of Firefox 5.0 would only be v4.1 under a normal version numbering scheme.
SeaMonkey isn't following suit with such fast moving version numbers. The SM version to contain
the same code base as Ffx 5.0 is to be SM 2.2, while 2.3 is to be the same internally as Ffx 6.0.

While the gap between SM 2.0 to 2.1 was about 19 months, I'm happy to see the point release
version numbers (2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 ... etc) move along at a quicker pace, rather than having
major release version numbers each time (3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 ... etc) ... it'd be pointless.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20110608 SeaMonkey/2.1

[DJGM]

The Register - Mozilla cranks out Firefox 5 with cross-platform 'Do Not Track' feature.

Meanwhile, some browser fans might be crying into their beer about relatively small software
releases being given major version names without a committee of openistas first poring
over the philosophical consequences of such a dynamic, corporate-like move.

Firefox 5 was released today, 21st June - Firefox 6 is due on 21st September.

3 months between new Firefox releases, while Google still cranks out new Chrome releases every 6 weeks.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20110608 SeaMonkey/2.1

[Fulvio]

So, to make a long story short, is this Firefox 5 final version?
I, personally, could care less, if they have one number increment per day. And, I like to see what's different between versions. And, having three existing profiles, all with different content, why not using them?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0

[beanboy89]

So, to make a long story short, is this Firefox 5 final version?

Yes. Firefox 5 was released today (June 21).

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20110608 Firefox/4.0.1 SeaMonkey/2.1

[Antony]

Firefox 5 was released today, 21st June - Firefox 6 is due on 21st September.

3 months between new Firefox releases, while Google still cranks out new Chrome releases every 6 weeks.

Initially, the plan was to rush out Firefox 6 in August.

Merely holding it back by one additional month? I still won't buy it. Perhaps, we all complain more about their ridiculously version number dumping tactic.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.18) Gecko/20110614 AlexaToolbar/alxf-2.13 Firefox/3.6.18