Firefox 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0 to Ship in 2011

[yowanvista]

Incompatible addons are not a problem since you can disable the addon compatibility checker

But if the addons truly don't work or cause stability problems in the software, then what's the point? I've not run into anything yet that really requires FF4 or IE9. I'm happily plodding along as it's displayed in FF 3.6. I do realize that most add-ons are not broke, just not known to work or supported.

Well, I haven't had any stability issues with older addons since I use Beta 1

 

[fseal]

It all starts to get a bit rediculous when the numbers start to get large too.

21, 22, 23, 56, 57, 58, 143 etc...

Most companies restart the numbering system or rebrand sometime close to after 11 becuase the numbers start to blur togeather (Photoshop as one of many examples)

 

[TVeblen]

Or like Paintshop Pro - I'm on version 13 now, uh - I mean X3 .

 

[Win7User512]

I think Mozilla is feeling stiff competition from Chrome, causing them to make big deals about everything. And apparently release new versions closer together.

 

[AlexGP]

Too bad we are still 10 betas away for an RC of Firefox 4.0

 

[justlloyd]

Too bad we are still 10 betas away for an RC of Firefox 4.0

Laughed at this, hehehe.

On another note, it's sad how susceptible the browser developers are to trends. Effin peer pressure man. I first noticed it when the private browsing feature became the must have.

Firefox: So you have Private browsing?

Chrome: Yeah, no biggie

Firefox: Hmm, now we do too! HA!

IE, Opera, Safari: Whatchu guys talkin about?

Ironically enough though, private browsing was one of the major contributing factors that led me to download the first major Chrome build. I had and still have no use for it since no one touches my computer but me but it was interesting at the time.

 

[Mercurial]

They need to be as fast as IE9 RC now hurry up Mozilla

 

[Zen00]

Too bad we are still 10 betas away for an RC of Firefox 4.0

Laughed at this, hehehe.

On another note, it's sad how susceptible the browser developers are to trends. Effin peer pressure man. I first noticed it when the private browsing feature became the must have.

Firefox: So you have Private browsing?

Chrome: Yeah, no biggie

Firefox: Hmm, now we do too! HA!

IE, Opera, Safari: Whatchu guys talkin about?

Ironically enough though, private browsing was one of the major contributing factors that led me to download the first major Chrome build. I had and still have no use for it since no one touches my computer but me but it was interesting at the time.

At least the private browsing was a real feature, not just some update gimmick.

 

[syobon999]

I don't get this idiotic "numbering cycle". Why does (major) version number matter at all? As long as the companies actually update and more regularly release new builds of their browsers (like Google does), who cares what the major version number is?

Besides, I don't buy this BS at all, if Mozilla had this in plan, v4 would be long released and already updated dozens of times.

its stupid yes, and google chrome only made it worst, now version number is big deal, I suppose the logical numbering should be the engine version, not some artificial big number
ex: opera is version 11 but its presto engine is 2.x

 

[profdlp]

... now version number is big deal, I suppose the logical numbering should be the engine version, not some artificial big number
ex: opera is version 11 but its presto engine is 2.x

That sort of logic makes a lot of sense.

 

[justlloyd]

At least the private browsing was a real feature, not just some update gimmick.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I use Chrome as my default browser and do my actual web browsing with Firefox because I prefer it. I always use the beta/dev versions of Chrome. Not because I want to be ahead of the curve or test anything, I just like to have everything updated and simply because there aren't really any significant changes like there are with Firefox. I usually download the first Firefox beta and then uninstall it and wait until the final version because I know my browsing experience will change if I do. Anyways, these numbers mean nothing to people who don't care about what's happening with their browser as long as they can get to Facebook and Youtube but it'd be a silly move for Mozilla to start labeling their minor releases and bugfixes with traditional major release numbers.

 

[unifex]

Anyways, these numbers mean nothing to people who don't care about what's happening with their browser as long as they can get to Facebook and Youtube

Isn't that what browsers are for? You might go to a different website, say sevenforums.com instead of Facebook, but ... do you really do anything else with your browser apart from visiting websites?

Granted, internet banking is serious and requires all the latest security patches. Supposedly, IE8 and 9 are way more secure that previous versions and on par with Firefox. Good, that's the reason to care about them.

But "new browsing features"? Give me a break. Every browser since Mosaic has an address bar where you type the URL and then there is the main Window with the site content. Pretty much all of them have some sort of bookmarking feature. OK, tabs were a nice additional feature. Firefox cookie handling is great. Passwords may be stored on your computer - good, but not everyone likes it. That's about all I can count as really important features, everything else is basically eye candy.

So for me version numbers are irrelevant. Tell me what's new in FF 6.0 and then we'll talk. For now, I do run 4.0b pre 12 x64 on my laptop and aside from daily updates it runs great. Anything really different from Namoroka 3.6 x64 that I run on my desktop - not that I can see (I mean really different, not some minor option tweak, address bar shape, or search from address bar nonsense).

 

[justlloyd]

Yeah, I guess I misspoke in saying that people just want to get to their websites. Of course, that's the ultimate goal but the overall experience has to count for something, which is the reason people prefer certain browsers. I guess that's beside the point though. I was just saying, I preferred their current model of saving the X.0 version numbers for major releases, instead of adapting Google's.

 

[smiths22]

Those guys at mozilla speak too much and they don't release anything.

 

[Max Power]

I'll start caring about browser numbers when they start charging me for browsers.

 

[mattburles]

I think FF 4 and 5 are possible this year after that it is a different story..