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Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

mozilla.com

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Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#51

Post by dooq »

ggchappell wrote: post #27
cemerick wrote: post #12

The state of PDF support in Firefox on OS X has me stuck at FF 3.6, and it doesn't look like that'll be changing for a while (unless I want to experiment with random xpi's and running FF 4+ in 32-bit mode, etc). Until that's resolved, all the fancy CSS tweaks in the world won't mean a hoot.

Could you explain the problem you're referring to (or point me to a page that does)? I'm currently running FF 3.6 on OS X. Getting regular announcements of 4.0, and thinking I'll install it sometime soon. I don't usually pay much attention to what features/problems the new version might have. So, what's up with this?

I tried upgrading to FF4 on OSX, and it was a disaster: crashing on me left, right, and center. I went back to FF3.6 in under a week of use. I suggest OSX users wait for some stability updates before upgrading.

Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#52

Post by rsoto »

thomas11 wrote: post #43
rsoto wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, my Firefox it's advicing me to update. And I'm not on the nightly, developer or beta channel.

Strange, mine (4.0.1) doesn't. There's something broken either in the update routine or in your Firefox. The beta is not supposed to be recommended to users of a release version.

Yeah, I'm also very confused. While I think it's a good idea to be pushing relases more often, this is way too often.

Here's the about Firefox dialog http://i.imgur.com/cDbN1.png and the update request http://i.imgur.com/4SYRI.png

Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#53

Post by abraham »

naner wrote: post #45
cemerick wrote: post #12

The state of PDF support in Firefox on OS X has me stuck at FF 3.6, and it doesn't look like that'll be changing for a while (unless I want to experiment with random xpi's and running FF 4+ in 32-bit mode, etc). Until that's resolved, all the fancy CSS tweaks in the world won't mean a hoot.

FF or Chromium (or both) should embed MuPDF[1]. It is extremely fast, reasonably small, and renders very well. 1: http://mupdf.com/

It looks like Chromium doesn't have it but Google Chrome has a built in PDF viewer.

Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#54

Post by abraham »

dooq wrote: post #51
ggchappell wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain the problem you're referring to (or point me to a page that does)? I'm currently running FF 3.6 on OS X. Getting regular announcements of 4.0, and thinking I'll install it sometime soon. I don't usually pay much attention to what features/problems the new version might have. So, what's up with this?

I tried upgrading to FF4 on OSX, and it was a disaster: crashing on me left, right, and center. I went back to FF3.6 in under a week of use. I suggest OSX users wait for some stability updates before upgrading.

Fx4 is nothing but stable for me. Do you perhaps have a number of extensions that could be causing the instability issues?

Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#55

Post by zpao »

rsoto wrote: post #42
thomas11 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox 5 is not coming out. It's a beta. You shouldn't bother friends and family with it.

Actually, my Firefox it's advicing me to update. And I'm not on the nightly, developer or beta channel.

Are you sure you're not on the beta channel? Coming from Firefox 4, that channel stuff was under the hood. If you used Firefox 4 beta, then you're probably on the beta channel (you can check in about:config looking at app.update.channel)

Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#56

Post by lukeschlather »

lurker19 wrote: post #38
nothis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was with FF3, I think, but I once managed to over-write all my bookmarks with the temp ones from doing a separate install for a beta. Probably "my fault" on some level, but it still sucked. I have an aversion to trying out betas since then.

Not your fault, but that is a risk of using a Beta (before Google hijacked the term to mean "Upgrades are Planned"). Bugs like what you saw are flagged as high-importance "data loss" bugs, and FF has gotten better about avoiding those, even in pre-release builds, since the bad old days of accidentally deleting non-FF data from your home folder.

I've used the same profile on my primary computer for something like 5 years, across a migration from Windows to Ubuntu, and a few times when I've had too much time on my hands and ran minefield/betas for a month now and again.

They were unstable, but I never corrupted my profile.

Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#57

Post by naner »

abraham wrote: post #53
naner wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FF or Chromium (or both) should embed MuPDF[1]. It is extremely fast, reasonably small, and renders very well. 1: http://mupdf.com/

It looks like Chromium doesn't have it but Google Chrome has a built in PDF viewer.

Right. Chrome uses a binary PDF reader plugin, there are no sources available. Open source projects like Chromium and Firefox require an open source reader. I think MuPDF would be a good choice.

Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#58

Post by abraham »

naner wrote: post #57
abraham wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like Chromium doesn't have it but Google Chrome has a built in PDF viewer.

Right. Chrome uses a binary PDF reader plugin, there are no sources available. Open source projects like Chromium and Firefox require an open source reader. I think MuPDF would be a good choice.

Does MuPDF have any speed/performance/etc benefits over the plugin in Chrome? Are there any reasons to spend the time/effort to switched other then one is open source?

Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#59

Post by ephemient »

naner wrote: post #45
cemerick wrote: post #12

The state of PDF support in Firefox on OS X has me stuck at FF 3.6, and it doesn't look like that'll be changing for a while (unless I want to experiment with random xpi's and running FF 4+ in 32-bit mode, etc). Until that's resolved, all the fancy CSS tweaks in the world won't mean a hoot.

FF or Chromium (or both) should embed MuPDF[1]. It is extremely fast, reasonably small, and renders very well. 1: http://mupdf.com/

Chrome bundles a PDF renderer. (You won't find it in the open Chromium sources; it's by proprietary license from a third party.)

http://blog.chromium.org/2010/06/bringing-improved-pdf-suppo...

It's already sandboxed and pretty fast and light-weight, so I'm not sure the Chromium developers would put much work into a replacement.

Re: Firefox 5 Beta is available for download

#60

Post by richbradshaw »

lurker19 wrote: post #35
jonathansizz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't explain why we have Firefox 5 rather than 4.1. It must be that the Mozilla marketers were worried that the major version numbers were too low compared to Chrome and IE, so by bumping them up every few months they can catch up! I'm so impressed!

Trye, but unfortunately no one can match Chrome teams ability to rapidly ratchet version numbers. Chrome is is in a weird spot where they "had to" rapidly catch up to MS, but now it is awkward to shoot ahead to version 20 or 30. Presumably his is why they started downplaying version numbers once they caught up. I wonder if Google is now committed to never break the Eextensions API now. To their credit, Android has do…

Emacs has followed a similar idea, essentially they just dropped the 1. (or was it 0. - can't remember!), so emacs 23 is really v1.23. Chrome is similar – why use endless non integers for main builds?
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