Firefox 10 - How big of an improvement over it's predecessor?

[Tweety.Abd]

Hey!

Firefox 109 is released and how big of an improvement is its predecessor with regards to performance and usability. I would love to hear your opinions about the new release.

Thanks :)

NOTE: This topic has been changed to accommodate the discussions on the latest version of Firefox. It will be updated on every stable release. The initial discussion was regarding Firefox 8.

[pmalc]

IMO, the improvement is a bit more than none. :P

[zadar023]

improvement is better in 7.0.1......

[KotaXor]

Not much different..

[Tweety.Abd]

Well that's sad to know there hasn't been much different. I'm going to stick to Opera...IMO this rapid-release cycle is just pointless.

[pr1xsel]

Rapid isn't pointless lol. No1 wants to use outdated stuff and the web tech is changing rapidly. Why FFox had to do it?

1. So Addon makers would get more stuff to work with and less waiting time to test new stuff

2. Schools and cafes didn't wanna update Firefox

3. Auto update didn't work and some people where left to stick with very old slow release for 2 years+

4. Chrome, IE, Opera version numbers where too high

5. People wouldn't need to read long new features info anymore

6. More chance to analyze how many have gotten latest updated version and how many haven't got admin rights to install newer one.

[toyo]

Yeah, some of these helps them. What about us? Mozilla did it for mostly one reason: to keep up with Google's browser, as it looked with desperation at how Chrome is constantly eating away at FF's market share. Of course, if later asked why they did it, they can find tons of 1/2/3 lists of nice reasons, but the truth might be different.

And some of these points are without merit:

- Schools and cafes didn't want to update... lots of new Firefoxes don't help here, what they needed is an education campaign.

- Version number "too high" in other browsers. Who decides what is too high? Why a developer should care about how high is the version number? C'mon...

- long feature lists. People who couldn't read the long feature lists will have the same issues reading (and understanding) a short one.

For me, this was a terrible, copycat decision, made only for commercial reasons, because of this fear Chrome induced in Mozilla.

[Knightmare]

I noticed that it's faster. Not sure if my network improved or FF though.

[Trancer]

It's the same as 7 but changed the number to 8..! B)

[DKT27]

I'm feeling a bit more speed. But don't rely on user reviews, download it and use for some time, I personally like to keep updated versions of all the browsers.

The biggest reason they have chosen his rapid-release path is that the number of bugs to fix was too damn high on every release. So they take each and every improvement one by one. Sooner or later, they are going to speed up the rapid release even more.

Firefox 8 does having some minor GUI changes and little performance updates. There was one big performance change planned for FF8 but didn't make it cause it wasn't ready. So, Firefox 9 is going to have it. If you really want to see performance increase, wait for Firefox 9, and if you want to see both performance increase and half-major GUI changes, wait for Firefox 10.

Hate to say it, but Firefox 8 doesn't have any major improvements to talk about. ;)

[Tweety.Abd]

I'm feeling a bit more speed. But don't rely on user reviews, download it and use for some time, I personally like to keep updated versions of all the browsers.

The biggest reason they have chosen his rapid-release path is that the number of bugs to fix was too damn high on every release. So they take each and every improvement one by one. Sooner or later, they are going to speed up the rapid release even more.

Firefox 8 does having some minor GUI changes and little performance updates. There was one big performance change planned for FF8 but didn't make it cause it wasn't ready. So, Firefox 9 is going to have it. If you really want to see performance increase, wait for Firefox 9, and if you want to see both performance increase and half-major GUI changes, wait for Firefox 10.

Hate to say it, but Firefox 8 doesn't have any major improvements to talk about. ;)

It seems that I'll have to wait for Firefox 10 to see some real changes. By that time, Opera 12 would probably be out then or Chrome 17 or 18?

[Nemesis]

im switching to chrome. (SRWare Iron) for awhile.

[Tweety.Abd]

im switching to chrome. (SRWare Iron) for awhile.

As things stand, it seems that in the near future Firefox will end up being whacked by Chrome. The best Firefox I used was Firefox 3.x, I quit Firefox since 4.

[RadioActive]

I'd say slim to none.

I've recently upgraded from FF 4.X and I didn't notice any improvement, actually aside from the difference in version number I can't even tell the difference..

FF is STILL a freakin' memory hog, and it STILL acts erratically from time-to-time for no apparent reason...I wish I can convert to a different browser but I'm too used to it, it's like a bad habit at this point. Ah well, life goes on..

[Tax Man]

It's a step backwards. The javascript is broken on a couple of sites and it reports an incorrect flash version. I'm going back to 7.0.1

[House_maniac]

i was a die hard firefox fan i just dumped it for chrome and im completely satisfied i have my addon speedial,adblock.lastpass,chrome is kinda nice firefox isnt making anything innovative lately its just trying to copy chrome :(

[sirri]

not much,I'm not sure about security improvement,same as 7.0.1 :D

[Tweety.Abd]

It's a step backwards. The javascript is broken on a couple of sites and it reports an incorrect flash version. I'm going back to 7.0.1

I too believe it's a step backwards, even the HTML 5 support has dropped to 299 (as per html5test.com) while it were over 310 in previous versions (Firefox 6). Firefox will continue to lose it's share to Chrome and eventually it will take over the market. Chrome has many useful features like built in flash, .PDF reader, not to mention it's high HTML 5 support and it's rudimentary (but ever improving) GPU acceleration support.

EDIT: Okay I just installed Firefox 8 on Windows 7 and the HTML 5 is 314. Initially, I installed Firefox 8 on my XP Mode, and it showed 299 for some unknown reasons.

i was a die hard firefox fan i just dumped it for chrome and im completely satisfied i have my addon speedial,adblock.lastpass,chrome is kinda nice firefox isnt making anything innovative lately its just trying to copy chrome :(

I were a die hard myself, but till Firefox 3.x. When Firefox 4 was released, I was pretty excited about it, but then I just couldn't go on with it any longer. Sadly I only used Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 wholly. I first switched to Chrome and kept on using it till I change to Opera. I might switch back to Chrome again in near future, but I'm not sure when it'll be. I'm pretty excited about Opera 12 too - its implementing full GPU acceleration offloading the CPU and that's something I'm looking forward to :) You could try using Opera or Safari, they're very good too. I love Opera's 'smooth scrolling' capability, it's best among all the browsers.

not much,I'm not sure about security improvement,same as 7.0.1 :D

LOL! If it's same, then why should anyone upgrade? I mean one of their possible reasons for this rapid release cycle was to make people upgrade to newer versions, but if nothing but the version number changes, it's not worth the hassle to upgrade, even the HTML 5 support has dropped even more in this release. The future of Firefox looks dark to me, unless it implements some real change in Firefox 9 or Firefox 10.

[Veboy]

Well, It's Not All That Bad.

It's 30% Faster than Firefox 5, Uses Less Memory Than Previous Versions, And Brings Some JS and HTML5 Improvement to Fx.

[Tweety.Abd]

Well, It's Not All That Bad.

It's 30% Faster than Firefox 5, Uses Less Memory Than Previous Versions, And Brings Some JS and HTML5 Improvement to Fx.

Well actually we should be contrasting the performance of Firefox 7 & Firefox 8, since it's immediate successor. If there aren't any real major changes, then there's no use of releasing a whole new version, you could provide and update patch for 'hotfixes' and to dictate other performance and security issues. And actually Firefox 8 has lower HTML 5 support compared to Firefox 6 and 7 - not pretty sure why :|

EDIT: Firefox 8 has just 1 grade better support than Firefox 7. My earlier reports were based on my testing on Windows XP Service Pack 3.

[sirri]

It's a step backwards. The javascript is broken on a couple of sites and it reports an incorrect flash version. I'm going back to 7.0.1

I too believe it's a step backwards, even the HTML 5 support has dropped to 299 (as per html5test.com) while it were over 310 in previous versions (Firefox 6). Firefox will continue to lose it's share to Chrome and eventually it will take over the market. Chrome has many useful features like built in flash, .PDF reader, not to mention it's high HTML 5 support and it's rudimentary (but ever improving) GPU acceleration support.

i was a die hard firefox fan i just dumped it for chrome and im completely satisfied i have my addon speedial,adblock.lastpass,chrome is kinda nice firefox isnt making anything innovative lately its just trying to copy chrome :(

I were a die hard myself, but till Firefox 3.x. When Firefox 4 was released, I was pretty excited about it, but then I just couldn't go on with it any longer. Sadly I only used Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 wholly. I first switched to Chrome and kept on using it till I change to Opera. I might switch back to Chrome again in near future, but I'm not sure when it'll be. I'm pretty excited about Opera 12 too - its implementing full GPU acceleration offloading the CPU and that's something I'm looking forward to :) You could try using Opera or Safari, they're very good too. I love Opera's 'smooth scrolling' capability, it's best among all the browsers.

not much,I'm not sure about security improvement,same as 7.0.1 :D

LOL! If it's same, then why should anyone upgrade?

Keep up to date to the latest. :lol: Take a look rapid release of Chrome. Every release brings new feature,speed,stability and of course security.

[Tweety.Abd]

Keep up to date to the latest. :lol: Take a look rapid release of Chrome. Every release brings new feature,speed,stability and of course security.

Then it's just a waste of bandwidth IMO :P Chrome unlike Firefox started with a big-bang release cycle so I have nothing to say to them. There was no reason for Firefox to follow the same path, the gradualist release was better suited. The rapid release cycle hasn't helped Firefox in anyway they anticipated; lots of Firefox users have and still are switching to Chrome and the browser market share stand witness to that.

[sirri]

Personally,I'm using Chrome since FF had compatibility issue with SD and constantly crash after cold start. I was very impressed with Chrome and would like to stick with it.

The latest version of Firefox Beta has the following changes:

• Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default
  
• Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons
  
• Added Twitter to the search bar
  
• Added a preference to load tabs on demand, improving start-up time when windows are restored
  
• Improved tab animations when moving, reordering, or detaching tabs
  
• Improved performance and memory handling when using <audio> and <video> elements
  
• Added CORS support for cross-domain textures in WebGL
  
• Added support for HTML5 context menus
  
• Added support for insertAdjacentHTML
  
• Improved CSS hyphen support for many languages
  
• Improved WebSocket support
  
• Fixed several stability issues
  

Tell me,what big improvement FF already did in 8.0 ? your opinion based on this release note.

[RadioActive]

FF has always have been (and it seems that it will always be) a memory hog, last night I was encoding an HD episode and FF (with 2 tabs open only 10 add-ons) was consuming more memory than the active encoder :s

[Tweety.Abd]

Personally,I'm using Chrome since FF had compatibility issue with SD and constantly crash after cold start. I was very impressed with Chrome and would like to stick with it.

The latest version of Firefox Beta has the following changes:

• Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default
  
• Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons
  
• Added Twitter to the search bar
  
• Added a preference to load tabs on demand, improving start-up time when windows are restored
  
• Improved tab animations when moving, reordering, or detaching tabs
  
• Improved performance and memory handling when using <audio> and <video> elements
  
• Added CORS support for cross-domain textures in WebGL
  
• Added support for HTML5 context menus
  
• Added support for insertAdjacentHTML
  
• Improved CSS hyphen support for many languages
  
• Improved WebSocket support
  
• Fixed several stability issues
  

Tell me,what big improvement FF already did in 8.0 ? your opinion based on this release note.

I hardly can notice any significant changes, all these changes could have been provided through a simple update patch, but they had to release a whole new version to dictate them.

FF has always have been (and it seems that it will always be) a memory hog, last night I was encoding an HD episode and FF (with 2 tabs open only 10 add-ons) was consuming more memory than the active encoder :s

LOL! :P I thought they fixed the memory issues in Firefox 7?

The best version update of Firefox could be described as:

Firefox 5 =Firefox 4.1

Firefox 6 = Firefox 4.11

Firefox 7 = Firefox 4.2

Firefox 8 = Firefox 4.21

None of the update so far has been noteworthy.