Firefox 3 beta 5 released

Mozilla released its fifth beta version of Firefox 3 for Windows and the Mac on Wednesday, bringing a handful of improvements in ease of use to the open-source Web browser. A portable version is also available.

Overall, Firefox 3 beta 5 includes 750 changes from the previous beta, focusing on enhanced stability, Web site compatibility, and platform and user-interface improvements.

In the ease-of-use arena, Beta 5 is designed to offer improvements in integration with Windows, Mac, and Linux. The beta aims to show improvements to Windows icons, as well as native user interface widgets in Web forms and the browser.

Apple users, meanwhile, should see several enhancements to the new beta, such as a similar look and feel of a native OS X application for toolbars, icons, and other interface items. Beta 5 also supports Growl for completed download notifications and updates, in addition to using OS X widgets. And a combined back-and-forth control has been added for toggling between Web pages.

Linux users will find a native GTK design for Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menus.

Regarding performance, Beta 5 has souped up its JavaScript engine and profile-guided optimizations to double the speed in running Web applications, such as Google Mail and Zoho Office, Mozilla said.

Personalization also got a major enhancement with the new beta. Under the changes, users can view, organize, and search through bookmarks, tags, and browsing history via multiple views, in addition to storing frequent searches in smart folders.

While the latest Firefox beta has hundreds of changes, it's still short of the 900 tweaks in beta 4.

[NewsReader_]

How NOT to deliver software 101

For more information, please refer to the Firefox 3 project.

5 Betas??? 900 and 750 changes between betas??? Whoever is managing this release needs to be fired.

[Frewgle]

HELPFUL COMMENTS

Not!

It shows they are working quickly to implement changes and feedback from the testers - unlike Microsapt

[jdrachmat]

Sharp contrast to Vista development

I am not sure what is so bad about hundreds of fixes between betas. The key word is that it is a BETA.

This is far better than Micro$oft habit of releasing softwares which are FULL of coding errors, and trying to fix them AFTERWARDS with Service Packs.

So would you prefer hundreds of fixes in Service Packs to fully launched softwares, or hundreds of fixes in BETAS which remain firmly in development while they are still being fixed ?

[TotallyMadeUpName]

An issue of terminology?

I'll give NewsReader the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he is only objecting to this being called a beta. I think the definition has evolved from 10 or 15 years ago when a beta was feature complete and just trying to shake out the kinks. Across the industry, what used to be called alpha releases are now called betas. I think it may have even been Microsoft that started that trend. I don't recall for sure though.

[gjl229]

You can test it in the lab

in a controlled environment with thousands of complex use cases running in many, many environments. This is extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming.

Or you can test it on tens/hundreds of thousands of desktops in the wild. You lose some of the ability to control and replicate environments, but you learn a lot in a big hurry. That means lots of betas and lots of improvements.

Big for-profit corps may be able to afford big labs and long lead times. The user sees little of this inside work. See Microsoft.

Others substitute numerous betas with lots of changes visible to the users. These orgs may well get results faster and at a lower cost. See Mozilla.

My bet is on "fast and inexpensive" rather than "slow and costly".

The first way got us IE and its development history. The second got us Firefox and its development history.

This isn't E9-1-1 or pacemaker software. Let's not fire anyone at Mozilla.

[TotallyMadeUpName]

Well put.

I think you've captured the two approaches brilliantly, without any particular bias. Well done.

I don't really understand why "slow and costly" is used by BIG organizations when there are cheaper and faster ways to accomplish something. Mozilla has around 150 employees? It boggles the mind that Microsoft's tens-of-thousands can't keep up in broswer development.

[noname_h]

Try to understand what he says!

When a company spend resources to fix issues and add new features in between Beta releases it demands a lot of money and resources. Instead they can release the product after three Beta testing and call it the final. Then they must generate revenue from that product by hook or by crook and then try to release service updates. These service updates give an image to the company that they support their customers. The Original poster might have said that this kind of working (meaning trying to fix as many issues as possible before the release does not make any sense at least economically). General public does not think much and they will be glad to give multiple chances to the same company hoping to get some good product at some point in time. Look at software giants around us.