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Why so many new major versions?

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  • Last reply by Fred

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Why have we had so many new Firefox versions this year? A major step was taken when 4.x was released at the begging of the year and since then we have had versions 5.x, 6.x, 7.x and now 8.x in the space of just a few months. It seems version 9 is already in beta....

Most of the updates seem to be minor or intermediate in nature - certainly nothing that would require a major version release - so why so many new versions this year?

Also, since the update facility does not automatically upgrade you to the next major version, are all these versions still supported?

Why have we had so many new Firefox versions this year? A major step was taken when 4.x was released at the begging of the year and since then we have had versions 5.x, 6.x, 7.x and now 8.x in the space of just a few months. It seems version 9 is already in beta.... Most of the updates seem to be minor or intermediate in nature - certainly nothing that would require a major version release - so why so many new versions this year? Also, since the update facility does not automatically upgrade you to the next major version, are all these versions still supported?

Chosen solution

Updates have been changed to a rapid release cycle and that means an update every 6 weeks to the next major version.
The new version replaces the previous version and that version is no longer supported.

Only Firefox 3.6.23 and Firefox 8.0 are supported.
Currently Firefox 7.0.1 is still available due to investigating some crash reports.

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I totally agree, Google Chrome here I come. I have been an avid ForeFox user for years, but the constant misunderstood version changes of late have made me tell my user communities to use Chrome. Maybe if you guys get a grip on what the heck you are doing; me and my users will be back. Do you not realize corporate IT groups lock in on versions of browsers because of reliability with plugins etc... Changing versions so often will prevent further growth. Just look at your marketshare fading away. Get a better marketing plan other than a new major version number every 6 weeks.

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OldDogDeveloper, you do know that chrome updates to a new version every6 weeks as well right?

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Firefox has lost all credibility as a stable browser because of this idiotic "fast release" schedule.

I was going to write a question with "Firefox 13???? A year ago FF*4* came out, a major rewrite - 9 major rewrites since?" as a headline - but I see I'm not the only one astonished and seriously perturbed by this "fast release" schedule.

Firefox developers take note: A year from now, your market share is going to be less than 10 percent, unless you change your ways right now, and could be completely gone in two years. Since companies can no longer count on Firefox as a stable browser, they are going to stop recommending it as a supported platform, and the exodus will grow exponentially.

You need to re-read - and pay attention to - seybernetx comments above, including (but not limited to) "If the goal is to make firefox a browser developed by developers, for developers, with no interest in having a user base, firefox is doing it about perfect. If they really want a user base, even a little, the developers need to look outside their Ivory Tower."

By making it prohibitively impossible to develop plugins and extensions, you've eliminated one of the most attractive features of Firefox as a browser. Let there be no doubt about it: plugin and extension development is now prohibitively expensive because nobody can afford to keep developing new versions every 6 weeks without a major development budget. That totally rules out the folks who created so many of the useful add-ons in their spare time.

I tried FF4 when it first came out - for about 45 minutes - then gagged and went back to 3.6. I guess it's time to turn off automatic updates, since there won't be any more coming for the version I'm using - and I have no interest in riding the version number speedway.

Chrome sucks - when I restore it from an icon, my entire system STOPS (clock and all) for 20-30 seconds while it slooowly redraws its window. I only use it for Gmail and Google Docs because company management where I work decided that's the way to go. For anything else, trying to get Chrome to work is frequently like pulling teeth - and there are features on our XHTML Strict compliant Web pages that just do not work in Chrome - so we're not going to recommend it as a supported browser.

I guess that's going to leave Internet Exploiter as owning the browser market, on winDoze at least, since there aren't any other reasonable alternatives. That's really unfortunate - I remember the "Browse Happy" campaigns and all, and now they seem to be going the other way. Most disappointing.

I'm not going to miss Firefox - I've downloaded the 3.6.28 source tarball, and when I get time, I'll probably tinker with it to fix some of the bugs and crashes. (I really want to find out which Javascript thread from which of the 150+ pages I have open is eating an entire CPU and be able to kill that one thread!) It would have been nice to have a supported browser built by a reliable company, but I guess that's a thing of the past - or an option for another start-up..........

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