News - Firefox 7 hits the airwaves

[Mattus]

Who cares whether it's version 7 or version 4.2? They're just numbers, at the end of the day. Doesn't make any difference to the product you're using.

The real issue is that where Chrome updates completely silently and seamlessly, Firefox bugs you with notifications and installers every time there's an update. Mozilla needs to sort out a similar system if they want to update every six weeks.

It's fairly obvious that they don't know how to compete with Chrome, though. I still use Firefox because it's so extensible. But 90% of users don't care about add-ons beyond Facebook Photo Zoom or possibly Adblock, and they're all running straight to Google.

[watercooled]

Who cares whether it's version 7 or version 4.2? They're just numbers, at the end of the day. Doesn't make any difference to the product you're using.

It's a dev thing, it's poor practice to use the first digit for minor/incremental changes and/or bug fixes. A change in the first number usually implies a major change to program, like how FF was previously (simply: version.minor-changes.bug-fixes). Now, at least on the surface, there's barely any difference between 4, 5, 6, and 7. How will they signify a notable change to the program now? Take Windows for example, Vista was 6.0 and technically 7 is version 6.1 - because it's quite similar, nothing like the massive difference between XP and Vista.

[TheAnimus]

It's a dev thing, it's poor practice to use the first digit for minor/incremental changes and/or bug fixes. A change in the first number usually implies a major change to program, like how FF was previously (simply: version.minor-changes.bug-fixes). Now, at least on the surface, there's barely any difference between 4, 5, 6, and 7. How will they signify a notable change to the program now? Take Windows for example, Vista was 6.0 and technically 7 is version 6.1 - because it's quite similar, nothing like the massive difference between XP and Vista.

Indeed.

The major version numbers give you a risk thing. When I took over a project for my grand re-write (often called the cleansing by the team) we cranked the major, because whilst no new functionality was really coming that our users would notice, it was a risky change.

If we just add a feature, we can use a more significant number, until its just bug fixes, which are the most minor...

[Saracen]

I'm waiting for version 10, 'cos I like round numbers. I reckon Saturday week.

This version number thing has become farcical.

[watercooled]

I wonder if they'll go back to major.minor when they catch up to IE/Chrome?

[Mattus]

But the concepts of major and minor updates don't really apply to Firefox any more (or to Chrome for that matter). The updates are driven entirely by timescales - there's a new version every six weeks, which simply reflects the state of the codebase at the relevant cut-off point. There might be five major new features in a six-week window or there might be none - it all depends when things are ready.

When the process is driven entirely by timescales, you might as well just increment the number every time rather than make an arbitrary decision about whether a particular update is a major update or a minor one.

Long-term, version numbers will disappear with respect to regularly-updated products like web browsers. They might be used internally, but they won't be of meaning to the consumer. Chrome already provides no warning or notification that it is updating to a new version. Its version number exists for practical purposes rather than being intended to indicate anything to the typical user.

[dangel]

Well not playing ball with established concepts for software versioning doesn't help you much in the commercial environment though - not that FF is anywhere there in the most part I suppose. Personally, I think it's unnecessarily confusing to the home punter too - and yes I agree the "big number" does generally have relation to revolutionary stuff rather than incremental updates. To me FF seem to be playing a marketing exercise more than anything else in the face of growing competition - they were once seen as the *only* alternative (my own browser preferences not withstanding) whereas now Chrome has eaten a lot of users and even IE doesn't really suck that much anymore.

I wouldn't be shocked if they drop it once the 'big number' gets 'big enough'. Nice to see some attention to memory usage at long last - just in time for it not to matter because we've got stacks of memory and 64bits of addressing

[[GSV]Trig]

Ha, brilliant, just had a 7.0.1 update...

[miniyazz]

Two days on, I'm at 787,344K usage. We shall see if this is because the browser's been on for less time or if it's because it's got better memory management.. so far so good though

[watercooled]

How many tabs do you have open? I know it depends on content but I'm only using about 300MB (reported) with 28 tabs on FF 3.6.

[Mattus]

Versions 4 and later use more memory than 3.6. It's because of the new JavaScript engine.

I've been using 7 beta for ages. The memory usage still isn't acceptable, IMO. 429,000k with four tabs open?

[Kumagoro]

You can already have 10, well thats what the nightly build is on now.

[OilSheikh]

Chrome

Hmm.. When Chrome first came out, it had security issues as it was based on another browser's source code which itself had security issues. Stayed away from chrome since then.

How does Chrome behave these days? What extra features does it provide ?

[Jonj1611]

Firefox 7? My firefox says version 8 lol, oh the times move fast these days lol

[miniyazz]

How many tabs do you have open? I know it depends on content but I'm only using about 300MB (reported) with 28 tabs on FF 3.6.

41 tabs, and another ten closed tabs in memory. I'm using Private Working Set for point of reference - I don't know if that's the most appropriate metric. Having been away for 48 hours, it's increased to around 1,000,000K. Basically the longer it's open, the more memory and resources it uses

I've a fair mix of tabs open really. Some basic, most similar to Hexus in content, a couple of Youtube.. the usual.

Anyway, you can argue FF's memory usage sucks all you want (which it does) - but having tried a couple of alternatives, IE & something else, they became much less responsive than FF when I got more than a dozen tabs open. Sure, FF is a memory hog and becomes a CPU hog too when it's been open for too long, but at least it can function with dozens of tabs open (yes, I should really tidy them up, but they're useful).

[watercooled]

I agree, as I was saying above I find Chromium becomes noticeably unresponsive with a reasonable number of tabs open - and 28 is quite low for me so it's not really an alternative to FF. I also prefer the scrolling tab bar+dropdown menu over than the Chromium approach which makes the tabs unidentifiable with a few open.