Firefox 19 for Mac Now Available for Download

[GoKyu]

I was a diehard Mozilla/Firefox user for at least the last 10+ years...nothing else would do - even when I switched to Mac, Camino didn't have all the features I liked in FF.

So maybe 8 months ago, I decided to give Chrome another try, and the speed difference was way too noticeable, and by this time, Chrome had the extensions from FF that I wanted.

I would switch back in a heartbeat if FF would be even close to Chrome's speed, and I'll download this new version to give it a try. Have to say though, that I do love the ability to sync bookmarks on any computer just by logging in with my gmail account...

[Gallion]

Originally Posted by Simplicated

Still no support for Lion scrollbars and gesture support is still half-baked. It may be faster but these user interface elements should also be updated to bring about a better user experience. Unfortunately Firefox seems to have done so little in this area.

I personally care about none of what you stated so in my book, Firefox is far from "lagging behind".

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Originally Posted by rmwebs

Never had a problem on chrome tbh. I've regularly got 5+ windows open, each with around 50 tabs. As long as you've got a decent spec mac it should never be an issue.

I might give it another try then. The last time I tried it was about 1.5 year ago.

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Originally Posted by ncaissie

My 11 year old daughter uses FF on her windows laptop. The other day I tried to use it but she had 20-30 tabs open and there was an out of memory error on the screen. I hard to do a hard reboot of the laptop to recover it.
As a developer I’m proud of her for not using IE. I have a Mac and love how Safari syncs all my open tabs with my iOS devices.

Ha! Props to your daughter for being a future power surfer! Tab on!

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Originally Posted by Risco

Smooth zooming the whole page, instead of moving all the text and jerky zoom. In otherwords safari style zoom.



Safari / Google Chrome search style rather than a seperate dedicated search box. Searching from the url bar only gives "i'm feeling lucky" results. It also does not bring up suggestions.

Heh, I just checked what Safari does. I couldn't do without Firefox's "Awesome Bar" that brings up results from your history by typing keywords from either a page title or URL, so I would hate for it to become a simple search bar and screw up the Awesome Bar in the process, so no thanks. You can already do a normal search from the URL bar anyway.

[Gallion]

Originally Posted by MagnusVonMagnum

And I only need try to load a web page with my 1st Gen iPod Touch to see how ridiculous things have gotten with freaking social "buttons" everywhere that load last and other columns and garbage that make reading a simple news article take 1000x longer to load than it does to read it. WTF is wrong with simple TEXT for simple things like NEWS?

You know, you have a DAMN GOOD point there. I need to find a way to disable these damn things. I bet there is a FF add-on or greasemonkey script for that.

Edit : Found something! http://superuser.com/questions/45462...ns-in-webpages

[Gallion]

Originally Posted by marc11

Well I care. When I see version 18, then a few weeks later, version 19, then version 20, my expectations with large version number changes is that there are huge changes to the application, when the fact is, these are just point releases and should be communicated as such.

So one day we will see Firefox version 189? When it reality, the last 175 releases were just bug fixes and small changes. It does not need to go four levels deep, but the a point release against a version for bug fixes is rather normal, universally understood and just makes sense.

It is just stupid in my opinion to call every bug fix or patch release a new version when it isn't.

Just one mans opinion is all, I do not use Firefox anymore, I will come back when it is at version 999 in a few months.

I kind of agree with your point of view and also the point of view that it's just a number. The number itself doesn't matter, but I really dislike that version numbers can't be used as points of reference anymore, as now, all version numbers are insignificant.

I think that rapid release cycles like this should also come with a new versioning system to avoid confusing people as to what version numbers mean. Something appropriate for rapid release cycles would be for the software to bear version numbers based on the year, so 2013.0, 2013.1, 2013.2, etc. At least, the year would give us something to relate to, it wouldn't make people expect big changes every time a version comes out and it would make things a bit less confusing than completely insignificant numbers.

[Lancer]

Sorry haven't read all the posts but I just found a problem with one of the add-ons. Download Statusbar doesn't display some file types anymore with FireFox 19, it shows JPG but not MP4s, haven't tested it fully yet.

[thubsch]

Two pictures are worth a LOT of words:

Firefox 19.0:

Safari 6.0.2:

Oh well.

[goosnarrggh]

Originally Posted by Lancer

Why is it they are not using point updates and haven't for a very long time?

They will release a new "major" version number every 6 weeks, no matter how large or small the change set may be.

If they need to make an emergence release, for example to fix a critical security flaw with known exploits, and the severity of the problem means that they cannot until the end of the 6 week cycle to do it, then that will be a point update.

[palmharbor]

Running FF 19, get popup in many sites telling me to update Flashplayer.
I believe this browser is now infected...I feel you you say OKAY you will install something horrible

I have screen shot as tiff file but this site will not upload a tiff file.

[dma550]

I will stay here, there are too many features I need, like full firebug and addons interacting with tabs (tab mix plus). I am disappointed though that I cannot edit bookmarks with right click like in Chrome and FF on pc. That one still gets me!

[dyn]

Originally Posted by marc11

Well I care. When I see version 18, then a few weeks later, version 19, then version 20, my expectations with large version number changes is that there are huge changes to the application, when the fact is, these are just point releases and should be communicated as such.

You are not answering the question so try again: why use the major.minor system? What use is it to the average user and what use is it to the average developer? Or in other words: what are you trying to accomplish with the major.minor system?

Also: why the egoism? There are many more people on this globe than just you. Some will use Firefox, some will use something else. Most of them are ordinary users who do not care about version numbering at all. They want the browser to do why they have it installed for: browse the web. You don't need version numbers for that. It doesn't matter what you or I think, it matters what most of the users will think but most of all what the company itself thinks. Usually it ends up with doing what most of the userbase wants or what the company wants.

So one day we will see Firefox version 189? When it reality, the last 175 releases were just bug fixes and small changes. It does not need to go four levels deep, but the a point release against a version for bug fixes is rather normal, universally understood and just makes sense.

So? What's the problem exactly? In some releases there will be big changes, in some there won't but that's not the point of it all. Software has to be of high quality not of a high amount of features, new stuff, etc. We've seen what happens when you focus on putting heaps of big changes into software. The quality (and thus things like speed, stability, security, etc.) goes down quickly as well as the chance of not being able to deliver on time. Also, the major.minor release thing is just one of the many systems that are universally understood, used and make sense up to a certain point.

There is no difference between 10.8.2, Mountain Lion, 189, a.b, xxii, 23789dfsbjkadsvf8812, etc. They are all valid, logic ways of doing it that are universally understood, are being universally used and do make sense. It's all in the way how you define it. Some simply use the version numbering from their versioning system (git, mercurial, subversion) because that's part of its job. You use it for versioning so why not use the version numbering? The reason why most don't lies in the way the vcs do version numbering. They are hashes which is hard to remember and look up so most use a simplified version numbering.

It is just stupid in my opinion to call every bug fix or patch release a new version when it isn't.

I find the above stupid as it shows a complete lack of knowledge about developing software and contracts. You agree upon a certain set of fixes, patches, features and/or a time frame. Whatever you deliver can be called a new version because people agreed upon calling it such. That's what it is about eventually: you think of how the version numbering should go for that particular product. It is not something that is universally for every product out there from every company, every programmer. In general the user doesn't care at all.

Just stop claiming that Mozilla is doing it wrong. There is no wrong or right when it comes to version numbering. There are many roads that will lead to Rome and there are many ways of version numbering. The development process Mozilla is using isn't new (take a look at "agile") and neither is their version numbering (MS Word and many other wordprocessors use it for their own version numbering system as well as just about any vcs). Is the criticism correct? Hell no, it's hypocrite as it can get.

Originally Posted by TheoW593

I think the "complaint" is that, until Chrome became popular, a Firefox update that was a .0 release was a major update, with worthwhile features, (I remember the big countdown to version 4) not just a maintenance update like lately.

Which let to lots of people complaining about it being so late. After it was released there was another never ending stream of complaints about the software not being stable, fast, etc. People went to Chrome because Fx4 was bloated. It was bloated because people expected lots of changes and features because they thought that quantity is the same as quality. They learned a very wise lesson that day: quantity usually means a decrease in quality.

Anyway, both Chrome and Firefox update in the background so users hardly notice they are on a new version. This is a good setup to get rid of version numbers entirely and move on to rolling releases (there are many software that are already on rolling releases).

Originally Posted by Gallion

Something appropriate for rapid release cycles would be for the software to bear version numbers based on the year, so 2013.0, 2013.1, 2013.2, etc.

There are some Linux distro's that do this. I like how Ubuntu does it by using the year.month type (yyyy.mm) because you can immediately tell how old a piece of software is. That's one of the main things you want to use the version number for (how old is it, is it the latest?). Other than that...you simply check with the manufacturer and you get your answer (or you Google the problem and the version number which gives you plenty of results).

[oldhifi]

so I downloaded Mozilla today and Clamxav found this again:

B.C.Exploit.CVE_2013_0019

I had previously removed it and then removed Mozilla, so what gives?? is this still on my computer?

[Zyphras]

With regard to version numbers: to be fair, Chrome is four years younger as a browser yet is at version 24! It only seems alarming to Firefox users considering how slowly version numbers moved in the past.

[marc11]

Originally Posted by dyn

You are not answering the question so try again: why use the major.minor system? What use is it to the average user and what use is it to the average developer? Or in other words: what are you trying to accomplish with the major.minor system?

Also: why the egoism? There are many more people on this globe than just you. Some will use Firefox, some will use something else. Most of them are ordinary users who do not care about version numbering at all. They want the browser to do why they have it installed for: browse the web. You don't need version numbers for that. It doesn't matter what you or I think, it matters what most of the users will think but most of all what the company itself thinks. Usually it ends up with doing what most of the userbase wants or what the company wants.


So? What's the problem exactly? In some releases there will be big changes, in some there won't but that's not the point of it all. Software has to be of high quality not of a high amount of features, new stuff, etc. We've seen what happens when you focus on putting heaps of big changes into software. The quality (and thus things like speed, stability, security, etc.) goes down quickly as well as the chance of not being able to deliver on time. Also, the major.minor release thing is just one of the many systems that are universally understood, used and make sense up to a certain point.

There is no difference between 10.8.2, Mountain Lion, 189, a.b, xxii, 23789dfsbjkadsvf8812, etc. They are all valid, logic ways of doing it that are universally understood, are being universally used and do make sense. It's all in the way how you define it. Some simply use the version numbering from their versioning system (git, mercurial, subversion) because that's part of its job. You use it for versioning so why not use the version numbering? The reason why most don't lies in the way the vcs do version numbering. They are hashes which is hard to remember and look up so most use a simplified version numbering.


I find the above stupid as it shows a complete lack of knowledge about developing software and contracts. You agree upon a certain set of fixes, patches, features and/or a time frame. Whatever you deliver can be called a new version because people agreed upon calling it such. That's what it is about eventually: you think of how the version numbering should go for that particular product. It is not something that is universally for every product out there from every company, every programmer. In general the user doesn't care at all.

Just stop claiming that Mozilla is doing it wrong. There is no wrong or right when it comes to version numbering. There are many roads that will lead to Rome and there are many ways of version numbering. The development process Mozilla is using isn't new (take a look at "agile") and neither is their version numbering (MS Word and many other wordprocessors use it for their own version numbering system as well as just about any vcs). Is the criticism correct? Hell no, it's hypocrite as it can get.


Which let to lots of people complaining about it being so late. After it was released there was another never ending stream of complaints about the software not being stable, fast, etc. People went to Chrome because Fx4 was bloated. It was bloated because people expected lots of changes and features because they thought that quantity is the same as quality. They learned a very wise lesson that day: quantity usually means a decrease in quality.

Anyway, both Chrome and Firefox update in the background so users hardly notice they are on a new version. This is a good setup to get rid of version numbers entirely and move on to rolling releases (there are many software that are already on rolling releases).


There are some Linux distro's that do this. I like how Ubuntu does it by using the year.month type (yyyy.mm) because you can immediately tell how old a piece of software is. That's one of the main things you want to use the version number for (how old is it, is it the latest?). Other than that...you simply check with the manufacturer and you get your answer (or you Google the problem and the version number which gives you plenty of results).

Also: why the egoism? Seriously? You write a thesis and ask this question? And then you go on to call me stupid for having my opinion about how I prefer to identify what version of software I am running. I am not going to go into the details of why it is important, you know better than the rest of the world, you said so yourself. Having an OPINION and stating that OPINION as I said many times in my posts is not being egotistic. I stated my opinon, you stated yours, its called a discussion. Wow, why the egoism, dude, step off the soapbox huh? And IF you read ALL the posts I did write why I prefer point release numbers for minor changes and full release numbers for major changes.

Its a browers, get over yourself, your ego and your lack of respect for others opinions and move on.

[szw-mapple fan]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

Huh...?

It seems like it was yesterday when I was using Firefox 3 - And I'm only 16! When the hell did they rack up 19 releases?

the same thing is happening with chrome.

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Originally Posted by mrsir2009

Eh... I use Firefox at school, and IMO it's pretty decent. All the major browsers are good now, for most purposes. I use Chrome personally, but I wouldn't at all mind using FF, Safari, or IE (on Windows) either.

I used to use chrome on windows, but after switching to a mac last month... I found that nothing beats safari with multitouch.

[dyn]

Originally Posted by marc11

Also: why the egoism? Seriously?

Yep because your post contains nothing but "I I I I I I I I I I I" stuff. The way you've put it is: I want this and this thus Mozilla has to implement it, period. That's how your post comes across. If you don't want it to come across like that, rewrite it.

You write a thesis and ask this question? And then you go on to call me stupid for having my opinion about how I prefer to identify what version of software I am running.

Nope, I'm calling your reasoning stupid because it simply is. Again, you reason that because you want version numbering to be a certain way everybody should use it like that. Funny thing is, I did ask many other questions in that post and the previous one but you have answered none of them.

Its a browers, get over yourself, your ego and your lack of respect for others opinions and move on.

Please do what the above quote says: get over yourself, drop the enormous ego, answer the simple questions (aka keep on topic instead of evading the discussion which you are doing now), show some respect to others and quit the whining about version numbering. Mozilla has set its mind and you're not going to win it thus the discussion is completely useless. Waste of time and energy. Very funny that you feel this way yet make a huge fuzz about the fact that Mozilla isn't doing major.minor. Macrumors is also not the place for this discussion. Move to support.mozilla.com and start a discussion over there because that's where the Mozilla devs are. Just discuss the features of Firefox in this topic because the version numbering discussion is becoming rather pathetic.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I like Firefox a lot better for browsing, etc., but I couldn't help but notice that Netflix runs smooth in Safari but choppy in Firefox here (HD or not) and the GPU has acceleration on and the CPU is using like 20% on one CPU at most so WTF is it choppy with Firefox? I have no idea. I noticed the same thing with Java game apps on Pogo.com. Scrabble will take like 16% for Java on one CPU either way but with Safari, its own process uses less than 1% while Firefox uses like 85-100%. WTF?!

Firefox has some issues still. And good luck giving them the feedback. It seems like they want YOU to do ALL the bug-tracing work for them. You can't just report the problem and expect them to look into it. Hell no. Sorry, but I'm not the one getting paid to work on it. They're lucky I want to report the bugs/problems at all. So now I simply don't bother.