# Firefox 5? Already? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 22, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364 "2011-06-22T01:03:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2011, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/21 "2011-06-26T21:33:01Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > I looked at your link and the first thing that pops out at me isI am not using alpha or beta. > > Then it saysNow, how does simply sending a report to Mozilla actually fix an add-on that reports as incompatible? It doesn’t. It reports it to the addon developer, who, if you say it works, can update the addon. In order to be able to test addons that are marked as incompatible, it has to remove the compatibility check. There are other ways to do that, but the addon is the easiest. And, while it is designed for beta testers, it will still work for average users. Like I said, Firefox is in a weird position where addon developers are not updating the compatibility flags fast enough. Normally, by the time the new version comes out, the addon developers have upped the compatibility flag (or overhauled the addon if it needed to be fixed) As long as you have deleted all your Firefox 3-only addons, using this addon will not be a problem. If you’d prefer, I could just hack the addon files myself, so they will say they are compatible with Firefox 5. Like I’ve said, very little changed under the hood, and they intentionally tried not to break addons. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/22 "2011-06-26T21:38:38Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > Usually updates are labeled with points unless they’re major changes > > Acme 5.0 > > Medium update 5.5 > Very minor update 5.0.1 > > Major update goes to the next number Acme 6.0 > > But obviously not everyone follows this convention. > > Perhaps there are major security flaws and they figure if they label it another whole number people will take the need to patch the hole seriously. To be frank: because that’s not how Chrome does it. The new direction is a mimic of Chrome. One of the reported reasons people are picking Chrome over Firefox is that Chrome is always more up to date. Late in the cycle, Firefox is always lagging behind. So they decided to copy Chrome. Furthermore, Firefox has the lowest version number of all the current browsers. The idea was that Firefox needs parity with other browsers. It needs to be shown to be moving faster than all of them–hence higher numbers. Yeah, I think they should have done what you suggest, and then made the next Firefox a higher number, but I’m not the ones getting paid for creating development schedules. It was a decree from on high. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/23 "2011-06-27T03:58:53Z")
God, I haven’t even updated to 4 yet (and the major reason I haven’t is that change in the user interface to make it more Chrome-like. If I wanted a Chrome experience, I’d install Chrome.). Now they’re going to put the userbase on a hamster-wheel of near-continuous updates? That sucks. Updates are a PITA. Every time you do one, you have to worry about breaking something, and add-on incompatibility. Somehow I don’t see more frequent major updates as a big Firefox selling point for John Q. Average User. (Maybe I should just unplug the computer and go back to spending my spare time in the Real World? I don’t like playing sysadmin in my limited free time, and gardening is relaxing, unlike patching software.) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/24 "2011-06-27T05:01:37Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > God, I haven’t even updated to 4 yet (and the major reason I haven’t is that change in the user interface to make it more Chrome-like. If I wanted a Chrome experience, I’d install Chrome.). Now they’re going to put the userbase on a hamster-wheel of near-continuous updates? That sucks. > > Updates are a PITA. Every time you do one, you have to worry about breaking something, and add-on incompatibility. Somehow I don’t see more frequent major updates as a big Firefox selling point for John Q. Average User. > > (Maybe I should just unplug the computer and go back to spending my spare time in the Real World? I don’t like playing sysadmin in my limited free time, and gardening is relaxing, unlike patching software.) I feel ya. If they are going to go with Chrome’s update schedule, they also need to make sure things don’t break when you update. The latter needs to come before the former. BTW, you can get the Firefox 3 experience back in 4. Just right click near the address bar, and turn on the Menubar, Addon bar, and bookmark’s bar, and unselect tabs on top. And if you want your status bar back, download [Status-4-Evar](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/status-4-evar/). Compared to how Microsoft handled Office 2007, this is much better. If you want the old interface, you can have it. That is what’s supposed to be the big draw of Firefox: customization. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/25 "2011-06-27T05:11:30Z")
It’s the [change](http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/03/privacy-related-changes-coming-to-css-vistited/) to “visited links” that annoys me the most. I rely on them, sometimes, and for them to not work on most sites now bothers me. There is apparently a CSS adjustment, that sites have to adhere to (not the user), but I’ll be buggered if I can even figure out what it is. Nobody has explained it very clearly. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/26 "2011-06-27T06:25:18Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > It’s the [change](http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/03/privacy-related-changes-coming-to-css-vistited/) to “visited links” that annoys me the most. I rely on them, sometimes, and for them to not work on most sites now bothers me. > > There is apparently a CSS adjustment, that sites have to adhere to (not the user), but I’ll be buggered if I can even figure out what it is. Nobody has explained it very clearly. Basically, with a little know how, any website could know every other website you’ve ever been to. Just put up a large number of links, and you know what any visitor has seen. With just a little more information, like, say, asking you to fill out a form to sign up for a service, they now know everything about you. And that information can and is used to hack into people’s computers. Or just sell their information to advertisers. The first thing they did with the fix was to remove the ability to query what a link looked like. If it asks, it will always say that it looks like an unvisited link. But, while this makes it slower, if the visited link even slightly modifies how the rest of the page is rendered, it’s still possible to figure out what you’ve visited. So now you are limited to color changes and a few other things that do not actually make the text any larger or smaller. This way, nothing you do to the text does anything to the surrounding text. I’m not sure which browsers still have the exploit. But go to [this page](http://ha.ckers.org/weird/CSS-history.cgi), and watch them figure out which websites you’ve visited. And all it uses is CSS. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/27 "2011-06-27T08:59:40Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Basically, with a little know how, any website could know every other website you’ve ever been to. Well, for one thing, I don’t care who knows what websites I go to. But even if I did, I’m not questioning the necessity for the fix, I’m just annoyed that it cripples my user experience, and that the way to restore some semblance of it is out of my hands. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/28 "2011-06-27T13:57:00Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I feel ya. If they are going to go with Chrome’s update schedule, they also need to make sure things don’t break when you update. The latter needs to come before the former. > > BTW, you can get the Firefox 3 experience back in 4. Just right click near the address bar, and turn on the Menubar, Addon bar, and bookmark’s bar, and unselect tabs on top. And if you want your status bar back, download [Status-4-Evar](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/status-4-evar/). > > Compared to how Microsoft handled Office 2007, this is much better. If you want the old interface, you can have it. That is what’s supposed to be the big draw of Firefox: customization. Thanks, **BigT**. You convinced me to update! I’d be a lot less nervous about updates if my work IT Department would officially support browsers other than (gulp) IE 7. Knowing that if an update hoses things I’m on my own when it comes to fixing it makes me very nervous - but I also don’t want to surf on an outdated browser, or one without Adblock Plus and NoScript. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/29 "2011-06-27T14:09:24Z")
**BigT** , if you don’t mind, I have another question for you. I’ve just noticed one change in Firefox 5 that bugs me: under Tools, when I click on Add-ons, it takes me to a new Firefox Add-on page instead of showing me a list of the Add-ons I have installed (as Firefox 3 did). How do I find the list of add-ons I currently have installed, so I can turn them on and off? ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/30 "2011-06-27T23:48:09Z")
> [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](#): > > That’s interesting. I don’t think I have ever manually updated chrome, or been told that I need to do an update. Does it just update itself, quietly in the background? Yes, by default Chrome does just update itself quietly in the background upon startup. That might sound like a good thing to a lot of people, but I prefer to be asked and give permission, or at the very least be prominently notified of what’s going on. An example for a good reason for this is that I had a problem in the past with a full-install version of Chrome (as opposed to the web-installer version) where the auto-update feature was broken. The browser didn’t get updated for quite some time while I had no idea that it was broken. Upon doing some research, I found that it was a common issue with people who had used the full-install version. If anybody might have done the same, it’s worth a check. Just click on the little wrench icon and go to “About Google Chrome” and you should see it begin checking for updates and tell you that you have the latest version. If it says something like “cannot connect to server” you probably installed the full-version sometime back, and haven’t had an update since then. If that’s the case, you’ll want to [go here](http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?hl=en&installdataindex=make&brand=CHKZ) and get the latest web-installer version and your auto-updates should work from now on. If anybody actually had this issue, please respond back to satisfy my curiosity and to prove my point. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/31 "2011-06-28T00:56:01Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > **BigT** , if you don’t mind, I have another question for you. I’ve just noticed one change in Firefox 5 that bugs me: under Tools, when I click on Add-ons, it takes me to a new Firefox Add-on page instead of showing me a list of the Add-ons I have installed (as Firefox 3 did). How do I find the list of add-ons I currently have installed, so I can turn them on and off? Select the second option on the left–the puzzle piece. All the buttons on the left are tabs. The first tab is for getting new addons. The second is for seeing your old ones. And, once you select it, it will be the default tab the next time you open the addons dialog box. So it will always open to your existing addons. I didn’t like it at first, but it grew on me. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/32 "2011-06-28T18:30:16Z")
Thanks, **BigT**. Now that I know where to look, I anticipate no future problems. I think Firefox 5 is going to grow on me. Now to get it installed on my MacBook… ---
**Author:** ![Orionizer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orionizer/32/4442_2.png) [@Orionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orionizer)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/33 "2011-06-28T18:50:36Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > My auto update just stuck 5 on my pc. ☹ > > Barely had 4 on the darn thing three weeks. > > Updates are a PITA. Seems silly to have a major version change every few weeks. As a programmer myself, I think it’s really ruining the purpose of versioning software in the first place. MINOR updates DO NOT warrant a MAJOR version number change, but because Google is doing it, everybody is gonna jump on the bandwagon. I honestly haven’t seen anything worthy of a major version number change in Chrome at all - if that were MY app, it would probably be version 1.0.13.456 (or however many builds I had compiled). It’s really going to mess with people who expect MAJOR features in a MAJOR version number update. Even worse, when they DO have a MAJOR feature added, it’s just going to be version 134 from 133 and who will be the wiser? Another consideration is applications that your license is good until the next major version. If everyone were to adopt this new versioning scheme, we’ll be paying for major updates every 2 months or so (and NOT for major features, either). Just my opinion… ---
**Author:** ![suetonius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b19c9b/32.png) [@suetonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suetonius)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/34 "2011-06-28T19:08:10Z")
Firefox 4 didn’t execute on my PC but 5 works fine so I assume Firefox 5 resolved problems with the previous version. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/35 "2011-06-28T19:48:10Z")
I have a VBulletin add-on that not only ignores users but also completely hides their posts (even quoted ones). That’s not working on FF5, unfortunately. The others seem to be okay. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/36 "2011-06-28T20:15:00Z")
Resist software versioning inflation! To the barricades! ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/37 "2011-06-28T20:21:16Z")
> [@Amblydoper](#): > > I wonder when version numbers will be obsoleted. They should just switch to Firefox '11 right now, and call the first release of next year Firefox '12. Is it 1995 again already? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Orionizer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orionizer/32/4442_2.png) [@Orionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orionizer)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/38 "2011-06-28T21:28:18Z")
The “Year” updating thing is rather dumb, too. I just opened my Outlook 2007 and the splash screen still says © 2006. Way to make your users realize you haven’t updated in awhile (Yes, I know Office 2010 is available, but until it was, it just kept reminding your users how long it had been since you updated). Major versioning should be for major version changes (features, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2011, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/39 "2011-06-29T23:05:56Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > I have a VBulletin add-on that not only ignores users but also completely hides their posts (even quoted ones). That’s not working on FF5, unfortunately. The others seem to be okay. Yeah. That’s a problem that happened with Firefox 4. The developer basically said that he didn’t have time to update it. And, unlike Firefox 5, Firefox 4 definitely was a major modification. The closest I’ve been able to do is write a script that hides that annoying “This post is hidden because you have \_\_\_\_\_ on ignore” blank message. I still see quotes. ---
**Author:** ![bahia\_hombre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@bahia\_hombre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bahia_hombre)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364/40 "2011-07-07T22:33:28Z")
Why is it that pages never seem to finish loading in Ff5…the progress indicator on the page tab spins and spins and never stops until I click the red X on the address bar. Anyone else seeing this? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-5-already/586364.md?page=3)