* Drastically improved memory handling for certain use cases
* Added a new rendering backend to speed up Canvas operations on Windows systems
* Bookmark and password changes now sync almost instantly when using Firefox Sync
* The 'http:// URL prefix is now hidden by default
* Added support for text-overflow: ellipsis
* Added support for the Web Timing specification
* Enhanced support for MathML
* The WebSocket protocol has been updated from version 7 to version 8
* Added an opt-in system for users to send performance data back to Mozilla to improve future versions of Firefox
* Fixed several stability issues
* Fixed several security issues
http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2011/09/27/mozilla-firefox-sign...
--
Android highlights:
* Android-style Copy & Paste
* Ability to quit
* Use Firefox in your language
* WebSocket API
http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2011/09/27/firefox-for-android-...
[Edit] Updated the list of highlights
I hate that:( I hate that they removed the rss button too:(
The main advantage over Chrome is that it doesn't freeze up when it's loading a new tab.
Here is a screenshot comparing FF 3.5 to 4: http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/4/2009/12/500x_firefox...
(3.5 is right)
Either way, Chrome installs cleanly without the user even having to know it happened. Firefox, OTOH, causes the UAC in Win7 to halt everything for the upgrade. It's not as transparent as maybe it could be.
^^ apparently not the use cases I use. FF7's been running for about 12 hours on my win7 box and is using over a gig of ram just like normal...
It started off good but then just kept growing over the hours. Nothing really improved here. :(
Are you looking at resident set size (aka real memory), versus virtual set size (aka virtual memory)?
The memory VMs in both Windows and Linux kernels will happily let an app malloc all they want until they hit the userspace address limit, with no affect on performance. It's only when those apps use the memory that there's a perf hit.
* Added an opt-in system for users to send performance data back to Mozilla to improve future versions of Firefox
Some of these issues are very hard to reproduce for the developers. If users like you turn it on, there's hope of actually getting it fixed.
I'd rather have FF use the memory for cache to speed up performance than to have it sit unused.
Seriously, the release notes and changelog are what we're after.
I was just about to update my installation, but it told me that my Roboform extension isn't compatible with v7.
If they allow the application to update when it wants, they're going to quickly render me unable to use Firefox, since I won't be able to log into secure web sites.
How do you get to that information prior to the upgrade?
I've only realized extensions were incompatible after updating, because Firefox disables them.
This can be changed back with browser.urlbar.trimURLs in about:config. They should've provided an option for it.
I myself have been bitten by this assumption when I discovered a new subject for study (e.g. math, entity formation, physics, a new programming language, etc.), but found most of the web pages related to the subject assumed that all those interested in the subject were already fully knowledgeable about it.
Personally I don't see the benefit of removing the "http://. If this trend continues we may end up with something similar to AOL Keywords.
> it was quite eye-opening when I learned that only 25% of the 600 million add-ons in use every day in Firefox 4 and later are active on AMO.
http://blog.fligtar.com/2011/09/26/add-on-compatibility-prog...
(Grrr... yet more evidence of G's gradual sunsetting of GWT.)
Last I checked the plugin for FF6 can be found here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=https://dl.google.com/d...
More discussion here: http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit/browse_thr...
"The JSPrime effort was begun to unify and be a (single!) successor to GWT and Closure/JSCompiler"
"What is the future of the JSCompiler and GWT? JSCompiler and GWT were already on a merger path. This effort gives us a direction for that unification around the Dash language. We will actively support teams for a long time on the current generation of JSCompiler and GWT and provide fantastic co-existence and migration tools to Dash."
See: http://markmail.org/message/uro3jtoitlmq6x7t
(My emphasis added. I read that as "maintenance mode".)
(Edit: thanks for the heads-up on the FF6 version of the plugin - but I guess I have now missed the two-week window where both FF6 and the compatible version of the plugin where available to download!)
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/Features/Incremental_GC
The implementation seems to be in active progress, which means it's going to take at least a few more versions to make it to stable.
I think this is confusing. Either you synch the switch (i.e. when you release the "release" version to users you release the "beta" too), or it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
On my machine, this fixes the "fuzzy fonts" issue that existed since Firefox 4 if you enabled hardware acceleration.
Here is some more information I just found for anyone interested:
Main bug report:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=661471
The two new preferences:
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_for_families
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_max_size
And a post talking in detail about the issue:
http://blog.mozilla.com/nattokirai/2011/08/11/directwrite-te...
Until it's officially accepted you can fork, build it with rake and have yourself a working copy for Firefox 7 :)
