Major Update to Firefox 1.5 Rolled OutFriday June 29th, 2007Users of Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.12 have been offered a major update to Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4 via the automatic update notification. As reported earlier, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.12 is the last release from the Firefox 1.5 Branch. As per the the ReleaseRoadmap policy, the previous release of Firefox (1.5 in this case) is supported for six months beyond the release of a major revision (2.0 in this case). Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4 can also be downloaded directly from the Firefox Product Page Finally! I seem to remember that there was some plan worked out with Linux distributions that bundled Firefox 1.5 so that they would work together to continue maintaining security, right? For instance, Fedora Core 6 and Mandriva 2007 are still on Firefox 1.5, and still fully supported. If someone found a vulnerability in Firefox 1.5.0.12, there wouldn't be a generally-available 1.5.0.13, but Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mandriva, etc. would provide, say 1.5.0.12-1 through yum, apt-get, or urpmi, and someone would host the patches. Can anyone confirm this? June 29, 2007 How Will Firefox 2 be superior to Firefox to my current version, 1.8.20070.50813? My biggest concern is that the pop up box says, "this update will cause some of your extension and/or themes to stop working until they are updated. When I clicked on "Show List", it showed Java Console 6.0.01 as incompatible with Firefox 2, and therefore it will be disabled. This raises several questions. 1. What are the "some of the extensions and/or themes that will stop working"? What are "extensions", and "themes"? Is Java Console 6.0.01 one of them, or something completely different? 2. What do you mean when you say, "this update will cause some of your extensions and/or themes to stop working until they are updated."? 3. What is "Java Console 6.0.01", and why will it be disabled? There is no Firefox 1.8. Are you talking about a gecko version or something? It tells you which extensions will not work when you update. It is up to you to decide if you want to upgrade. Java Console is a hidden Java 6 extension that autoinstalls when you install Java 6 - dont blame us, blame Sun. It is an unnecessary extension. P.S. If you choose to keep Firefox 1.5, know that it will no longer get security updates, so over time, it will be come less secure due to this. I had to update Java after the Firefox update because iTunes wouldn't let me purchase music because of a Java problem. I can only assume it's related since iTunes was fine before the Firefox update. iTunes kept telling me my password was bad, then I noticed the Java error. Updating Java via the Update button inside the Java application in the Control Panel (Windows) worked quickly and I was able to complete my purchase like before. Hope this helps someone. June 29, 2007 How “Will Firefox 2” be superior to my current version, 1.8.20070.50813? My biggest concern is that the pop up box says, "this update will cause some of your extension and/or themes to stop working until they are updated. When I clicked on "Show List", it showed Java Console 6.0.01 as incompatible with Firefox 2, and therefore it will be disabled. This raises several questions. 1. What are the "some of the extensions and/or themes that will stop working"? What are "extensions", and "themes"? Is Java Console 6.0.01 one of them, or something completely different? 2. What do you mean when you say, "this update will cause some of your extensions and/or themes to stop working until they are updated."? 3. What is "Java Console 6.0.01", and why will it be disabled? dennisozzee: As to how Firefox 2 will be superior, see http://en.www.mozilla.com/en/firefox/features 1. Extensions and themes are third-party (that is, not produced by Mozilla) add-ons for Firefox. Extensions add some new functionality to the browser (or change existing functionality), and themes let you change the look of the Firefox user interface. There are hundreds of extensions and themes available at https://addons.mozilla.org/ that do various things like block online ads or make the browser look cooler. Java Console is an extension. 2. Because there can be significant changes in how different versions of Firefox work, particularly "under the hood" (in areas that aren't directly visible to users), an extension or theme may work properly in one version of Firefox but not in another. For this reason, extensions and themes are labeled with the version numbers they have been tested to work properly on. The Java Console extension you have has not been labeled as having been tested with Firefox 2.0, therefore as a precautionary measure to avoid problems, Firefox will disable it as part of the upgrade process. 3. Java Console is apparently an extension that comes with Java. It's apparently automatically installed together with Java, but it's not actually necessary for Java to work correctly, so since it sounds like you don't use it (since you don't even know what it is), you have nothing to lose by letting Firefox disable it. It's basically Sun (the creator of Java)'s fault for installing it without asking and then not making sure it's kept up to date with Firefox releases. See the discussion at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=532575 Who not do the same for 1.0.x branch? There's still lots of people using it. Why not do the same for 1.0.x branch? There's still lots of people using it. Yes auto update feature came with Mozilla Firefox 1.5 series. Well whats the problem in recompiling Firefox 2. Although For windows users it's easy to install compatible binary package. ------------------------------------------- My Tamil Language Packs http://veera.789mb.com/computers/software/mozilla/firefox1.5.html http://veera.789mb.com/computers/software/mozilla/firefox2.0.html @rodrms: I am puzzled by your reaction as I cannot see how it affects you if I choose to stay with FF 1.5 . I know the potential risks of staying with the older version but I have good reasons not to upgrade so it is my choice to stay with FF 1.5 on some machines. @psz: I have an old machine (400MHz Celeron, 128Mb RAM) running the latest version of DSL (Linux distro) which uses FF 1.0 . Each new version of Firefox is bigger and slower than its predecessor as more and more functionality is rolled into the core program. Add to that the fact that, in order to run later versions of Firefox, I would have to install much heavier GUI code and it would all slow that old machine to a crawl. As it is, Firefox 1.0 works well and is quick to load and run - in fact, it seems as fast as FF2 on my 2.4GHz Pentium 4 with 2Gb RAM! @dennisozzee: People should be warned that, as some of the APIs (programming interfaces) available in FF 1.5 have been removed from FF 2, some extensions will not work at all in FF 2 and never will do (i.e. the words "until they are updated" should either be removed from the warning or changed to "unless they can be updated"). However, it sounds like you have not installed any extensions yourself so this will not affect you. One question from me: As it is a major security feature offered by the other major Web browsers (IE and Opera), will the option to reject third party cookies ever be made to work and restored to Firefox? You should go to http://www.bluecollarblogger.blogspot.com/ You will learn a short history from a blog named...."It is still Phoenix" that tells of the history of Firefox before it was called firefox. The comment about Firefox getting bigger is true in every way. Has Firefox grows in popularity so does the demand for more features to please those who want to be entertained by more than a safer browser. Firefox is fantastic but I fear tyhat with in the next 3 to five years it will be just like IE. Let us hope not. |