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Not everyone gets by with the default browser on their computer, and when it comes to picking an alternative, Firefox is one of the most popular out there, having clawed back support from upstart rivals like Google Chrome and Opera in recent years by switching to a rapid release cycle, ensuring major new versions of the browser are released every six weeks.
It’s true to say that individual updates often fail to deliver anything substantial, but cumulatively they roll together to produce a web browser that is radically different to the one – version 4 – that marked the start of a new era back in 2011.
Some of the landmark new features we’ve seen include a per-site Permissions Manager, enhanced Sync options, tabs on demand, silent updates and add-on enhancements. We also saw the launch of specific development branches including UX, which has led to various interface tweaks such as redesigned home and new pages (Firefox 13), and ‘Elm’, a branch designed to provide Firefox in Modern UI form for Windows 8.
One group particularly well served by the rapid release cycle have been developers, and a plethora of tools from Javascript Scratchpad (Firefox 6) to full-blown Developer Toolbar (Firefox 16) have worked their way into successive builds as Firefox courts this important community of users.
And underpinning this all are a constantly evolving set of performance improvements, standards support (HTML5 and CSS3 are constantly being added to, for instance) and bug fixes.
Firefox 21 is now in the stable channel.
What’s new in version 21? The latest version adds an application startup time advisor and preliminary support for the new Firefox Health Report, as well as various graphic improvements.
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Posted by: Jon, 01 February 2012 09:31
I've been a happy customer since the early era of Mozilla before it became Firefox. We all know the company decided to accelerate their updates to an infernal rhythm.
Not only the add-on developers don't have the time to make their product compatible that fast, but also the change logs don't satisfy me anymore, there's simply nothing new or faster since FF5 so to say.
I've got a quad core with 8GB ram, Firefox is having a Nightly build supposed to be X64 compatible, but I couldn't wait, I want to be able to use all the characteristics of my computer without the hassle of feeling limited, FF crashing or freezing often.
I've recently moved to Pale Moon x64, based on FF source code so one can use personas and add-ons all the same, and believe it or not, it just plainly changed my life. I have a smoother and better responding program, using 350MB of RAM with permanently 10 open tabs and 5 running add-ons. The most noticeable change for me is when launching the program: 15 secs for FF10 x84 and 2 for PM9 X64.
I'm eagerly waiting for FF x64 to be released, I still have Firefox on my computer but running Pale Moon instead. I'd give this release a 3 stars rating.