Firefox 5 goes live. But is it any better than Firefox 4?
(Read article summary)Firefox 5 launched today, and it has received some flak from bloggers, who point out that Firefox 5 is only a minor hop ahead of Firefox 4.
Firefox 5 is here. Mozilla says the newest version of its browser delivers over "1,000 improvements," including plenty of patches and fixes, and a "Do Not Track" feature to help bolster the privacy of users. Also on-board Firefox 5: The ability to play CSS animations, and the capability to instantly tinker with Firefox add-ons, without slowing down the show or shutting off the browser.
Still, Firefox 5 has generally greeted in the tech blogosphere with a collective shrug. And occasionally, with a teeth-rattling tirade. Over ZDNet, Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols chides Mozilla for presenting him with a new browser that isn't even that new – as in the case of Chrome, which Google updates pretty regularly, Firefox 5 gets only a few small improvements from the version before, Vaughn-Nichols argues.
"I’ve played with the beta and few hours I’ve been working with the final version, I have to say that what I find most annoying about Firefox – its lack of stability, especially on Linux, and continued hunger for memory – doesn’t seem to be improved much, if any," he writes. "Put it all together, though, is this enough to call this version of Firefox a major new release? No. It’s not even close."
