Firefox 7 in beta, release due next month

Stephen Withers
Monday, 22 August 2011 12:40

Business IT - Open Source

Mozilla's new release cadence means the Firefox 7 beta was released alongside Firefox 6. And Firefox 8 beta isn't far away.

Mozilla's rapid turnaround development timetable for Firefox means that a beta release of Firefox 7 appeared at much the same time as the release version of Firefox 6.

Key features of Firefox 7 are that it uses less memory than its predecessor and provides better performance in various areas, including HTML5 Canvas rendering and Firefox Sync.

One of the main problems with the rapid release cadence is add-on compatibility. Traditionally, a new major release of Firefox meant new versions of add-ons even if no actual changes were needed to achieve compatibility with the new version of the browser. The assumption was that a new major version required updated add-ons.

A workaround is to install the Add-on Compatibility Reporter, an add-on which overrides that assumption. Its primary purpose is to allow users and developers to test add-on compatibility, but as a side effect it means people can continue to use add-ons that do work with the new version of Firefox. Also, Mozilla provides an automatic compatibility test and upgrade for add-ons after a new version goes beta. Add-ons that appear to function correctly are marked as compatible. Work is also continuing on the Add-on SDK. Add-ons created using it should be less prone to incompatibilities when Firefox is updated.

Firefox 7 is scheduled to be released on September 27, and on the same day Firefox 8 is due to shift from Aurora (pre-beta) to beta status, and Firefox 9 should enter the Aurora channel.

A significant feature of Firefox 8 is that it blocks add-ons dropped by application installers until they are explicitly approved by the user. The installers for some pieces of software sometimes include unrelated add-ons, presumably on a pay-per-install basis. Ethical providers give users the choice of installing the add-ons, but others just go right ahead and install them without the user's approval.