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Mozilla The Internet

Firefox 2.0.0.11 Released 199

Posted by CmdrTaco from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.
BrianAU writes "Firefox 2.0.0.11 has been released, the Release Notes show the only major change as a correction of a compatibility issue with some websites and extensions as discovered in Firefox 2.0.0.10."
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Firefox 2.0.0.11 Released More

Firefox 2.0.0.11 Released

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  • one sentence summary and it makes front page.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LingNoi ( 1066278 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @12:42PM (#21545015)

    Firefox 2.0.0.11 has been released, the Release Notes show the only major change as a correction of a compatibility issue with some websites and extensions as discovered in Firefox 2.0.0.10.
    If you think it wasn't that big of a change then why did you sumbit it to Slashdot?!

    • Re:one sentence summary and it makes front page.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by calebt3 ( 1098475 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @12:44PM (#21545029)
      You'd be amazed what goes into the Firehose. The fact that it actually made it through is a bit mind-boggling though.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Harmonious Botch ( 921977 ) *

        The fact that it actually made it through is a bit mind-boggling...
        They probably thought it was news about Firefox 3, like I did.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I see where you could have been confused. 2.0.0.11 looks very similar to 3.x.x.x

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by Spy der Mann ( 805235 )
            I see where you could have been confused. 2.0.0.11 looks very similar to 3.x.x.x

            Gee, isn't it obvious? 2 + 0 + 0 + 1/1 = 3. There!

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by rueger ( 210566 )
        The fact that it actually made it through is a bit mind-boggling though.

        You must be new here.... if it only gets duped one more time, that'll be a surprise.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      If you think it wasn't that big of a change then why did you sumbit it to Slashdot?!

      Perhaps they wrote it as a journal entry, and they have their journal set to automatically submit to stories.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tim C ( 15259 )
        No; journal entries that make it are marked as such. This looks to have been a normal submission.

  • As if this is news? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @12:46PM (#21545043)
    Maybe it was different in the past when software didn't automatically tell its users to upgrade but now that Firefox reminds you automatically when a new release is out I don't see the reason why Slashdot would put this on the front page... Not only that but this release was pushed out yesterday (or the day before, I can't recall when I picked it up). In addition to even that aside, 2.*.10 was out just several days before that and was a bigger update. If anything, we should have heard about that instead and not this minor fix.

    Until the "editors" stop pushing garbage through w/o letting the firehose "fix" stupid submissions, Slashdot will continue to lag other sites in the quality coming through. If you really want to keep it up let the firehose do its job -- if not, let it degrade to the steaming pile that is Digg and be done with it already.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by a_nonamiss ( 743253 )
      C'mon... It's Saturday. I guess lame content is better than no content.

    • Re:As if this is news? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Excors ( 807434 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @01:13PM (#21545265)

      The interesting thing is that it was the fastest ever release of a browser update. John Resig [ejohn.org] gives most of the details: A security patch in Firefox 2.0.0.10 was incorrectly checked in, and introduced a bug which was not caught by the testing process. That was only discovered after the release, so the code was fixed and the whole release process had to start up again. Three days later, the 2.0.0.11 update is available for forty languages and three platforms.

      So, it reflects badly on Mozilla's testing efforts, though that is an area where Firefox 3 has made significant improvements with automated testing. It reflects well on their release process, which can push out a critical update in just a few days.

    • That's the thing though, the firehose isn't doing its job, part of the problem is that someone needs to be voting up this dreck in the first place. The other is that the editors are not "editing" anything, dupes, inaccuracies, basic failure to use spell-check, you know things like that. There isn't really a way at the moment to label pointless stories, dupes, innacurate articles/summeries that have been shown to work yet. what we need is for editors *and* slashdotters to pay attention to what is being su

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mex ( 191941 )
      I like slashdot, but I have to agree here. This is non-news, worse than filler because there's really nothing to discuss. I use Firefox and it updated automatically. So?
       
    • Sometimes I just shake my head in bewilderment at the general idiocy of some posts by /. users.

      We were actually one of the companies that found the bug shortly after the release of 2.0.0.10 and if you can't see why this is news then I'm really glad you don't work on my dev team.

      Just so we're clear on what the bug ACTUALLY was, the bug specifically effected the canvas drawing capability in the browser. It's not something they test for and frankly, given our experience developing for IE, it's not one the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by instarx ( 615765 )
      Maybe it was different in the past when software didn't automatically tell its users to upgrade but now that Firefox reminds you automatically when a new release is out I don't see the reason why Slashdot would put this on the front page.

      I agree - it doesn't belong here. 2.0.0.10 to 2.0.0.11. That isn't a major revision, it isn't a minor revision, it isn't even a minor minor revision! It's a minor revision of a minor minor revision. Sheesh.
  • ... a new Firefox point release. Time to run regedit and delete all the .htm/.html DDEExec keys by hand again.

    Why don't they ever seem to fix that bug?
    • What bug? I see bug 246078 [mozilla.org] which was fixed years ago. Is there a new bug? If so, you should make sure you report it properly.
      • Every time I install a new Firefox release on any Win2K or XP system (two desktops and one laptop), I get "Windows cannot open (site name)" error dialogs every time I launch Firefox with no other browser windows open. This symptom has returned with every Firefox installation since the pre-1.5 releases. To fix it, I have to manually delete the ddeexec keys that the Firefox installer insists on creating for no good reason.

        I genuinely don't understand why I'm the only person this ever seems to happen to, bec
        • I saw that. Someone should file a *new* bug report properly. Making further comments on a bug report that was fixed years ago isn't the correct way to report a new problem, unless it's basically the same problem. It may be the same symptom, but if it's different someone will have to submit a new bug report.

    • Can't reproduce that one here. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Almahtar ( 991773 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @01:23PM (#21545357) Journal
      My system doesn't know what a "regedit" is. Maybe that's your problem?

  • Anxious for 3.0 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by a_nonamiss ( 743253 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @12:47PM (#21545053)
    Firefox is a terrific product which I use and wholeheartedly endorse, but I think they have lost sight of their original intentions a bit. I originally started using Phoenix way back when because of the fast, simple interface. People have been so enamored with lots of pretty icons, plug-ins and add-ons, that in many cases, IE is a faster, leaner browser. ::shudder:: I like many of the add-on features on more powerful systems, but I pine for a browser that I can run quickly and easily on low-end machines. I've ever once used a Firefox theme. The default one is just fine for me. I've heard rumors that FF3 is headed in that direction, and I just hope that they keep that focus. Maybe they could even have separate installations or installation options for low-end and high-end machines.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mopslik ( 688435 )

      I like many of the add-on features on more powerful systems, but I pine for a browser that I can run quickly and easily on low-end machines.

      Well, you've got two main options:

      1. Use Firefox as it is, sans memory-hogging extensions. This is the default installation.
      2. Seek out a lightweight browser like Dillo [dillo.org] and use it for surfing on your low-end machines.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by JackMeyhoff ( 1070484 )
        Imagine using a product called "Dildo" at work. Yeah that will do it.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by mopslik ( 688435 )

          Imagine using a product called "Dildo" at work. Yeah that will do it.

          ...or posting to Slashdot under that user name, Jack. ;)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by h4rm0ny ( 722443 )

        I'd just add that both Konqueror and Epiphany seem to be slimmer and faster than Firefox at the moment, especially Epiphany which handles Slashdot noticeably faster. I use Firefox for any web development because of the excellent Web Developer and Firebug plugins, but I use Epiphany for general browsing. The only thing I miss is the level of fine-tuning I can apply to my cookie preferences - Firefox handles that better.

  • More Crashes (Score:3, Informative)

    by Spinlock_1977 ( 777598 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {7791_kcolnipS}> on Saturday December 01, 2007 @12:50PM (#21545073) Journal
    Ever since 2.0.0.8, Firefox is crashing regularly on both my Win2k and XP (both fully patched) boxes. New Firefox releases keep coming fast this year, but do they ever address these stability issues? Is anyone else getting regular (2-3 per week) crashes? Do I need to quit surfing for free porn in the .ru domain on my Win95 box with no firewall? (ok, that last part was actually bs).

  • How is this important news? (Score:3, Funny)

    by jopet ( 538074 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @12:53PM (#21545089) Journal
    Yes, I use Firefox, happy user and all, but how is such a minor update news worth to make it on the title page?
    Just as a comparison: when OpenSuse 10.2 was released (or was it 10.1) not a single of the many submitted articles was published on Slashdot.

    So why is this worth its own article on Slashdot?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jopet ( 538074 )
        I am sure FF has more users than OpenSuse. However, OpenSuse is among the three most used Linux distros, and in central Europe probably among the top two or one .
        Also, the comparison with OpenSuse was more an example -- I certainly would find an article about the FF version 3 or even a beta for version 3 apropriate. But a tiny bugfix update like this? How do articles actually make it to the frontpage on Slashdot?
  • If I'll be able to see my account activity on Vonage now. Because while I can't see it with Firefox, I can see it with IE which annoys me to no end.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MollyB ( 162595 ) *
      I'd blame the website before Firefox. Can't say about Vonage, but my online banking has been curtailed by the IE 'requirement' which seems to hide the frame(s) with clickable buttons which enable online transactions. I d/l'ed the WebDeveloper add-on or plug-in. Now I can right-click on the borders of hidden frames, select This Frame/Open in new tab and there is the good old page I used to see. The buttons are not "live" however, you must right-click desired function button, choose Copy Location and paste it

  • bugfix (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SolusSD ( 680489 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @12:57PM (#21545131) Homepage
    A simple bugfix release is definitely !news. If slashdot were to consistently post stories for simple bugfix releases for major software packages these would be 90% of the news! Imagine MS patch Tuesdays.

  • If only... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gunslinger47 ( 654093 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @01:05PM (#21545193)
    If only there was a way for Firefox users to be automatically notified of new patches.
    • I've yet to be notified of a single update while running FF as a normal user on linux. Extensions being the exception, since those are user-based (if only there were a way to make THOSE take effect system wide, I'd be much happier setting things up for dad)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PCM2 ( 4486 )

        I've yet to be notified of a single update while running FF as a normal user on linux.

        On my Ubuntu system, not only does it not automatically check for updates, but "Check for Updates" is grayed out in the Help menu. Way to go, Ubuntu.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by As_I_Please ( 471684 )
          Ubuntu's Update Manager handles the updates for all applications, including Firefox. The apt repositories are generally a day behind the official releases.
          • Which begs the question, why show the menu item?

            It would make more sense to strip that code out of the browser, or at least from the menu definitions.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by drmarcj ( 807884 )
      It's a race to the bottom between iTunes and Firefox, for which piece of software can aggravate its users by constantly auto-updating. At least Firefox doesn't make you accept the license agreement every time a patch is installed...
  • What are the security changes, in some sort of detail? The ChangeLog is completely vague. I know I can diff the code, but an explanation would be a lot better.

  • Not a "compatibility issue" (Score:4, Informative)

    by christopherfinke ( 608750 ) <chris@efinke.com> on Saturday December 01, 2007 @01:07PM (#21545215) Homepage Journal
    This release did not address a "compatibility issue;" it was released solely to fix a bug in canvas.drawImage that was introduced in 2.0.0.10, the bug being that it no longer worked.

    See more details at John Resig's blog [ejohn.org].
  • I see some people saying that this isn't news, but I am glad to see Firefox get some attention. Some people may have disabled auto update and forgotten to update for a while. (I personally don't like apps that automatically phone home even with good intentions).

    This specific release only fixes a canvas regression from the previous one, (Whoops! And I thought I was having a bad day trying to rush out some software) but altogether previous releases fix many security issues and it is nice to see a reminder els

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      I see some people saying that this isn't news, but I am glad to see Firefox get some attention. Some people may have disabled auto update and forgotten to update for a while. (I personally don't like apps that automatically phone home even with good intentions).

      Then you need to pay attention for updates yourself and your point that it should be front page Slashdot news is moot. In addition, I would assume that the vast majority of geek users of Firefox don't turn off auto-updating because then it basically
    • If you disabled auto-updates, it's because you don't want to know about them.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by nbehary ( 140745 )
      Well, the thing with this issue apparently is .11 only fixes a bug introduced by a botched patch in .10 which was only released 4 days ago. Odds are, people who don't have auto updates enabled and don't update often probably wouldn't have been running .10 anyway. The story is completely pointless. (though, in my case, Firefox never told me there was an update, and I only noticed last night when I started it up and it installed something, but still.......)
  • And I wonder why I spend more and more time at Ars Technica these days...
  • Well, on my G4 Mac Firefox 2.0.0.9 seemed to hit a peak for resource usage, and needed to be restarted every couple of hours if I had my usual six or seven tabs open. Eventually it would slow to a near halt. Slashdot in particular just stopped loading for some reason that I couldn't bothered to figure out.

    2.0.0.10 seemed to be better in terms of bring a memory hog, but crashed repeatedly. I suspect that specific to a few sites, but still there hadn't been problems before.

    2.0.0.11? We'll see.

    Alth
    • Firefox is suspect on the Mac, in comparison to the stability it achieves on Linux and Windows operating systems. Although I love it, and have it installed, I have moved away from Firefox 2.x over time. I would check out Camino [caminobrowser.org] instead. Almost the same rendering with Gecko, but, rock solid in terms of crashing and such. Optimized versions specific to your processor, along with some useful add-ons (extensions unfortunately don't work with Camino) can be found at PimpMyCamino.com [pimpmycamino.com]. I use the UserAgent ad

  • Version numbering (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Goaway ( 82658 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @01:19PM (#21545315) Homepage
    Open source projects tend to have somewhat byzantine version numbering schemes, but Firefox really takes the cake. It has four different numbers, out of which only two are used. The second one was a "5" once, but that was completely arbitary, too.

    I know the reason for this is supposedly the extension system, but that is not a valid excuse. An internal technical detail should not exposed to users like that, and even so, the reason is not the extension system, but that the version checking for extensions was designed wrong from the start.

    Now, can we please have a sane two-part version number for 3.0 and up?

  • Here we go again (Score:3, Funny)

    by kernelpanicked ( 882802 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @01:19PM (#21545317)
    Mozilla Dev1: OMFG, we haven't been mentioned on the front page of slashdot in like 20 minutes or something!

    Mozilla Dev2: No problem. We'll just release yet another pointless sub-sub-sub-sub-sub version.

    Me: (looking at yet another firefox recompile from FreeBSD ports) Screw it, I'm going back to seamonkey.
  • How is this a news item? All 4 of my computers updated automatically. NAtural as breathing. Reporting this is like reporting "The sun rose today for the nth time this year...."

  • News behind the news (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kimanaw ( 795600 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @01:40PM (#21545493)
    As someone who was bitten by the bug fixed in 2.0.0.11, I think the terse /. description needs a little backstory.

    2.0.0.10 f*cked up a lot of AJAXy web apps, and, frankly, Mozilla's initial response [mozilla.org] was less than "customer oriented". The "shoot the messanger" attitude exhibited in some of those early Bugzilla posts - despite there being numerous random URLs provided to point out the flaw - is a bit troubling.

    As is the fact that Firefox's release process seems to be either lacking basic tests for std. API's, or is choosing to skip those tests.

    And of course, the lack of an easy 1-click "Revert" menu item/button to back down versions when an auto-updater introduces such a bug further compounds the impact of these sort of bugs.

    Of course, the /. crowd are somehow spinning this serious failure of both software and processes into proof of Firefox's superiority, due to the quick turnaround time. However, those of us that were actually bitten by this - and esp. had customers bitten by this (see the Bugzilla link above) - are having to rethink the usual practice of recommending FF over IE/Opera/etc.

    • Re:News behind the news (Score:5, Informative)

      by BZ ( 40346 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @02:00PM (#21545705)
      > The "shoot the messanger" attitude exhibited

      Where, exactly? Reading the link you posted I see:

      1) Original report
      2) 5 comments confirming that it's a problem
      3) 1 comment indicating which change caused the problem
      4) 1 comment indicating what should be done to fix the problem
      5) 1 comment combined with flag changes to make sure there is a regression test in the future
      6) 1 comment asking an earlier commenter for the URL to the site they said was broken, to
              make sure that it actually gets fixed.
      7) 3 comments that say that it's a problem and where
      8) A regression test being posted
      9) The regression test being checked in
      10) Some bugs being marked duplicate
      11) The fix being checked in

      All that happened over the course of 18 hours. I stopped reading there, since the rest doesn't particularly matter, as far as I can tell.

      Where's the problem exactly?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Achromatic1978 ( 916097 )
        And when you stopped reading, you should have continued, because there you have "helpful" suggestions like "Owners of high traffic sites should be QAing their sites against our nightlies to ensure bugs don't affect them or they can report them" (uh, huh? Why is it a site owner's responsibility to track Firefox development for regression of introduced bugs?) Seriously? Daily checks of the Firefox nightly build to ensure such basic functionality as canvas.drawImage isn't completely fucked by the developer's i

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by BZ ( 40346 )
          > And when you stopped reading, you should have continued

          That's not the initial response, now is it?

          > there you have "helpful" suggestions like

          You mean comment 30?

          The commenter in question is not a Mozilla developer. He's not Mozilla Corporation QA. I'm not sure why you're taking "Mozilla" to task for something someone not particularly affiliated with Mozilla said in a comment in the bug database. A bug database in which anyone can create an account and then say things.

          If you want the actual "Mozil

    • Re:News behind the news (Score:5, Informative)

      by elrendermeister ( 832437 ) on Saturday December 01, 2007 @05:22PM (#21547425)
      I posted this on an earlier post but I thought it more relevant to re-post here as it's fits in nicely with the above comment.

      We were actually one of the companies that found the bug shortly after the release of 2.0.0.10 and if you can't see why this is news then I'm really glad you don't work on my dev team.

      Just so we're clear on what the bug ACTUALLY was, the bug specifically effected the canvas drawing capability in the browser. It's not something they test for and frankly, given our experience developing for IE, it's not one they test for either (if IE's random and aberrant behavior is any indication, hell MS can't even make a browser that displays content in a compliant manner given the HTML spec).

      A number of sites and web applications use this functionality specifically for navigation, and when Firefox was updated to 2.0.0.10 on many client machines automatically, some business critical web applications were seriously effected. Because of this it was a pretty serious issue.

      The reason this IS news is because after confirming the bug and determining the extent of the effect on the user base, the Mozilla folks had nightly builds in our hands just hours after a fix was checked in. This got most of the immediately effected back to work within hours.

      A number of us then independently verified the fix against our code and then provided rapid feedback to the team so they could issue a release.

      This resulted in an astonishingly fast turnaround. I think the Mozilla folks are to be commended for both not resisting requests for a new release, and the speed with which they were able to respond to a bug effecting business critical web applications. If this had been MS we would have spent 2 weeks navigating mindless support bureaucracy and then fought with management excuses as to why a fix just "can't be turned around overnight." We would have then been forced to contact all of our customers and go into long, boring explanations most of them would never have understood... it's all down hill from there.

      Why this IS big news: It is a really bright and shining example of why this type of development is succeeding even in a situation where recursion testing fails (and if you think recursion testing can't fail then you just haven't been developing long enough).

      The other good thing that came out of this is we now have a mechanism where developers can subscribe to a mailing list alerting then to pending releases.

      Not only did Mozilla respond with a technical fix to the bug AND promptly issue a release which addressed the issue, but they were humble enough to recognize there was a process related problem that needed addressing as well; they fixed that too.

      ER

  • Is there a mute function like the [esc] key in IE?
    Can I quickly add a page to the bookmarks toolbar (or a folder on the bookmarks toolbar) by right clicking the toolbar (or on the folder)?
  • Let me know when FireFox 3.0.1.0.1.11 gets here.
  • It would be worth a mention on /. That causes me to let firefox non-responsive a couple of times a day on the company network, where dns/proxy is slow as hell if you have a large .pac file.
  • Thank you very much. Now can we see some real news?
  • why the hell do they use such a retarded versioning scheme? every single 2.x release is going to start 2.0.0.x, and then the next planned release is 3.x, whats the point in the .0.0? one zero i could understand, but having two and NEVER incrementing either is silly
  • well, they fixed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=405584 [mozilla.org] (which broke in .10)

    it may not matter to you, but my favourite addon ChromaTabs [mozilla.org] was broken because of that one.

    is it newsworthy? of course not. i got the auto-update notice long before i saw it on slashdot. guess it's a slow day.
  • Tab behaviour is frankly rooted since these 2 new releases.

    They've been pumping them out fast to boot, it's actually been quite frustating as I could have sworn I've disabled auto updatinig in FF several times before yet it seems to keep doing it.

    I'm hoping tab mix plus's author fixes it up, I can't use FF without it now.

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