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Only a short time ago, we had to wait over a year for a major new release of any web browser. Often longer. There was a huge gap between Firefox 3 and Firefox 4, with many alphas, betas and numerous release candidates. That was before Google changed the game with Chrome, with rapid releases, quickly switching between stable, beta, dev and Canary.
Recently, Mozilla decided to change the way they would release a new version of Firefox, somewhat mimicking the Chrome release schedule. You can now download this stable version of Firefox, currently v10, from this page, while adventurous users can also check out v11 Beta, v12 Aurora and even v13 of Nightly, Firefox's "Canary" build, reserved for the most foolhardy.
What's new in Firefox 10? The good news is that some of the interface changes are starting to migrate from the Firefox UX channel at long last. The Location Bar has been tweaked, with the forward button removed from the bar when not needed - which means you'll only see it when you've gone back to a previously visited page.
Another interesting change making its debut here is Firefox's assumption that certain add-ons - unless specifically told otherwise by the developer - are compatible, meaning every time a new version of Firefox ships, add-on developers won't always have to update their add-ons to become compatible with the new build. For more details on this change, see this Mozilla Wiki article.
Firefox 10 will particularly appeal to web developers, with a number of new features making their debut in the Beta. The most notable is an Inspect option that allows developers to visually inspect pages with the help of a Highlighter tool that makes checking a page's CSS and HTML code that much easier. This feature, originally planned for Firefox 4, has been overhauled since its release was postponed earlier in the year. And the good news for developers is that more is to follow (see Firefox 11 Aurora).
Note that Firefox 10 is now final and in the stable channel.
Firefox
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.