Mozilla Officially Releases Firefox 5.0

It looks like Mozilla is following through with their promise to churn out new releases of Firefox faster than ever. After just three months of Firefox 4.0’s official release, Mozilla is hitting the ground running with Firefox 5.0, which is out now for your downloading pleasure.

What’s new in this freshly updated version of Mozilla’s web browser? Well, you won’t see much change as far as good looks go — the GUI is practically identical to Firefox 4.0, but 5.0 now comes with support for CSS animations, as well as the usual improvements to JavaScript and memory performance.

Perhaps the biggest change to Firefox 5.0 is the relocation of the Do-Not-Track setting, which is now positioned at the very top of the Privacy tab in Options to increase discoverability. Do-Not-Track is a setting that was introduced with Firefox 4.0 that gives you the option to opt-out of websites tracking you for purposes such as catered advertisements. This should definitely strike a harmonious chord with privacy buffs. Firefox users on Android are getting the Do-Not-Track feature for the first time with 5.0, making it the first web browser to support this feature across multiple platforms.

Mozilla also included a new feature that will make closing tabs a bit more easier. They will now stay the same size while you’re closing them (very similar to Chrome tabs), that way you’re not jumping around the whole time.

However, you probably won’t notice a huge overall difference between Firefox 4.0 and Firefox 5.0, which should make you wonder if it’s worth upgrading. If add-on and plugin compatibility is an issue for you, I would steer clear for at least a short while until the developers update their add-ons to be compatible with the new version. About half of my add-ons are not compatible yet and most users who upgrade should expect the same outcome. If these aren’t of any concern, upgrade to 5.0. Happy browsing!


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3 responses to “Mozilla Officially Releases Firefox 5.0”

  1. jonathon wisnoski Avatar

    Wow, this does not deserve a full 1 in the version number. It is amazing how fast Firefox can go from the only browser worth using (and even without the competition still completely amazing) too one of the worst browsers available and only used for the same reason that IE 6 is still used (it is a bigger pain to switch then to just live with it and because they are the only thing you have known for year after year).

    1. Craig Lloyd Avatar

      Firefox 5.0 is more 4.1 if anything. Mozilla just wants to keep their promise of rapidly releasing new versions (just like Chrome) and that simply means just putting a bigger number on it.

      1. Evan Wondrasek Avatar

        It is somewhat strange that they’re throwing out major versions so rapidly. I mean, you’d think they could have a rolling release cycle like Chrome and still do 4.1, 4.1.1, 4.2, etc.

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