Firefox 4 to be final major Mozilla update

Versions to come thick and fast after

Firefox 4 to be final major Mozilla update

28 February 2011 17:32 GMT / By Paul Lamkin

Ever wondered why Firefox is only just approaching version 4 after more than 6 years, when Chrome is up to version 9 in just over 2 years?

Well, it's because Mozilla reserves numerical updates for major Firefox releases - or at least it has up until now. But, after the upcoming Firefox 4 release, expect to see Firefox 5, 6 and even 7 all land before 2011 is finished.

And that's because Mozilla is planning a more Chrome-like release plan - by rolling out less-than-major changes as new versions.

Speaking to PC Pro, Jay Sullivan, vice president of product at Mozilla said: "This is the last big release we're going to do. We are going to do smaller, quicker releases.

"What we want to do is get the power into users' hands more quickly. For example, the video tag was shippable in June - we should have shipped it. Meanwhile, we're waiting for this whole package. Why wouldn't we ship the video tag when it's ready?

"We're moving on web time now, and we've been shipping a little bit on desktop time. It's not necessary, so we're undergoing some process changes, and we'll do smaller bundles more quickly."

Firefox 4 was expected to land at a stable release in February but instead we saw a 12th beta launch. We're hopeful that the real-deal will land in March.

Via: pcpro.co.uk

Full tags

Mozilla, Firefox, Firefox 4, Chrome, Internet, Online