Firefox released a new version 1.5.0.1 overnight apparently and the update sniffer in Firefox asks you to update. The site is absolutetly silent on the update, no announcement, nothing tells you the latest version … just nothing.
More significantly, if you choose to upgrade immediately, your extensions may not work. They now have a hook in extensions that limit them by version of Firefox and when you exceed the current version, your extensions become invalidated. Some developers countered by adding a future release as the limit so that they will not stop working based on the hook. Of course they may not work if in fact they are incompatible. I think a better system needs to be developed otherwise an update means giving up interim functionality.
You get this message on completion of the upgrade: “This page confirms that you’re running the latest version of Firefox, with the latest updates for stability and security. It won’t be displayed again.” So which is it, stability or security. Given that they appear to have rushed this out the door, one must suspect a security issue was discovered. I appreciate regular updates. And maybe it was just to create buzz now that Internet Explorer 7, Beta 2 preview was publicly released this week?
I expect more from Mozilla, tell me you have an update out and give a brief overview of enhancements … in this case likely just bug fixes.
Note: ahh, this makes more sense … this is really a beta release according to this very helpful article. Now one would think it might tell us that …
