Mozilla Releases Firefox Update--On Purpose This Time

Mozilla.org officially released Version 1.5.0.1 of its Firefox Web browser Tuesday. The release notes say fixes include improved stability, better support for Mac OS X, fixes for several memory leaks, and everal security enhancements. The new version can be downloaded here.

The release notes also report that International Domain Name support for Iceland (.is) is now enabled. Comments in blogs and newsgroups over the past couple of months have tended to focus on the memory leaks, rather than the support for .is, as the biggest problem with the 1.5 release, however. A list of fixed bugs is available here.

The release follows the escape of a beta version into the wild last week when some Firefox users were surprised by the autoupdate of their version of the browser to 1.5.0.1. The Mozilla Developer Center Web site quickly explained that the update was affecting only users who installed Firefox betas 1.5b1 or 1.5b2 and then used the browser's auto-upgrade system to move to the 1.5 final release.

The action left their browser's update "channel" set to "beta," indicating they were willing to run beta versions of Firefox. The Developer Center note instructed users to check the channel setting of their browser by opening the file defaultsprefschannel-prefs.js in a text editor and checking for the line "pref("app.update.channel", "beta". Changing "beta" to "release" and saving the file will fix the problem.

"Alternatively," said the note, "if you run the full 1.5 installer it will make this change for you."The 1.5.0.1 release is part of Mozilla's announced plans to roll out security and "minor polish" updates to Firefox every two months.