About Firefox 10 for Mac OS X

In the release notes accompanying Firefox 10 Final for Mac OS X, Mozilla has confirmed that users will (or should) no longer experience crashes when closing a tab with a Java applet installed. Growl integration, however, still needs more work to behave properly.

The changelog for Firefox 10.0 was published yesterday, soon after Mozilla had released the binaries for download.

Among the multiple changes and tweaks affecting all operating systems and platforms, this particular fix is noted: “Mac OS X only - after installing the latest Java release from Apple, Firefox may crash when closing a tab with a Java applet installed.”

In usual manner for the software company, a link is offered for those eager to learn the particularities of the bug in question.

A Java applet is delivered to users in the form of Java bytecode and can run in a web browser using a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), or in Sun Microsystems’ stand-alone tool for testing applets - AppletViewer.

Java applets run somewhat slower than applets compiled in languages such as C++. Until last year, Java applets ran many times faster than JavaScript.

Another Mac-specific note involves an unresolved issue with notifications not working properly with Growl 1.3 or later:

“Firefox notifications may not work properly with Growl 1.3 or later.”

Growl, for those who don’t know, is the most popular notification system for the Mac.  

The app got updated to version 1.3.3 recently. Growl now works correctly on case-sensitive file systems and all of the preferences selections should now show up in the toolbar.

Although Growl integrates with most Mac applications, it’s the job of the add-on developer and / or Mozilla to see that their software works well with Growl. Future updates will undoubtedly address this problem.