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Firefox 5 update aims to fix Mac OS X bugs

Mozilla is preparing to release an out-of-band patch for Firefox 5 for Mac, after finding bugs in Leopard and Lion OS X that can crash the browser
Written by Jack Clark, Contributor

Mozilla is preparing to patch a flaw affecting the Firefox 5 browser on Apple's Leopard and Lion OS X operating systems.

The bug within OS X 10.7 Lion causes Firefox to crash if it is using downloadable fonts. Mozilla "alerted Apple to the problem before the release of 10.7, but they did not fix the problem before 10.7 went to final release", the company wrote in a blog on Friday.

There is also a Java flaw within OS X 10.5, Leopard. Mozilla said it expects to apply the fixes before the release of Firefox 6, which is scheduled for 16 August.

"This will be our first out-of-band update since the minor updates we did in between the release of Firefox 4 and Firefox 5," the company said. "This update will affect Macintosh users only."

Mozilla hopes to solve the Lion problem by moving the font API to a newer version.

Additionally, the Java plug-in for Firefox 5 on OS X 10.5 Leopard has broken because Apple upgraded the distribution of Java in the operating system. The update will restore Java functionality.

In March, Firefox-developer Mozilla moved to an accelerated release cycle for its browser, pushing out security fixes and new features every six weeks, which mirrors the approach taken by Google with Chrome.


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