Mozilla updates Firefox 5 to solve Mac OS X Lion crash woes

Mozilla has announced an update to Firefox 5 designed to fix two problems for Mac users which could cause the Java plug-in to fail and the entire browser to crash.

Mozilla web platform director Christopher Blizzard explained in a blog post that the 5.0.1 update - the first since the company moved to a new release cycle for Firefox - will be available soon.

The first problem is a bug in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion which causes "Firefox to crash when using downloadable fonts", an issue which could have led to widespread crashes given the popularity of downloadable fonts on the web.

"We 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. We've changed the font APIs that we're using to newer versions which appear to fix the problem," said Blizzard.

"Users on 10.6 and before will continue to use the old APIs to reduce risk. Later versions of Firefox will move all 10.6 and later users to the new APIs."

Blizzard explained that the Firefox update also fixes a problem with the browser's Java plug-in caused by an Apple Java update for OS X 10.5.

In addition, Firefox 3.6 users will also get an update, effectively disabling downloadable fonts for people running it on OS X 10.7.

"Firefox 3.6 users who upgrade to OS X 10.7 may also see scrollbar rendering issues," Blizzard added. "For people who see scrollbar issues, we encourage you to upgrade to Firefox 5."

Mozilla's new rapid-release cycle means that Firefox 6 should be out in mid-August, while Firefox 7 'Aurora' will follow at the end of September.