Thoughts on Firefox 2?

[Scottg1989]

Just wondering if anyone has tried either the beta or the RC1 of Firefox 2? Any thoughts about it?

[happygeek]

More a bug fixing exercise than a full point release, in terms of added functionlity and features, in my never humble opinion. I have been calling it Firefox 1.6 around here.

Not that it sucks, just that it sucks they haven't done more to justify the 2.0 release.

The real irony is, on the feature front, that they seem to have been playing catch up with IE7 this time instead of the other way around (anti-phishing tools and browser session saving) which could point to Microsoft getting back some development momentum here.

[jwenting]

I don't generally like remakes...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/ is the original.

[happygeek]

Firefox 2: The Clint Eastwood of browser clients.

Opens up all sorts of possible marketing opportunites :)

"Do you feel lucky Microsoft? Well, do you?"

[Ancient Dragon]

I am using IE7 and really like it -- I see no reason now to use FireFox. The only reason I used it before was because of the tabs, and now Microsoft as borrowed that idea. I don't see any advantage of running FireFox over IE7.

[happygeek]

In fairness, tabbed browsing was hardly a Firefox innovation in the first place. I think the first to adopt a true Multiple Document Interface approach was NetCaptor which wrapped around the IE rendering engine and was first released back in 1999. Opera also got there before Firefox if my memory serves me correctly.

[Sparkplug188]

I've been using Firefox for quite some time now. I based my decision to use Firefox on stability, security, and usability (tabbed browsing). Firefox has in the past and continues to own other popular browsers in security and usability. My only complaint is that very little happened in the upgrade to 2.0. This makes me wonder if Firefox went 2.0 just to get publicity.

Please, feel free to disagree with my decision. My browser works best for me, you use the browser that best works for you.

[jwenting]

Correct Davey, Opera's had it for years and I saw something like what you describe I think back in 1997 for the first time (a wrapper around the IE engine).
And even that might not have been new. After all, old Unix browsers were based around Emacs and VI both of which allow multiple simultaneously loaded documents...

[jado]

Apart from the slightly fancy interface I don't think that Firefox 2 is that good compared to Firefox 1. The only new thing I like about it is the close button on the tab itself. I agree with Ancient Dragon, it should be called Firefox 1.6

[Scottg1989]

Yeah not much difference really. I've been using the portable version of RC1 ( can get it here ) for a few days now. I think it is an improvement, especially with the spell checking, and the ability to load the same content you had open when you last exited. Could have done more though...

[darrenw89]

have they made any hard to see improvements though? such as faster page loading, better security, and security flaws patched etc

darren :cool:

[happygeek]

Yes, the memory usage has improved a lot and it's now quicker to load and render pages than before.

When I put it through the default set of tests for standards compliance, memory usage and JavaScript performance, FF2RC1 beat MSIE7RC1 hands down on all counts (this for a PC Pro news analysis piece.)

[darrenw89]

Yes, the memory usage has improved a lot and it's now quicker to load and render pages than before. When I put it through the default set of tests for standards compliance, memory usage and JavaScript performance, FF2RC1 beat MSIE7RC1 hands down on all counts (this for a PC Pro news analysis piece.)

ah thought as much, thanks happygeek!

darren :cool:

[StuartP1989]

i use firefox 1 and i probably won't get firefox 2 as it is basiclly the same as firefox 1. i think that firefox 2 is just for publicity

[darrenw89]

i use firefox 1 and i probably won't get firefox 2 as it is basiclly the same as firefox 1. i think that firefox 2 is just for publicity

without a dought, although a professional journalist also said this;Quoted by happygeek:
Yes, the memory usage has improved a lot and it's now quicker to load and render pages than before.

When I put it through the default set of tests for standards compliance, memory usage and JavaScript performance, FF2RC1 beat MSIE7RC1 hands down on all counts (this for a PC Pro news analysis piece.)
darren :cool:

[pistolsnipe16]

I like it. I find the spell checking software useful on other forums. Of course it still needs some work.

[darrenw89]

I like it. I find the spell checking software useful on other forums. Of course it still needs some work.

you can get an add-on for ie7 (maybe ie6 as well) called i-spell, it'll add spell checking abilitys to your web browser.

darren :cool:

[stymiee]

I'm loving it. Much more refined and polished. The improvements to the search bar make it much more usable. The spell-checker makes me look much less retarded online. :)

Looking forward more to FF3 though. Monster changes coming in that one. It's gonna be like a whole new browser.

[pistolsnipe16]

you can get an add-on for ie7 (maybe ie6 as well) called i-spell, it'll add spell checking abilitys to your web browser. darren :cool:

Yes, but I like the fact that Firefox 2 has it built in for us lazy folks. I do have that plugin for IE7 though as I don't have Firefox on this pc (my Vista pc) yet.