Firefox 2 is out

[ftaswin]

awesome!!!

Off DLing....

Ft

[vancliff]

Thanks for the news I am downloading it now!

[SylvanMist]

It's nice! Finally saves your tabs by default if you want it to.

[Ludren.]

Happy with it :thumbsup:

[Kabab]

I'm using it now but i still have some lag before i can type in the reply box looks nice but!

My god i love the spell check this is a gift from god :)

[SheepFactory]

It's nice! Finally saves your tabs by default if you want it to.

where do you enable that?

[JA-forreal]

It's nice! Finally saves your tabs by default if you want it to.

A big reason for using Opera. But now that Firefox has this feature....

[tachy0n]

Tools -> options -> Main -> startup

set it to "show my windows and tabs from last time"

[nuke]

Tools -> options -> Main -> startup

set it to "show my windows and tabs from last time"

Oh, how many times I have "accidentally" closed the Firefox and lost all the tabs. This is a great feature!

Regards,

[T4D]

nice I got Sunbird while i was there too top stuff :thumbsup:

[Aearon]

anyone else who thinks their versioning is weird? i think 1.5 should be 1.1 and this one should be 1.2..

[Equinoxx]

dude what's your problem, who cares what version number it is ...
Opera is allready at version 9 so what ...

cool beans for Firefox users I say.

[yeoj]

great news! thanks! :thumbsup:

[ha-dou-ken]

Oh, how many times I have "accidentally" closed the Firefox and lost all the tabs. This is a great feature!
Regards,

yep, lol. Awesome.

[spikkel]

Using it now. Does it seem slightly slower to anybody else though?

[McKertis]

Some of the new features: Faster
Faster my foot ! Will they EVER bother fixing that memory leak thats been plaguing FF since the very beginning ? Some developers...

My personal problem with FF is lacking of understanding who is it meant for.
Ok, so right off the conveyor its fast and sleek and all, but basically unusable.
So you start adding the extensions and customizing, customizing, customizing...
AND, alot of that customizing basically REQUIRES you to dig in into all that web-design stuff that i have absolutely no wish to learn for a simple browsing. They hide lots of very useful preferences (like caching options), but build lots of useless ones into the interface. Thats just plain weird.

[the-negative]

This hogs memory much more than IE7+ Trixie with some tabs. But I'm using it just because it feels responsive and FF feels like a one-way experience. Get in, can't get out.

Damn you Mozilla!

[Spacelord]

Hi I've been using TBE extension for Firefox for ages, but its not out for V2.0.
So I'm after an extension that will allow me to use the scroll wheel of the mouse
to scroll through the tabs.

cheers

[mech7]

it doesnt hog memory with me at all.. and its fast :D been running the rc's for a while now. But what is much better then IE is the customzability.. yeah you have addons for ie now but for most of them you gotta pay :D not to mention their lousy css support :) IE only has tabs now because of Opera and Firefox and how long did that take hem ?

Love the new spellchecker also :D

[BigErn]

Hi I've been using TBE extension for Firefox for ages, but its not out for V2.0.
So I'm after an extension that will allow me to use the scroll wheel of the mouse
to scroll through the tabs.

cheers

seems to do that as default does it not? or maybe I`m just confused about what your after :D

It seems very quick to me, lot quicker to load up, which was always where it was slow in my opinion. Blindingly quick loading pages tho. :thumbsup:

[DoctorMonkeyFist]

I'm getting some serious lag. Anyone know where I can find the last version to reinstall it?

[Icarus]

will be interested to check this out

[Fredl]

I like it. It's working fast for me. I love the improvements to the tabs..

[SylvanMist]

Oh, how many times I have "accidentally" closed the Firefox and lost all the tabs. This is a great feature!

Regards,

Actually you can even bring up "Recently Closed Tabs" in the history menu.

[rollmops]

I like it. It's working fast for me. I love the improvements to the tabs..

True also for me :thumbsup:

[UrbanFuturistic]

What I find interesting, having just read an article in Linux Format, is that despite the bookmark and history database features being dropped for the 2.0 release it still has the SQLite hooks in it. That's got to bulk out the binary a bit.

What's also interesting is that version 3.0 is due out early 2007.

On the upside, it's completely free, cross platform and still much more secure than IE :buttrock:

[Rod Seffen]

Has firefox got mouse gestures like Opera - can you click back and forth though pages using mouse button only?

[mech7]

Has firefox got mouse gestures like Opera - can you click back and forth though pages using mouse button only?

Only through extension

[Fredl]

Has firefox got mouse gestures

There are hundreds of plug-ins and add-ons for Firefox. That's the beauty of Firefox, because it lets you customize so many things. You can download plug-ins and extensions from the Firefox Add-on page:
https://addons.mozilla.org/

Go to the above page. There is a search feature. You can search for "gestures" to get a list of plug-ins that allow Firefox to work with mouse gestures.

[EnlightenedPixel]

Incredibly fast. Never checked how much ram FF 1.5 used, so I dont know how much more i may be hogging, but I havent noticed a downside.

Also, whats this memory leak someone mentioned? Ive never seen that happen with FF. Is it a MAC only issue?

[paintbox]

Same for me here, much faster when rendering, just tried an AJAX heavy page as well and it's flying...

[SePu]

yep ... great release looks more responsive and much faster than the previous version.

[ndat]

It's definitally faster, more responsive, has a great interface, and corrects my spelling mistakes most of the time.

Wooo....

[pgp_protector]

Incredibly fast. Never checked how much ram FF 1.5 used, so I dont know how much more i may be hogging, but I havent noticed a downside.

Also, whats this memory leak someone mentioned? Ive never seen that happen with FF. Is it a MAC only issue?

The Memory problem that most people are seeing is how it's usage goes Up & up.

Test it.
Close FF, and then Re-start it clean. Look at your memory usage that FF is using.
Now visit multipe forums, using multiple tabs.
the longer you surf the larger the mem usage.

Now for the kicker.

Close all the tabs but the original page that's you'r home page.
You would think that the memory usage would be the same as when you started, but a lot of times it's not.
Example right now with just 1Tab left open (this window I'm typing in) FF is using 63.5M of memory.


EDIT:
After shuting it down & restarting my home page right to this thread, it's mem usage NOW is only 21.8M

so viewing the same page depending on my surfing habbets has over 40Meg in memory usage diffrance.

If I'm correct most of this is that FF keeps the history of closed tab in memory :(

[rartist]

Generally 2.0 works well for me, but right off I hit a problem with playing media (like quicktime movies) where it lags ---BADLY--- despite having downloaded content to play. Very disappointing.

[Rod Seffen]

Well, after 4 years of usng Opera, I've officially switched to Firefox. There are so many add-ons now it can do everything Opera can do and more, plus it works properly wth a lot more pages.

[rartist]

Generally 2.0 works well for me, but right off I hit a problem with playing media (like quicktime movies) where it lags ---BADLY--- despite having downloaded content to play. Very disappointing.

Though I just played one QT movie trailer that ran ok. I'll have to mess with it more. The first 3-4 items I DL'd caused a big periods of lag during playback, something I never saw in 1.5.

[rartist]

Sombody else try this QT clip and see if it's not just me seeing playback lag:

http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/images/thumbs_model/Slide.mov

[LarsSon]

Sombody else try this QT clip and see if it's not just me seeing playback lag:

http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/images/thumbs_model/Slide.mov

No problem here. And for me FF2 is working much faster in all areas.

[FR33K]

Sombody else try this QT clip and see if it's not just me seeing playback lag:

http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/images/thumbs_model/Slide.mov

opening this quicktime in a Firefox or opera tab gets me a hang up and i have to close both browser...bugs or just crap?

[UrbanFuturistic]

Example right now with just 1Tab left open (this window I'm typing in) FF is using 63.5M of memory.Firefox 2.0 keeps a 50Mb cache of browsed data by default.

Tools >> Options >> Advanced >> Network.

[francescaluce]

but it does still not pass the ACID2 (http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html) test ...






ciao
francesca

[PremiereBoris]

What's this ACID 2 thingie?
But mai favurite feture is teh spell cheker!

[jtico]

I had no problem with

http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/images/thumbs_model/Slide.mov

:)

[francescaluce]

What's this ACID 2 thingie?http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/guide/


if you like a bit of web culture ...

Beta versions of Opera 9 included an easter egg: after the page has been open for a while, the eyes of the smiley will follow the cursor around and when the user clicks on the eyes, a message will show up saying "Because just passing is not enough ;)"


ciao
francesca

[salmonmoose]

What's this ACID 2 thingie?
But mai favurite feture is teh spell cheker!

It's a test to see if a browser handles broken code well. It's often seen as a holy grail of browser compliance, but it's actually not terribly relevant.

The fact that Opera has had code in it's browser that detects which page you're viewing and changes it is pretty alarming, it reminds me of the days of Video hardware companies detecting benchmarking software and adjusting themselves accordingly.

The lag you experience from initially loading quicktime movies is mostly due to the time it takes for Quicktime to launch - which perhaps is something FFx should launch in a new process. You can speed it up a bit by using something like Quicktime Alternative. There are still some issues with recent versions of Quicktime pausing in playback on some machines, this is something wrong with Quicktime - you can fix it by stepping back a few versions to before Apple broke it.

This being said - this is a great release - I've been running this branch for a few months. Looking forward to the changes pegged for Firefox 3.0 :)

[Jadetiger]

I'm always hesitant to install new things on this computer. Other than the argument of whether its faster or slower, are there any problems? No secret spyware or anything, right?

[salmonmoose]

I'm always hesitant to install new things on this computer. Other than the argument of whether its faster or slower, are there any problems? No secret spyware or anything, right?

Well, it's open source, so if you don't trust it, you can go through it line by line to make sure. However, the better option is to realise that there are literally thousands of geeks already doing this for you already, and should the Mozilla foundation add spyware to their code, they'd be crucified by the online community.

[salmonmoose]

Out of interest, the spell checker doesn't work with our WYSIWYG editor, however if you go into your UserCP page, under options you can change to one of the more basic editors - the other editors all work with the spelling feature.

[LucentDreams]

Out of interest, the spell checker doesn't work with our WYSIWYG editor, however if you go into your UserCP page, under options you can change to one of the more basic editors - the other editors all work with the spelling feature.


ahhh thats whats going on, thanks for this, its one of thefeatures that excited me, I often type to fast for my own brain.

[Neil]

5mb download. Cool, not bad

[John-Stetzer]

Just out of curiostiy, is there a way to get the Close Tab button back where it was in versions prior to the 2.0 release?

[L.Rawlins]

Opera is still my preferred poison, but it's nice to see some of the more useful features migrating.

Competition is a good thing! :)

[harmonic01]

Just out of curiostiy, is there a way to get the Close Tab button back where it was in versions prior to the 2.0 release?

Yeah, I'd like to get that close tab button back to where it was as well. No need to take up extra space with a button for every tab. It's also very convenient not having to move your mouse when closing several tabs in a row.

[pgp_protector]

Just out of curiostiy, is there a way to get the Close Tab button back where it was in versions prior to the 2.0 release?

Yes there is :)
Tools -> Options -> Display Options -> Show Tab Closure Button

[Obsydian]

I don't see a display options, maybe I'm just blind! :eek:

[BinarySoup]

am I the only one who uses middle-mouse button to close tabs?

[harmonic01]

am I the only one who uses middle-mouse button to close tabs?

I didn't know you could do that. Sweet!!! :thumbsup:

[BinarySoup]

also, middle-mouse button press on a link opens it up in a new tab.

[salmonmoose]

Just out of curiostiy, is there a way to get the Close Tab button back where it was in versions prior to the 2.0 release?


http://www.lifehacker.com/software/firefox-2/geek-to-live-top-firefox-2-config-tweaks-209941.php

[toonman]

I have a problem with FF... I installed V1.5 in a sort of "debug" mode, and since then I have a huge horrible gray area at the bottom of my browser that has a line saying:

<!DOCTYPE overlay SYSTEM "chrome://downloadwith/locale/downloadwith.dtd">
---------------------------------------------------------------------------^

I don't know how to get it out. Tried everything, and nothing seems to work. It is not an extension I downloaded I think (almost positive). It is consuming precious space from my browser's main window (this thing is huge!). I even tried un-installing and re-installing 1.5. Didn't work. The upgrade to 2.0 didn't help either. If anyone has any clue as to how to get rid of this, please let me know. Thanks!

[salmonmoose]

you could try getting rid of your user settings;

there should be a directory called something like;

C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla

if you move all of the files out of here, firefox will act as if it's a clean install.

This is where all your extensions and other relevant data is held so back up your links!

[saiko]

I am still sticin to Firefox 1.5.07 as some of the extension I use extensively are not updated.

Btw, why is it not updating firefox automatically like it generally does, even if u try cheking updates from help meny it's saying that there is no update available!

[Geta-Ve]

Firstly is the cgtalk post editor going to be updated to allow ff2 to use its spell checker?

secondly you can open new tabs/load pages by dragging the link to the tab line or the address field (not very fast, but you can do it lol)

Thirdly, I really like ff2, what are the features ff3 is suppose to have?

[salmonmoose]

Firstly is the cgtalk post editor going to be updated to allow ff2 to use its spell checker?

secondly you can open new tabs/load pages by dragging the link to the tab line or the address field (not very fast, but you can do it lol)

Thirdly, I really like ff2, what are the features ff3 is suppose to have?

The biggest one is the new rendering engine - it should have some enhancements specifically for Vista as well.

If you can't get old extensions to work use http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/nightly

The automatic updater only updates within versions, 1.0 will update to 1.0.0.1 but it will not update to 1.5. In theory anything with the same leading version number should have the same external functionality, so plugins and extensions will work. However large version updates will break some functionality (as is evident by extensions not working) and thus the update is not forced on users.

[Rod Seffen]

Opera is still my preferred poison, but it's nice to see some of the more useful features migrating.

Competition is a good thing! :)

I've been an Opera user for years as well, but there really is no point in sticking with it any more, otherthan sheer blind loyalty, even now that it's free. FF is simply better, now has all the features of Opera through add-ons, plus many more features that Opera doesn't - and the clincher for me is that FF works properly with so many more webpages.

[mech7]

Well there are a few.. Opera has most features set up right by default.. no need for add-ons ;) opera has a built in torrent client.. opera rendering engine is more sophisticated and then the one from ff.. it handles the ACID test perfectly, we have to wait till FF 3 before it can stand the ACID test :)

I've been an Opera user for years as well, but there really is no point in sticking with it any more, otherthan sheer blind loyalty, even now that it's free. FF is simply better, now has all the features of Opera through add-ons, plus many more features that Opera doesn't - and the clincher for me is that FF works properly with so many more webpages.

[John-Stetzer]

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/firefox-2/geek-to-live-top-firefox-2-config-tweaks-209941.php
Thanks :^)...

[UrbanFuturistic]

The biggest one is the new rendering engine - it should have some enhancements specifically for Vista as well.That and the bookmarks/history databasing that was dropped from 2.0.

If you want the CGTalk post editor to be spell checkable you need to switch off the enhanced editor as it's a Java program and Firefox can't access the raw text.am I the only one who uses middle-mouse button to close tabs?Yes :p I use CTRL+w

[toonman]

you could try getting rid of your user settings;

there should be a directory called something like;

C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla

if you move all of the files out of here, firefox will act as if it's a clean install.

This is where all your extensions and other relevant data is held so back up your links!

Thanks a lot!! Will try that...

[Rod Seffen]

Well there are a few.. Opera has most features set up right by default.. no need for add-ons ;)
Come one, I only used FF for the first time a few days ago, and I had downloaded and installed all the add-ons I needed whtin 5 minutes.
opera has a built in torrent client..
Yes, with almost zero features compared to free client like utorrent. No serious torrent user would use opera for that.
opera rendering engine is more sophisticated and then the one from ff..
And what does that means in real practical terms? Almost nothing. It's not like you're using it to render your 3d scenes.
it handles the ACID test perfectly, we have to wait till FF 3 before it can stand the ACID test :)
I dont' know what that is, so I'll have to give you that one, but I'm sure it isn't much compared to how many webpages Opera still doens't work properly with compared to FF.
If that isn't enough, I'm sure some more experienced FF users could give you a list of things that FF has which Opera doesn't.

[salmonmoose]

The mozilla team aren't interested in passing the ACID test, it's not a real world test and is irrelevant when compared to actual functionality as it's testing malformed HTML and CSS not actual compliance. The updates to the FF3 engine are about how it draws to screen, not how is interprets pages.

For those of you new to firefox, check out the following plugins:

Google Notebook - Select any text (including images) right click, and select 'note this' and notebook will remember it, with a link to the page it came from.

Greasemonkey/Stylish - This combo lets you change how web-pages behave, and how they look, either on your own, or through downloadable scripts. Want a OSX launcher on the google search page? no problem.

Webdeveloper Toolbar - A bunch of useful tools for editing web-pages, including the ability to edit CSS and HTML live.

[gent_k]

Well there are a few.. Opera has most features set up right by default.. no need for add-ons ;) opera has a built in torrent client.. opera rendering engine is more sophisticated and then the one from ff.. it handles the ACID test perfectly, we have to wait till FF 3 before it can stand the ACID test :)

But it doesn't have the 'ability' to change the tab behavior (closing) to the way it should work, to what i presume 90% of people who have ever used tabs on various apps would agree.

And I could go on and on about similar things. The inability of controlling such fundamental things is much more limiting than anything Firefox doesn't do compared to Opera.

I mean email client, torrent manager, widgets always the main argument point... come on...majority of the people here consider that bloat not features that should be on a browser.

Firefox focuses on functionality and making you browse faster. So many little things in there that make a big difference in browsing. And where you don't like it there is always an option, not necessarily through add-ons. Not with opera, and its developers seem to be quite stubborn on some functionality matters, their way is 'better'.
In the end it is truly customizable unlike Opera, and behaves perfectly for me out of the box. The few add-ons I use aren't necessary for me to use Firefox, they are just really good ones that are useful to me. Most add-ons are very specific, and there are few add-ons that the majority of users use or 'need to use'.
There are so many good add-ons for so many specific uses that no matter how many developers you could gather to work on for your browser, it would never be practical nor useful to include "by default". You don't have to install add-ons you won't or don't need to use but the people who do need to, have the option to.
I've never had more than a dozen of add-ons installed, I currently have only two as I haven't had the need for more until now on Firefox 2. Very well integrated and quite time saving ones that can be useful in a browser too if I might add. Not the stuff you'd expect to be included in a default installation (and am positively sure nothing remotely similar in Opera either by default or other ways ;)).

Anyway, I don't see how anyone can see the massive community of add-on developers out there for Firefox as a negative point.

[mech7]

Well yes i love firefox and it's addons just like you.. I even use firefox myself because it makes my life as webedeveloper allot easier. The problem is that there is a mjority out there that doesn't know how to configure their browser, or they don't even want to know.. Most i have seen with 1.5 did not even know how to change the tab behaviour, but at the time i installed tabbrowser preferences they love it. For these people i think a minimalist browser might not be the best option but a browser which has most of the "needed" addons allready probably is ;)

Anyway i think there is a market for both of them ;) I also like that opera is aiming for the handheld devices market.. nintendo ds, phones etc :D

(As long as people stop using IE i am happy ;) )

[benytone]

good news, thanks :thumbsup:
and i would love to see google's new toolbar for Firefox



.

[Gentle Fury]

Personally, I think the spell checker and the startup memory are the best features in the world! There is nothing more annoying than writing out a long message or blog and having the browser crash on you leaving you to either have to retype the whole thing...now it will actually remember what you were doing, and not only is it for when the computer crashes, it also works if you accidentally close the window!! Love it!! Gmail started doing this a while ago, why has it taken so long to catch on?

[Gentle Fury]

Firstly is the cgtalk post editor going to be updated to allow ff2 to use its spell checker?

secondly you can open new tabs/load pages by dragging the link to the tab line or the address field (not very fast, but you can do it lol)

Thirdly, I really like ff2, what are the features ff3 is suppose to have?

It does work with it....its just for some reason not automatic....you have to right click on the entry field and choose spell check this field....for some reason it works on any other field automatically....except cgtalk....wierd.

[kOsMos3D]

FireFox rocks! :buttrock:

[Tarrbot]

Great! Browser wars... circa 1997, except with new participants. :banghead:

and the clincher for me is that FF works properly with so many more webpages.
Let's put that into perspective, really. Opera works to stricter HTML standards. Just because some dopehead web dev cumquat doesn't build their site to standards doesn't make the browser bad.

Anyway, I just wanted to know if FF has any voice features?

[Timeswimmer]

I refuse to download the latest up grade until I get someone there to tell me they have fixed the problem that erases all your favorites when you upgrade. They have a back up but it erases all the older favorites and forces you to start your back ups with the new download...a REAL bummer as I had hundreds of CG sites saved in my favorites.

[Spacelord]

I refuse to download the latest up grade until I get someone there to tell me they have fixed the problem that erases all your favorites when you upgrade. They have a back up but it erases all the older favorites and forces you to start your back ups with the new download...a REAL bummer as I had hundreds of CG sites saved in my favorites.

Well I don't know why you don't back them up yourself.
I always make a copy before I update.

[salmonmoose]

It does work with it....its just for some reason not automatic....you have to right click on the entry field and choose spell check this field....for some reason it works on any other field automatically....except cgtalk....wierd.

My guess is that the advanced editor is created via javascript. It's using standard html elements, but because they load after the page, firefox doesn't see them correctly.

[pgp_protector]

I refuse to download the latest up grade until I get someone there to tell me they have fixed the problem that erases all your favorites when you upgrade. They have a back up but it erases all the older favorites and forces you to start your back ups with the new download...a REAL bummer as I had hundreds of CG sites saved in my favorites.

I didn't loose any of my bookmarks, or there layout

[saiko]

I also was worried about the compatibility of all my extensions what I can't live without, but every thing is woking fine....and I didn't loose any fevourites too!

[YankyBJeans]

ok so i know im coming into this a bit late, but i finally upgraded to 2.0 after a hard drive problem and a fresh windows install...

you used to be able to drag url's or bookmarks to the toolbar and have them saved there as a sort of quick link button. it seems you cant do that anymore...anyone know how to do it or why its gone? i really miss that feature

Yanky

[salmonmoose]

Make sure you still have your bookmarks toolbar visible that allows you to drag links from anywhere.

[rollmops]

I just had a nice surpise with Firefox!

I was editing a topic and forgot to submit the reply.
Then I had to reboot.
After restart, I get back my previous session including all my edit ready to submit!

That's cool! :applause:

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