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Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 Released

Posted by Zonk on from the download-and-help-out dept.

Anonymous Cow writes "Almost a month after the release of Firefox 1.5 beta 1, the second beta of Firefox 1.5 has been released. Firefox 1.5b2 can be downloaded from Mozilla.org. A changelog outlining the changes in this release is also available. The official announcement is over at MozillaZine." From the announcement: " This release does not contain any major new features since Beta 1. Improvements to automated update system, Web site rendering and performance, along with several security fixes are included in this release. Beta 1 users that want to help test software update, should wait for the automatic update to be triggered sometime in the next few days. The incremental update from Beta 1 to Beta 2 is 700K bytes."

20 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Once again by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Informative

    If there are security updates, the software update should notify the user ASAP. Not everybody checks a news site that would mention FF updates.

    1.5beta2 is not a security update -- it's a preview of the next major release. Not stable yet (well, unless you compare it to IE/AOL Netscape/...) and not considered to be fit for the general public.
    It's a release for developers and adventureous users.

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  2. Re:Nice. by Associate · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/b uildid/nightly.html
    That should do it.

    --
    Someone hates these cans.
  3. Copy & Paste sorted? by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1.5 suffers from some serious C&P bug in windows where it won't let me use the clipboard under various circumstances.

    anyone know if its been rectified?

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
    1. Re:Copy & Paste sorted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes, because Linux is well known for its excellent clipboard support.

    2. Re:Copy & Paste sorted? by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Informative

      You might have a point with text, but there are other things you can clip other than text. In OS X and Windows, you can copy parts of a Windows Media Player movie and paste them into Powerpoint. You can copy your Powerpoint slide and paste it into Word. You can copy 15 non-contiguous cells from a Excel spreadsheet and paste them into Notepad.exe... and all of these do exactly what you expect. On a Mac, you can do all the same operations... you copy Excel cells and paste into TextEdit, and it works. MacOS has had a clipboard that could handle all these operations since 1988-90ish, and Windows has since 1995.

      Linux is getting better, but you still find that copy and paste does not do what you expect.

      The only people who claim that Linux clipboarding is better are the people like you who, apparently, never copy anything other than text. There's a whole world of data out there, text is just a small part of it.

      --
      Comment of the year
  4. So what's new by Cardinal+Biggles · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Forgive my ignorance. I have not yet looked into what Firefox 1.5 is all about.

    Why no 1.1 - 1.4 ? What's the major-but-not-major-enough-for-a-2.0 newness in this?

    The changelog only lists the changes from Beta 1 to Beta 2 which is not very informative.

    1. Re:So what's new by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Informative

      The obvious answer: It's a beta. So if you want to test it and don't mind a few bugs, random crashes, etc. then you might want to try it. If you need something that's solid and stable enough for everyday browsing, continue to use the 1.0.x series.

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:So what's new by richwklein · · Score: 5, Informative

      Originally this was suppose to be a 1.1 release, but since there had been almost a year worth of development on the Gecko rendering engine between 1.0 and this release, they decided to bump the version to 1.5. They've also included a lot more features than originally planned for. Such as the new software update.

  5. Flash fixed? by NineNine · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Could anybody using this please tell me if they've fixed the (currently non-working) ability to disable all Flash? In IE, I just uninstall the Active X control. In Firefox, you can disable it, but it doesn't work. I certainly hope that they're fixing bugs before adding more features...

    1. Re:Flash fixed? by Xabraxas · · Score: 4, Informative

      You're looking for Flashblock.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
  6. Killing Karma... by DoubleDangerClub · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have a topic to debate, Standards.
    If Firefox does get "Standards" in place, what really makes them good at all? This point is not made out of ignorance, but true question.
    Firefox proposes that everyone adhere to the Standards of the W3, but say Safari and IE decide, "Ok, let's do it." Then what really sets any of them apart (other than Safari being Mac only)?
    Because if it just comes down to a secure and fast browser, MS has much more money and resources to make this come true than FF, I believe, let me know where I'm wrong.
    And furthermore, not even FF adheres only to the standards, as outlined in the paragraph that speaks of the w3 (do a find for 'w3') ---> Standards?

    My favorite quote on there is: "Keep in mind that this is not yet part of any W3C or other official standard. At this time it is necessary to bend the rules in order to have full keyboard accessibility."
    But isn't this what MS did long ago to make the better browser experience over NS?

    Anyway, I don't mean to trash on FF at all, but I just wonder, who really wants the Standards implemented (I actually do), and then what happens after that? How do we get better dev tools and code to use in our web-apps (the w3 doesn't seem on top of new tech)?

    --
    Ubuntu, the way linux should be.
    Try Ubuntu FREE! --
    1. Re:Killing Karma... by i23098 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If Firefox does get "Standards" in place, what really makes them good at all?

      If televison makers could adhere to a standard so one could see any thing broadcasted in any tv then what's the point of having several tv makers?

  7. List of improvements in Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/1.5 b2.html

  8. Re:no mention of my favorite bug by Associate · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wipe your other hand off and type with both hands.

    --
    Someone hates these cans.
  9. Re:Nice. by tgd · · Score: 5, Informative

    I only had three come up as not working (GreaseMonkey, Google and FoxyTunes). All three worked fine when I went into the install.rdf in my profile directory for each one and set the max-version to 1.4+

    It took about thirty seconds total. I don't have any GreaseMonkey scripts installed right now but Google Toolbar and FoxyTunes both seem to work fine.

  10. They've got to sort this out before the final by tritonic · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I'm looking forward to the new version as much as anyone, but I do have some concerns about the amount of unfixed bugs in the codebase. How does a bug like Bug 115174 get overlooked for three and a half years? A quote from the comments:

    ...the form may be being sumbitted again when "Save Page As, HTML Only" is selected. What really concerns me about this is that, on a less smart web page, a user's payment may be submitted twice, when all the user wanted to do was save a copy of the payment receipt. This is more than just annoyance, it could cause people's checks to bounce unexpectedly.


    I know this has happened to several people (me included - luckily I managed to cancel the transaction in time). Surely the mozilla guys have a responsibility to fix this one...?
  11. Memory hog? by Antifuse · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Have they at least fixed the problem where if you use Windows FF in a "one window" mode (tabbed browsing, all new windows in new tabs instead) and leave it open for a couple days, the memory never seems to get released? That's my only real quibble with Firefox (and it doesn't prevent me from using it, I just have to shut down FFox every morning when I get to work and restart it). It's kinda concerning to have one tab open, look into process explorer and see the FF is using 180mb of RAM.

  12. Re:Nice. by appavi · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can use Greasemonkey 06.2 beta for Firefox 1.5.

    more details in Greasemonkey blog
    http://greaseblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/firefox-15- compatible-greasemonkey.html

  13. Bug-specific by dmccarty · · Score: 4, Funny
    Does anyone know what this bug means or what it solves?

    New extension developer features: 310976 - Treat 1.5.* as 1.5.infinity.

    (In this case, "inifinity" is 2,147,483,647 ;-)

    Also, my favorite bug:

    Linux-specific bugs: 287523 - [GTK] Insensitive (disabled) check/radio buttons can't be distinguished in some GTK themes.

    I DON'T USE RADIO BUTTONS YOU INSENSITIVE, uh, oh wait nevermind.

    --
    Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
  14. If 1.5b1 is any indication... by green+pizza · · Score: 4, Informative

    The memory issue seems to be improved, but not fixed. I upgraded from 1.0.2 to the nightly builds and most recently to 1.5b1. I use FF on Mac, Win, Linux, and Solaris. Performance of 1.5b1 is a bit better than 1.0.2 and memory usage is a bit better as well. With 1.0.2, leaving FF running with several tabs as you describe will easilly eat hundreds of MB after a few days of running. With 1.5b1 it's down to about 100 MB. Still too much, but slightly better.

    I know it's a pipe dream, but I am hoping 2.0 will once and for all make the memory and CPU usage a good 33% lighter.