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Mozilla Firefox 2.0 Alpha Peeking Out (Or Not)
anadgouda writes "Mozilla Firefox 2.0 alpha is released. The links for download were not available directly on Mozilla.com website. Being Alpha, all features might not work and most of the plugins might not be compatible." Reading thru the comments, it appears there's some disparity as to whether or not this is actually just a naming scheme that they use; but let me reiterate that there has been no official announcement from Mozilla, so take with a giant grain of salt. Some good screenshots at OSdir.
Okay, seemingly little to no information about what comprises the new Firefox. For those who also might be curious, I have found these features described in a Firefox 2 Roadmap, but don't know if and how many of these made it to the new release.
Anyone else have any links to release notes?, what's new in FF 2?
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 alpha NOT released.
The nightlies are now branded 2.0 alpha because... well, for some odd reason they like to brand their CVS builds before things get released, to make sure the act of rebranding breaks nothing. IIRC that actually hit them way back and they got scared.
Firefox 2.0 will be considered released when you see it on www.mozilla.org / www.mozilla.com / irc.mozilla.org
Quote from Asa Dotler's blog:
When we make a new release, we'll say so. Please don't report new releases because someone checks in a change to the user agent or similar. If we're actaully doing a release, we'll announce it. Thanks.
No undo close tab? Say it isn't so!
Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
I was looking for the same thing as you, documentation about the features. You provided an interesting link, here's another one from the latest status meeting which includes the features, but a lot more :-)
Animoog.org
Where's the link?
Where would we be today if Linus came along and said, "Well guys, I'm working on a Minix clone and it's going to be totally k-rad, and I'll keep the development open to anyone who wants to help out, but you can't download it anywhere. Sry, kthxbye!" ?
Not that the Firefox team is all that willing to let anyone just start developing the core stuff, but note the nick and try not to concentrate on that.
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
I tried it on my computer. I didn't see any significant changes, and as others have pointed out, there was not much information on what exactly went into this release, but great job in making advancements.
I have one for you:
/.
"bad" and "speller"
and this is my first post on
Karma whore +99999
Why does each version of Firefox break plug-in and theme compatibility? I can maybe forgive SOME plug-ins but all of them? and THEMES!?!? WTF? There are plug-ins I used to use that ar still not compatible with 1.5. This is a MAJOR flaw with Firefox in my opinion. If you're going to tout the expandibility of Firefox as a major feature then youneed to make sure there's going to be at the very leat backwards compatibility for most plug-ins.
Opera 8.5: http://www.opera.com/download/
Opera 9 Technology Preview 2: http://labs.opera.com/
Weekly builds of Opera 9 TP2: http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/
Changelog for Opera 9 TP2: http://snapshot.opera.com/windows/w90p2.html
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I can't believe that after Firefox actually implemented tabbed browsing *well*, people insist on ruining it in the name of "progress".
The fact that firefox has just one "x" button that closes the current tab, rather then a close button per tab, is a *feature*, not a bug. Users of Lotus Notes, like myself, are all too familiar with what happens when each tab has a close button: you often click on the wrong one, and destroy the wrong tab! With Firefox 1.5's single tab close button, you can never accidentally close any tab: you can only close the tab you are now seeing.
So I hope that if the "improvement" of having many close buttons makes it to FireFox 2, it will at least be configurable, so that users made miserable by the new feature could at least disable it.
Who's idea do you think the Ping attribute is ?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
.. i can tell you that there is one thing that "breaks" most extensions: In the extension, you can specify a maximum version number under which the extension works. Normally, the extension developer sets it to a version he has personally tested (the actual release). Whit each version-bump, he retests and changes just the maximum version-number. If you want to do it yourself: get into the manifesto of the extension and search for this String "1.5" and replace 1.5 with a higher number.
1: Losing compatibility with extensions
2: Losing stability/higher memory usage (come to think of it, this isn't really a change)
3: Bugs galore - possible security issues?
So, is there any reason for anyone to use this until a release candidate comes out?
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
Alpha means that there are missing or partially implemented features that are planned for the final release.
Beta means it's fully implemented and feature complete but may contain bugs or need tweaking.
Sheesh... And the 1.2.3.4.5.6.7 release numbering that so many open-source projects are using is totally retarded. Hell, I saw some project the other day that was a x.x.x+1 release that was API incompatible with the previous release! Morons. Nobody does versioning correctly and they tack on extra dot versions because they are improperly managing releases.
There's a "portable" version available here:
http://www.cybernetnews.com/?p=411
Definitely a plus b/c it let's you avoid dealing w/profile incompatibilites/conversion between the different versions of firefox and instead stores it in the directory with the portable firefox program
What I would like to see in 2.x is some MNG support. It's about time people moved away from animated GIFs as the situation is rapidly getting out of hand. On some forums, animated sig images can be up to 500KB in size. There's demand for a better animated standard, and why MNG support was dropped from Firefox 1.5 is beyond me.
Also, Javascript needs an overhaul. If XUL is ever going to take off, it can't rely on a language that doesn't even have a "class" keyword or equivilent.
It would be nice if the Mozilla foundation took it upon itself once more, to drag the rest of teh industry, kicking and screaming, into the future.
May the Maths Be with you!
So far the only distinctive feature of this is that it breaks extensions and will not load book marks.
As far as i can tell this gentleman went looking through the firefox ftp site and stumbled upon this. Its a Tinderbox build. meaning its increadably unstable and is just a starting point for further code development.
The idea of people who actually write markup language specifications and know a heck of a lot more about the internet than you do.
See also A blog post by someone who actually makes browsers and also knows a heck of a lot more about the internet than you do.
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
You MUST wait for an official announcment before announcing all over the media (/.) than an alpha has been released when it really hasn't. I really suggest you change that announcment editors and say something like update "Not really released". You can't just go reading a blog and think that is news. People, DO YOUR RESEARCH!! Alpha 1 HAS NOT BEEN RELEASED!
I got an opportunity to try the latest Firefox (1.5.0.1) with the Tomahawk Desktop. For those who are wondering what is Tomahawk Desktop, it's an Apple like Multimedia Linux OS for desktops and laptops.
I have noted the Firefox is called Deer Park! Is there a name change again?
I further noted I cannot browse http://www.apple.com/aperture/ because there is no Quicktime plugin for Firefox on Linux. It seems Apple doesn't release a Quicktime plugin for Linux, like no iTunes for Linux. Can this issue be resolved at least with the Firefox 2.0? Is Quicktime a closed specification? Why doesn't Mozilla Foundation officially ask the specification from Apple rather than waiting forever? Is there a solution already under way to fix this issue?
Also Don't you mean to say that "SOME of the plugins might not be compatible"?
Since 2.0 is still build from the same branch as 1.5, as far as i've been following the Firefox/Gecko developments no deeply rooted changes were made to the way plugins are handled, so i don't expect you'll be experiencing any problems in THAT department.
At least with an open source project you know they're not going to go crazy adding features to please the marketing droids.
4 5
:)
what about google and firefox being in same bed?
doesnt mozilla bend over backwards over googles millions? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/11/05392
oh and last i checked google are making billions from marketing
so to put the 2 together
THEY ARE going crazy adding features to please the marketing droids
Well, if it's not stable for you, could you list the bugs and issues you're having?
Either here or in the Firefox Bugzilla would be great, and don't forget your TPS cover sheet!
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
Oh, and for informational purpsoses:
Firefox = official public release
DeerPark = developer's copies, optimized and/or individualized bulids, and all those other builds that aren't the official issued-for-the-general-public builds. Which, it would stand to reason, would include all the alpha and beta builds.
Z
Just like Emacs...a nice clean text editor. It doesn't have crazy features like the ability to play tetris, check your email, manage your calander, etc. etc.
Isn't this all a community written thing? Can't someone just take all the source-code and say "It's released"? This is my version of the released Firefox.
Mozilla.org isn't holding any code back are they? I thought everything was out in the open...everything had to be released as it's being worked on and anyone can contribute and re-write anything they want with the source.
So how can they say "When WE make a new release, WE'LL say so"? I mean, who are they to say anything on what happens to this open code?
I'm not trying to be a troll here or start anything, but obviously I'm VERY uninformed about how this all works.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
I'm running the nightly from 19 march, and it says "Deer Park Alpha 2". So, am I running this unreleased alpha 2.0 version?
Anyway, it runs OK (well enough to post this comment), but has crashed on my once already today, however, this was when clicking on a link on a site that firefox 1.5 simply wouldn't accept (didn't do anything when clicking on the link).
Also, the cursor is sometimes one place more to the left than it should be, a bit annoying when posting this story:)
(Oh, and windows warned, "This software may harm your computer", but then again, it always says that).
Wow, some links from the article *I* linked to.
They still don't explain WHOSE idea the Ping attribute was, or offer a compelling reason for its inclusion, particularly as it is something you can already do with onclick, as I mentioned here
W3 is a LOT of organisations : http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
One other Opera tab feature is what always keeps me coming back - when you close the tab you are in, you revert to the last tab you were viewing instead of the tab next door. This fits my surfing pattern perfectly (which is to open relevant links in the background, read them, then return to the main page). For me, it's the killer feature of Opera. Maybe it's available as an extension, but that alone with so many other small things keep me here (and Opera 9 has fixed any rendering problems I had been having).
I always use the context menu to close a tab with the mouse, yet I have to be carefully to not choose the "close other tabs". Besides the "close" in the contect menu should be the very first command.
O. Wyss
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
A news story about an Alpha version which doesn't even exist.
/Mad
Cor, that's entertainment!
I mean, this is an organization that used to offer product releases of .001 increments over the course of years, now they went from 1.0 to 1.5 and already talking about 2.0 versions of Firefox.
Is Mozilla looking to become Microsoft?
Slow and steady is what has founded Mozilla and Firefox, don't blow it by having version upgrades that coincide with the frequency of changing underwear.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
A close button on each tabs is indeed a bad idea, not only does it take extra space, but also it takes extra time to find which "x" should be pressed.
Opera uses an "x" button on each tabs and I sure hate it, everytime I want to close a tab I find myself searching for a few seconds which "x" I need to click and to make sure it is the really the right one.
The Firefox developers should honestly not write another line of new code until they finally fix:
... but not all of it. And as the memory and CPU usage is attributed to Firefox, I consider Firefox responsibile. As these extensions are basically XUL/Javascript, Firefox should totally manage its extension sandbox in a much better manner (i.e. throttling CPU usage, memory allocation, etc.).
- the memory leaks in the browser that have been going on forever
- the browser periodically sucking up CPU usage
Yes, you can blame some of these on poorly written extensions
I love Firefox, but every now and then I consider migrating back away from it as my primary browser for these two issues alone. I can write an extension to overcome Firefox's shortcomings in many areas, but this is core and needs to be addressed as such. If you look at Bugzilla for Firefox, you can see these reported many times - but the developers always seem to shrug these off as not important or not reproducible. I know these are much harder and less fun to deal with than flashy new features, but it is all part of putting out a quality product.
Hey mods, can we get this removed from the FRONT PAGE and/or deleted? Thanks!
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.
Sounds like you need the 'session-saver' extension https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?application=firefox&category=Tabbed%20Browsing&nu mpg=10&id=436/ so if you close or crash Firefox you can pick up where you left off. A.K.A. lifesaver for a die hard wanderer.
If that is too much for you, try this extension that removes the little enticing 'x' for closing tabs from your life. https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?application=firefox&category=Tabbed%20Browsing&nu mpg=10&id=2092/
Relax, aren't you lucky that it is only my Opinion?
Its out here's the link! http://lookleap.com/ftp.mozilla.org/a1
Just to add my .02, I switched to Opera and haven't looked back. They both are efficient browsers that do their job well. What sold me on Opera were the mouse gestures. I understand there are programs that will give you this functionality but I found them to be buggy and each program had different command strokes (pluse it's one more piece of software running in the background). Talk about intuitiveness and efficiency, gestures will really speed up your browsing. I can manipulate tabs with great ease now that I am familiar with all the different commands.
I'm not a developer as you can all see...and thanks for enlightening me about all this. Very interesting.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Oh, how bitter and twisted we are. Got something against choice?
People like you make me laugh, you really do. You are aware that 90 percent of the features that are supposed to differentiate Firefox from Internet Explorer were borrowed (or, to put it more directly, copied) straight from Opera?
And, by the way, since when did popularity imply quality?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Not an opera article.
So what, is slashdot like myspace now?
You could at least bother to change "thru" to "through."
Arrrrrrr
With a little luck, they'll finally get rid of the hugely irritating copy+paste bug that still seems to be lingering about...
http://www.frenchgeek.com/
The "ping" attribute was proposed by Ian Hickson on 21 October of last year, as a quick search in the WHAT-WG mailing-list archive would have shown if you'd bothered.
In his posting, Ian explaings the reasoning behind the attribute. You can do it with onclick, but then again you could manually write out every page of a dynamic website instead of using a CMS to automate the process.
There are several extensions for gestures in Firefox. These aren't extra programs that have to run in the background. For what it's worth, extensions are primarily why I haven't looked back at closed-source browsing.
The Burning Edge, one of Jesse Ruderman's pages, is a pretty good resource to get a summary of what is the latest and greatest in Firefox development.
He also has one that summurizes the differences between releases: http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/. It looks like he hasn't updated it for 2.0 yet though.
Based on the screenshots, there isn't much new. While they readily admit the GUI isn't in place, I'd expect even an alpha build to reveal more of the functionality (otherwise it isn't alpha yet).
:)
One thing in the GUI that really catches my eye is the History menu, and the search option in particular. While you can search History via the sidebar in FF 1.5, it's somewhat weak. I'd guess that if they devoted a menu to History, they've vastly improved it.
One thing I would LOVE to see is all of Tab Mix Plus to make it into the core functionality of Firefox. Actually there is a number of things Firefox (core application) sorely needs, natively out of the box:
- a resizable search box (whose bright idea was it to make it a fixed width anyhow? Why should I have to download the Resize Search Box extension for such a basic thing?)
- Session management - Opera does this out of the box, and I really like the session management extensions.
- User agent switcher: Opera and Konqueror both do this natively. Firefox should as well, so that we can use coded-for-ie-and-only-ie web sites - again, without having to download and install an extension
- Tab Mix Plus (mentioned above) - every other tabbed browser does natively what Tab Mix Plus adds. Firefox should do everything this extension provides, natively. Also, I should be able to "detach" a tab - this has really grown on me in Konqueror.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
thanks for that
The guy seems fairly sane.
Though, personally, I think Eugenics is intellectual elitism gone up its own arse.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
it all went down hill when NCSA mosaic put a BLOATED and SLOW browser into the hands of the STUPID PROLES.
As a member of the internet elite I DEMAND that we turn back the clock and take _OUR_ INTERNET out of the hands of the Walmart crowd.
Sometimes, I like to be able to close a pile of tabs at once. That's where keeping it in the same place is nice.
But, there are already extensions that do what they're planning, so if you really want to break your tabbed browsing, you can do it on your own.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The other Free Software options:
http://www.konqueror.org/
http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/
http://www.gnome.org/projects/epiphany/
http://www.caminobrowser.org/
And the non-free ones, like Opera is...
http://www.apple.com/safari/
http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/
Don't worry, in IE, the website will close and open windows for you. You don't even have to think about it long enough to consent.
Given that Opera on KDE has a "Windows Native" theme that looks ugly as sin, I'd say popularity _does_ imply quality.
Brother you got that right.
Extensions are the nuber one reason I linger at upgrading Firefox.
What a freaking pain in the ass. (You could edit the exten. You could get a develeopment tool that turns off the version check.) You know, you could build an F'ing exention model that isn't a pain in the ass.
How about a dialog box that says: "Your extension isn't made for this version. Do you want me to try to run it anyhow?"
I also love searching for a new extension and being blocked from veiwing its webpage (at the Extension Bank) because my version number is incompatible. Then I have to play guess the complatible version number. It is one thing to watn me about downloading incompatible extensions. It is another to prevent me from even learning about them.
Jesus Christ on a pogostick!
tab no x
Any news on how much, if any, the news of Opera's latest success passing the Acid2 Test will affect the development of Firefox? For Mozilla to stay ahead of the game, it needs to continue to do more than just staying ahead of IE.
No biggie, as this isn't even pre-release software; it seems to be more like a CVS/nightly to me. Still, it'd be nice to know that the Mozilla foundation are working towards that greatly to be desired goal.
Is it only me or do the screenshots look like FF 1.5. I don't see any differences between what I'm currently using. I think the article should be renamed:
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Alpha peeking out
and we will share the fire of the fox.
Seriously, can anyone give us a brief overview of what they are and why we should be really excited about the new Firefox Developer Tools option that I saw in the screenshots of the installation?
Are we talking HTML, CSS, what?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
but not from Opera.
Why?
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Is Quicktime a closed specification?
QuickTime-the-wrapper is not closed, but QuickTime-the-included-codecs are. Parts of the Sorenson Video codec are patented; the rest is trade-secreted. The same goes for Apple's implementation of MPEG-4 video.
So you judge a browser's worth by the native skin? Talk about judging a book by its cover.
More worryingly, if you're saying that popularity implies quality (and, let's face it, you are) then doesn't imply that Internet Explorer is the world's best browser?
QED.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I get the impression that there are several main development branches running, not just the usual current branch/last branch/trunk trio.
Having an EULA pop up during the first run is idiotic for a free software project. There is no reason why the user must accept a license to run this program. EULA acceptance screens are needed for programs that add restrictions beyond regular copyright law (e.g. no reverse engineering). For programs with a free software license, which add additional rights (e.g. modify, but only if you distribute source to changes), it is not. The user either accepts or does not. If she does not, she has the rights granted by plain old copyright law, which means she can run it, but no copies or modifications. If she does, she has the additional rights under the EULA. The GPL has a nice clause and explanation about this.
As is, this is nust an unneccessary additional user hassle. Why do we copy stupid things from commercial software when it doesn't apply? If the trend continues, by FX3, we'll have to type in a 20 digit product code to make sure it's a valid copy...
In view of the following news released on the developers site, I think we can all take a deep breath and recognize that this was entirely overblown, and probably didn't really deserve to be mentioned on slashdot at all. Yet, anyway. If it actually was the newsworthy event originally claimed, then yes, deffinitly, but it's just alpha1, and not even a complete one, from the sounds of it.
Taken directly from mozillanews
BEGIN QUOTE HERE
Code Freeze for 2.0 Alpha1 this Thursday at 11:59PM PST
As discussed at the BonEcho status meeting today we will be doing a 1.8 branch code freeze on Thursday March 16, 2006 at 11:59PM PST in preparation for a Alpha 1 release next Tuesday.
If you are trying to get a bug landed for Alpha1 please be sure to set the target milestone as follows:
Firefox product: Firefox 2 alpha1
Toolkit/Core products: mozilla1.8.1alpha1
Ben G and Schrep will organize a quick triage session to stay on top of these bugs Weds/Thurs.
The Alpha1 is primarily designed to test the places backend. The UI is not anywhere near final and mind the standard disclaimers about how it's alpha software and is thus buggy - so use at your own risk.
END QUOTE HERE
Z
actually, it's mozilla 1.8.1 if you want to be technical ... which will become 2.0 alpha eventually
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The extension "Nightly Tester Tools" allows you to ignore the build IDs in the .xpi file, 'forcing' compatibility. They'll at least load once... they might, in some circumstances, immediately disable themselves. Or, they might break completely.
When it happens, the 'Alpha' designation means that no more major new features will be allowed from that point onwards. Also, it should be at least somewhat useable. It DEFINITELY doesn't mean that it's ready 'informal' use... you need to make a COMPLETE backup of your profile before installing one of these nightly builds.
The biggest new feature is 'places', a gigantic re-write of 'bookmarks' to include RSS and some new features. IMHO, it's badly broken. I've used several nightlys in recent weeks, and disasterous problems, (already known, but still to be fixed) have forced me back to a mid-February build.
Be sure to check the mozillazine forum firefox-builds (at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=23 , NOT the firefox-support forum) for the most recent "The Official Win32 2006mmdd Build is out" thread. Then, look at the unfixed bugs in the list. And ***IMPORTANT*** use the last link in the bugs list to look at the separate list for 'places'.
As I write this, the Places list includes 216 bugs. One is a 'BLOCKER', another is 'CRITICAL' , and 15 are 'MAJOR'. I wouldn't use the current nightly on my box. (With my usage, the 'Critical' is more important than the 'blocker'). But, in any case, I'd recommend that you wait until there aren't any 'CRITICAL' bugs which could affect you before downloading any nightly.
*IF* you download and use a nightly, I say that you are MORALLY OBLIGATED to check for duplicates on any bugs you find. Right now, that means you've got 194 'normal', 'blocker', and 'critical' bugs to cehck against... just for places.
for everyone's sake, WAIT FOR A HALF-DECENT BUILD!
http://www.cybernetnews.com/?p=411
since the alpha appears to have unistall "Issues" i would strongly suggest using the portable build if you wanna try it out.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.