Firefox 2.0 Beta 2 Arrives

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla has released Beta 2 of its upcoming Firefox 2 browser for developer review. It is being made available for testing purposes only. The release contains a number of new features, as well as some enhancements to look and feel. DesktopLinux.com has posted a list of the changes along with a few quick screen grabs. Apparently, the download can be found on Mozilla's ftp site."

Comments

NSIS

[Trillan]

I hadn't heard that Firefox was switching to NSIS.

Was the old installer Mozilla-specific code?

Either way, the switch sounds like a good idea. The old installer had its issues, and focusing on the browser and improving an existing (and already quite reasonable) installer is a great idea.

Re:Tabs will be broken

[Blaskowicz]

why not close tabs with the middle button (the same one that opens them) ? I never use that cross on the right, will disable the cross on each tab..
And now that I think of it I'll try to find a way to disable that red cross on the right you like so much ;). how can I do that with FF 1.x ?

Scrolling tabs?

[AeroIllini]

FTFA:

Power users who open more tabs than can fit in a single window will see arrows on the left and right side of the tab strip that let them scroll back and forth between their tabs.

Am I the only person who thinks this is a stupid and counter-productive idea? When was the last time you (the population of /., the proported "power users") actually clicked on the up and down arrows to scroll, anywhere outside a Flash application that forces you? It takes forever! I usually use the middle mouse button, click in the middle scroll area to jump, or click and drag the scroll handle.

I like the idea of having more tabs than window space, but fer cryin' out loud, two scroll buttons are not the way to handle it. How about multiple rows of tabs? Or right click + drag to scroll back and forth? Or a drop down menu of tabs?

I thought we all agreed that Flash applications that break scrolling are a Bad Thing (tm).

Linux builds

[Trogre]

Have they done anything to fix performance on linux builds?

It's sad watching FF on a dual boot system run significantly slower under linux than under window on the same machine. Especially when other linux applications fly.

And it's not even just DNS lookups. Simply switching tabs can take up to a second (?!) under linux whereas under windows it's 0.2 seconds (the perceived direct interaction threshold for most people).