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Firefox 2.0 RC3 Released
midkay writes "Firefox 2.0 RC3 has just been released. The release notes cover all the changes since the first release candidate, but RC3 appears to have a new Windows installer and more security in the extensions aspect, among a few other things."
My work here is dung.
They are updated constantly and for my power book g4, they actually load around 2 times faster than the standard Firefox.
http://www.furbism.com/firefoxmac/
It's a bit obvious from the number of major additions described, but the "phishing protection" and "new Windows Installer" are just new features of 2.0, which were already in earlier release candidates. Compare the announcements of RC3 and RC2 on the developer blog.
The release notes page itself seems a bit misleading, since they specifically talk about "Firefox 2 RC3" even in places where they mean Firefox 2 - perhaps someone saved time with a search & replace.
--
So while this announcement probably means they fixed bugs and are another step closer to the final release, the major features aren't news.
Give it a few weeks, this is a release candidate and hopefully this one will be ready for release. Unlike Microsoft, the Mozilla project usually mean the release candidates can true candidates for release therefore most extension developers can work on testing their extensions against this release knowing that it's unlikely to break in the final.
Last year 1.5 had 3 release candidates and 1.5 final was identical to RC3. So hopefully this year they get it right on the third attempt too.
Anyway, give it a few weeks and your extensions will most likely be working and tested. There's no one forcing you to upgrade and the 1.5 branch will be supported for a while yet.
Some nice new features (no, I didn't RTFA):
-auto spellcheck (GREAT idea, especially for your typical slashdotter)
-session saving (although Opera beat it to the punch like, well, everything else(aww snap -1 troll))
-security updates... ?
Two Firefox windows open
Three pages loaded (Slashdot, Google/IG, internal work site)
Current memory usage: 110MB
Outlook is using: 78MB
So yeah, just a few issue's with memory usage.
No sig here...
Dozens of memory leaks have been fixed in Firefox 2. A memory benchmark shows Firefox 2 consumes less memory than IE 7 or Opera 9.
If you're still seeing a memory problem in Firefox 2, what you should do is describe steps to reproduce the problem so the bug can be reported and fixed.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Here is the link: Bill's Big List of Firefox 2.0 Compatible Extensions
It is not an alpha of Firefox 3, that has not been released yet. It's just the trunk is listed as version 3.0a1 that'll eventually be 3.0a1 but it is not there yet and won't be for a while
An MSI would be nice for deployment in large network, yes. However, deploying firefox for us
on our large network would be a piece of cake when bundled with the scripting application we
use (WinBatch). Winbatch makes deploying apps like FireFox a piece of cake.
I would love to see FF start supporting group policies. When the day comes that FF supports
MSI deployment and Group Policies, that will be the day (for me) when FF is ready to be taken
seriously for corporate deployment.
I long for the day when FF steps up to the plate are makes itself more attactive to the
corporate world. I'm not talking about just basic FF either. For me, basic FF sucks. FF only
begins to shine after you add a few extentions to is. Nothing would make me happier than if a
mandate came out that all FF extentions had to support MSI deployement and GP integration as
well.
A script kiddie rules your computer.
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
If you hold shift you can drag folders. I don't know why they decided on that idea.
Because if I want to run a memory intensive application alongside a web page I have open in Firefox I don't feel like copying the URL, restarting Firefox and pasting the URL back in. Not everyone has 2GB of memory now, my machine has 1GB on XP and Firefox at 500MB seriously curtails the other programs I want to run (at least on XP -- it gets very slow if it has to page anything)
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
Maybe this MozillaZine Knowledge Base article about memory problems in Firefox holds the answer:
If all of the tabs you want to close are in a row, then yeah, a single button in the same location is great. For myself, though, it's usually a couple of tabs scattered throughout the ones I have open that I want to close. Having the button on each tab makes this easier overall, although I'll admit it took a few days to get used to.
:)
If you use a mouse with a middle button (I'm on a laptop w/o a mouse), then middle-clicking anywhere on the tab will close it. That's the easiest overall. I wish my laptop had a middle button instead of just a scroll button.
---John Holmes...
I've been using the release candidates for nearly a month now, starting with the first candidate of RC1 (yes, they do release release candidates of release candidates ;)). There were some things that took a bit of getting used to, but within an hour, I was loving it.
:) No more need for NTT or for manually bumping up the maxVersion of such extensions.
1/ It seems faster. It also has a MUCH better memory footprint.
2/ Session-saving and undo close tabs is now built-in. This is great, because I used to get this from an extension, and that extension was a horrible memory leaker (this might contribute to #1).
3/ New tab management. I often have lots of tabs open, and it's nice to be able to scroll the tab bar now or to get a drop-down of all the open tabs. The close button on each tab is annoying (that's what middle-click is for) and the wider minimum tab width is wasteful, but both of those settings can be changed in about:config.
4/ Speaking of about:config, there is a new hidden setting that lets you disable compatibility checking for extensions. Oftentimes, an extension marked for 1.5 will work just fine for 2.0, but the author hadn't updated the extension's manifest to say that, so FF2 would refuse that extension. Not anymore.
5/ Button to restart Firefox after installing an add-on. And the new session saving kicks in to restore all your tabs and even what you have filled into forms after the restart. Makes installing stuff much less painful.
6/ Spell check! No more copying-and-pasting into word to check for typos.
7/ Better RSS management
8/ Better password auto-fill
9/ I personally love the look of the new theme. The old tabs looked rather ugly on Windows Classic. Now combined with ClassicFox, Firefox looks stunning on Windows Classic. But that's a matter of personal taste.
Personally, I didn't care much for the other features like anti-phishing (I have it disabled 'cuz I think I can protect myself, but it's good for Joe Sixpack), live titles, or the search suggest (which I also have disabled). Anyway, at the risk of sounding like some sappy endorsement, I really love Firefox 2. Once I got used to it and tweaked the settings, I can't believe how I ever managed to get along with 1.5.
What's happening is that Opera 9 is swapping out memory from RAM to disk when you minimize the Opera window. To see the total memory usage (both in RAM and on disk) look at the VM Size column in the Windows Task Manager.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Ah, I see. The VM Size column isn't one that appears in a default install of Windows, one must turn it on under View | Select Columns.
Still, it's pretty clear that 50MB worth of data is not getting shuttled back and forth from the disk when I minimize and re-open Opera. It's far too fast and quiet for that. That memory is just getting marked as page-out-able, or something.
Yes!
c onfig_Entries
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_FAQs_:_About:
Specifically, look at:
browser.tabs.closeButtons
browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
I too have switched to del.icio.us for all of my bookmarking needs... I personally use Foxylicious ( http://dietrich.ganx4.com/foxylicious/ ) for syncing my del.icio.us bookmarks into a folder in my Personal Bookmark Toolbar in Firefox... works beautifully.
I originally switched because I use so many different computers throughout the day and wanted to have the same bookmarks on all of them and have all of them synced automatically... which foxylicious allows. I've been running this way for over a year now and love it.
Friedmud
Well, I got the name slightly wrong: it's del.icio.us direc.tor. Hope you enjoy it, it's really raised del.icio.us to whole new levels of usefulness. At least for me :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"