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Firefox 2.0 To Debut Tuesday

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the two-for-tuesday dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Firefox 2.0 for Tuesday, says the Seattle PI. They give a quick recap of some of the new features, and discuss the ongoing IE vs. Fox debate." From the article: "Version 2.0 also improves on the tabbed-windows interface that Mozilla innovated and that Microsoft introduced for the first time last week with IE7, its biggest upgrade since 2001. Analysts said IE7 is a significant improvement over its predecessor, but the big question is whether it will stem Firefox's growth at Microsoft's expense. Firefox's share of the browser market has grown to 9.8 percent of the U.S. market this month, from 2.9 percent in October 2004."

22 of 445 comments (clear)

  1. innovation? by minus_273 · · Score: 5, Informative

    geez, "tabbed-windows interface that Mozilla innovated" that is beginning to sound like microsoft innovation. Long before firefox existed, I was using tabbed windows in opera. Give credit where it is due.

    --
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    The war on terror is a war for peace
    1. Re:innovation? by dvice_null · · Score: 5, Informative

      So, to whom should the credit go to?
      "Web browsers are notable for implementing this kind of interface (called tabbed browsing). BookLink Technologies pioneered this interface design in its InternetWorks browser in 1994"
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbed_browsing

    2. Re:innovation? by unixmaster · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was first introduced in NetCaptor browser, more history here.

      --
      Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
    3. Re:innovation? by AcidArrow · · Score: 5, Informative

      Are there better browsers out there? Again, without question.

      May I ask what are those other browsers you're talking about? I am aware of 4 major browsers other than Firefox. Let's have a look at them and how they compare with firefox.

      IE7 - It finally got tabs and a search box but still has crappy html and css standards support. Actually it's a little worse than MyIE for IE6. I'll pass.
      Safari - Has a lot the basic features of a good browser and is very simple. Respects HTML and CSS standards. Has crappy PNG support (gamma correction) and for some reason scrolls slowly even on fast machines. It's a fine browser but I prefer Camino.
      Konqueror - Although I have limited experience with this one, it looks like a good browser/file manager, but I am un-aware of any features (appart from passing that ACID2 test) that make it better than Firefox.
      Opera - The only browser that is at least feature-wise better than firefox. But for some people Open Source actually matters. Though even with that into the equation, I can't really say which one is the better browser.

      So, while you can argue and I might accept that opera is better than firefox, what are the other browsers that I've been missing that are better than the "overrated" firefox? Oh, and preferably opensource.

    4. Re:innovation? by jZnat · · Score: 4, Informative

      Konqueror comes with AdBlock built-in, so that's an instant win in my book. It's fast, integrates with my desktop (unlike Firefox), and even has a few extensions of its own.

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    5. Re:innovation? by elcid73 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Opera can block ads just fine. May not have all the bells & whistles, but I get along just fine with the content blocker that's built in.

    6. Re:innovation? by Dominic_Mazzoni · · Score: 4, Informative

      You beat me to it. Seriously though, firefox is highly overrated. Is it better than IE6? Without question. Are there better browsers out there? Again, without question.

      But in terms of compatibility with the vast majority of websites, Firefox is far ahead of every other competitor.

      I'm a power user. I routinely switch between Camino, Safari, Firefox, and IE under CrossOver as I'm browsing different sites and designing web pages. But for my friends who aren't power users and want something that "just works", I always recommend Firefox. It's safer than IE and has a few nice features that they'll appreciate, but is still simple and most importantly, is going to work on 99% of the sites they visit. Safari, Opera, Konqueror, and others all have compatibility problems.

    7. Re:innovation? by VertigoAce · · Score: 4, Informative

      In case anyone wants to do the same on IE 7, the shortcuts are:

      Switch between tabs
        CTRL+TAB or CTRL+SHIFT+TAB

      Switch to a specific tab number
        CTRL+n (where n is a number between 1 and 8)

      Switch to the last tab
        CTRL+9

    8. Re:innovation? by rHBa · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hmm...

      That's the same shortcuts as FF1.5

  2. MDI by jonasj · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not that it matters who came first, but Mozilla did actually have tabs earlier than Opera. What you were using in Opera back then was actually MDI, not tabs.

    But of course other browsers had tabs far earlier than any of these two.

    --
    You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
  3. Re:Minimum tab size by christopherfinke · · Score: 4, Informative
    s there a way to change the minimum size of the tab headers in the new firefox?
    Set browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to 0 (or whatever you want) in about:config.
  4. Re:Minimum tab size by dvice_null · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes there is. You can remove the close buttons from the tabs (make it look like it was in 1.5) and also tell the min width for the tabs:
    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.tabs.closeButton s
    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.tabs.tabMinWidth

  5. Re:YAY! by aymanh · · Score: 5, Informative

    The changes are nicely summarized in this page.

    I find "Client-side session and persistent storage" to be quite interesting, and wonder if any major web apps will make use of it in the near future. There are also JavaScript 1.7 which makes JavaScript more Pythonic, SVG support, and several other features.

    --
    python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
  6. TabMixPlus RC by skoval · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've just checked.
    RC1 of new TabMixPlus version (with FF 2.0 support) is already available.

    Good news for me.

    --
    I choose friends for sigs
  7. Re:Two of my prayers for FireFox Improvement by dvice_null · · Score: 4, Informative

    Reducing memory usage in Firefox:
    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Reducing_memory_usage_-_ Firefox

  8. Re:Two of my prayers for FireFox Improvement by bunratty · · Score: 4, Informative

    Good news... There are several reports that Firefox 2 uses less memory than IE 7. Only a small percentage of users ever had problems with memory usage to begin with.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  9. FACT: OPERA DID NOT INVENT TABBED BROWSING! by Sir+Homer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes. Stop spreading the myth.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbed_browsing

  10. Re:IE 7 Quick Tabs by gozar · · Score: 3, Informative
    The IE 7 "Quick Tabs" feature is very cool. It shows a tiled view of all tabs open with all pages rendered so you can quickly find your way and click a tab. I don't think any previous web browser has this feature.

    Omniweb has had it for a little while, here's a screenshot.

    --
    What, me worry?
  11. Re:I'm a web developer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The 1.x branch of Firefox used Gecko 1.7
    Fx 1.5 uses Gecko 1.8
    Fx 2 uses Gecko 1.8.1, so a much smaller change (as in no new feature in HTML/CSS, just bug fixes I think). The new features are in SVG (textPath support), JavaScript (1.7) and Client-side session and persistent storage
    Fx 3 will be the next big jump to Gecko 1.9, with the reflow that will fix Acid 2 and incremental layout bugs, plus more CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 support.

  12. Re:Tuesday? by funfail · · Score: 3, Informative

    There was already a (real!) SP6 for NT4.

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  13. Firefox 2.0 Themes by aplusjimages · · Score: 3, Informative

    They already have Firefox 2.0 themes out.

    --
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  14. Re:YAY! by bwilson · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is this a non-standard attribute?

    We wanted web pages to control the spellchecking defaults to some degree. For example, webmail applications will want to automatically turn it on for subject lines, even though it is normally off for <input> elements.

    We discussed with the WHATWG web standards group to come up with the attribute. I'm not sure about the status of this in any of their specs, as I'm not sure there was any strong consensus. That's one of the problems coming out with a new feature not currently supported in any other browser or mentioned in any standards.

    - Brett (Firefox spellcheck contributor)