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Firefox 2.0 To Debut Tuesday

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."

62 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.

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace
    1. Re:innovation? by Xymor · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And I've been using since 1997 with IE

    2. 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

    3. 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
    4. Re:innovation? by Sporkinum · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Opera might be better, and IE might be improved, but as long as Firefox has Adblock and the filtersetG updater, Firefox is the browser for me, my family, and anyone else that wants do do away with annoying (read all) advertising.

      --
      "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
    5. Re:innovation? by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      BeOS had tabbed-windows system-wide since it was released. What year was that? It also had to be around 1994 or so...

    6. Re:innovation? by LighterShadeOfBlack · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Is taking tabs and applying them to web browsing all that innovative anyway? Surely the first program to interface a tabbed interface or equivalent (ie. switchbar), whatever it's purpose, is the true innovator and the first web browser to make use of them was simply "a good idea".

      Tabbed web browsing in itself doesn't seem to be a milestone of great significance. Certainly no more so than tabbed text editing or tabbed image viewing etc.

      --
      Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
    7. 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.

    8. 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.'
    9. 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.

    10. 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.

    11. Re:innovation? by edmicman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How do you use your router to block ads? Does it actually supress/remove ads, objects, iframes, etc. from the webpage, or does it just block the item from loading, giving you a red X or whatever on the webpage? Is it easily updateable? Can you right click on something that got through and have it added to the list? I have a WRT54G if that helps...

    12. Re:innovation? by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only thing that makes me like Firefox more than Opera is the idea of Extensions. The fact that the browser can be enhanced by the users creates a big advantage in my mind. I wouldn't want all those features built into the browser, because it would be huge and bloated, and there's a lot of extensions that without them my life would be a lot harder. The web developer extension makes my life so much easier, but i'm sure that 99% of internet users in the world would have absolutely no use for.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    13. 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

    14. Re:innovation? by AmberBlackCat · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

      Every competitor except IE, Mr. +5 Informative.

    15. Re:innovation? by Bronster · · Score: 4, Funny

      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

      Your signature is just so... um... I won't use that I word that Alanis poisoned. No, no, I won't.

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

      Hmm...

      That's the same shortcuts as FF1.5

  2. Tuesday? by dvice_null · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tuesday? The day when security patches for IE are released?

    1. Re:Tuesday? by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maybe they're saying Firefox is the ultimate security patch for IE? :^)

    2. Re:Tuesday? by electrosoccertux · · Score: 5, Funny

      Firefox _is_ the security patch for IE.

    3. Re:Tuesday? by Dracos · · Score: 4, Funny

      Why not? People used to say that Service Pack 6 for NT4 was RedHat.

    4. Re:Tuesday? by wertarbyte · · Score: 5, Funny

      Indeed. Internet Explorer is a fine browser, I use it all the time on a new windows installation - to download Firefox.

      --
      Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
    5. Re:Tuesday? by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Myself, I can't even bring myself to start IE, so I download my copy of firefox with the command line ftp client for windows.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    6. Re:Tuesday? by funfail · · Score: 3, Informative

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

  3. Minimum tab size by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One of the annoying things about the new firefox interface is you can't have as many tabs in the bar at once anymore. Sure, it has a scrolling interface, but I liked the sort of spatial representation of the old system. Is there a way to change the minimum size of the tab headers in the new firefox?

    1. 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.
    2. 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

  4. 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.
  5. Re:Lies by dvice_null · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When has Mozilla claimed that in innovated tabbed-windows interface? You are quoting Seattle Post-Intelligencer, not Mozilla.

  6. Hey Folks by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...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."

    Hey Folks,

    They're both free apps under Windows! How does it really hurt MS if FF gets 100% marketshare? In fact, if FF were to take over it might actually benefit MS. How? IE has been their worst blackeye of the past couple of years. More problems with than than everything else. If MS could make all the bad IE press go away, don't you think that would be a positive? I realize this is like suggesting to Apple to let Dell build their hardware, but does that make it a bad idea? As long as FF adheres to Open Standards, everyone can compete with web-sites equally with it.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
    1. Re:Hey Folks by dvice_null · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > How does it really hurt MS if FF gets 100% marketshare?

      If all the people use Firefox, there won't be that many IE-only applications. This means it will be a lot easier to switch to other operating systems, which usually means that people stop using Microsoft software. Microsoft's strategy is to force people to stick with their system. Why else do you think they are always making their own version of standards?

    2. Re:Hey Folks by C0vardeAn0nim0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      IE is a loss leader, just like the Xbox. they make up by selling other stuff, like devopment kits for activeX applets and other stuff.

      plus it's an anchor to hold people to their products.

      how many people you know have computers only to check e-mail and browse the web ? if all these people switch to firefox, how soon they'll realize they can use FF running in linux, freebsd, mac, etc ?

      what MS wants is joe sixpack to think that "internet == internet explorer" so they can keep shoveling windows on the unsuspecting masses

      --
      What ? Me, worry ?
    3. Re:Hey Folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If through shifts in market share every popular Windows app becomes crossplatform, then people will realize that they don't need Windows. That would really hurt MS.

    4. Re:Hey Folks by Tim+C · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This means it will be a lot easier to switch to other operating systems

      Only if IE is the most compelling reason to remain on Windows, which I suspect is not the case for most people.

      Why else do you think they are always making their own version of standards?

      There are plenty of possible reasons:

      * It's easier
      * It lets you do stuff that you consider useful/necessary/cool but that isn't in the spec
      * Not Invented Here syndrome
      * As you suggest, lock-in
      * They're arrogant enough to think they know best and big enough to get away with it

  7. Two of my prayers for FireFox Improvement by JavaManJim · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Its Sunday after all right now, so why not pray for FireFox? This is FireFox 2.0 Beta running on my Windows XP PC.

    1. Starts without maximizing itself to the full PC screen area. Always leaves space available. In contrast SeaMonkey correctly occupies the full PC screen area when starting (but SeaMonkey makes me create a new profile except for once.). FF thinks its full screen according to its maximize/window button but is mistaken.

    2. FF fails CSS rendering because it uses an antique CSS engine.
    http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/

    Those are my FF issues. What are yours?

    Thanks,
    Jim Burke

    1. Re:Two of my prayers for FireFox Improvement by dvice_null · · Score: 4, Informative
    2. 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.
    3. Re:Two of my prayers for FireFox Improvement by Threni · · Score: 5, Funny

      > Wait for Firefox 3, when the rendering system will be given a major overhaul.

      And that's just *nothing* compared with all the goodness we're putting into Firefox 4! Why do it now when you can wait a few years?

  8. 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)
  9. Re:YAY! by From+A+Far+Away+Land · · Score: 5, Funny

    With the built in spell checker, I expect about 12% of the web's users to look smarter by at least 50% on Tuesday, with the number expected to grow as Firefox spreads.

  10. 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
  11. But where can I get my IceWeasel 2.0 ? -- NT by zeenixus · · Score: 4, Funny

    But where can I get my IceWeasel 2.0 ?

    --
    In Bob we trust.
  12. Here's hoping. by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hope it won't leak quite so much memory. That'd be nice.

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
    1. Re:Here's hoping. by iabervon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Legend has it that it won't matter, because if it's using too much memory, you can just restart it without losing what you're in the middle of.

  13. 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

  14. Market? What market? by jc42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Firefox's share of the browser market has grown to 9.8 percent of the U.S. market this month

    This has gotta be one of the weirder (mis)uses of the term "market". After all, the competing "products" aren't for sale, and a "market" is usually a place where people sell things.

    Of course, it can be difficult to establish a market when the "market leader" does the ultimate price-war thing and gives its product out for free. They did kill Netscape Corp, of course, but somehow they still didn't capture the "market".

    There are some bizarre (bazarre?) economic theories at work here, I think.

    --
    Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  15. FireFox still rules by Mike_K · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm a Windows user. I used to think that Firefox used too much RAM - I have about 30 tabs open in 2 windows, and it consumes over 140MB. In my book that's A LOT.

    Few days ago I installed IE 7. I know, installing brand new MS software is a bad idea. But I'm reinstalling this OS soon anyway, so I wanted to give it a try. I opened the same tabs in the browser. Some of them didn't have my cookies, so slightly different pages loaded. But to my surprise, IE7 was taking up over 400MB of RAM. That's almost 3 times as much as Firefox. It got sluggish compared to Firefox. (I have a gig of RAM in a decently fast computer)

    I'm sticking with Firefox. I'll test out 2.0 when it comes out, and baring bugs or bloat, I'll be using it as my main browser on all 3 computers I use.

    m

  16. Re:YAY! by ilovepolymorphism · · Score: 5, Interesting

    With the new spellchecker they will also be introducing a new attribute to the input tag: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Controlling_s pell_checking_in_HTML_forms Is this a non-standard attribute? Are we going back to each browser adding stuff and hoping the other one stays relatively compatible? I'm not saying whether this is a good or a bad thing. I was just curious.

  17. Re:YAY! by Julia+Cameron · · Score: 4, Funny
    With the built in spell checker, I expect about 12% of the web's users to look smarter by at least 50% on Tuesday, with the number expected to grow as Firefox spreads.

    U ar right.

    --
    Julia Cameron
    Oich ù agus hiùraibh éile
  18. Excellent by edmicman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So 2.0 drops on Tuesday, and the biggest topic /. has to discuss about it is whether or not Mozilla actually pioneered tabbed browsing or not? Come on....

    I've been using the 2.0 betas since they were publicly available, and have to say it's a big improvement. The individual tab closing button (it's nice...just give it a shot), the spell checking, improvements in the preferences interface....all around, a very nice job!

  19. I'm a web developer by suv4x4 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For me the big question as such is:

    should we care to support Firefox 1.5 now?

    We know we'll have to support IE6 for years to come, even IE5. But Firefox users typically upgrade their browser quickly.
    So: do I check my sites in FF 1.5? Do I even keep it?

    Before you tell me "but they all render perfectly and the same": it's not true. I keep Firefox 1.07 for this reason here, since it handles quite a bit of elements/CSS in a different manner (even clearing floats differs a little in some cases).

    There's also lots of bugs fixed in 1.5, but not in 1.07. And there's also new oddball behaviours in 1.5 not present in 1.07...

    FF has 10% market share. I'm just split if it's worth it going into so much detail.. maybe I'll just support 1.5 for a few months and move to 2.0.

    Please share your opinion.

    1. 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.

  20. 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?
  21. Konqueror is rock solid and light on resources. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Besides having far better CSS support than Firefox 2.0, Konqueror also uses only a fraction of the resources. Opening the exact same sites in Firefox and Konqueror will often show a major difference between the two in terms of RAM usage.

    For example, when I simultaneously open about 15 of the blogs and websites I read daily, top reports Firefox 2.0 rc3 as using 149 MB of virtual memory. Konqueror, on the other hand, uses a cool 28 MB for those exact same sites. Opera uses 31 MB. So as far as I can tell, Firefox is the lame duck when it comes to effective memory usage. This is with a build right from mozilla.org, without any additional extensions installed. I also disabled the cache for all three browsers, since I've heard that Firefox has a policy that leads to excessive memory usage.

    A problem I have had with the Firefox 2.0 release candidates is crashes. This doesn't happen with Konqueror, or any other application I'm using, so I doubt it's faulty RAM. These crashes aren't easily reproducible, and I frankly don't have the time to bother debugging an application that I really don't use, and that crashes the few times I do try it out.

  22. The elephant in the room... by William_Lee · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am a big fan of Firefox in terms of philosophy and features, but have been driven to Opera (which I actually prefer for most things) due to the ridiculous amounts of memory that Firefox consumes. With multiple tabs open, I can routinely see Firefox over the course of a day or two of remaining open consume upwards of 900K, and it will continue to grow until it is shutdown and restarted. This is a serious issue for many Windows Firefox users, and the developers seem either unwilling or unable to focus on fixing it. This should have been the number one priority for version 2 in my opinion. It results in a shoddy product that would be unacceptable in a commercial application. Why is it that this elephant just sits in the room while FF developers pretend it's not there. Restarting an application should not be the solution to any problem, let alone one this serious. It's widespread and should have been addressed a long time ago!

  23. Re:YAY! by gamefreak1450 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.
    Probably not too many, seeing as how web developers rarely cater to the ~10% of users that use Firefox. Personally I like the features and standards-compliance of Firefox, but the fact that 90% or so people still use IE haunts me.
  24. Re:YAY! by Mercano · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Gah. With proprietary CSS extensions, they all have the moz prefix. Why couldn't they have taken advantage of XML\XHTML's namespacing features and put the attribute in its own namespace (i.e. moz:spellcheck). For what its worth, though, been using the FF2 betas/RCs for a while, and I love this feature.

    --
    #include <signature.h>
  25. Firefox 2.0 Themes by aplusjimages · · Score: 3, Informative

    They already have Firefox 2.0 themes out.

    --
    Can I bum a sig?
  26. 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)
  27. Re:YAY! by zmotula · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sorry for offtopic, but adding a new attribute that controls the spell checker reminded me of two similar functions. I would like to have a system solution for disabling text selection (because selecting web application interface is dumb) and disabling text completion for input boxes (because for some boxes the completion simply does not make sense). You might be familiar with this -- does WHATWG work on something like it?

  28. Reason to remain on Windows by Udo+Schmitz · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Only if IE is the most compelling reason to remain on Windows, which I suspect is not the case for most people.

    As long as there are web sites that are built for IE (important stuff like online banking) this is a reason for people to stay with IE and Windows. I hear it all the time. As IE looses more marketshare, companies are compelled to think about shutting out potential customers. That will lead to their web sites being compatible to web standards. That will make one less rason for people to switch away from windows. That again will lead to some chair throwing in Seattle.

  29. IE7's Zoom / Magnifier.. by Chicane-UK · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've now used Firefox exclusively for about a year and a half and as far as i'm concerned Microsofts neglect for IE for so long means that on principle alone, i'll never go back.

    But I do some website testing and as a result felt it was in my interests to install IE7 now that it is released and see what its like.

    Yes - shameless UI tweaks borrowed from Firefox and Opera (did we expect anything else?) but the one thing I do really like is the new magnifier feature for web pages. It just works really rather well and seems to handle most pages well.. and doesn't break formatting at all on any site I tried it on. It even scaled up Flash movies to 400% without making my machine die on its backside.

    So certainly for people with sight issues, it'd be hard not to reccomend!

    --
    "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"