Firefox 2 Review
After eleven months in development Firefox 2 is expected to be released tomorrow. As of this writing, Release Candidate 3 released last week will just be renamed to Firefox 2 and so be it. You can get Firefox 2 (on late Tuesday 24), here.
Since its first release, back in November 2004, the web browsers landscape has changed a lot. Competition is back and security, performance and features are again topics when talking about web browsers. Internet Explorer 7, Safari 2 and Opera 9 are all playing along and the great winners are of course us, the users.
Without more preamble, let’s give a look at Firefox 2.
First look: The visual refresh
Most apparent change in Firefox 2 is definitely its look. It was much criticized during its debut in Beta 2 because of its soft colors and somewhat enhanced for RC1 which is basically what we have here today. In general, we have glossy icons, integrated go and search buttons with their respective location and search bars, a new shape for the refresh buttons, glowing web feed and security icons and more distinguishable active and background tabs. Unfortunately some enhancements didn’t make it: integrating the location and progress bars a la Safari, which I would love to see. Another idea that made the round was converting the progress bar into a progress pie inside the throbber, which would make much sense. Other considerations like merging the stop and reload buttons and moving them inside the location bar along with the Go buttons didn’t make it either.
Firefox 2 in Windows XP with Luna Silver theme
Firefox 2 in MacOS X
Firefox 2 in Ubuntu 6.06
Reorganized user interface
As part of the user interface enhancements, the Options window got the most dramatic update, making it simpler and cleaner.
As you can see download options have been brought to the front, along with the option to start with the tabs and windows that were opened at last close time.
Simplified options in the Tabs options page. Plus an alert for warning when opening many tabs at a time, like when accidentally clicking on a Live Bookmark Show all in tabs.
The new Contents page. Again, streamlined and cleaner.
Simplicity is the key of the new Firefox user interface and the Feeds page keeps options down to two: subscribe automatically with the selected web feed reader or show me the web feed nicely formatted and ask me.
The Privacy page is where the most fat was removed mainly to the new Security page (below). Options have been reduced to a list of check boxes while all data is cleared from a single point in the Clear Private Data dialog.
The new Security page collects all security related options previously scattered among the Privacy, Contents and Advanced pages in one convenient view, including the new anti-phishing protection.
There is also a new dialog to enable/disable warning messages on web pages encryption levels.
The Advanced page shows a new option to enable/disable the spell checker. Also, the cache size option as well as proxy configuration have been moved to a new Network tab here.
The Go menu was renamed to more appropriate History, while Read mail option from the Tools menu was removed. New item Subscribe to this page… has been added to the Bookmarks menu.
Theme and extension management have been merged in a single interface, and I hope the same happens with dictionaries (keep on reading) and search plugins, as they all are Add-ons, the new label for themes and extensions. Developer oriented JavaScript Console has been renamed Error Console.
Anti-phishing
Protection has been added to alert when you visit a known fake site. An alert pops up with options to ignore it, report the site or go to somewhere else.
Anti-Phishing is activated in the Options/Advanced/Anti-Phishing tab. There are options to check web sites against a local black list (by default) updated periodically or a remote provider (like the default Google). The recommended option is to check against Google live black list which provides maximum security. Privacy concerned users can rest assured only the web address is shared as stated in the privacy policy you must accept to enable the enhanced protection.
If you encounter a phishing site that Firefox doesn’t properly identify, you can report it: in the Help menu, select Report Web Forgery and you’ll be able to help other users.
Session restore
If you experience a crash in Firefox, fear not. The next time you start Firefox, it will detect an abnormal shut down and will prompt you to choose whether you want to restore the open session or start a new one. As easy as that. Restore Session will bring back all tabs you had previously open but bets with all contents you may have been typing such as blog posts, comments or a long email.
You can also choose to always restore the previous session when you start Firefox. In the Tools menu, select Options…. In the Main page select Show my windows and tabs from last time and you are done.
Spell checking
Firefox 2 automatically checks any text entered in multiline text boxes for proper spelling. Any word not found in the currently selected dictionary is highlighted with a red underline. Right-click in the misspelled word and you are prompted with options to replace it with a suggested word, or add it to your personal dictionary. Your personal dictionary is stored in persdict.dat in your profile, so you may want to include this file when you backup your Firefox settings.
If you tend to write in more than one language, you can add as many dictionaries as needed. Just right click in a text box and select Languages>Add dictionaries… You will be directed to Mozilla Add-ons dictionaries section. Dictionaries are available as extensions, so just click on one of them and have it installed. Restart Firefox, and now you can select the proper dictionary.
Single line text boxes are not automatically checked for spelling, but you can force it by right-clicking on it and selecting Spell check this field. You can disable spell checking in multiline text boxes in the same way. To completely disable spell checking, in the Tools menu, select Options…, open the Advanced page, and in the General tab, uncheck Check my spelling as I type.
I have noticed what seems to be a bug in the spell checker: if you have some words marked as unrecognized, marks will disappear as soon as you press Enter to start a new paragraph.
Tab browsing
Firefox 2 finally gets tab overflow handling. If you usually have lots of tabs opened you should have noticed that in Firefox 1.5 and previous versions, tabs descriptions became increasingly short as more tabs were added, and at some point, tabs even overlapped with the close button. In Firefox 2, a minimum size has been defined for any tab so that there’s always a readable, understandable description. If more tabs need to be accommodated, scroll buttons are added to both edges of the tab bar, but you will find that the mouse wheel is a much more comfortable and efficient way to do it. There is also a new tab list button at the very right of the tab bar to easily select a tab.
Another change is the inclusion of the tab close button in every tab. If there are too many tabs, the close buttons is shown only in the active tab. For long time Firefox users this may be annoying at first, but I strongly suggest giving it a try. After months using the new layout I now find hard and unintuitive having a single close button. But if you want your single close button no matter what or would like the close button in the active tab only, or further customize tabs behavior, check this tip.
For those times when we have accidentally closed tabs where we were writing a very long email, a blog post or a forum comment, Firefox 2 now allows complete recovery of a closed tab. In the new History menu, select Recently Closed Tabs, and the tab you want to restore. It will magically reappear just as you left it.
Search enhancements
The search bar has learned some new tricks as well.
Sites that offer suggestions when you start to type a search word (like Google and Yahoo!) are now supported and suggestions are displayed as you type. Your search history takes precedence however and previously entered terms are displayed separately from suggested terms. Suggestions can be deactivated from the search bar by right-clicking and unchecking Show suggestions.
Sherlock, the previous search engine plugin format has been replaced with modern OpenSearch. You can still install Sherlock plugins (like the thousands available at the Mycroft project) and Firefox will convert them on the fly to the new format. With OpenSearch, Firefox can detect a search plugin offered by a web site and turn the background color of the search engines list button into blue. You can then press it and select Add search engine to have it available.
Finally, a complete search engine manager is now provided. Here you can remove and sort the installed search plugins, deactivate suggestions for all search engines, and, in case you accidentally delete a bundled plugin, an option to restore all of them. There is also a link to Mozilla Add-ons’ Search Engines section for more search engines.
Live Titles
When you bookmark a web page for which a microsummary generator is available, the Add Bookmark dialog will show an option to use the actual bookmark title or a Live Title, which is a small summary of the web page. For example for auction pages it could be the current price and remaining time for the auction to end. For a stock reports, it could be the current price and day variation. And options are literally endless as more web sites adopt this technology. It can be manually updated by right clicking on the bookmark.
Web feeds
Web feeds (RSS/Atom) handling has also been improved. A new setting in the General page in the Options window allows to specify how web feed subscriptions should be handled.
Options are to subscribe using a third party application such as Thunderbird, NewsGator, RSS Reader and others; a web feed aggregation service such as Bloglines, Google Reader, My Yahoo or NetVibes or just let Firefox handle your subscription as Live Bookmarks. To add more online web feed reader, check this tip.
Feeds are now displayed nicely formatted instead of the raw code (RSS/Atom) shown before when you clicked on an RSS/Atom web feed link. Above the contents, options to subscribe to the displayed feed are presented.
Even more enhancements
JavaScript has been updated to 1.7, with a number of enhancements for web developers. Accessibility has also got its fair share of updates as reported here.
In the security front, support for SSL version 2 (a weak version of SSL dating back to 1994) has been dropped. If you encounter a web site that fails to load because of this, you should really contact the web master to let him know the problem and update his web server to the better SSL version 3 or TLS 1 (both supported by Firefox). However a workaround exists.
A new installer is now available for Windows versions. It is now based on open source NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Installing System). It adds a couple of advantages over previous in-house developed Mozilla installer. First, it is a whole project dedicated to installing software so it delivers a higher level of flexibility and compatibility, including the option to download optional components/patches from the web at setup time, multiple languages in a single installer, patching and automated installation. Plus, NSIS is widely used by a number of other software makers so the interface may be already familiar for users.
Conclusion
Some people have voiced their concern that this release is not worth the 2.0 moniker. I however don’t understand the point. If numbers are to be believed, this version is as incremental as 1.5 was for 1.0 Firefox 1.5 basically brought the updates infrastructure, quick back and forward and tabs reordering, along with Clear Private Data. So, in terms of features, this update is sensibly larger, and makes it reasonable to sport at least the same version jump. Yes I know version numbers are not decimal, but I would like to see someone suggest this update should be called 1.10 with a straight face.
Firefox 2 brings a lot of usability enhancements that some old time users may found intrusive. While you get used to this changes you may want to try some customizations to better suite your taste.
I find Firefox 2 more stable than 1.5. I just can’t remember the last time it crashed. It still however has some memory clogging issues, though not as serious as in previous versions. Plus we can’t forget that Firefox is indeed a platform (that enables is extensibility) as well as an application so taking more memory should be expected. Some printing problems are still there and should get some attention for the next release, 3.0. I hope the Mozilla project may realize the importance of this and make an interim release focused in memory and printing alone.
The Future
Following Mozilla’s support policy, Firefox 1.5 will be supported until April 2007, 6 months from the latest release. But you have much more compelling reasons to update now: the features and the security enhancements.
Firefox 3 is already in the works under the code name Gran Paradiso. Among other enhancements, the inclusion of Places, a feature that integrates bookmarks and history in a single interface along with tag support, that should make bookmark pack rats more than happy. Also, Cairo should become Firefox’s graphic layer with some benefit including the possibility to natively opening and saving PDF files. Better support for upcoming Windows Vista, which is also already in the works.
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October 22nd, 2006 at 9:15 pm
Great review! Will link!
You’re right, Firefox 2 definitely deserves its version number. So many great improvements! I would feel handicapped going back to 1.5!
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October 22nd, 2006 at 9:18 pm
BTW, for those who think the Firefox 2 theme is too pale, I have made more saturated version, called… Saturated. Get it here:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=477553
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October 22nd, 2006 at 10:06 pm
You can also right click on the tab bar to undo the last closed tab, or use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl + Shift + T on Windows.
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October 23rd, 2006 at 6:27 pm
Another excellent review of an even better product!!
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October 23rd, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Great Review.
I’m using Mac and after downloading FireFox 2. it became my default browser first time since I moved to Mac.
I will say its worth 2
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October 23rd, 2006 at 7:11 pm
“merging the stop and reload buttons and moving them inside the location bar along with the Go buttons didn’t make it either.”
I hate the way IE 7 has this setup. All of the buttons should be close to the arrow buttons. I hate having to roll across the width of the screen to get to the stop button, especially on a laptop.
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October 23rd, 2006 at 8:43 pm
This is a good update, but I dont know whether I will do this update or not. I already use themes and extensions which provide me this functionality for firefox1.5.
Like I use Sessionsaver, which can already store sessions under various names, it restores sessions, crash recovery etc.
I already use Themes which are much better than the one this version sports.
Having options simplified doesnt attract me, since I am mostly a power user. I want more features rather than simplicity.
What should I update to 2.0 for? Only the tab overflow scrolling is one thing I am missing. Maybe there is already an extension which handles that. Btw, I already use Tabbrowser preferences plugin which gives me more control over tabs.
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October 23rd, 2006 at 9:49 pm
Version 2.0 is a welcome change- The new tab bar is worth it alone.
I’m just wondering when it will fully support XHTML+CSS2.
Great Job Guys
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October 23rd, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Gaurang: There are thousands of bugfixes in 2.0 vs 1.5.x, and 99% of options that were changed from the old options menu are still available in about:config. Almost all extensions work in 2.0 also, if you override their compatibility.
Memory usage has been a particular focus of 2.0 bugfixing and is much better than 1.5.x.
And, in a few months 1.5.x support will end and you will need 2.0.x to get security fixes.
Your themes may not work until they are updated. Temporarily change to the default theme while you update so that all works until you can check if your preferred theme is ready.
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October 23rd, 2006 at 10:19 pm
Great write-up will be linking shortly!
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October 23rd, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Congratulations - of course it deserves a full 2.0 number - anthing which encourages the unthinking masses to ditch IE is only a plus point. Of all the people I’ve ever persuaded to try Firefox (and I’ve tried with hundreds and succeeded with thirty or so) not one has returned to IE as their favoured browser (one’s since switched to Opera - she’s very clever and very lazy and loves their voice control!).
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October 23rd, 2006 at 11:43 pm
You forgot to mention they copied the “Add search engine” feature from Opera.
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October 23rd, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Also what wasn’t mentioned was that by default new windows open in tabs. Nice review.
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October 24th, 2006 at 12:41 am
Another reason to update: I’ve noticed that pages are loading much faster.
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October 24th, 2006 at 12:41 am
I have found a major annoyance in FF RC3, hope they fix it on the next one….. pressing the “/” key still brings out the quick search button, but it no longer has the “find next” and “find previous” buttons next to it. I will probably switch back to FF 1.5 if this is not addressed, saves me a lot of time when searching for articles and skimming through text. If somebody knows the solution please let me know.
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October 24th, 2006 at 1:58 am
“merging the stop and reload buttons … didn’t make it either.”
NEVER EVER DO THIS! Safari does this and it’s BAD. If your UI is laggy at all — like it gets with apps that take a lot of memory — the Stop doesn’t respond ’til the page is finished loading, and by the time your click arrives the Reload button is waiting to receive it.
So, you get to load a slow page TWICE instead of interrupting it like you intended. BAD, BAD UI.
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October 24th, 2006 at 5:25 am
Will FF 1.5 extensions like Google Toolbar, Developer Extension,greasemOnkey work etc etc work simply by altering the versioning of the extension?
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October 24th, 2006 at 6:03 am
Although devoted to Mozilla, I do find the Opera context menu item (when clicking in the address bar) “Paste and Go” very handy.
One of my annoyances with Firefox is wrt the sidebar. If you have added a page to open in the sidebar (like I do at work) - and you right click a link and select “Copy link location” - it doesn’t copy the link to the clipboard.
That said, overall I am happy with the Oct 23rd build. The theme looks pretty different on Mac/Windows - but they both look pretty damn good.
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October 24th, 2006 at 9:25 am
If firefox takes up too much memory, I’d simply exit it and then open it up again, with the tabs from last time ;)
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October 24th, 2006 at 9:42 am
“locorules says: but it no longer has the “find next” and “find previous” buttons next to it”
I haven’t check with version 2 yet but in version 1.5 you can press “F3″ for find next and “Shift F3″ for find previous.
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October 24th, 2006 at 10:50 am
locorules says: but it no longer has the “find next” and “find previous” buttons next to it
Find next: ctrl-g; Find previous: ctrl-shift-g.
It even continues working when the search bar is gone.
In response to va/’s concerns about merging the stop and reload buttons. Use Esc for stop and ctrl-r for reload - then you don’t have to fight with your mouse/touchpad/trackpoint at all. :)
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October 24th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
GOOD!
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October 24th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
FF2 Very nice!
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October 25th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Is there a tool that tells me which of my current themes/extensions will work/not work with firefox 2.0 ?
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October 25th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
I here everyone saying that this release is so much more stable than 1.5(or whatever decimal they were up to before this release)
Personally I have been having problems with Firefox2 just freezing up on me and me having to exit Firefox. Of course I am able to use the restore feature which is nice.
I relize that this problem is just probably local to me and that for most people it works just fine.
If anyone has any idea why it freezes on me than please post.
Thanks.
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October 25th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
“support for SSL version 2 (a weak version of SSL dating back to 1994) has been dropped. If you encounter a web site that fails to load because of this, you should really contact the web master to let him know the problem and update his web server to the better SSL version 3 or TLS 1 (both supported by Firefox). However a workaround exists and I’ll publish it later as part of a number or tweaks for Firefox 2.”
Would you kindly email me the workaround you mentioned, as I am not likely to convince California Department of Justice to change their ways… ;-) (slavickv [at] yahoo.com)
TIA
Percy Cabello: I’ve obscured your email address to hopefully save you some spam.
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October 25th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Firefox 2.0 add next to no benefit. And worse, now that it does not support SSL 2.0, I can no longer use sites I need to use on a daily basis. I don’t see a way to downgrade. So now I have no choice but to stop using the product and go back to using MSIE. Dropping SSL 2.0 support is an arrogant move that ignores reality and disregards to choices and needs of users. It is the sort of thing Apple would do.
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October 25th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Lawrence/Slavick, the workaround is here: http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2006/10/firefox-2-tweaks-more-tweaks/
Good samaritans, I’ve already emailed Slavick on this. Thanks.
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October 26th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Excelent job!! …when some on Thunderbird? ;)
Chaufas
-roger
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October 29th, 2006 at 5:02 am
Yes it`s true that you can get extensions for many of the new firefox version features. but the thing here is that if for any reason you need to uninstall firefox or format the computer, installing all the extensions again is time consuming (first you`ll have to remember what did you install in the first time). so it`s more easy to have a single version that has all that
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October 30th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
I still prefer the old icon set of Firefox 1.5 - it was much more distinctive.
2.0 seems like a nice, if undramatic update. It seems to be increasingly hard to find where Firefox is going to put its options, as they change about with each update.
I think 2.0 is not as stable as 1.5 and it seems to use up more RAM. Stability and compatibility is paramount for any browser and I hope the development team don’t forget this.
It certainly has the compatibility - it’s even better than IE at this stage, IMO. 1.5 was pretty rock solid, too, and I’m hoping it stays that way. Stability (or lack thereof) is the reason I can’t use Opera.
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November 5th, 2006 at 12:53 am
I expect it will take several weeks for most extensions to catch up so will wait for a bit. ;)
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November 6th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
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November 19th, 2006 at 8:45 am
The new ’scrolling tabs’ in Firefox 2 slow down my work process considerably because I have lots of windows open and have to scroll to tabs instead of having them all bunched together. Here I can quickly see which tab I need and click directly. Now I have to scroll and scroll and scroll the tabs… disaster!
I have now uninstalled Firefox 2 and re-installed Firefox 1.5.08.
Lets hope Mozilla will update Firefox 2 with an option of using the old tab system and the new (less handy) tab process.
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November 19th, 2006 at 9:30 am
B.Green you can indirectly change the number of tabs you can see in a window before activating the overflow feature by setting the minimum width a tab can have. Check http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2006/10/firefox-2-tweaks-tab-browsing/ for instructions. Try a value of 50.
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