The second coming.

October 23, 2006 3:40 PM

Get Firefox 2.0 a day early. (mirror) via slashdot
posted by Mr_Zero (69 comments total)

You linked to the same win32, UK-Locale executable that Slashdot did.

Try here.
posted by gurple at 3:44 PM on October 23, 2006

Does the del.icio.us extension work yet?
posted by xmutex at 3:46 PM on October 23, 2006

The del.icio.us extension wasn't working when I installed a few minutes ago. Hopefully it will be updated soon.
posted by jjb at 3:48 PM on October 23, 2006

MetaFilthy ain't working either. I do like the built in spell check, though.
posted by brundlefly at 3:49 PM on October 23, 2006

You linked to the same win32, UK-Locale executable that Slashdot did.

Lucky for me that I'm in the UK and use Windows!

Well, maybe not so lucky on number two.
posted by reklaw at 3:50 PM on October 23, 2006

Or get it via bit torrent

here
posted by sien at 3:53 PM on October 23, 2006

win32 en-US here
posted by damn dirty ape at 3:57 PM on October 23, 2006

A lot of these firefox extensions don't work simply because the max version extension is set to low. You can get an extension that lowers your version number, supposedly.
posted by delmoi at 3:57 PM on October 23, 2006

And, by the way, I've been using the RC for a while. I think I can wait a day for official release (btw, bookmark organization is totally wack)
posted by delmoi at 3:57 PM on October 23, 2006

Mac version here
posted by pwb503 at 4:10 PM on October 23, 2006

If you're having extension trouble try using MR Tech Local Install. It allows installing extensions that have the Maxversion set too low.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 4:16 PM on October 23, 2006

What's an extension? Theyre called "add-ons" now along with only being able to show 9 lousy tabs at 1024x768. *grumble*
posted by damn dirty ape at 4:26 PM on October 23, 2006

Nice! On the Mac version they fixed the tabs closure button. Before it was way off to the right, completely separated from the actual tab.

So far it feels very fast and much more "Mac-like."
posted by letitrain at 4:30 PM on October 23, 2006

Umm... did you really need to link directly to the download?
posted by anotherpanacea at 4:31 PM on October 23, 2006

Yeah, not to piss on the FPP, but really a link to a Window's exe with no warning? I'm glad to see the Mac version has been linked, but my first thought on seeing the download start was 'W.T.F.?'

Other than that minor complaint, Yay! new Firefox!
posted by quin at 4:37 PM on October 23, 2006

Nice title as well. Very... biblical.
posted by quin at 4:40 PM on October 23, 2006

Nightly Tester Tools allows you to force compatibility with older extensions. May not work for all, but I got del.icio.us running on my Firefox 2.0 install that way.
posted by Goblindegook at 4:43 PM on October 23, 2006

What's an extension? Theyre called "add-ons" now along with only being able to show 9 lousy tabs at 1024x768. *grumble*

Wait, is this really in 2.0? If that's the case, I'm sticking with 1.5 like I stuck with Netscape 4.0 way too long.
posted by jmd82 at 4:49 PM on October 23, 2006

jmd82, damn dirty ape is referring to the new, craptastic version of IE.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 4:52 PM on October 23, 2006

No I'm not. Install it for yourself and see. I know there's a hack to fix this but its still a lousy UI choice. Its like the mozilla people and MS are in a battle to see who can come up with crapier UI changes.
posted by damn dirty ape at 4:55 PM on October 23, 2006

Oh god, you're right...
posted by synaesthetichaze at 4:56 PM on October 23, 2006

Install Tab Mix Plus and you can get rid of the tab scrollbar at 10+.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 4:58 PM on October 23, 2006

Tab Mix Plus isn't officially available for 2.0 yet, but there's an early release of the 2.0 compatible version here.
posted by Espy Gillespie at 5:02 PM on October 23, 2006

Please, please, please wait a few more hours for the official release. Preed, Mozilla's build/release engineer has a note for everyone who is rushing to download Firefox 2.

So please... just remember: "Preed the Release Engineer says: friends don't let friends download Firefox before it's released."

We know everyone's excited for the 2.0 release. We are too. But give us 24 hours, so we can make sure that your first experience with Firefox 2.0 is befitting of everyone's hard work on this major release.

I promise it's worth the wait.

preed's blah-blah-blahg: The Anti-release
posted by gen at 5:07 PM on October 23, 2006

gen: Perhaps then preed should not have made it available.
posted by xmutex at 5:12 PM on October 23, 2006

Damn fine browser, but why didn't it just get called 1.6? No major new features.
posted by Twang at 5:14 PM on October 23, 2006

I promise it's worth the wait.

I always wait until FF automatically updates. I find I have far less extension grief that way.
posted by taosbat at 5:14 PM on October 23, 2006

Is it any different from RC3? Or what that "candidate" just deemed good enough to release?
posted by TonyRobots at 5:42 PM on October 23, 2006

There's a nasty bug on the mac version: if you play a flash video, like at YouTube, and then open a new window, the keyboard is disabled. It took me ages to work out what was causing it.
posted by bonaldi at 6:33 PM on October 23, 2006

I can't stand the Mac version of FireFox, it irritates me to no end that Google does not support Safari for it's fancy stuff because FireFox is a bloated piece of Flash-crashing shit on my Intel MacBook.

I'm not sure why FireFox sucks so much on Apple.
posted by onalark at 6:37 PM on October 23, 2006

Grr. I hate the individual close buttons. They make jesus cry.
posted by oxford blue at 6:39 PM on October 23, 2006

Wait for the actual release, people. Or, just follow the link gen posted and read that.
posted by kalessin at 7:24 PM on October 23, 2006

DAmn Dirt Ape:

go to about:config, and find browser.tabs.tabMinWidth, then set this to 0 (no min width) and it'll work like 1.5 used to.

I think it also gets rid of the scroll arrow thing.
posted by claudius at 7:42 PM on October 23, 2006

Here's a couple more links from the developers: Firefox 2 has not yet been officially released & It's not like we're ashamed.
posted by bob sarabia at 7:53 PM on October 23, 2006

I've yet to download Firefox 2.0 but from what I've read, I am underwhelmed. I'll download it and probably use it, for sure, but it dosen't seem like a quantum leap forward like the step from Internet Explorer to Firefox 1.0 was. For instance, the very idea of tabbed browsing was, I believe for a lot of people, such a major step in functionality that it redefined our browsing habits.

I had considered making this an AskMe question, but I used mine late last week so I can't. So I'll ask it here.

My question to all the tech-heads out there. What does Firefox 2.0 offer in terms of major advancements in what a web browser can do? And if the answer is nothing, what major advancements can we expect from future releases? If the answer is nothing, what features should web browsers be implementing in the future to make us all excited about the next browser upgrade?
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:03 PM on October 23, 2006

Out of curiosity, what add-ons are all you crazy kids using these days anyway?

Right now, I have installed Google Browser Sync and IE Tab. Is there anything I'm missing?

Oh, and using 2.0 to post this, I must say that the built-in spell-check is pretty damned sweet.
posted by Tacos Are Pretty Great at 8:25 PM on October 23, 2006

Depends. Are we talking my home install, or my TorPark 1.5.0.7 USB stick install so I can get places from work?
posted by Samizdata at 8:56 PM on October 23, 2006

I'll download it and probably use it, for sure, but it dosen't seem like a quantum leap forward like the step from Internet Explorer to Firefox 1.0 was.

That's probably more because you weren't paying attention than anything else. Many of the big features Firefox "introduced" were actually first coded years ago. Tabbed browsing first entered the Mozilla codebase way back in 2001 with Mozilla 0.9.5; pop-up blocking even earlier, with Mozilla 0.8. The HTML rendering engine, Gecko, hasn't really changed for a couple of years now (which is why some are pooh-poohing this release and waiting for Firefox 3.0, which will finally see some major changes to the rendering engine).

In fact, when Firefox was still just a Mozilla side project called Phoenix, it was fairly feature complete—and that was 2002. All the pieces were already in place, and it was mainly bug fixes and a hell of a lot of tweaking before 1.0 came out in 2004. But if you'd been following the project at all before then, you'd have thought of 1.0 not so much as a major landmark in browser design, but rather the chance to finally push marketing out to the masses who would've been reluctant to pick up anything labelled "beta."

The road to Firefox 1.0 was two years (if you're being stingy) to four or five years (if you're being generous). If you include some of the stuff added with 1.5, like the simple RSS reader, then the last two years look fairly productive, though obviously not on the scale of pre-FF1.
posted by chrominance at 9:34 PM on October 23, 2006

What does Firefox 2.0 offer in terms of major advancements in what a web browser can do?

Not much. The primary considerations for Firefox 2 were UI improvements, better integration of components, better adherence to web standards, and tighter footprint.

Most major architectural changes in the works have been targeted for Firefox 3. Firefox 2 is basically a stabilization release for the next year or less, in keeping with Mozilla strategy to keep product improvement on a regular schedule.

I think everybody recognizes that "wow" changes like tabbed browsing are not really something you can just pull out of your hat. This is now a mature product that will receive periodic major releases. This is as much about customer confidence as anything else.
posted by dhartung at 9:41 PM on October 23, 2006

What does Firefox 2.0 offer in terms of major advancements in what a web browser can do?

The only two things I've really spotted in my week of use with the beta is spellcheck and session restore, as in if you need to reboot it goes back and opens all your old tabs and windows.
posted by trinarian at 9:51 PM on October 23, 2006

What trinarian said. I just started using it but I really like the spellcheck and session restore. Not that those are major advancements, just upgrades from the previous version. A couple annoying things I've noticed so far is the individual close buttons for each tab and the inability to have the search bar open in a new tab by default.

Out of curiosity, what add-ons are all you crazy kids using these days anyway?


I'd say the must-haves are adblock, adblock filterset.G updater, flashblock, greasemonkey, and noscript. Some optional ones I use are unplug, web developer, linkification, bugmenot, cacheit, remove it permanently, customizegoogle, platypus, and fasterfox.
posted by bob sarabia at 12:22 AM on October 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

Maybe 2.0 will actually work on my machine, unlike 1.5.0.7 which won't function with any SSL enabled sites, such as gmail.
posted by spicynuts at 7:03 AM on October 24, 2006

Being able to reopen a tab you've accidentally closed == major improvement, as far as I'm concerned.

But having individual close buttons on every tab == major regression. When there was one close button over on the right, you always knew exactly where it was. When there are lots of little ones, you have to hunt for it, and it becomes possible to accidentally close a tab when you're trying to just click on it, and it takes up too much space, and with the favicons in the tabs too it just turns into a row of visual noise up there. Blech. I hope someone comes out with an extension to switch that back to the old way pronto.
posted by ook at 7:05 AM on October 24, 2006

I already have all of these tab features (session saver individual close buttons etc) from Tab Mix Plus and Too Many Tabs extensions. Have they fixed the memory leak problems yet?
posted by stratastar at 7:17 AM on October 24, 2006

Funnily enough I just loaded Tab-x the other day which adds the individual buttons. There was another feature - move tabs around? - that made me get it. I've accidentally closed a few tabs but otherwise it's just a thing to get used to.

I have greasemonkey, flashblock, ConQuery, PdfDownload, PasteAndGo, Metafilthy, SessionSaver, GoogleImagesRelinker, Delicious, ReloadEvery, Translate, SearchPluginsHack, WebmailCompose, IETab and Quicknote.

I might wait a bit before jumping to the FF2 upgrade.
posted by peacay at 7:18 AM on October 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

I just started using it but I really like the spellcheck and session restore.

Session restore is definitely a Good Thing8212;it has been available in extensions for some time, but it's nice to see it as part of the codebase now.

A couple annoying things I've noticed so far is the individual close buttons for each tab

I've been using Tab Mix Plus for some time, and have gotten used to the individual close buttons (though sometimes, with my lousy touchpad, they're more trouble than they're worth), but I like that they're an option in TMP. I haven't installed 2.0 yet8212;can you really not turn off the individual close buttons?

Out of curiosity, what add-ons are all you crazy kids using these days anyway?

Aside from TMP, essential extensions include Forecastfox Enhanced, Adblock Plus (w/ Filterset.G Updater), Tabbrowser Preferences, Greasemonkey, FireFTP, Download Manager Tweak, EditCSS and BugMeNot.
posted by dilettanti at 7:20 AM on October 24, 2006

Out of curiosity, what add-ons are all you crazy kids using these days anyway?

Mouse gestures, Seriously, download Mouse Gestures 1.5.2, and then remap 'close tab' to 'down'. It'll take you about two days to get used to it, and then you will never in a million years be able to go back. You can do everything with the mouse in the actual browser window, and never have to worry about buttons or other weirdness with the UI.
posted by Mayor West at 7:24 AM on October 24, 2006

Its about time they moved the close buttons to the tabs....thank goodness. Its makes a ton more sense from a usability perspective.
posted by rsanheim at 7:37 AM on October 24, 2006

Out of curiosity, what add-ons are all you crazy kids using these days anyway?

If you make web pages, Firebug is absolutely essential.
posted by rsanheim at 7:39 AM on October 24, 2006

Will it enable Metafilter to be online more often?
posted by Joeforking at 8:12 AM on October 24, 2006

spicynuts wrote: "Maybe 2.0 will actually work on my machine, unlike 1.5.0.7 which won't function with any SSL enabled sites, such as gmail."

Wait, what? I don't understand what you're saying here - this doesn't work, period, or this doesn't work specifically on your machine? Because I use FF 1.5.07 on Gmail basically every day and haven't ever seen any problems. I'm not sure why it wouldn't work for you unless it's an OS-specific issue, in which case a new version of FF isn't necessarily going to help if the underlying OS is the root cause of the problem.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:32 AM on October 24, 2006

Its makes a ton more sense from a usability perspective.

How so? The only task it makes easier is closing a tab when it's in the background. (And how often do you want to do that?) I suppose it also makes the purpose of the close button a little more obvious for novice users, by associating the button with the tab. I don't think those improvements outweigh the many drawbacks I listed above.
posted by ook at 9:39 AM on October 24, 2006

The speed improvement of 2.0 over 1.6 is huge - and easily justifies the download. FF 2.0 appears to be as fast as IE7 on my machine.

I have both FF 2.0 and IE7 installed on my machine. Both appear to be excellent browsers.

Oh and my extension of choice is Foxmarks (which works with 2.0). Superb for syncing bookmarks between machines.
posted by bobbyelliott at 10:07 AM on October 24, 2006

ook: From Google's usability tests on tabbed browsing:

Put close buttons on the tabs. This makes it a lot easier to close tabs with the mouse. People weren't seeing the [old style] close box in the usability test. It's also out of the way and not connected with what's actually being closed. Mindful of stealing space from the tab strip when there are many tabs, the close boxes on inactive tabs are hidden when the tab width falls below a certain minimum value.

There is some discussion about accidentally closing tabs, especially if you have a close button like Safari (small and close to the edge). If its done right, though, its much easier for new users to understand when its right on the tab.

That said, I almost always use keyboard shortcuts, and only use the button for background windows, and I imagine most experienced users do the same.
posted by rsanheim at 10:18 AM on October 24, 2006

I have the close button on both the individual tabs and on the side of my tab bar because sometimes it's more convenient for me to do it this way or that. I use many of the extensions folks have mentioned. One of my favorites that hasn't been mentioned is Update Notifier.

bobbyelliott, I'm happy to hear that.
posted by taosbat at 10:49 AM on October 24, 2006

taosbat: How do you get the tab close buttons to do that? I'd love to get that to work.
posted by adrianhon at 11:22 AM on October 24, 2006

rsanheim: that's interesting; I hadn't seen that... but based on the discussion in that thread, there's far from a consensus on which is the "right" way.

Looks like their testing focused primarily on novice users (or at least on people who weren't used to using tabs) -- so maybe this is one of those novice vs. poweruser things. Or maybe it's one of those 'you can't please everybody' things.

That said, I almost always use keyboard shortcuts, and only use the button for background windows, and I imagine most experienced users do the same.

I almost always use keyboard shortcuts to close a tab or window, but the mouse to navigate from one tab to another (until today I didn't even know there was a keyboard shortcut for that)... I'd imagine that's not unusual, since 'close' is a system-wide and commonly known shortcut, while 'select a different tab' isn't. So having a close button on each tab is going to cause more problems for me than it solves (since now every time I go to select a background tab I'm at risk of accidentally closing it instead.)
posted by ook at 11:55 AM on October 24, 2006

But aha! hooray for about:config...

setting browser.tabs.closeButtons to 0 puts the close button only on the current tab, and setting it to 2 eliminates it altogether. That's good enough for me.
posted by ook at 11:58 AM on October 24, 2006

One of the following extensions add-on updates has just destroyed FF2 on the Mac: delicious; Fangs; dictionary search. My viewport has shifted off to the left and, apart from about 1cm of web content, all I can see is white. In Windows, I'd usually fix this my deleting the Chrome file, but there's no sign of it in the "usual" OS X location. Now I'm really pissed off.
posted by TheDonF at 12:03 PM on October 24, 2006

adrianhon: I use Tab Mix Plus; under Options click Display > Tab Bar & select 'Show: Close tab button;' then click the 'Tab' tab and select 'Show: Close tab button.' Right under that, you can pick whether it should be on 'all,' 'current' or 'pointed to.' Click Apply > OK and you're done.
posted by taosbat at 12:10 PM on October 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

Mmm, found the chrome dir, deleted it, re-started it, no change. Twat.
posted by TheDonF at 12:15 PM on October 24, 2006

Is 2.0 still incompatible with system themes? I like how 1.5 meshes nicely with my Gnome theme (one I made myself), and if there isn't a workaround in 2.0, I'm not going to "upgrade" anytime soon.
posted by jiawen at 1:18 PM on October 24, 2006

BTW, it's now "official". You can download 2.0 from mozilla.com
posted by wendell at 2:32 PM on October 24, 2006

Out of curiosity, what add-ons are all you crazy kids using these days anyway?

PDF Download, Tab Mix Plus (which, sadly, doesn't seem to work with 2.0) , Gmail Space, Web Developer, and most importantly, MR Tech Install.

Do not underestimate the power of MR Tech Install.

The built-in spell check is the bomb, btw (albeit a no-brainer). I just added btw to my dictionary.
posted by mrgrimm at 4:25 PM on October 24, 2006

I like it so far, after using it for most of the workday. Session saver is great, as I found TabMixPlus to be unstable on my system.

Like ook said:
In the address box type about:config and press enter. Type browser.tabs.closeButtons in the Filter section. Change the value to suit your preference:
* 0 - Close button on open tab only
* 1 - Close buttons on all tabs (default)
* 2 - No close buttons at all (use middle click to close tabs)
* 3 - Close button on the far right (old school)

I also recommend Mouse Gestures, they are great once you get used to it.
posted by gemmy at 4:53 PM on October 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

Anyone notice problems with access keys? Several websites I build use access keys; for some reason they don't work in FF2. At all. No information about this so far from Google searching on the issue.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:52 PM on October 24, 2006

Oops. Never mind - found the answer. It now requires you to press [alt]-[shift]+[access key]. And for some reason it now refuses to let me use numbers as access keys, which kind of ticks me off...
posted by caution live frogs at 6:55 PM on October 24, 2006

Another OS X bug : click & hold (for those times you must engage in one-handed websurfing ;) no longer brings up a context menu as it did in 1.5 (& per OS X UI guidelines).

Mind you, it never did in Safari either...

(I realise this outs me as a one-button mouse lover - an even bigger pervert than the one handed websurfing comment suggests - so I shall now slink away...)
posted by Pinback at 7:27 PM on October 24, 2006

For posterity: about:config, set ui.click_hold_context_menus to "true".
posted by Pinback at 7:48 PM on October 24, 2006