Firefox 1.0 released
November 9, 2004 2:20 PM   Subscribe

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 was released today. Servers are reportedly being hit hard so you might want to try a bittorrent download. Comments from: The BBC, PC World, InformationWeek and a very good article from The Boston Globe. Users needing support should check out the Mozillazine Support Forums.
posted by KirkJobSluder (74 comments total)
 
The only problem is that almost none of the add-ins have been updated to work with 1.0. I need my close tab on double-click!
posted by mal_constant at 2:43 PM on November 9, 2004


Mozilla 1.7.1 forever
posted by punishinglemur at 2:43 PM on November 9, 2004


See also
posted by DrJohnEvans at 2:44 PM on November 9, 2004


I installed it (on WIN2000), I'm using it now, I don't see any difference from the older FireFox version I was using until a few hours ago. I'm lame, I know.
posted by matteo at 2:56 PM on November 9, 2004


CNet News calls the flooding of Mozilla servers a "Success Crisis.

Note: although the previous FPP mentioned the release, it is more about the issue of alt/title tag rendering on images. I was more interested in what was being said about the release.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 2:57 PM on November 9, 2004




hehe!

not much of a difference here either- of course i didn't read the changelog but you can right here!

http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/1.0.html

using it on my pc (win2k) and mac (10.3) with no complains or problems. the tabbed browsing is especially nice when catching up on stuff here at mefi.
posted by tsuki777 at 3:01 PM on November 9, 2004


Aww, all you PC people can't use Safari.
posted by xmutex at 3:05 PM on November 9, 2004


I had no problem downloading it to each of my computers from the main site this morning and afternoon. Was there a big holdup earlier?
posted by mathowie at 3:06 PM on November 9, 2004


xmutex, you just wait until I get my iBook back...
posted by matteo at 3:13 PM on November 9, 2004


"Firefox is one of the coolest and most exciting projects out there," said Lustig, who uses the Internet browser for researching school reports and creating websites. "They're harnessing the power of community on the Web, like the Howard Dean thing."

Sorry, that made me giggle. Go Firefox though - one of the nicest pieces of software to come out in a long time - how long until AOL actuall starts promoting it?
posted by Jimbob at 3:14 PM on November 9, 2004


I got my copy earlier today from the official 'torrent, and it took about 20 seconds. Go Bittorrent! Go Firefox! Open Source is GO!
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:19 PM on November 9, 2004


I could use Safari, but have always used Mozilla/Firefox...what does Safari offer that I should miss?
posted by freebird at 3:23 PM on November 9, 2004


Firefox is pretty cool for weening people off of IE, but if you're looking for something a bit faster and more friendly, try out Opera. It's the cat's pajamas, without a doubt.

There's even an Preview of 7.6, for the adventurous among you.
posted by lotsofno at 3:23 PM on November 9, 2004


how long until AOL actuall starts promoting it?

Considering AOL laid off all the Mozilla developers, and they have a 7 year contract with Microsoft to use IE as the default browser in the AOL service, I'd say it will be a while.

I thought this version was going to have the "open new windows in new tabs" functionality built-in. Guess not. Oh well. (It does have it for links opened outside the browser, but not for links opened in the browser.)

I know about Tabbrowser Extensions/Preferences, etc., but they're a pain.
posted by mcguirk at 3:29 PM on November 9, 2004


Someone convince me why I should switch from IE to Moz/Fire.
posted by Mach3avelli at 3:32 PM on November 9, 2004


Oh, I see, it is there, but it's an "experimental" option that you have to turn on by changing a setting in about:config. (See the changelog linked above.)

When I didn't see it in the dialogs or the What's New page on mozilla.org, I thought it wasn't there...
posted by mcguirk at 3:33 PM on November 9, 2004


Someone convince me why I should switch from IE to Moz/Fire.

It's more better. And more safer. And more standards compliant.

Less adware, not vulnerable to exploits when viewing JPGs, no ActiveX baloney. It has tabs! IE still doesn't have tabbed browsing does it? Number One reason right there, you'll never go back.

And hot chicks and dudes go crazy for Mozilla/Firefox. It's like some kinda Open Source pheromone or something, seriously.
posted by freebird at 3:38 PM on November 9, 2004


Someone convince me why I should switch from IE to Moz/Fire.

Why not install it and try it yourself? I found that the tabbed browsing makes sites like Google News much more manageable. I've also found extensions like Adblock and Mouse Gestures have made my ability to get around from page to page a little quicker, both navigation and bandwidth-wise. (And the new IE "plugin" I mentioned above is just the same old Microsoft feature)

Firefox is nice because it starts with the essentials and lets you add the rest.
posted by eyeballkid at 3:39 PM on November 9, 2004


Using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer is like having an ice cream sundae instead of stabbing yourself in the eye with a fork. Some people just prefer it.
posted by waldo at 4:08 PM on November 9, 2004


What the crap. Does anyone else have this seeming bug in 1.0 final where you can't frickin copy text to the clipboard?
posted by xmutex at 4:18 PM on November 9, 2004


Someone convince me why I should switch from IE to Moz/Fire.

I switched starting a few years ago because all the cool people at MeFi were doing so . . . and I desperately wanted to be one of them.

Although that stabbing yourself in the eye with a fork does sound like fun.
posted by LeLiLo at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2004


Someone convince me why I should stop putting salt in my eye.
posted by Voivod at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2004


xmutex: No.
posted by raysmj at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2004


Does it still have that insane "feature" that SHOWS your saved passwords?
posted by sageleaf at 4:34 PM on November 9, 2004


That's a good question. I was stunned when I found that out. On one hand, it is inherently insecure to save passwords locally and not require a password to access them. They're clearly in a file somewhere without any security protecting them. On the other hand, should it really be so damn easy to see them??
posted by smackfu at 4:45 PM on November 9, 2004


I keep trying Firefox, and keep uninstalling it. Just don't like the 'feel'. I'll stay with Maxthon (which is 'merely' a wrapper for the IE renderer, I know) for now.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:46 PM on November 9, 2004


The saved passwords thing has caused jaw drops from everyone I've showed it to. I accused my husband of confusing 'user names' with 'passwords' until I saw it and my jaw dropped.

stav, the default layout is less than ideal, so a little tweaking of the toolbars might make the feel a little better.
posted by sageleaf at 4:52 PM on November 9, 2004


I switched from Netscape to Firefox last month and downloaded the 1.0 "preview release." Do I need to get something new now?
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:52 PM on November 9, 2004


The saved passwords thing has caused jaw drops from everyone I've showed it to. I accused my husband of confusing 'user names' with 'passwords' until I saw it and my jaw dropped.

Of course, you can always set a "master password," which would Firefox would require before allowing you to see or use any stored passwords.

The reason it's not a default setting is probably because IE does it the insecure way by default, and we want people to migrate easily.

CunningLinguist: Yes. The Preview Release is a beta version; this is the finished product. It should be a very simple upgrade for you - just download and run.
posted by Coda at 5:07 PM on November 9, 2004


For you Mac folks, there are also unofficial G4 and G5 optimized builds available (see close to the end of each thread).
posted by mrbill at 5:09 PM on November 9, 2004


Someone convince me why I should switch from IE to Moz/Fire.

Find-as-you-type.

I love tabs, I love the security, I love the lightweightness, and I really, really love extensions.

But the one must-have feature for me is find-as-you-type. Any webpage, I just start typing and hop right to that text. If I want to find only links, I type ' before my keywords.
posted by rafter at 5:12 PM on November 9, 2004


hey look where www.safarisucks.com goes!

teehee.
posted by glenwood at 5:15 PM on November 9, 2004


Argh - coda, I just downloaded and installed and most of my extensions are no longer compatible and what the hell do I do now? The old version seems to be gone.
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:18 PM on November 9, 2004


CunningLinguist: about:config, set extentions.disabledObsolete to false
posted by christy at 5:32 PM on November 9, 2004


err extensions, that is
posted by christy at 5:32 PM on November 9, 2004


Any Mac ppl tried Shiira yet? Someone just sent me a link.
posted by dobbs at 5:34 PM on November 9, 2004


one annoyance: smart bookmarks -- if I want to go to the main page of a blog, there is no way to do it without using a regular bookmark. I wish if I clicked on the smart bookmark, it would do just that...
posted by krunk at 5:42 PM on November 9, 2004


I have been using Mozilla as my browser for a while now, and it's ok. I use it mainly because I like the integrated email and the html editor. The email is equivalent with outlook, (way better than express) and its free. The editor is pretty good too. That said, I have never understood the fuss about the tabbed browsing. You can do virtually the same thing in IE by just hitting Ctrl N and opening a new window. Whats the difference?
posted by MetalDog at 5:48 PM on November 9, 2004


Someone convince me why I should switch from IE to Moz/Fire.

Simple. Because of shit like this.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:15 PM on November 9, 2004


I've been using it for about an hour new on MacOS 10.3 and quite frankly, I think it renders pages far quicker than Safari does, and the scroll-down menus are a heluva lot faster. So far - I'm hooked.
posted by tgrundke at 6:21 PM on November 9, 2004


mcguirk, that's too bad, because I was just using 1.0PR1 and the option was there. I just installed 1.0 final and it's gone! I wonder what prompted them to remove it from the menu. At least one can get to it through about:config.
posted by zsazsa at 6:22 PM on November 9, 2004


For me, what really makes Firefox (and even beats Opera) is the Adblock extension. You can just make them all go away. Including the ones on Mefi.
posted by muckster at 6:40 PM on November 9, 2004


Re: revealing paswords - in FF 0.9.1, when i go Tools/Options/Saved Passwords, I see my username for any given site - but no passwords at all. If FF 1.0 does show pass words, this would be another reason to remain where I am, and not upgrade.
posted by dash_slot- at 6:52 PM on November 9, 2004


Does it still have the shitty multi-coloured 'theme'? There was a brief moment on OS X when it has a monochrome grey theme and looked like it could best Safari ... and then one point upgrade later it was back to XP-esque ass.
posted by bonaldi at 6:58 PM on November 9, 2004


Good grief.

All you people that are getting so excited about FireFox are going to cream when you discover Opera. Seriously, Opera has had everything mentioned about FireFox for simply years and has a whole lot more besides.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:21 PM on November 9, 2004


Opera has RSS updated bookmarks, FFFish?

You know what I dislike about Firefox? You try to drag an image from a PHP page onto your desktop and you get a link, not a jpeg. I save a lot of images from the web for, uh, research purposes, and the only reason i use Safari anymore is because I can drag images onto folders and have the images come down, not the PHP link.

Maybe that has been fixed in this version? We'll see.
posted by squirrel at 7:52 PM on November 9, 2004


The MOOX version of Firefox is even faster. Custom compiled Firefox optimized to particular CPUs.
posted by stbalbach at 7:52 PM on November 9, 2004


First of all, this is the Final Release of 1.0. If you've been using a Preview Release (downloaded no more than 2 months ago), you're not going to get many new features -- this last iteration is all about stability. New features that weren't ready by the preview release are pushed off to post-1.0.

zsazsa, the answer to your question seems to be that Force Links breaks some site functionality for inter-window communication. The UI checkbox is gone but you can still alter the setting via about:config.

Usual carping from IE users. Look, Microsoft has essentially stated that IE is not going to grow. They realized the browser war was a distraction from their battle for the desktop and Longhorn, if it's ever released, will try to re-architect the web experience to retain that dominance, in ways not yet completely obvious. IE is a perfectly fine browser for many many people, obviously, but if you care about your browsing experience there are many better alternatives, and Firefox is one of the best. Rendering is standards-compliant (which sometimes breaks stylesheets designed around IE quirks) and will continue to be updated. Features such as tabbed browsing (you simply must if you spend time on any site like MeFi) and pop-up blocking are integrated by default.

Opera lovers are no enemy of mine, but I have given Opera several chances and have always run up against some oddity that drives me batty. Mozilla, even with its beta-era bugs, and now Firefox, have always come closer to my vision of the ideal browser.

Show Passwords is a minor issue because the encryption is not really secure. In a Windows XP environment security is provided by the NTFS settings of your profile folders, and physical access to a machine always trumps any other insecurity regardless. That said, they're reconsidering the implementation. It looks like post-1.0, you won't be able to use the Show Passwords button unless you've set a Master Password.

I'm not telling you to use Firefox; I'm telling you Firefox is a great browser. Using it is up to you, but I think the chances are once you get used to it you'll never want to switch back. Plus, I want the next era of the web to be defined around XUL rather than .NET.
posted by dhartung at 8:03 PM on November 9, 2004


PHP image drag-to-desktop still doesn't work. *sigh*
posted by squirrel at 8:08 PM on November 9, 2004


Opera has RSS updated bookmarks, FFFish?

If you mean that sites with RSS are automatically displayed with a little "RSS" symbol at the end of their address, that can be clicked to automagically add them to my RSS mailfeed, then, yes.

And possibly there's other RSS magic going on here; I dunno, 'cause I don't use the RSS features.

I wouldn't tell anyone to not use FireFox. By the internets, yes!, use FireFox, use Safari, use Opera, use anything but that awful, awful MSIE.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:08 PM on November 9, 2004


Interesting to read that people's opinions about browsers are like people's opinions about music. I can't stand Opera nor Safari (having used the former extensively and the latter sparsely) and, as a developer, and as a web browsing dude, love Firefox.

It's somewhat futile to convince anyone why they should replace one with the other (unless security holes are a concern to you) so I recommend trying each one and use what you like.

Personally, I like the View Selection Source option in Firefox. But that's just me.
posted by juiceCake at 8:35 PM on November 9, 2004


Mac users will want Firefoxy to de-uglify the Windows-esque buttons and widgets and all users on all platforms will benefit from an alternative theme like Pinball to replace the eyeball-searingly bad default theme.

And before you ask, no, neither the blurry font problem or the excess line spacing problem on OSX is not fixed in this version either. And it still thinks files of type application/zip are "yEncoded file" if you have Stuffit installed.

That said, it's the second best browser on the Mac, just slightly ahead of OmniWeb since it has sane tab handling, and the only decent browser for most other platforms.

dobbs: Shiira looks good, but watch out for the nightly builds. The most recent one not only crashed on me, but doesn't have a functioning menu bar. The toolbar icons are also really bad -- as in indistinguishable from each other -- but hopefully someone will come along and fix that shortly.
posted by majick at 8:38 PM on November 9, 2004


I'm not giving up Mosaic. Ever.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 10:23 PM on November 9, 2004


If you mean that sites with RSS are automatically displayed with a little "RSS" symbol at the end of their address, that can be clicked to automagically add them to my RSS mailfeed, then, yes.

Nope. Read this.
posted by Tlogmer at 10:25 PM on November 9, 2004


Lynx or death!

Seriously, we've had a bit of a confab at work today about why one of our architects should move from Opera to Firefox. It's a hard sell trying to get somebody to change, but he's keen to give it a go. The rest of us are sold on it, and have been for a while.
posted by John Shaft at 10:28 PM on November 9, 2004


Seriously, we've had a bit of a confab at work today about why one of our architects should move from Opera to Firefox.

To me, they're pretty much equivalent, at least on the PC. Firefox has a simpler UI, but Opera is so customizeable. I find Opera to be a bit more responsive and quicker than Firefox, and I just love the simple one-key keyboard commands that Opera has. For example, for switching tabs, the key command is simply 1 to go to the previous tab and 2 to go to the next tab, instead of the finger contortion I need to do the same on Firefox.
posted by gyc at 10:39 PM on November 9, 2004


MetalDog - The thing that I like about tabbed browsing is that it moves a lot of clutter off my taskbar and onto the top of my browser. Also, I often will have one browser window devoted to one topic, eg opening all the Metafilter links I want to read in tabs in one window while reading 6 reviews of some gadget I'd like to buy in another.
posted by TungstenChef at 10:46 PM on November 9, 2004


If anyone cares, even though when I started up Firefox after upgrading it said that this extension designed to work with del.icio.us wouldn't work and had been disabled, the plugin still works just fine. Go figure.

I would get behind some of the support here for Opera but the last few versions I used haven't been very stable, although I know there are people who don't have problems with it.
posted by DyRE at 11:14 PM on November 9, 2004


Another vote for:
Opera > FireFox > IE

(If nothing else, because true MDI is better than tabs.)
posted by kickingtheground at 11:35 PM on November 9, 2004


The latest MyDoom variant hit my campus hard. Thanks, Microsoft!

And I don't know how I lived before tabbed browsing. Probably very inefficiently.

Wait, I still live very inefficiently...
posted by oaf at 12:27 AM on November 10, 2004


I love Firefox, but still never use tabs. If you're using Windows 2000, what's the appeal? Making a new browser window just makes a new "tab" at the bottom, instead of the top, and I'm convinced that things run a little smoother with 5 browser windows as opposed to 5 tabs within the same window.
posted by rxrfrx at 5:10 AM on November 10, 2004


"Lynx or death!"

I take it you've never heard of w3m-img?
posted by majick at 6:26 AM on November 10, 2004


I personally think that Firefox will never make it to the mainstream (that is, outside of the techies). Why? Because it's too much work for people: you have to learn weird commands, such as about:config ; you have to understand what extensions are, search for extensions to do things you want the browser to do.

More importantly, all Windows computers still come with IE. Unless the Mozilla group engages in some distribution agreements with computer manufacturers, most people won't bother to seek it out and download it (again, I'm talking about non-techies -- I know everyone here, including me downloaded and installed it).
posted by tuxster at 7:28 AM on November 10, 2004


rxrfrx: I love Firefox, but still never use tabs. If you're using Windows 2000, what's the appeal? Making a new browser window just makes a new "tab" at the bottom, instead of the top, and I'm convinced that things run a little smoother with 5 browser windows as opposed to 5 tabs within the same window.

The application bar in Windows XP drives me nuts.

tuxster: I personally think that Firefox will never make it to the mainstream (that is, outside of the techies). Why? Because it's too much work for people: you have to learn weird commands, such as about:config ; you have to understand what extensions are, search for extensions to do things you want the browser to do.

What does, "about:config" do? I've never used it. Most of the time, installing a Mozilla extension is just like installing an IE extension.

But, Mozilla does not have to be "mainstream" (and I'm not certain how you would define mainstream") in order to do some good work. 5% should be enough for companies to start cleaning up some of the bad HTML that is out there.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:40 AM on November 10, 2004


I've never used about:config, actually, and I have only one extension (bugmenot). It's still superior. I was actually going to do an AskMe to ask about what cool firefox extensions and tricks there are, though.
posted by kenko at 7:42 AM on November 10, 2004


I've never used the about:config thing either and now I'm worried I screwed something up...(christy's fix didn't work for me.)
I guess I'll wait for my extensions to get updated. Hurry up bugmenot people!
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:03 AM on November 10, 2004


I love Firefox, but still never use tabs. If you're using Windows 2000, what's the appeal?

1) "Open in Tabs."
2) 2+ windows, each with several tabs. E.g. "work" browser and "procrastinate" browser.
posted by callmejay at 9:28 AM on November 10, 2004


Although I use IE for browsing (I've yet to have a problem with it and I use both the Google and Yahoo toolbars for stopping pop-ups - about 90% success), I've had Mozilla Firefox installed for a while. I use it for making sure websites I've designed render correctly.

Well, when loading the update (easy as pie) it ran a wizard to import my bookmarks from IE. That's been the main reason in avoiding a change from IE. Anyway, I will be giving Firefox a real try-out this time.

Y'all just might convert another IE user from the dark side.
posted by deborah at 9:59 AM on November 10, 2004


tlogmer: Oh! You mean custom side-panels. Hell, yah, Opera does that. Six ways to Sunday, AFAICT. Like I said, I don't make much use of that; I tend to organize my bookmarks into folders, and open all bookmarks within a folder at one time. (ie. News => canoe, cbc, globe&mail, etc all at once; Comics => about twenty comics at once; etc).
posted by five fresh fish at 10:38 AM on November 10, 2004


Woo hoo - updated extensions all here

extensionsmirror.nl
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:00 PM on November 10, 2004


tlogmer: Oh! You mean custom side-panels.

Nope. =P

tuxster: Firefox has one huge draw for non-techies: it's spyware-resistant from the getgo, without any toolbars to install. That's what's spreading it, slowly, beyond techie circles. (Anyway, the real goal isn't to get everyone using firefox; it's to get enough people using firefox that developers have to design for it.)
posted by Tlogmer at 3:32 AM on November 11, 2004


If anyone is still reading this, there's one new feature I hate and want to turn off......I'm a tab whore, so I always have many going. When I try to load a new page, Firefox now tells me that page is already loaded in another tab and goes to reload that tab. But sometimes, often even, I want to compare the old version of the page with the new one. How do I turn off this feature?
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:31 AM on November 11, 2004


Okay, no one is reading anymore. But for what it's worth, alone here in the depths of the blue, I will announce that I figured it out - the value to toggle is: browser.tabs.extensions.prevent_same_uri_tab


(at least I think)

*whistles off into the darkness*
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:03 PM on November 11, 2004


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