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Firefox 2 Launch - Interview With Chris Beard

Posted by Zonk on Tue Oct 24, 2006 08:54 AM
from the moving-on-up dept.
The Internet Mozilla
ReadWriteWeb writes "This afternoon Firefox 2 will be 'officially' launched. In anticipation of the unveiling, ReadWriteWeb has a brief interview with Chris Beard — Mozilla Vice President of Products. Subjects discussed include the growing enterprise usage of Firefox, the importance of user experience and security, Mozilla's theory behind Web feeds and why they haven't included an integrated RSS Reader, the growing add-on ecosystem, offline browsing, and finally a little about the future of the browser." From the article: "It felt to us like a 2.0 product, particularly if we looked at it from what 1.0 was, to 2.0. It was like half steps, from 1.0 to 1.5 to 2.0. It's also a very stable and rock solid release - it's really ready for the masses. So it really does feel like a 2, as opposed to a 1.x product. Firefox 2 has, we estimate, between 3-4 times the number of fixes than FF 1.5 did. And that doesn't just include fixes and bugs, but all of the feature work as well as memory, stability and security issues. But there's certainly a lot in it which makes it really solid." Also on the site is a concise review of the product, and an overview of Marketing Firefox 2.0.
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  • Good so far.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dpaluszek (974028) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @08:58AM (#16559046)
    I've been using it since yesterday since Mozilla had it posted in their pub directory.
    So far, so good. I was upset my Daily Dilbert and FastFirefox Extensions weren't compatible though. :( But I like the new look and feel to it, plus it uses quite less memory.

    Good job Mozilla!

  • Half Steps? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is that like half of a hole? Or is that what you call it when someone lifts their foot off the ground and then doesn't set it back down?

  • I certianly hope... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2006, @08:58AM (#16559054)
    That it is as fast or faster than the current release. I am always fearful lately of new releases as they typically mean slower and bloated.

    I even recently downgraded all the office machines to Office 2000 from office 2003 as the minimal feature benefits do not outweigh the increased speed in loading and operation as well as far smaller memory footprint.

  • New tabs are great (Score:3, Insightful)

    by joshetc (955226) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @08:59AM (#16559062)
    I love how they put an X on each tab and the tabs automatically resize after a certain number of tabs is added / removed. Every time I try to switch tabs I accidentally close one and every time I try to close more than one tab I accidentally switch to the second tab instead of closing it. Maybe I'm blind and there is a way to switch back to the old tabbing system? This one blows though IMO so someone please enlighten me! Or do I just revert to 1.5?

    • Re:New tabs are great (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2006, @09:01AM (#16559104)
      to get rid of the close buttons on every tab and make it like 1.5 goto about:config [about] and set
      browser.tabs.closeButtons to 3

      and to hide the Go button set
      browser.urlbar.hideGoButton to true
      • Much thanks, only qualm I had with FF2.0 was this. I'll fix it as soon as I get home.
          • Me? I've read slashot for several years, used Firefox for several years off and on... but I just don't like the fact that I have to go in search of extensions.

            Wow, you've read slashdot for several years? You must be a god!

            Look, you don't have to go in search of extensions. The browser works fine out of the box and provides privacy protection, pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, the best javascript implementation, proper support for more image formats than any other browser including SVG, MNG (last I checked) and proper PNG... It just happens that you can add additional functionality through extensions. If you don't need it, then you don't need them. Meanwhile, they provided a very nice site from which you can download extensions so that you can get them if you need them.

            There's nothing stopping anyone from making a nice website that has a great set of extensions, except that there's apparently little demand. Every so often I do a writeup on which extensions I happen to use, and post it on my website [hyperlogos.org]. (The last one was on a different site - I haven't updated for 2.0 yet but that's coming.) (ObDisclosure: I have amazon referral links, but no other ads.)

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by drinkypoo (153816)
                Firefox is still relatively lean. I agree, it could be leaner. Frankly though I don't think that the install size is the problem, it's the memory leak issue. That seems to be much better, however, in 2.0.
      • to get rid of the close buttons on every tab and make it like 1.5 goto about:config and set browser.tabs.closeButtons to 3


        Alternatively, setting it to 0 will put a close button only on the current tab, if you prefer.

        Personally, I like the default, though.

      • Re:New tabs are great (Score:5, Informative)

        by ben there... (946946) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @09:52AM (#16559860) Journal
        Just to add to that:

        browser.tabs.closeButtons 0 = close button on active tab
        browser.tabs.closeButtons 1 = default, close button on all tabs
        browser.tabs.closeButtons 2 = no close buttons
        browser.tabs.closeButtons 3 = Fx 1.x style, one close button on right

        It updates instantly so you can try them all out and find the one you like. I like 2 because I use an extra mouse button to close tabs instead of the close buttons.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by drinkypoo (153816)
          Firefox does provide a lot of configurability through the GUI but they also don't provide a lot, because the simple truth is that there's a LOT of potential configuration options in any program and Firefox seems to have gone towards the heavier side. This is a GOOD thing, though! This way, you have the GUI for the things for which you need it, and you can use about:config for strange configuration changes not needed by the mainstream. As fasterfox proves, you can always have an extension to allow configurat

    • Re:New tabs are great (Score:4, Informative)

      by tmasssey (546878) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @09:07AM (#16559198) Homepage Journal

      From the review of FF2: Tab Tweaks [mozillalinks.org].

      I've also found that this extension works fine with FF2: Tab Minus [mozilla.org].

      Small,and does the job perfectly. This was my single-biggest hassle with FF2. I do not understand how quasi-randomly moving the location of an item I use ALL the time is supposed to make things more efficient. Especially when you've opened up a bunch of images or documents in separate tabs and want to quickly scan through them looking for someting. Your eyes have to bounce around the screen, finding the stupid close button.

      The old mechanism seemed to work better for that: put your mouse on the close button, and now you can focus on the *data*, not finding the button over and over... With the extension, you don't have to choose: they're both avaiable. Works for me.

      • People loved to add the button to the tab, for some reason. I can't stand it myself -- if I want to close the 5 tabs I most recently opened, I'll click 5 times in one spot.
        • Or, more efficiently, press ^w 5 times. If you are fortunate enough to be using the computer right-handed, you can even do it with your free left hand without moving your mouse a pixel. Standard browsing position for me is right hand on mouse and left hand resting near ^w.

            • Re:New tabs are great (Score:4, Informative)

              by An Onerous Coward (222037) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @01:01PM (#16563564) Homepage
              If you're doin' the Gnome/Linux thang*, open up the GConf editor and drill down through / -> desktop -> gnome -> interface. Change the key 'gtk_key_theme' to 'Emacs'. When you're focused on a textbox or the location bar, you get C-w, along with a bunch of other nifty stuff. My biggest complaint is that C-k deletes to the end of the line, but doesn't copy it into the clipboard.

              More information. [mozillazine.org]

              * Dawg.
    • I knew this from Camino and find it one of the best new features. I usually want to get rid of some tabs once I'm done with a, say Research, and want to close the all. I can now do that without the hassle to first open them and then close them again. This really improves speed on my slow G3 because the tabs dont have to be loaded.
    • The sarcasm in your post makes it confusing.

  • Looks good. (Score:5, Funny)

    by AusIV (950840) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @09:00AM (#16559090)
    I look forward to the actual release. Of the American English version. For more than one platform. (This is not directed at the firefox team).
    • They really ought to try and be more proactive in posting notes about how "this is not the official release OMG leave it alone already". This is at least the second time (some 2.0-prereleases were also Slashdot-"leaked" when a lot of it was testing major-version-number changing).

  • Stats (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tim_UWA (1015591) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @09:00AM (#16559092)
    Chris said that current stats indicate that Firefox usage peaks mid-week, as opposed to the weekends - which he said is the reverse of what it was two years ago when they launched Firefox.

    Where do they get these stats?
  • more innovation and web integration isn't going to develop Firefox any more pentetration into IE's market share. Why? Because for the most part people just don't care.

    I love firefox, use it daily. Even put up with the bugs that were "ignored" for a long time (like memory leaks, having your bookmarks vanish for no reason, etc). Yet reading the review it is still clear that too many miss the point.

    It doesn't matter how much better you are than IE, you have to give people a real, tangible reason to switch and then you have to make it so exceedingly easy that there is next to no effort involved. That second part is more important than the first. I like many others here can come up with many "tanglible" reasons for people to switch, I still can't get them to download it or install it.

    Penetration comes with getting someone that people trust to distribute the software along side their product. May I suggest Quicken (all that tax software coming out can easily accomodate FF). Hell, get a game manufacturer to provide the browser as part of the install process. With a good windows installer it can be made a seamless part of experience.

    • Re:Get a clue already. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by maxume (22995) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @09:15AM (#16559302)
      Ack! Thbbbt. Sorry, hairball. Anyway, bundling is the software equivalent of a traveling salesman sticking his foot in the door. It stinks.

      The goal of Firefox is to have a browser that supports web standards and puts users first. It does a great job of that. It isn't to have 100% market share. To the extent that it re-energized ie development, it is a boon for web standards. Better is better, even if it is from Microsoft.

    • Re:Get a clue already. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ryanov (193048) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @09:19AM (#16559368)
      The reason to use it is already there -- no idiotic little script can install something without your knowledge into your always-running web browser. This does change with IE7 to a certain extent, but it's still very much the way it was. That's why I have switched people to it, and they have noticed the difference. Most of the people who were using IE had their computers crapped up in weeks. Not so with FF.

    • Re:Get a clue already. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Silver Sloth (770927) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @09:20AM (#16559402)
      I still can't get them to download it or install it.
      I wait until their PC is toally virus/adware ridden and they call me in to help. That's when the now will you believe me when I advise Firefox starts to work. Admittedly this is a slow, user by user, transfer but once converted they never return.
    • having your bookmarks vanish for no reason, etc

      I have more bookmarks(a few hundred) than anyone else I personally know, and I've never seen this happen. Is this something people besides yourself have experienced?

      I'm Just curious.

      Cheers.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      All of the Pharmacy companies I've worked for use FF as their company intranet browser. Something to think about.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Poorcku (831174)
      It depends on the organizational culture also, though. At the University where I work, it all started with a few co-workers that tried the 1.0 FF. It spread, slowly, so that now even the non-tech-savy users have and use FF. Change resistance is also a factor: people are afraid not of the change but of the consequences of the change itself. IANAW (webmaster) but imagine the code you`d have to rewrite if the management decides to switch to FF. All those pages that worked only with IE now have to be compatibl

  • After running both.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by w0lver (755034) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @09:06AM (#16559172) Homepage
    IE7 and FF2, I have to say its really no contest. Despite just plain hating how much vertical real estate the new tab toolbar takes up, performance with IE 7 is just horrible. Even a light page like the Google home page take about about half second longer to render on my Core 2 Duo machine. Let's not forget only really giving lip service to CSS standards, there is still going to be a ton of web pages that need hacks or workarounds for IE CSS issues. Check out http://www.positioniseverything.net/ [positioniseverything.net] for the latest hoops you need to jump through for IE. In no means is Firefox perfect in its CSS support but at least they respond to incompatibilities in a reasonable time frame.
  • Does anyone know if it's possible to get rid of the little drop-down thingy that lists all the tabs? They put it right where the close button is supposed to be (well, moved a little to the side if you re-enable the old-style close button), but it's in the way and annoying. I haven't seen anything that looked obvious in about:config to remove it, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
  • Tried it yesterday on my iBook. First impressions are that it looks and acts alot cleaner, but it will intermittently crash (when using about 3 tabs, with the session saver option on), and some sites (like slashdot & arstechnica) will take about 5 minutes to load. Same sites in opera, Safari all load up very quickly. Other sites will simply work immediately.

    It's a shame too, since I had really hoped to replace Opera 9 on the iBook, because that didn't really live up to my expectations. Here's hoping to

  • Is this included in Fedora Core 6, either in the core packages or the extras? It'd be nice to get a new browser with my new OS.

  • Mozilla is nothing but a front for Google (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And google are Ursurpers of Freedom.
    Information wants to be free, don't use firefox. use a TRUE free GPL webbrowser like Elinks instead and

    LEt freedom Ring!!!!
  • Honestly, I've been using Firefox 2.0 since RC1, and I don't find anything really compelling about it over Firefox 1.5. I mean...I use FF about 80% of the time at home, and use it almost exclusively at work, but there just wasn't anything that made me go "wow" about it.

    Also, it seems to me that Firefox has developed a rather hefty memory / CPU footprint, and its text rendering performance is noticably slower than Opera and IE, especially on Linux. (Just to be clear that means Firefox on Linux seems to ren
  • It really is. My problem is that I think I like Opera better than FireFox. I still use FireFox most of time because I am used to it.
    I guess I can understand people having a hard time moving away from IE.
    Now if Firefox could just copy Opera's zoom feature :)
    Yes I know FireFox has a much better increase text feature than IE but the zoom in Opera really is very nice.
    It works great with those websites that value "White space" over content.

  • I think firefox needs a tagline. Maybe Mozilla foundation can contact BMW [bmw.com] and include a free firefox CD with every BMW sold. (ie. the Ultimate Driving Experience along with the Ultimate Browsing experience). Things like this will help firefox's penetration. People really need a reason to use firefox over IE, and right now I can think of two good reasons:

    1) Firefox doesn't have the huge ActiveX security hole that IE has.
    2) Firefox offers tabbed browsing (now that IE7 is out, this is no longer a Firefox

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by StringBlade (557322)

      At the same time, here's a good reason not to get Firefox:
      1) Firefox doesn't have that huge ActiveX feature that IE has

      Believe it or not many corporate intranet sites and even some web sites in general use and like ActiveX to make their pages more "interactive". Until FF can replace ActiveX with something more secure while providing similar functionality I don't see FF replacing IE in any large corporate environment whose web development teams are using ActiveX components -- and that's a lot of them

    • 3) Inline spell-checking.

      Not a biggie if you don't use online forums, but with the increase in the number of websites that let you write as well as read (think MySpace, Facebook, various forums, Writely/Google Docs, etc.), people are going to come to expect more advanced editing capabilities in their browser. Having spent some time using browsers that have inline (red underlining) spell checkers, such as Safari and Konqueror 3.5, going back to Firefox is always painful.

      It's not nearly as much of an advantag

  • Point Release (Score:3, Informative)

    by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @02:12PM (#16565060)
    Every time I look at the new features, this still feels like a Point Release to me. I would only justify it as going up a whole version if substantial underlying code was changed which, of course, is not visible to the user.
    • The parent makes a good point. I'm assuming that if I don't bother downloading it, Firefox will auto update it for me (on Windows at least). Am I right to assume this or will I need to manually download it?

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