Firefox 2 Alpha 2 Reviewed 551
pcabello writes "Firefox 2 Alpha 2 was released yesterday. Check what's new in this review at mozillalinks.org with screenshots."
Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high spirits. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
Memory (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Memory (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Memory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Memory (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Memory (Score:5, Insightful)
Everytime a Firefox article gets posted, I see someone post a hack to fix the memory leak problem. I've tried every one of them and none of them fix it on my end. The only externsion I'm running is Google's Toolbar. Regardless though, no one except the most hardcore Firefox users would ever know to look in about:config to turn off this "feature". And they shouldn't have to either.
Re:Memory (Score:4, Interesting)
I would suspect Google Toolbar, which many Firefox users report leaks memory.
Re:Memory (Score:5, Insightful)
And as mentioned before [slashdot.org] there are bugs for memory leaks that predate the fast back-forward feature. And to say that memory probelms are all becuase of this feature is revisionist history.
Re:Memory (Score:3, Informative)
So why does this "feature" remain the default?
To disable this feature, do the following: 1. type about:config in you address bar 2. scroll down to browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers 3. set its value to 0 (zero)
This is something less than obvious or user friendly. Unlike the advanced options that can simply be checked and unchecked in IE's "Internet Options."
Re:Memory (Score:5, Informative)
Whenever you close a tab or window and a leak is detected, you'll get a message about it. I used it for a few days and discovered several minor extentions I'd been using were causing some very large leaks.
Re:Memory (Score:3, Insightful)
Can anyone explain how this happens. All(?) extensions are written in XUL using javascript right? How is it possible to create a memory leak using javascript. The garbage collector of the javascript engine should get rid of unused allocated memory right? Is it the javascript engine that has leaks? Or is it just the definition of memory leak taken very broadly?
Re:Memory (Score:2)
Re:Memory (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Memory (Score:2)
Re:Memory (Score:4, Informative)
Then I shall amend my statement for both you and the other poster. The vast *vast* majority of extensions are written in Javascript, with a few exceptions.
It just needs to maintain references to unused objects or create cyclic references.
Certainly, but I don't believe most extension leaks are caused by such things, as they're rather difficult to trigger in practice. As far as I'm aware, most leaks caused by extensions are due to interactions with the XPCOM layer.
Re:Memory (Score:5, Informative)
Even web pages can create circular JavaScript references that result in leaks. FF isn't alone in this area either. IE has always been vulnerable to memory leaks via JavaScript, theirs are just confined to bad pages. However, FF 3 will have a cycle detector that identifies unused cyclic references and frees the objects. But that still won't fix sloppy extensions that hang on to large objects for no goood reason.
In my experience, Plugins are pretty bad too. They operate outside the scope of the garbage collection and often don't clean up after themselves. For instance, my installation of Acrobat eats up a large chunk memory just for loading, and doesn't let it go after I navigate away from the page. The PDF Download extension helps, but it isn't perfect.
Re:Memory (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Memory (Score:3)
I don't know about Linux, but under Windows Acrobat Reader stays memory resident even after you navigate away from the PDF that originally launched the plugin; look for the acrord32.exe process in Task Manager. It dies if you close the last "real" Reader window (which also kills all PDFs open in browser windows!), but not if you close a PDF open in the plugin.
Re:Memory (Score:5, Informative)
Poorly coded extensions definitely are the biggest memory leak problem. I was using forecastfox for a while and Firefox was leaking like a rusty bucket, even with the sessionistory fix. One day, forecastfox popped up with the latest temperature over an hour after I'd closed Firefox. I uninstalled it right then and Firefox has been pretty well-behaved memory-wise ever since; I haven't seen it's memory usage go over 85 mb.
Also, this fix helps too:
1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.
Re:Memory-- collective? Contradictory? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Memory (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Memory (Score:2)
Re:Memory (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Memory (Score:3, Informative)
Er... Everyone I've ever talked to who runs Firefox on linux has told me that they've got creeping memory leaks that will eat all of their RAM given time. None of them have been able to fix it through reinstallation shenanigans. Maybe the people you've been talking to just close their bro
Re:Memory (Score:2)
Didn't they eventually say that the memory issues were intentional and that it was caching the tabbed pages or something?
Re:Memory (Score:2)
In 1.5? More like since it was called Pheonix around 0.3 beta. In my experience, it's always been pretty bad with memory.
Re:Memory (Score:2)
Re:Memory (Score:2)
Couple of questions (Score:3, Interesting)
Is anyone having a problem with recent versions where the URI autocomplete sometimes doesn't work, even if it's an address you often go to (e.g. google.com).
Or when you click on a tab, it doesn't "release" fast enough, and start moving the tab around?
Still the best browser though.
Re:Couple of questions (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Couple of questions (Score:2)
Re:Couple of questions (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that my processor is "only" 1.3 GHz, but I swear there was a time when a gigahertz-plus CPU was enough to operate a GUI smoothly. But maybe I'm remembering incorrectly...
Re:Couple of questions (Score:2)
this is nice, (Score:2, Funny)
to beat IE (Score:4, Funny)
Browser Speed (Score:3, Informative)
He concludes, " So overall, Opera seems to be the fastest browser for windows. Firefox is not faster than Internet Explorer, except for scripting, but for standards support, security and features, it is a better choice. However, it is still not as fast as Opera, and Opera also offers a high level of standards support, security and features. "
Wilton-Jones tested both version 1.0 and version 1.5 of Firefox. Does anyone have any thoughts on the performance of version 2.0?
Re:Browser Speed (Score:2)
Re:Browser Speed (Score:3, Informative)
One major exception is the work on memory leaks. Firefox 1.5.0.x releases have been getting [mozilla.org] the simpler (less risky) leak fixes, and it looks like Firefox 2 will get most of the less simple memory leak fixes that are going into the trunk, including the nsIDOMGCParticipant work [mozilla.org]
Re:Browser Speed (Score:2)
Re:Browser Speed (Score:2)
Re:Browser Speed (Score:3, Informative)
Then click on whichever toolbar ("control bar") you want to change, and change "Placement" to top/left/right/bottom/off. I have the tab bar at the top, then the address bar, and the status bar at the bottom. (No other toolbars visible. Since the address bar has forward/back/reload I don't like wasting screen real-estate with a "control bar".) Opera is probably the most configurable UI I've used--I guess you just have to know.
Re:Browser Speed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Browser Speed (Score:3, Interesting)
CoralCDN - just in case (Score:4, Informative)
Here's something to fix (Score:5, Insightful)
That's been broken for years now. I don't care about how it renders RSS, I want basic functions to unsuck.
You are looking for RetroFind (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Here's something to fix (Score:2)
Re:Here's something to fix (Score:2)
Close button at same tab (Score:5, Informative)
There's no reason to not let the user be able to pick the old way of handling a UI functionality that a reasonable amount of people don't agree with.
Re:Close button at same tab (Score:2)
I'm strongly resisting the temptation to start another "it's more natural" argument....
Re:Close button at same tab (Score:5, Informative)
There's an extension for the alpha already that turns it off.
I like extensions, but sometimes it seems like you have to have 80 of them just to get options that seem like they should be common sense.
Re:Close button at same tab (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I've been using the TabX extension to get a close button on my tabs since I started using Firefox, having the close button attached to the thing it
Re:Close button at same tab (Score:2, Interesting)
Pardon, but are you fstupid? The number of people who hate the completely redundant, spacewasting, cluttering and annoying usage of close buttons on every tab are hardly counted in the "some" people category. Try "lots" instead. I bet you are one of those gnome-heads, since this smacks of the "You-will-use-the-spatial-v
Re:Close button at same tab (Score:2)
Re:Close button at same tab (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a conspiracy... (Score:2)
Re:Close button at same tab (Score:2)
Got to love slashdot (Score:2)
As for there being no reason not to give both options, well there is plenty of reason. The two most significant, it ads complexity to the project to support yet another feature and it asks the user yet more question about how to configure the browser.
Personally? I like it the way opera does it. On the tab. More logical.
Questions . Features. (Score:2)
2. Why does firefox need XUL gui ? Why not use gtk or something else ?
Updating the plain default gui would be cool.
Re:Questions . Features. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Questions . Features. (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. XUL is rendered using the same rendering engine that renders the webpages.
Simplest way to prove this is to install the DOM inspector and poke around the various XUL elements and corresponding CSS rules. Another way is to note the differences between how Firefox widgets work on Windows XP and how actual Windows XP widgets work.
First off, Firefox menus do not fade in and out like Windows menus do. When you open a menu, it's supposed to fade in. Selecting a menu options should cause the menu to f
The big question is... (Score:2, Interesting)
Good Work (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good Work (Score:2)
You're lucky then, a new browser is coming out, which has better security than IE6 (especially on Vista), a lot better standards support, good RSS support and a fresh compact interface.
It's called IE7...
Slashdot will never be the same (Score:2, Funny)
It's about time they incorperated a spell checker! Vary nice.
But... (Score:3, Funny)
Download manager still broken? (Score:5, Insightful)
This bug has been outstanding for several years.
There are numerous other missing features in the download manager, just compare to the download manager in Opera.
Re:Kill The Download Manager (Score:3, Interesting)
In my experience, it gets pretty damn slow after the list hits a couple of dozen items; not what I would call long by any means.
Firefox with extensions (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems that future development of firefox should be on the core application and let the extension developers handle the pretty stuff.
Re:Firefox with extensions (Score:3, Insightful)
I just went trhough the changelog... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I just went trhough the changelog... (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't so much who had what feature first, it is who does it best. How hard is it to understand that?
Re:I just went trhough the changelog... (Score:3, Insightful)
If history is anything to go by, then probably Opera will. Sometimes, you do get what you pay for, and while Firefox is a great improvement over IE in many respects, it's been trailing Opera for several years IMHO.
Re:I just went trhough the changelog... (Score:3, Informative)
FYI, Opera is free (as in beer for the pedants) now.
Re:I just went trhough the changelog... (Score:5, Informative)
It does. I like Firefox a lot, but i'm not blind - every single feature that it's available in both and works better in Opera. With a fraction of the memory usage, and much faster to boot. Much more stable too - i only had Opera hangning on me a couple of times (both on Windows and Linux) - when it happens, it promptly apologizes and offers you to open the windows you were browsing at the moment of the crash. Priceless!
Also, Oprera has a shitload of functionality not available on FF or not needing extensions (gesture browsing, searches in the url bar, etc...). Those are the reasons it has been my main browser of choice for years now.
Re:I just went trhough the changelog... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most importantly, I didn't have to install any extensions to get it to work acceptably.
If there's one functionality that should be built into FF 2.0, there should be a brainless way to export and import your extensions, forms, passwords and bookmarks in one "FF2go" zipped bundle so that when you reinstall it on another computer, you can get started right away with your old configuration.
use a permalink... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://mozillalinks.blogspot.com/2006/05/bon-echo
if you want to link to an article of a blog and not just point to the main page...
Spell Check (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Spell Check (Score:3, Funny)
Search plugin order (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the hell are there buttons ('Move Up' and 'Move Down') for reordering the search plugins. They should be able to be dragged and dropped. It's not like the developers can't do this; the bookmarks can be. Why not this?
(It would also be nice for Firefox and Mozilla to understand URL files generated by IE. Safari seems to manage.)
Re:Search plugin order (Score:4, Funny)
Download link (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox focus problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Firefox steals focus constantly under enlightenment. Older versions of Firefox (0.8) do not have the problem.
XUL in Python? (Score:3, Interesting)
so I'll just keep asking...and getting no answer (Score:5, Interesting)
Bueller?
The longer this is put off, the harder I suspect it's going to be to put it, due to a more complicated codebase.
Lay the foundation first, folks, PLEASE.
Re:so I'll just keep asking...and getting no answe (Score:5, Informative)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3262
So why version 2.0? (Score:3, Insightful)
We've just had a massive jump from 1.1 to 1.5 with little improvement. Why aren't they calling this version 1.6?
Re:So why version 2.0? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the bugs are not fixed, why roll out 2.0? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. plugins should have their own thread priorities. Ever wonder why a lot of Flash applets can slow down Firefox but not IE? IE runs flash applets in a lower priority thread than the UI.
2. actions on file types should not have anything greyed out. people should be able to choose custom actions based on MIME type, extensions, or both, and there must be a text box to type the application path, plus its parameters.
3. cancelling a save of a file over something with the same name should take you back to the dialog to rename the file, not cancelling the action altogether.
4. Find toolbar closes on its own after a *hardcoded* 5 second timeout.
If you check the conversations on bugzilla, the developers don't seem to like to listen at all.
Re:winter release (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Public Download? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dumbed down again (Score:3, Interesting)
No, you're trolling. Criticizing would mean you had some semblence of an idea about what you were talking about, which you clearly do not.
"Too bad neither the fanboys nor the development team realizes this"
Yes they do. Firefox is being simplified in order to appeal to the greater market. You know, the ones who make up 85% of the market and matter alot more than you do. IE is a simple browser, it's one of its successes, and Firefox aims to be s
Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Under the XP home theme (reduced functionality without reason) - No "Block images from this server" in context menu - available in Mozilla forever, this prevents kids from seeing the constant AdultFriendFinder crap that comes up on some non-pornographic sites.
2. On my system, it does seem to be smaller and faster than Mozilla, though I am not sure about the new Seamonkey developments. I tried it when they first started, and their first task was apparently to introduce lots of bugs and change the icon to something they created in Microsoft Paint. Not impressed with their priorities.
3. Renamed to Firefox - Wow. This was a bad move. I get a questioning look almost every time I bring up the "better browser to use" argument to businesses. Plus, everyone ends up calling it Foxfire. There are too many "cool" names involved. Mozilla was hard enough to explain, but at least I could connect it to Netscape's mascot (since people still remember Netscape). But Firefox, Firebird, Phoenix, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey? Surely someone came up with something better, but it was turned down as too practical. Think about the words "Internet Explorer" or "Netscape". The title describes the function.
4. Memory leaks - Running latest Firefox Stable build for Win32, one window, no tabs, no extensions, haven't visited any sites with Java, one Live Bookmark (default BBC World News thing). Browsing around for a few hours, memory use creeps up by several megs. Even as I type this (watching Task manager, memory has gone from 37,??? to 39,132. Weird.
5. Incomplete, annoying interface - Well, I would call a "resume button that has not ever apparently worked an annoying interface feature. I would also say that losing favicons for no apparent reason is annoying. No built-in function for removing or re-ordering search engines (you shouldn't need an extension for this simple task.
6. Offtopic Thunderbird complaint - Signatures now have a stupid "--" in grey that cannot be turned off, and the signature is in grey too (no option to disable) which has annoyed countless customers. Some people don't feel like typing their own name 50 times a day. Email is not Newsgroups. Don't try to make it that way.
7. Memory usage is now up to 40,648. Eventually, Firefox will crash on me. Not a huge deal for me (I used Mozilla M9, M10, etc. all the time). But pretty lame for a browser that has had this much development time. No, it's not just this machine either. 40,860 now.
So stop modding people as troll, just because they didn't feel like they should have to type all this junk out, when the accusations hold water.
Vidar
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:3, Interesting)
8. Bookmark sorting. Mozilla from about 3 years ago (or more!) used to do this perfectly. I'd like to sort bookmarks by name, with all the folders at the top. Firefox doesn't support this. The only way to do this aside from manually editing the bookmarks file is to import them into Mozilla, sort them and export to Firefox.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, written any complex software lately?
Something that might look easy to fix from the user's perspective may break assumptions that have been made in the code and require a significant amount of rework / refactoring to change.
If you really think it's that easy to fix the problem, hunt down the bug in the code and fix it. While I know this sounds like the typical linux developer reaction, I can sympathise with the sentiment. Most open source devs are not paid to fix bug
Re:Except (Score:3, Informative)
That's easy (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait, you want a way to do this with one hand. Err, can't help you there, I'm afraid.
Re:Firefox too slow... (Score:2)
Re:For new users (Score:5, Informative)
I used to think this too, which is why I used to use the TabX extension. However, since at least Firefox 1.5 I've been able to "middle-click" a tab to close it (without giving it focus.) Once I learned that, TabX was gone.
Re:I'll switch, but only ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Did I miss this feature? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.google.com/ [google.com]|http://www.slashdot.org|ht
And when you open firefox, the urls you put in the home page box will be tabbed.