Firefox 2.0 RC3 Released

midkay writes "Firefox 2.0 RC3 has just been released. The release notes cover all the changes since the first release candidate, but RC3 appears to have a new Windows installer and more security in the extensions aspect, among a few other things."

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[eldavojohn]

I'm just waiting for drag-and-drop tabs so I can reorder my tab order.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, but if there's a red circle with an arrow in the upper right of your Firefox window, click it and update. My Firefox allows me to drag and drop tabs to reorder them. I think I've been able to do that since version 1.5. What I'm using:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7

Unless you're joking, I think this feature has already been implemented.

Here are some great, optimized ppc/intel builds...

[Anonymous Coward]

They are updated constantly and for my power book g4, they actually load around 2 times faster than the standard Firefox.

http://www.furbism.com/firefoxmac/ [furbism.com]

Not "new" in RC3

[Arancaytar]

It's a bit obvious from the number of major additions described, but the "phishing protection" and "new Windows Installer" are just new features of 2.0, which were already in earlier release candidates. Compare the announcements of RC3 [mozilla.org] and RC2 [mozilla.org] on the developer blog.

The release notes page itself seems a bit misleading, since they specifically talk about "Firefox 2 RC3" even in places where they mean Firefox 2 - perhaps someone saved time with a search & replace.

--

So while this announcement probably means they fixed bugs and are another step closer to the final release, the major features aren't news.

Re:What about extensions?

[linuxci]

Give it a few weeks, this is a release candidate and hopefully this one will be ready for release. Unlike Microsoft, the Mozilla project usually mean the release candidates can true candidates for release therefore most extension developers can work on testing their extensions against this release knowing that it's unlikely to break in the final.

Last year 1.5 had 3 release candidates and 1.5 final was identical to RC3. So hopefully this year they get it right on the third attempt too.

Anyway, give it a few weeks and your extensions will most likely be working and tested. There's no one forcing you to upgrade and the 1.5 branch will be supported for a while yet.

Biggest problem with firefox...

[slib]

Memory consumption, for one. I've had situations where, upon running the app FRESH, it's shit all over 70 megs of my memory - on RC3. And on /. alone. Opera in the same environment only uses ~30, and even IE, heaven forbid, uses less. Although RC3 does look mighty swanky, I'll take Opera's modular approach to aesthetics any day - let's just hope the gents from Norway get those compatibility problems taken care of (infinitely expanding pages, anyone?).

Some nice new features (no, I didn't RTFA):

-auto spellcheck (GREAT idea, especially for your typical slashdotter)

-session saving (although Opera beat it to the punch like, well, everything else(aww snap -1 troll))

-security updates... ?

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[Atticka]

Two Firefox windows open
Three pages loaded (Slashdot, Google/IG, internal work site)

Current memory usage: 110MB

Outlook is using: 78MB

So yeah, just a few issue's with memory usage.

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[bunratty]

Dozens of memory leaks have been fixed in Firefox 2. A memory benchmark shows Firefox 2 consumes less memory than IE 7 or Opera 9 [mozillazine.org].

If you're still seeing a memory problem in Firefox 2, what you should do is describe steps to reproduce the problem so the bug can be reported and fixed [dbaron.org].

Finding the 2.0 Compatible Extensions

[coldcanofbeer]

A guy has created a handy searchable list of the extensions / Add-ons that are compatible with Firefox 2.0:

Here is the link: Bill's Big List of Firefox 2.0 Compatible Extensions [extensionhunter.com]

Re:Firefox 3 too

[linuxci]

It is not an alpha of Firefox 3, that has not been released yet. It's just the trunk is listed as version 3.0a1 that'll eventually be 3.0a1 but it is not there yet and won't be for a while

Re:WHy a new installer for Windows?

[JustASlashDotGuy]

An MSI would be nice for deployment in large network, yes. However, deploying firefox for us
on our large network would be a piece of cake when bundled with the scripting application we
use (WinBatch). Winbatch makes deploying apps like FireFox a piece of cake.

I would love to see FF start supporting group policies. When the day comes that FF supports
MSI deployment and Group Policies, that will be the day (for me) when FF is ready to be taken
seriously for corporate deployment.

I long for the day when FF steps up to the plate are makes itself more attactive to the
corporate world. I'm not talking about just basic FF either. For me, basic FF sucks. FF only
begins to shine after you add a few extentions to is. Nothing would make me happier than if a
mandate came out that all FF extentions had to support MSI deployement and GP integration as
well.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

A script kiddie rules your computer.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[roger6106]

If you hold shift you can drag folders. I don't know why they decided on that idea.

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[fprintf]

Because if I want to run a memory intensive application alongside a web page I have open in Firefox I don't feel like copying the URL, restarting Firefox and pasting the URL back in. Not everyone has 2GB of memory now, my machine has 1GB on XP and Firefox at 500MB seriously curtails the other programs I want to run (at least on XP -- it gets very slow if it has to page anything)

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[slocan]

[...] Does anybody know if development efforts for Firefox 2 have included memory management? I can't seem to find any record of that online.

Maybe this MozillaZine Knowledge Base article about memory problems in Firefox [mozillazine.org] holds the answer:

Memory leaks can cause Firefox not to release memory that it is no longer using, especially with older versions. There has been a lot of effort to reduce the leaks in recent versions, and Mozilla developers have have created tools to detect them. [4] [squarefree.com] [5] [dbaron.org] To minimize leaks, you should upgrade to the most recent version. The most common memory leaks appear to be fixed in Firefox 2. [6] [mozillazine.org]

Re:Tab close buttons...

[Sepodati]

If all of the tabs you want to close are in a row, then yeah, a single button in the same location is great. For myself, though, it's usually a couple of tabs scattered throughout the ones I have open that I want to close. Having the button on each tab makes this easier overall, although I'll admit it took a few days to get used to.

If you use a mouse with a middle button (I'm on a laptop w/o a mouse), then middle-clicking anywhere on the tab will close it. That's the easiest overall. I wish my laptop had a middle button instead of just a scroll button. :)

---John Holmes...

Why I personally like Firefox 2

[code65536]

I've been using the release candidates for nearly a month now, starting with the first candidate of RC1 (yes, they do release release candidates of release candidates ;)). There were some things that took a bit of getting used to, but within an hour, I was loving it.

1/ It seems faster. It also has a MUCH better memory footprint.
2/ Session-saving and undo close tabs is now built-in. This is great, because I used to get this from an extension, and that extension was a horrible memory leaker (this might contribute to #1).
3/ New tab management. I often have lots of tabs open, and it's nice to be able to scroll the tab bar now or to get a drop-down of all the open tabs. The close button on each tab is annoying (that's what middle-click is for) and the wider minimum tab width is wasteful, but both of those settings can be changed in about:config.
4/ Speaking of about:config, there is a new hidden setting that lets you disable compatibility checking for extensions. Oftentimes, an extension marked for 1.5 will work just fine for 2.0, but the author hadn't updated the extension's manifest to say that, so FF2 would refuse that extension. Not anymore. :) No more need for NTT or for manually bumping up the maxVersion of such extensions.
5/ Button to restart Firefox after installing an add-on. And the new session saving kicks in to restore all your tabs and even what you have filled into forms after the restart. Makes installing stuff much less painful.
6/ Spell check! No more copying-and-pasting into word to check for typos.
7/ Better RSS management
8/ Better password auto-fill
9/ I personally love the look of the new theme. The old tabs looked rather ugly on Windows Classic. Now combined with ClassicFox [ktechcomputing.com], Firefox looks stunning on Windows Classic. But that's a matter of personal taste.

Personally, I didn't care much for the other features like anti-phishing (I have it disabled 'cuz I think I can protect myself, but it's good for Joe Sixpack), live titles, or the search suggest (which I also have disabled). Anyway, at the risk of sounding like some sappy endorsement, I really love Firefox 2. Once I got used to it and tweaked the settings, I can't believe how I ever managed to get along with 1.5.

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[bunratty]

What's happening is that Opera 9 is swapping out memory from RAM to disk when you minimize the Opera window. To see the total memory usage (both in RAM and on disk) look at the VM Size column in the Windows Task Manager.

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[Lagged2Death]

Ah, I see. The VM Size column isn't one that appears in a default install of Windows, one must turn it on under View | Select Columns.

Still, it's pretty clear that 50MB worth of data is not getting shuttled back and forth from the disk when I minimize and re-open Opera. It's far too fast and quiet for that. That memory is just getting marked as page-out-able, or something.

Re:"un-fix" tabbed browsing?

[code65536]

Yes!

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_FAQs_:_About:c onfig_Entries [mozillazine.org]

Specifically, look at:
browser.tabs.closeButtons
browser.tabs.tabMinWidth

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[friedmud]

I too have switched to del.icio.us for all of my bookmarking needs... I personally use Foxylicious ( http://dietrich.ganx4.com/foxylicious/ [ganx4.com] ) for syncing my del.icio.us bookmarks into a folder in my Personal Bookmark Toolbar in Firefox... works beautifully.

I originally switched because I use so many different computers throughout the day and wanted to have the same bookmarks on all of them and have all of them synced automatically... which foxylicious allows. I've been running this way for over a year now and love it.

Friedmud

Re:Ungrateful Bitching

[drinkypoo]

Well, I got the name slightly wrong: it's del.icio.us direc.tor [johnvey.com]. Hope you enjoy it, it's really raised del.icio.us to whole new levels of usefulness. At least for me :)