Firefox 2 has been released

[Larwee]

Firefox 2 has been released with improvements and new features.

Tabbed browsing has been improved.

There is helpful spell checking.

Search is easier to use.

It is easier to take advantage of Web feeds.

Firefox 2 has identity theft protection.

You can find out more about the features here Firefox web browser | Features: Faster, more secure, & customizable

You should be able to also download it there or from Firefox web browser | Faster, more secure, & customizable

[Larwee]

You might be interested in some reviews of Firefox 2, so here are two reviews of Firefox 2 that cover almost everything a person might be interested in. They should help give you a little better idea as to what to expect from Firefox 2.

If you read both of these it would probably be very helpful. The first one gives more praise to Firefox 2 than the second.

Firefox 2 Browser reviews - CNET Reviews

Firefox 2.0 first impressions: So-so upgrade, great browser

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for the updates on this Larry. I'm a die-hard FF user but have not even had a chance to read about FF2 so your links will help!

[watchdogam_tech]

Ok, maybe my request is because I am a techie, but I would *really* be happy if there was a way to choose to disable cookie sharing across tabs in FF. Most of the time, this is a nice feature. But, as a developer and tester of cookie-based websites, its a royal pain to logon to one tab and have it affect all tabs.

I, too, am a FF diehard. And until today, I have found that everything developed and tested under Windows' version of FF has worked perfectly on the Mac version of FF as well. That is not bad given the spectrum of browser incompatibilities we have to face.

[Oregon Coast Guy]

Ooo, baby! I'm anxious to try this one out. I lub my Firefox!

[Larwee]

Oregon Coast Guy, it might be interesting to our members and visitors if you would post your opinion after you have given it a try.

[Teli]

I'm actually testing out Firefox 2.0 now (have it installed in a separate folder, so I can still fall back to 1.5.0.x if necessary) and it's kicking my butt.

Explanation time...

First, let's establish that I love Firefox and have gone as far as installing it on my family's computers and deleting the Internet Explorer icon from their desktop which forces them to use the fox.

Next, I use Firefox with an extensive list of plugins (some pleasure, some for development/debugging). Each time FF comes out with a major upgrade, I cringe because I know half the plugins won't work -- some still haven't worked since 1.0...ah well.

With that out of the way, I was very excited to hear about FF 2.0 and downloaded it so I could play around. As expected, quite a few of my plugins were incompatible, but some essentials were included in the list. Thank goodness for the Nightly Tester Tools plugin which allows me to force plugins to work.

My biggest inconvenience right now is the spellcheck function. I'm very glad to hear it's incorporated, but I enjoyed the interface provided in the spellbound plugin. (Tangent: I'm actually upset they changed the term 'Extensions' to 'Add-ons' - took me a minute to figure it out LOL.)

The built in spellcheck doesn't play nice with the Menu Edit plugin I have running. It may be me or my special customizations, but others have experienced the same problems. Also, I don't like the right clicking to get spelling suggestions -- I've trained myself to click on the cute ABC icon that is spellbound and having a box pop up that allows me to ignore[once/all] or change[once/all] and go through all the fields of the entry.

To get around it I simply disabled Firefox's built in spell check and forced spellbound to work with FF 2.0, so I continue to use it. Truly hope the developers will come up with a 2.0 compatible version although it doesn't sound like they will.

And, finally, FF 2.0 crashes. I've tried to trace it to a specific plugin, but I've not been able to. Sometimes it will simply stop responding and I need to manually shut it down. Then, sometimes it simply refuses to start up. Truly is freaky.

I plan to start with a completely fresh install (no plugins) and see what I can figure out. For the time being, it looks as though I'll be sticking with 1.5.0.x.

~ Teli

[sellingonline]

the plugin not working in new versions problem is the worst I think, a bit more down-compatibility would be nice, anyway it's a great browser (but yes, had 2 crash already too, but not to say the "old" version didn't crash ) last thing, it takes more RAM as far as I could see, hope the issue of adding up the RAM over time (more and more usage, if you don't close it down completely, but only close tabs) will be resolved in future versions, it's still there

[Teli]

I noticed that FF 2.0 uses an inordinate amount of RAM as well, especially if you have a lot of tabs open and have been running it for a while.

The problem isn't nearly as bad with FF 1.5.0.x and it's something they definitely need to address.

~ Teli

[Linda Buquet]

I use the spell checker on the Google toolbar for FireFox. I assume it works with 2.0 but not sure.

Have not upgraded to 2.0 for the reasons you mentioned. Don't have time to see if all my exptensions will work or fiddle to get them to work. SO I'm going to wait a bit for 2.0. Maybe mid Dec when biz slows down for the Holidays.