Filed under: Software
Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 released
Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 has been released and is available for download for Mac (Universal), Windows, and Linux. Our sister site, Download Squad, notes that although there have been reports of this release since Monday, this time it's for real.Some of the new features in Firefox 2.0 that sound like they're worth checking out are:
- Built-in anti-phishing protections.
- Automatic session restoration after a browser crash.
- The ability to reopen accidentally closed tabs.
- In-line spell checking that comes in handy when you're filling in forms and other text boxes.
- Microsummaries of bookmarked pages. Microsummaries are regularly-updated short summaries of web pages. As explained by Mozilla, "When you bookmark a web page that has a microsummary, you can choose to display the microsummary as the title of the bookmark. Then, when the page changes, the title will also change, so you can find out the current status of the page just by looking at the bookmark."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Keith L. Dick said 1:49AM on 7-13-2006
Thank you, I'll wait until the Final Release...
If I had a "Spare Computer" I really didn't care about then I would be a Die-Hard BETA Tester...
But Alas I do no have one I care to "Trash" so I'll just sit back and let others do the testing and I will be very happy when the final product comes out...
Thank you very much...
hehe
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josh said 2:09AM on 7-13-2006
Actually most betas aren't that harmful... I'll definitely be checking out this one. Reopening closed tabs and using spell check on forms are things that I'm sure to find very useful.
Hooray Firefox!
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John Iburg said 2:31AM on 7-13-2006
Did they take the suckiness out of Gecko for Mac yet?
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betty said 4:39AM on 7-13-2006
it works like a charm, except none of my extensions and themes work for it yet, the spell checker is the bomb!
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lOUDsCREAMEr said 5:43AM on 7-13-2006
Any G4/G5/intel optimized builds w/aqua widgets?
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Mike Jones said 7:08AM on 7-13-2006
*cough*Opera*cough*
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Brad said 7:32AM on 7-13-2006
If you're worried about this beta, the alpha was the most stable thing that I've ever used. It crashed less than Safari.
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jason said 7:46AM on 7-13-2006
I concur with #6, I've been using the 'Deer Park' alpha for at least a month or so. I havn't had any issues with it.
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Nicholas said 7:53AM on 7-13-2006
I hope this will resolve the recurring problem I have of Firefox not quitting automatically on shutdown or logout, which I experience across all 3 Macs I own, 2 PowerPC one Intel, very annoying and the only thing which ever goes wrong in otherwise flawless OS X installations.
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Chris Meisenzahl said 8:12AM on 7-13-2006
So what do you guys think of it so far? I may give it a try. The last two versions of firefox have crashed fairly often on my G4 iBook (1.2gb RAM). Moreso than earlier versions. But I love the extensions so I still use it more often than Safari.
I wonder how much of the stability problem has to do w/ the Flash plug-ins for OS X? They seem pretty poor imho. ;-(
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/
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carlo Righini said 8:28AM on 7-13-2006
please be aware that chris pedericks web developers toolbar is not compatible with this beta, so if you need it like me, youre going to have to wait a while longer
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Bob said 9:11AM on 7-13-2006
I've been using 2.0 for a few days on a MacBook Pro with no problems at all. Most of my extensions are working also. The problem that causes them to no load is a line in a file named install.rdf for each extension. It names the highest Firefox version that the extension will work with. Change the version number to 2.0, and most extensions will work. I don't think you can break anything this way. Some install.rdf files have two lines of code with the maxVersion number.
1.5.
There is also a utility that can be downloaded that apparently makes these changes for you. It's called nightly build something or other. I'm sure someone here knows it.
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Scott H said 9:14AM on 7-13-2006
I'm just hoping it fixes the biggest Firefox problem I have, which has led me to closing & re-opening it every day: it SLOWS DOWN over the course of a day, especially after my Mac's been asleep for a while. It's a SIGNIFICANT slowdown, and just closing & re-opening it always takes care of it. It's the only app I have where I have to do this. I assume it's related to Mac memory management, although I don't know if it's the "memory leak", which I thought applied mainly to the PC version.
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Thomas said 9:26AM on 7-13-2006
If you experience problems, the best bet is to throw out the Firefox profile folder and start with a fresh one. Save you bookmarks file though if you want them.
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icerabbit said 9:34AM on 7-13-2006
RE: slow downs
That is exactly the issue I have with Safari. I need to close it every day to couple of days if I have spent a lot of time on the internet.
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Chad said 10:07AM on 7-13-2006
Huh, where are you guys downloading it? No matter what language/platform I click on in the linked download page, it takes me to another page with english 1.5.0.4 downloads...
Here's an actual download link:
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0b1/mac/en-US/
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Tush said 10:16AM on 7-13-2006
"Automatic session restoration after a browser crash.
The ability to reopen accidentally closed tabs."
*cough* Opera! *cough*
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Ed said 10:38AM on 7-13-2006
#7: If you've been using Deer Park for a month, you've been beta testing 1.5... 2.0 is "Bon Echo".
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Jason said 10:52AM on 7-13-2006
Session Saver is integrated now. The oldest date I could find on when Session Saver extension was first posted is January 2004. That's a long time for that to be around. I sure do hate it when one application uses a good feature after another did. Also love how people feel they have to point that out.
*cough* Tush! *cough*
Some of my favorite extensions don't work yet (even with version bumps - Mr Tech's Local Install or Nightly Tester Tools to do this). Also don't like the search bar yet. Too cluttered with two buttons in it. Stable release as far as I could tell, though.
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Tush said 11:14AM on 7-13-2006
Hey man, no need for such sarcasm.
Just giving Opera the credit it rightfully deserves... sarcastically. :)
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