Firefox 2: How Is It?

Amie

Mac Convert for Life
I just updated to FF 1.5.9 and even though my FF updates don't show any newer versions when I click on "Help/Check for Updates," I just found out that a newer version DOES exist (FF 2.0). Odd, it usually alerts me if there's an update available.

Anyway ... I'm wondering if I should install it or keep my current version. I'm on an iBook G4 and running OS 10.3.9. If anyone is experiencing problems with FF 2.0, please alert me and let me know. Or, on the other hand, if you think it's fantastic, please let me know that as well.

I'm still debating on installing it. Don't want to mess up a good thing with 1.5.9. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That sort of thing.

Thanks!
 
Firefox 2.0 has been out for a couple of months now, and I've found it to be very stable. It has a lot of new features. Admittedly, it was hard to get all the plugins to work in the early days, back in October/November, but now it seems that all the plugins/extensions has been updated and you shouldn't have any hassles at all.
 
I have the same experience. To me, Firefox 2 seems to have all the same pros and cons as Firefox 1.5; it's just a bit more advanced.

I'm usually wary of new Firefox updates, too, so I keep around old versions. For a while there I had three or four different versions of Firefox. I could use any one of them any time I wanted. They used all the same bookmarks and whatnot, and they didn't step on each other's toes or anything. I just renamed each of them something meaningful and put them in the same folder.

Firefox 2 has actually earned my confidence enough that I recently Trashed ALL my old versions. (Safari is still my primary browser, but I do use Firefox daily for just a couple sites.)
 
About why 1.5.9 doesn't tell you that Firefox 2 is available: It's exactly like Panther does tell you that 10.3.9 is available, but doesn't talk about Tiger. Whether you want to update to version 2 might be a wholly different decision than whether you want bugs fixed and security issues solved. And people who decide they want to stay with 1.x don't want any updates to 2.x pop up everytime they start Firefox - but still want to be informed of bugfixes to 1.x. :)

Besides: The first alphas of Firefox 3 are out, I hear.
 
I'd install Firefox 2. The thing I like best is the really slick way it updates extensions now. You click, "Yes, I'd like to update the extension and yes, I'd like to restart Firefox." It also does a much nicer job displaying or subscribing to RSS feeds. Further, I no longer need an extension for tab management.

There's only one extension I use that's still not updated, Autofill. If you have a similar, not-yet-updated extension, it's worth trying to hack it yourself. Follow these instructions for updating Autofill:
1. Save the XPI to your desktop. 2. Rename it to a .zip file. 3. Extract the Install.rdf file and open it in a text editor. 4. Find the tag called MaxVersion and change it to which ever version of Firefox is installed and save the file. 5. Import the new Install.rdf back into the zip file overwriting the old one. 6. Rename the .zip back to .xpi. 7. Drag the XPI into a Firefox window and install.
I always do this in Windows. :eek:
 
Hmmm, so ya all seem to like FF? I'm having issues with Safari, I get spinning
ball when I first load Safari, never did this before. But once its running its okay. I have cleaned my cache & turned off auto fill? But still loads slow. I run FF
on my PC & wuv it!
 
I can never use it due to the fact the scrolling is so painfully slow, never found a solution for it either
 
I've been using FF 2 for a while now (well, since it first came out) and have the latest version going now, and I've never had a problem with scrolling.
 
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