Firefox's recent release last week did pretty good. Everyone I spoke with started downloading Firefox 2.0 the second they heard about the release. I just came across some fascinating numbers from Mozilla that proves the Firefox browser does indeed have a hardcore following that is steadily on the rise.
Firefox 1.0 had 1 million downloads in the first 24 hours
Firefox 1.5 had 1.5 million downloads in the first 24 hours
Firefox 2.0 had 2 million downloads in the first 24 hours. That's 30 downloads per second happening behind the scenes.
Now compare Firefox's results to IE7's recent release that took four days to hit the 3 million download mark. IE's results could be due to the fact that individuals and IT departments worldwide are always hesitant about installing the latest version of anything Microsoft releases. IE7 is still on my download list once it becomes a little more secure.
Who was part of those stats? And who is still awaiting more fixes to the IE7 bug list?
In her never-ending quest for interface perfection, Lifehacker Gina Trapani has written a great Geek to Live tutorial called Consolidate Firefox's chrome. In it she teaches you how to pare down Firefox's menus, toolbar, address back, and bookmarks toolbar until all that's left is what you absolutely need. To be specific, you'll learn how to eliminate entire menus from the menubar, how to keep toolbar buttons hidden when they're not available, get rid of the Go and Search buttons, and how to organize your bookmarks for maximum accessibility and minimum clutter. The tutorial does require you to edit Firefox's userChrome.css, so if that makes you squeamish, well... now's as good a time as any to get over it.
Seeing a bunch of lean code jockeys building the next generation of web browsers is a reality TV show I'd watch. Since that's probably not happening any time soon, I'll take the next best thing: Read/WriteWeb's Web Browser Faceoff, by Alex Iskold. Iskold reviews six of the latest crop of web bowsers: Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 7, Safari, Opera 9, Flock, and Maxthon. I highly recommend reading his entire round-up, but in case your attention span ain't what it used to be, here's what he concludes about our trusty browsers:
IE7: "Solid release, which is going to help Microsoft maintain the market leadership in the near future"
Firefox: "We think that Firefox is going to continue narrowing IE's lead, but await with interest the next major version!"
Safari: "It's a clean and simple web 1.0 browser, but needs a major feature boost in order to be a contender even on the Mac."
Opera: "We can see why fans like this browser, but a bigger future depends on spicing it up and poring in the marketing dollars."
Flock: "Great productivity browser for web 2.0"
Maxthon: "Need to apply Occam's Razor (i.e. make it simpler), but definitely could be a contender because of solid service integration."
"Even though IE and Firefox are far ahead today," Iskold concludes, "we see that other browser like Flock and Maxthon are ramping up support for the latest web 2.0 services - making themselves stand out and attracting early adopters. ... Faceoff bottom line: This round of browser competition is going to be at least as interesting as the Netscape vs. IE ten years ago. And hopefully less one-sided!" Hear, hear!
Lifehacker has printed a nice set of tweaks for Firefox 2 to make your browsing experience happer. There's six tweaks, including changing the tab scrolling behavior, modifying prefetching settings, and limiting its RAM usage. None of them are mind-blowing, especially to Firefox power-users, but there's few things that make me happier than undocumented tweakage. If you have your own Firefox 2 tips and tweaks, please post them in the comments or send them via our tips form.
In related news, Microsoft's Internet Explorer team reportedly sent the Firefox developers a cake to congratulate them on the release of the new browser. "No, it was not poisoned," says Mozilla Corp.'s Fred Wenzel.
If you're an avid tabbed browsing fan and upgraded to one of the Firefox 2 betas or release candidates in previous weeks, you undoubtedly noticed that the new version does tabs a little differently, giving tabs a fixed minimum width and displaying scroll arrows at the ends of the tab bar if you run out of space. This isn't a bad behavior, but compared to Firefox 1 which would show dozens of tabs all scrunched next to eachother without making you scroll, Firefox 2, which maxes out at a dozen or so when you've got your window maximized at 1280x1024 (and who maximizes anymore, really?), seems a tad limited. Of course, there's a way to change this behavior if you're willing to poke around, and Lifehacker gives you the stop-by-step how-to. In short, you go to about:config and change the browser.tabs.tabMinWidth setting to something smaller, or 0 if you want to revert back to the Firefox 1 functionality.
Is the new version of Firefox really a reason to party? Literally, there are currently 170 parties registered for the launch of Firefox 2. I can just imagine a myriad of cliche games, like "which Firefox 2 feature are you" where party guests wear a secret name tag on their back and go around asking questions about themselves, trying to guess what they are. Games or not, I really don't get the point of a software launch party for a browser, but I'll tell you one thing, there is no way I would ever attend an IE7 launch party. If you couldn't tell from past posts from me on IE7, I'm not a big fan. I won't be attending the Firefox parties either because I have a life, but it does sound like fun (I think). If you are so inclined, have a good time, but be sure to save me a Firefox cookie, and let me know how it went.
The countdown to Firefox 2 marches on with the release of Firefox 2 Release Candidate 2 this weekend. If you had RC1 and have automatic updates turned on, you've probably already been notified of the new version and have it installed already. If not, now's the perfect time to download RC2 from Mozilla.com. The changes in this release are almost exclusively behind-the-scenes security, performance, and stability fixes, so don't expect anything mind-boggling if you've been using RC1.
With every new release of Firefox--like yesterday's release of Firefox 2 Beta 2--comes the question, "How do I make my old extensions work with the new version?" Some extensions--which Mozilla is now calling Add-ons--made for older versions of Firefox really don't work with the newer features and can cause problems, but for the majority of add-ons, all that's needed is basically the flip of a switch. Of course, that switch is hidden deep in the add-on's code, but Nightly Tester Tools makes it possible to flip that switch with just a couple clicks. To that end, I've put together a short tutorial video showing how to use Nightly Tester Tools to make most of your old add-ons work with the latest version of Firefox. It was recorded in Windows, but should work basically the same on OS X and Linux:
In case you have any trouble with the video, or if anything's not clear, you can find complete instructions after the jump. Also, this is my first-ever screencast, so if you have any comments on the video itself, please voice them in the comments.
TechWeb is reporting that Mozilla Corp. has pushed back the release date of the final version of Firefox 2.0 into mid-to-late October, citing outstanding bugs. As of Monday's weekly progress meeting Firefox 2 has about 40 bugs to squash before it will be ready for a second beta release, and about 100 before its final release in October. Accordingly, Firefox 2.0 beta 2, which was supposed to be released yesterday, has been pushed back a week to August 23, and the first release candidate is scheduled to appear on September 19. You can read the full minutes of the meeting on the MozillaWiki.
Both Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7, both in beta, are being positioned by their makers as the most secure web browsers for Windows, but which is really the best? ZDNet's Ed Bott has written an in-depth comparison of the two browsers' security features, which covers not only code vulnerabilities, but phishing and malware as well. Bott doesn't indicate a clear winner, instead concluding that "Both IE7 and Firefox 2 add extra layers of protection and provide additional information to users to help them make intelligent decisions. In the final analysis, though, no browser can force a user to make smart or sane decisions. They can only point the right way." The article, which includes a big screenshot gallery of the browsers' screenshot features, is definitely worth a read if you're following this second round of the browser war, of if you're just trying to figure out what browser to recommend to your mom (mine uses Firefox).
Firefox 2 Beta 1 may be nearly feature-complete, but there's one thing missing still: the theme. Mozilla designers are still working on the theme that will be the default when the final version of Firefox 2.0 is released. Some mock-ups of the theme have been posted to the Mozilla Wiki, and people who like the Firefox 1.0-1.5 theme will be relieved that it stays true to its roots. Most elements look almost exactly like their ancestors, but a keen eye will notice that everything is, well, shinier. On top of a new luster, some elements have been tweaked to make their functionality more apparent. For example, the Go and Search action buttons are now styled to be more strongly associate them with respective input fields, and the feed icon now glows briefly when a feed is found to draw more attention to it.
While various blogs and media outlets have been reporting since Monday or even earlier that the first beta release of Firefox 2.0 was out, we knew better. Those were just candidate releases, but today the browser shed its Bon Echo moniker and the real, Mozilla-sanctioned, Firefox 2 Beta 1 was released. What's new in Firefox 2? Here's the list form the official site:
Built in Phishing Protection.
Search suggestions now appear with search history in the search box for Google, Yahoo! and Answers.com
Changes to tabbed browsing behavior
Ability to re-open accidentally closed tabs
Better support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds
Inline spell checking in text boxes
Search plugin manager for removing and re-ordering search engines
New microsummaries feature for bookmarks
Automatic restoration of your browsing session if there is a crash
New combined and improved Add-Ons manager for extensions and themes
New Windows installer based on NullSoft Scriptable Install System
Support for JavaScript 1.7
Support for client-side session and persistent storage
Extended search plugin format
Updates to the extension system to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions
Support for SVG text using svg:textPath
As usual, Firefox is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, as well as other platforms. As with all beta releases, you're installing it at your own risk, and it would be wise to back up your old settings and bookmarks with a tool like MozBackup or BackupFox. You'll also find that once you install Firefox 2, most of your extensions will cease to work. There are couple at least partial remedies to this, including an about:config tweak and the Nightly Tester Tools extension.
One of the most-touted feature updates
scheduled for Firefox 2.0, Places, has been axed from the Bon Echo roadmap and instead rescheduled for Firefox 3.0. In
a post to the
Mozilla development newsgroup, developer Michael Schroepfer announced the delay of the "complex and exciting
feature which changes the way people use bookmarks, history, and navigate through their private space of the web,"
saying they "do not have time to complete an implementation of places that lives up to our standards of user
experience and quality." Many users and developers have expressed disappointment and some are even arguing that
without the Places feature, Bon Echo no longer deserves the "2.0" label. Lead developer Ben Goodger has posted a blog entry responding to the criticism and
justifying the change.
Firefox's recent release last week did pretty good. Everyone I spoke with started downloading Firefox 2.0 the second they heard about the release. I just came across some fascinating numbers from Mozilla that proves the Firefox browser does indeed have a hardcore following that is steadily on the rise. 
