Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Released

By Nate Mook | Published July 12, 2006, 12:26 PM

The Mozilla Corporation launched the first official beta of Firefox 2.0 early Wednesday, signaling that its major upgrade to the popular alternative browser is inching ever closer to release. New features in Firefox 2.0 include enhancements in security, tabbed browsing, performance, and extensions.

Code-named Bon Echo, Firefox 2.0 includes a built-in spell checking and an anti-phishing feature, much like Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7. JavaScript 1.7 and improved subscribing of RSS feeds are also among the new features. Firefox has been making major gains against Microsoft's browser dominance, passing 15 percent market share in the United States. Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 is available for download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Comments

Has anybody actually downloaded this Beta?

Score: 0

|

hey everybody, lovers and haters the same! i've always wondered why Firefox didn't show the "New tab" button by default in it's toolbars. Isn't it plain sick and contradictory to "hide" that feature by default, being one of FF's most important ones?
i mailed the people at mozilla and they said that it was an already very discussed matter... but then...

DOES ANYONE KNOW THE ANSWER???????????????????

Score: 0

|

There's a keyboard shortcut: CTRL + T

Most people I know prefer that anyway. Plus, you can right-click on any link and choose "Open in new tab."

Score: 0

|

thanks, but that i know. btw, i also prefer shortcuting. but i don't know why is that decision from the FF staff.

Score: 0

|

So far this seems to be great. For those of you using MR TECH Local Install to force incompatible extensions to install.....be careful which ones you force. Bon echo will get a little crash happy if you don't.

Score: 0

|

I was an IE user for many years.

Four things that keep me using Firefox over IE.

1) Less ad pops, general BS via activeX scripting (FF doesn't use activeX and turning it off in IE produces pop up errors every 30secs and/or pages just refuse to load under IE if that's off, yet load under FF)

2) Easy to use, powerful, looks good, TAB'ed browsing.

3) Straight forward, lean, powerful, download manager (no more redownling from IE "stealing focus" and you hitting CANCEL on accident! The resume function is nice too)

4) Superior and effective pop up blocker

Score: 0

|

I have been using ff for 2 years now,but since the last 2 releases have been unable to change the default theme,I choose and press use theme/restart ff and nothing happens,same with background colour,I`ve only had a computor for 3 years so am not a wiss kid, so am using opera/maxthon more as I have no problems with them,but I do prefer ff, any help!!!!!!!

Score: 0

|

In version 2.0 there is a bug that makes you choose the theme twice to get it to display.

1. Install new theme it tells you to restart bon Echo

2. Restarted bon echo is NOT displaying the new theme, open the add-ons dialog and choose that theme again. Manually restart bon echo, new theme is displaying.

Score: 0

|

Watch the FUD fly! ;o)

Score: 0

|

Can't wait for beta 2 when the new polished theme will be available.

http://wiki.mozilla.org/...te/Default_Theme_Update

http://img291.imageshack...x2newthemeinxpv12ot.jpg

Score: 0

|

where to dl?!

Score: 0

|

Does Firefox 2.0 have a better image rendering engine? Comparatively to IE6/7, Firefox rendered images (particularly large ones) much slower. Lets hope they make this their top priority.

Score: 0

|

its based on the gekko rendering engine so its not really up to the firefox crew...
either way, looking forwards to 2.0

Score: 0

|

Does 2.0 stops eating memory like a pig?

Score: 0

|

As far as memory usage goes...

resolved memory leak bugs on the branch (2.0):

* Bug 168411 - Move bookmarks transactions into a JS service (adding a bookmark leaks the Add Bookmark dialog)
* Bug 206520 - XMLHttpRequest leaks memory if send() not called and event listeners set
* Bug 283565 - Improper use of Realloc (mlk/crash) and silly return value for OOM
* Bug 289689 - Memory leak: nsDebugImpl::Assertion, Create Process
* Bug 289897 - huge memory leak when klipper is running
* Bug 316775 - leak when selecting
* Bug 317478 - leaks due to global scope polluter being removed from not enough (?) prototype chains
* Bug 319980 - javascript garbage collector not run when supposed to, leading to "memory leak"
* Bug 323454 - [FIX]Don't leak the channel and XMLHttpRequest object if AsyncOpen fails
* Bug 321283 - Using Find causes documents to leak
* Bug 323532 - Leak when using history autocomplete
* Bug 323377 - Lots of leaks in nsInternetSearchService
* Bug 325984 - DOMWindow leak with
* Bug 330624 - accessibility code (when accessibility enabled) holds on to DOM nodes until shutdown
* Bug 330780 - [ATK only] global nsAppRootAccessible is not released on shutdown
* Bug 330878 - Firefox leaks the update.xml document when it checks for updates
* Bug 333134 - Accessibility still leaking when AT used
* Bug 333764 - Livemark Service leaking nsRDFResource and RDFServiceImpl references
* Bug 334105 - [FIX]ASSERTION: Bogus: '!mHead' (nsLineBox.cpp#916 - nsFloatCacheFreeList::Append)
* Bug 336922 - nsAnnotationService leaks
* Bug 337044 - Search engine Manager leaks an observer when canceled
* Bug 341301 - 1.8 branch firefox leaks like a sieve

Score: 0

|

OMG! thanks.

Score: 0

|

Remember not to confuse the instant forward and back feature for a memory leak. Introduced in Firefox 1.5 the browser keeps loaded pages in memory so you can go back instantly without re-rendering the page.

If you don't use or want this feature enabled then type "about:config" into the location bar and set the "browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers" prefernce to "0".

Score: 0

|

Time to make a real Admin Kit for corporate use.

Score: 0

|

Also here is a link to submit sites that you believe are phishers -

http://www.google.com/sa..._success.html&hl=en

Score: 0

|

MazzTer - here is the phishing test page from google -

http://www.google.com/to...wsing/phish-o-rama.html

Score: 0

|

Is there a "test" anti-phishing page?

It didn't get the real one I visited to test it.

Score: 0

|

SWEEEEET!!!!

Score: 0

|

Don't wait for Microsoft's patch: Secure Windows now from today's 0-day

Microsoft is recommending users simply get rid of a vulnerable ActiveX control that no one even uses any more. We'll show you how to do that right now.

Nokia: Android? Are you crazy?

Rumors about new Android devices abound, but Nokia squashes this one.

Symantec goes live with Norton 2010 betas

Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus 2010 are now available for testing.

What's Now: Drenched with 'Purple Ra1n,' iPhone users caught eating 'redsn0w'

Plus: Symantec and McAfee go to war, and what's LucasArts building in its top-secret, moon-shaped orbital facility?

In New York, online booze loses a Circuit Court decision

Court worried about gangster influence if liquor purchased directly.

British Telecom sacks bitterly unpopular Phorm ad platform

Phorm under BT is no more, but the targeted ad service could still go on under Virgin or TalkTalk.

CBS is the last man standing against Hulu

Popular streaming syndication site Hulu now has all the major networks in its camp except CBS.

Not just Vista: The operating system is dying, too

Carmi Levy: Wide Angle Zoom Vista's troubles point to a bigger shift that will affect more than just Microsoft.

Bolt: the dark horse mobile browser

Bitstream's small-footprint mobile browser is available in Beta 3

IE8 WSUS update push to begin August 25

After months of availability to users willing to seek it out, Internet Explorer 8 will be rolled into Windows Server...

Geeks vs. journalists: A tale of two worldviews

Recovery with Angela Gunn Why geeks think most mainstream journalism is flaky, and why the mainstream thinks geeks are trying to kill them. (They're both right.)

Can Linux do BitLocker better than Windows 7?

Betanews kicks off a new series with a look at how the Linux operating system's FDE stacks up against BitLocker, the Windows feature that today commands a $120 premium.

Windows 7 ISO Verifier 1.0

July 6 - 5:40 PM ET

ProgDVB 6.10.2

July 6 - 5:19 PM ET

FreeBSD 8.0 Beta 1

July 6 - 4:58 PM ET

K-Lite Codec Pack 64-bit 2.5.0

July 6 - 3:55 PM ET

SysCheckUp 1.4.0

July 6 - 3:34 PM ET