RSSMajor Firefox 2.0 Feature Dropped
By Ed Oswald | Published April 28, 2006, 3:47 PM
While Microsoft has become a favorite target of critics who say the company has dramatically scaled back expectations for Windows Vista, Mozilla's Firefox Web browser is about to join that crowd.
Mozilla has decided to strip out a major new feature from Firefox 2.0 in order to ensure that the update meets a Q3 2006 release target, a post in the browser's developer forum indicated earlier this week. "Places," a complete rewrite of the browser's bookmarking system, will no longer be included in the release.
While Places had made it into the first public alpha release of Firefox 2.0, codenamed "Bon Echo," it had been pulled previously. In announcing the decision, Mozilla's director of engineering Mike Schroepfer said the company wanted to ensure a quality release.
"Rather than rush it to market - we'd prefer to spend the time it takes to get it right," he wrote. Schroepfer said that it was a difficult decision, but it would ensure that when released, Places would work as Mozilla intended it to.
The removal of Places is a blow overall to the Firefox 2.0 release, which was reflected in the responses to Schroepfer's comments.
"mozilla.feedback [the company's feedback newsgroup] has 'I don't see any big differences' repeated frequently over 2.0a1, and it had Places. From your post, Firefox 2.0 sounds like it should be called Firefox 1.6," a user named Matt Nordhoff said.
Schroepfer said that Firefox 2.0 would still offer many improvements over its predecessor even without Places, pointing to enhancements in security, tabbed browsing, RSS, performance, and extensions.
"In order words, all the reasons people love Firefox will get demonstrably better in this release," Schroepfer said. Bon Echo Alpha 2 is set to be available on May 9, he added.
The Firefox team are putting security, stability and reliability before features. Good on them! That is the right way to do it. Another good reason to stick with Firefox
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|I have a suggestion: let's have a contest. All the fanatics of FF, Mozela, IE, and any other browser or OS agree to try to break into one another systems. The one that succeeds will advance the cause of their OS or browser. The only condition will be that no personal info will be revealed. Afterall, setting aside the bells and whistles, security is the name of the game when in comes to computers. So to all you fanatics, I say put-up or shut-up
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|I don't know..maybe I'm missing something but does it really matter what the hell version number is used? Seems to me that what matters is whether the program works or not not some silly a** number. Geez. people get a life..go outside, have a beer, take a deep breath,or go out on a date but do something other than argue about version numbers.
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|Who cares about Places or Bookmarks? I think Firefox should team up with Del.ico.us and have it built in to Firefox.
I use that instead of bookmarks anyway.
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|Good for Mozilla! Never release a bad product.
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|On Mozilla's IRC channel I made the same point as Matt.
I think the Corp, over the Foundation, likes pressing major releases too early. The reason for this is publicty.
Firefox 1.5 (which I was on the QA team for) was pressed forward too early creating the infamous memory leak.
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|As I recall, that wasn't an actual memory leak. An actual memory leak is an error in the coding that causes the app to request memory but then not free it up when done using it.
In 1.5 the program used more memory BY DESIGN. Whether the design choice was right or not is up for debate, but it was basically FF stored previous webpages in memory so when you hit the back button they would popup really fast. Not a memory leak, but maybe not the best use of resources either...
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|The reason I called it a memory leak as that was what it was dubbed.
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|And the reason he said it wasn't a memory leak was because... it wasn't.
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|Regardless of what you call it, it still makes your point invalid as an example of 1.5 being "rushed".
By Design = Not rushed.
:)
Thanks for playing.
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|and while I'm sure some spyware isnt really spyware, but persistent targetted advertising...IT QUACKS LIKE A DUCK
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|I've been trying out both IE7 B2 and Opera 9 Beta in the past few days. Opera is a beautiful browser, and I was almost tempted to make it my primary.
But I'm back to Firefox for one main reason -- AdBlock. Many of my favorite sites were unreadable in Opera, due to dozens of ads I'd never seen before while on Firefox.
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|yeah. that adblock is so GOOOD ! :)
it truly is.
you can even block out the faces of people you dont like in a page (provided they are in separate pictures ;) .
There are ways for firefox to improve and i hope we all will see them coming soon enough.
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|(blocks Bill Gates)
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|Heh - I have Norton Internet Security 2006's ad-blocking feature (no bashing on Norton or anything; I haven't had any problems with it on my computer).... and poof, the ads on IE 6 SP2 and 7 Beta 2 are gone.
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|Hmm, so with FF you can block ads for free using adblock regardless of the underlying operating system, but for IE you have to buy bloated software for like $30-60 and it only works on windows?
Why am I using Firefox?? I feel like such a moron ;)
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|Opera 9 Beta contains a content blocker. Right-click the page and select "Block Content..." - you then enter a special mode where you can block ads by clicking them (including flash). s***+click blocks ust specific images. When you're finished, click done and you are back to your page minus ads - Opera also collapses whitespace. You can manually convery your AdBlock lists to opera content-block lists.
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|Interesting. But can it autoupdate it's list like Adblock Filterset.G Updater?
This is why I like Firefox. You can mix and match components, anyone can make components, you can get the right balance of startup speed and functionality for you.
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|Well, I believe you haven't seen Maxthon yet. ;)
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|If you don't like Ads, check out :
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
It works for me.
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|try Outpost firewall + Ads plugin = Agnis list
& there is also content blocker plugin.
there is also a lean ad blocker in opera, but requires little tweaking to make it work efficiently.
I like firewall based ad blocker coz it can ALSO block ads in almost every app.
for example dont see any ad in MSN messenger.
ADblock is cool too.
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|A wrapper for IE?
Ooohhh.... I can't wait.
/sarcasm
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|I switched from Firefox to IE7 and I'm very happy. The latest IE7 BETA2 is very stable and better than Firefox
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|Haha, IE7 is totally crap compared to Firefox 1.5....it's like a terribly ugly cousin who can't walk or talk properly.
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|"Haha, IE7 is totally crap compared to Firefox 1.5"
----------------------------------------
Examples, please. Otherwise your statement is totally without merit.
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|Why not ask mattsf that as well? He didn't give examples of why IE7 is so much better than FF 1.5 other than it's stable. FF 1.5 is stable too. What else?
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|Example: 1. It's a Microcrap piece of software.
-End Point.
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|One of the most irritable features (of any) bookmarkmanager is, that you cant see which folder the bookmark is placed. I agree on the AlexWeber15 to name it 1.6....unless there are other real major changes, call it 1.6.
As a complete aside: I'm observing many Troll comments out of the MS/IE campagne corner on Betanews. So here's my opinion: FFX is great, Opera is more mature and slick, IE is toiletware was and is in its latest iteration.
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|while the community & mozilla foundation (non-profit organization) work hard to maintain ff &thuderbird. Mozilla corp MAKES PROFIT am i right.
So now they HAVE money so they CAN have paid employees, so we can compare them with msie (without free community support).
Still they have made empty promises.
Can anybody remind me the point of not using ie and to use FF ?(except extensions)
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|FF has tabbed browsing and no spyware for one :)
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|Have you quickly forgetten all the security issues with IE? Are you familiar with their latest change in how ActiveX Controls are handled? Most plug-ins use ActiveX Controls to load, so they will have a change in behavior. I have further details in my blog: http://the-cream.blogspot.com/
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|That's too bad they had to dump Places... on a good note, Firefox will still stay on TOP!
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|....Site glitch... :(
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|Lol, this is no problem tho. As much as I would like to see this place feature, we'll just have to wait. As for version 1.5 going to 2.0, I really don't care.
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|looking at number of application & extensions to make ff to work for individuals liking it seems to me that it is getting more and more like ie, many dumped ie for the crap we needed to make it work right, productive and more secure.
And mozilla's version numbers are getting more and more stupid, i had huge expectation from 2.0 but now i simply dont care if tomorrow they will launch ver. 10.0
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|These posts are very funny.
Look people, Firefox doesn't have nearly the development staff of MS. Thats why its more incredible when MS misses something. I really would have liked an overhaul of the bookmarks, but that won't prevent me from using this browser (as well as IE). I don't care what the stupid version number is anyways. Versions stopped mattering when people came out with service packs, Windows 9X/XP/Vista, etc..
I'll be happy to download the new browser, I'll just have something to look forward to later, when they do it right.
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|Sound to me like many install 1.x then return to IE. And if you just don't like the app at all you will not try point releases.
So, "Let's have 2.0"
More of a marketing tool. They are a business let's not forget.
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|Now that Firefox has growing user base they seem to forget what a full update is. Maybe, they are taken a play from their competitor in Seattle and expect a few minor (ok some are good enhancements) should make it a full point release upgrade. Dropping "Places" is a major blow and was one of the pieces of new technology that was worthy of given Firefox a 2.0 as it changed the way many things would be done. Enhancements in security, preformance, extensions, blah, blah... does not deserve this. Call it what will be 1.6 (hey even 1.65) but not 2.0. I don't expect a (gigantic) paradigm s*** with a point upgrade but minor fixes and few (nice but not earth shattering) ehancements is Microsoft move to sell a product to the lemmings and yes I have been a cliff leaper once or twice.
O.K. If we call the upcoming stripped down version 2.0 is Places added going to 3.0. You really can't call it 2.5. Oh, I have it we can call it "Firefox 2.0 Ultimate Edition".
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|meh!!! v2 is just interim for the real thing: coca-co---errr v3.
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|Yeah, and 1.5 was just the interim for the real thing, 2.0.
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|What would 'Places' offer?
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|Read http://wiki.mozilla.org/Places . (Please don't spam any bugs linked from the wiki with anything unnecessary, meaning no "please hurry up and do this" or "why did you disable Places"? or anything.)
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|*Giggle*
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|The problem with "Spaces" in Bon Echo is that it trashed your Firefox 1.0.X and 1.5.XX bookmarks with no way of recovering them. I can hear the howls now if they had left it in and everyone had to rebuild their bookmarks manually. This is a good move on Mozilla's part.
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|No, it didn't. It didn't delete your old bookmarks.html and history.dat. You can go back to Firefox 1.5 (or 1.0, I guess), and it'll pick up your old bookmarks and history. You obviously won't have any changes you made while using Bon Echo, though.
The entry on the Mozilla Developer News blog for this (http://snurl.com/psvj) has links to nightlies you can get that will allow you to export your bookmarks from the new SQLite format back to the old HTML format. You can't do anything about your history, though, I guess.
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|Um... That's called a "bug", stimpy, it wasn't intentional..
Oh, wait, did LiarFox find a problem? Oh the horror!
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|I would say something but I discovered a long time ago that you aren't worth insulting, you wouldn't understand words longer than one syllable anyway. But to inform you, it isn't a bug, it is a fundamental design change in the browser that hasn't been perfected yet, so unlike Microspud who puts out flawed software and calls it an update (can you say IE 7 Beta 2?, try real hard it wont hurt)Mozilla pulled it.........oh wait I forgot, you are one of those who downloads every piece of crap Microspud puts out, then attempts to justify their design flaws.
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|yeah you are correct, it didnt destroy them, it just wouldn't load them into the browser. I did have to use mozbackup to get them back into ver 1.5.02 however.
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|Backups when using beta, anyone?
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|When I used to run Windows, I ran Mozbackup *before* trying out a new FF build, not afterwards. ;-)
Mozbackup is a very nice program though.
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|I believe that is what I said, I backed up using Mozbackup before I tried the nightly and was able to recover my bookmarks and history after removing Bon Echo.....
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|"I would say something but..."
...but you said it anyway?
(Sorry, couldn't resist :)
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|Heh... The firefox dev team "Vista"ing Firefox 2.0.
Gotta love it.
(hey, I just used Vista as a verb! w00t!)
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|I think PC_Tool has been caffeinating, while he is instigating, and promoting his new found word-making-upping.
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|verb up son.
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|Vista is a perfectly cromulent verb!
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|I visit the status webpage for Firefox 2.0 weekly and I was dissappointed to read about this. Like Schroepfer says though, there are many other improvements that shouldn't be overlooked. I'm looking forward to the release in August.
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|isnt because of this feature that they named it 2.0 ....
like the one guy there says. ...
"just call it 1.6"
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|yeah... fair enough i mean really its been pretty much the same browser since 0.9x beta releases...
i think the jump to 1.5 was already huge considering what changed
and now jump to 2.0???
just call it 1.6
2.0 indicated a whole new generation, which this, obviuously, is not...
dont get me wrong, i love firefox, use it everywhere, portablefirefox on my usb and i install it wherever i can for other ppl but the whole version thing is just weird
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|Myself, I think there shouldn't have been a 1.5 release yet. This supposed 2.0 would better merit a 1.5.
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|It's better to wait and get a full working feature than to get a half work one now. Firefox is cool but need to pick up the pace on progress. IE7 seems to be getting much closer to FF than many think. just have to wait and see.
www.theoffernet.com
HOT DEALS on the NET
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