Firefox 2.0 Initial Opinions

[dbminter]

After discussing it over in my thread where I apparently, inadvertently, revealed to the world that Internet Explorer 7 was homosexual I thought I'd voice my usual fantastic opinions on Firefox 2.0 after installing it.

 

 

Wow... it's almost as if they just looked at IE 7 and said, "What can we copy and take out of Firefox to increase the actual amount of work that the user must do and reduce what he can do!"

 

 

First thing was the copied style of tabbed browsing from IE 7. It sucked there and it sucks here! And, near as I can tell, it cannot be changed in any options to do anything else. If I'm wrong in any of my statements here on a software option, please let me know how I can change it.

 

 

It seems that, for some strange reason, after 11 tabs are opened, the remaining tabs are sent to a pull down controlled list. Now, there are left and right scroll buttons that I do have to give them credit for adding that when you hold down the mouse button, the tabs do scroll. As opposed to the Tab Mix Plus buttons which don't do this. But, the IE 7 type of interface where you must pull down the list on the far right to really navigate anywhere is a pain. This limited number of tabs also means it's harder to determine which tab on the screen is the one you want.

 

 

Speaking of Tab Mix Plus, FF 2 disables it because it says it is not compatible. Okay, BUT, a LOT of great stuff is lost! Like the picture preview on a tab that HELPED you to identify X tab as the tab you're looking for. The ability to merge windows, etc. But, FF 2 is relatively new, so, hopefully, the designer of TMP can make it compatible.

 

 

Pluses to FF 2 for, apparently, a real time spell checker that is pointing out things as I type.

 

 

One weird possible bug seems to be that context windows don't necessarily want to appear on their own. Meaning if I select something in the Options, it won't appear until I click on the window that I opened the context from. Weird.

 

 

I also wanted to pass along a list of Extensions I had that FF 2 does not apparently support, in case anyone else also uses them.

 

 

Tab Mix Plus 0.3.0.5

Oh, man, SO much here that I liked... :cry: The ability to merge windows, to close all tabs to the left or right only of the current one, the ability to scroll through tabs lists, the little pictures that helped display a windows contents, THE ABILITY TO SAVE AND MANAGE SESSIONS! FF 2's stupid little recover sessions ONLY on crashes is okay, but, the ability to keep collections of sessions is more convenient that bookmarks, IMO.

 

 

Back IS Close 1.3.3

Fun one that replaced the Back button with a close tab button if there were not more previous tabs.

 

 

Download Embedded 0.4

So much shit out there is prevented to try and do the simplest file saves on them. This was nice to have for that reason. And, probably a little pressure made it convenient to remove this extension under the guise that it "did not work with the current architecture."

 

 

Download Manager Teak 0.7.1

I liked this because it prevented the download list from opening as its own window, but as a tab, instead. Didn't get in the way and "lock up" Firefox until it had loaded its display list because it was as a tab instead, functioning, really, as a web page being loaded, in essence.

 

 

Fasterfox 1.0.3

Nice little acceleration tweaks in there.

 

 

Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE) 3.0

Despite the oddly stupid and redundant naming of itself this extension worked well. Now, a note here. 3.0 does not work, BUT, upon FF 2 install, it checks for any new updates. Version 4.0 DOES install under FF 2. Wanted to pass that note along, in case FF 2 doesn't tell ya.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

One thing I will say for Firefox, the spelling checker with MS Word style underline is the bollocks!

 

Why on earth didn't MS copy that idea in IE7.... crazy people!

[dbminter]

Yeah, that's something I admit, as I said, that I really like in Version 2. And, I'm surprised that, not only wasn't it in IE 7, as noted, but, that it took so long for anyone to implement.

[SPA_CE]

Yups, that spell checking feature is awesome. I sometimes forget how to spell a certain word. It's so cool, that this word -->"awsome" got underlined while i was typing this.

[dbminter]

One "logical" drawback is if you type in smilies, they get flagged as misspelled, but, the spell checker can't possibly think you may want to incorrectly spell something.