Get Firefox Now

As of this writing, the latest Firefox version officially supported by Mozilla, is Firefox 2.0.0.5.

Some of the key features in the latest Firefox are:

• Interface Upgrades: Many aspects for the Firefox UI (User Interface) have been improved to provide a better overall experience, as well as notable speed improvements.
• Phishing Prevention Tools: When users attempt to access a page that appears to have malicious Phishing code enabled, users are warned by Firefox and offered to return to the previous page. By default, the anti-Phishing tools are enabled in the latest Firefox version.
• Better Search Experience: When user searches are typed within the built-in search box, results appear as they are typed (at Get-Firefox-Now.net, we love us some AJAX in action!). Although Google is the default search engine, users may easily add their own search engines of choice, as well as re-order existing search engines to their liking.
• Improved Tabbed Browsing: Gone are the days of obnoxious multiple browser windows. With Firefox’s improved Tabbed Browsing, new links (by default) are opened in their own tab, within a single instance of Firefox. Links can still be set to open in a new window (either per-link, or as the default action). Tabbed browsing makes it easy to open multiple sites on loading Firefox, and even easier to close several pages at once.
• Browsing Session Restore: When Firefox is restarted, user’s are offered the ability to resume their last “session”. Basically, choosing “Restore Session” will reopen tabs that were previously closed, and also navigating Firefox back to the sites that were previously loaded within those tabs. We like this feature; when the boss interupts your browsing, it’s a snap to restore your timewasting when the boss leaves.
• Better Spell-Checking: In the latest Firefox, when data is entered into forms, it is automatically checked for proper spelling. There is no longer a need for a 3rd party add-on to accomplish this. Splling is vry importantt.
• Tons of little things: We could go on and on about every one of the great features in the latest Firefox, but check it out for yourself. You can download Firefox here.

Softpedia reports that work is under way to give the widgets in web page forms a more Mac-like look in Firefox. The look of all other aspects of a web page is under the control of the designer of the page, but the appearance of the buttons and other widgets that make up forms depends completely on the browser. In the case of the latest Firefox, which runs under a number of different operating systems, the look of form controls also depends on the OS.

For your convenience, I’ve collected an example using five different browsers in the image to the right: Mosaic 2.0.1 from 1995, Firefox, a preview of Firefox with Aquafied widgets, Camino, and Safari. (I couldn’t test Netscape 3 because the current Netscape homepage crashes the browser when it loads upon startup.) The current Firefox seems closer related to its 12-year-old ancestor-of-sorts than to any of the newer browsers as far as form rendering is concerned, but the preview (now also available for PowerPC) nicely fixes that. The new code is supposed to go into Firefox 3, so as of that version all Firefox users can enjoy the better-looking widgets.

However, for those of us who want to couple most of Firefox’ power and standards-compliant rendering prowess with Mac-appropriate good looks, there is another choice: Camino. Like Firefox, Camino is supported by the Mozilla Foundation. Interestingly, the improved Aquaish widgets in the Firefox preview don’t look completely identical to the Camino ones, so apparently there is more (or less) going on than simply borrowing the Camino code.

(originally posted at http://www.protrade.com/content/DisplayArticle.html?sp=Sfcecf902-3939-11dc-bb15-ad4d09b7b838)

Hey guys,

If you’re like all of my friends, then you probably use Mozilla Firefox instead of Microsoft IE. It took me maybe two minutes to figure out, but I found a way to quickly access the Protrade search from anywhere on the internet.

For example, say I’m listening to the game on the radio while browsing something completely unrelated. I hear some player news and want to access the player’s stock page quickly. Let’s say I hear that Ted Lilly is having a monster outing, getting 13 K’s. Rather than logging on to PT before I can do the search, I can just open a new tab (Ctrl+T) and immediately type “pt lilly” and I’ll get the classic search results page. There, I can click on his name and be taken straight to his player detail page so that I can buy him, short him, etc. I know this doesn’t save a whole lot of time, but I assume there are probably a lot of you out there who are like me and love keyboard shortcuts whenever you want to do something.

So anyway, how do you do it? Here’s the step-by-step guide:

1. Create a new bookmark in Firefox (Bookmarks > Quick Searches > right-click, and hit “New Bookmark”)

2. Under “Name,” call it something like “Protrade Quicksearch”

3. Under “Location,” type “http://www.protrade.com/athletes/Search.html?sp=S%s” (without quotes.) This was the tricky part to figure out, as the regular search box on the PT site is based in Javascript or something, not a direct http link to the search page.

4. Under “Keyword,” type “pt” (or whatever you want to type into the address bar to indicate to Firefox that you’re going to do a protrade search.)

5. Hit OK.

Now, whenever you type “pt xxxx” into the address bar of Firefox, it will take you to the Protrade search results page for “xxxx.” Note that this will appear in the active tab, so you may want to open a new tab with Ctrl+T.

Hope that some of you guys find this little tip useful.

We’ve reviewed Firefox before. It’s a great browser, and I personally use both Safari and Firefox every day. Safari is fast and agile, while Firefox’s plugins add functionality I can’t browse without.

Since Firefox is open source, at least two people (that I know of) have taken the initiative to tweak Firefox specifically for Mac OS X, making these optimized builds even faster than the regular Mac version of Firefox. You can download a version specifically for your browser (G3, G4, or G5.)

This version of Firefox has the best icon of the Mac-optimized versions. Tomorrow I’ll review another Mac-optimized version that works with Intel chips.

Editor’s Review - Mozilla FireFox for Mac

Firefox is a Web browser featuring tabbed browsing, plugin support and extensions support.

The 2.0 release of this popular web browser is finally here. I’ve been waiting for it since the first preview of this version, the Release Candidate 1. After the third release candidate Mozilla managed to announce the big hit.

This version comes with some new features that in the previous stable releases of Firefox (1.5.x) were available only by using certain extensions. This is a good thing because in this way you will get a stronger browser than the previous versions.

The producers said there are new features in this release. Here is a list with those new features: Visual Refresh, Built-in phishing protection, Enhanced search capabilities, Improved tabbed browsing, Resuming your browsing session, Previewing and subscribing to Web feeds, Inline spell checking, Live Titles, Improved Add-ons manager, JavaScript 1.7, Extended search plugin format, Updates to the extension system, Client-side session and persistent storage and SVG text.

I think every FireFox user will like the fact that the Session Saving functionality is an option and not an add-on like it was before. You will have to enable that options from the preferences panel though. You can find it in the ‘Main’ tab under the drop-down menu named ‘When FireFox starts’.

I like the fact that the producers implemented a single add-ons panel in this version. You will be able to manage your Extensions and Themes from the same window. Another nice thing is the possibility to disable an extension, rather than uninstalling in in order to make it cease function.

I need to say a few words about the Web standards too. Since all current browsers are trying to comply with the W3C standards I had to test the browser with the well known Acid2 test. This build of Firefox failed again the test. You will be able to see how it is rendering the image in the screenshots I took during the testing. Programmers of Mozilla have been making gradual efforts in order to pass this test.

Pluses: it has an improved tabbed browsing and other new features in this build, it has a little better rendering speed that the previous release. The ‘Preferences’ panel and the ‘Add-ons’ panel looks better.

Drawbacks / flaws: so far I didn’t get any but if you do get a crash you can always use the TalkBack engine in order to help the Mozilla to improve FireFox by uploading the crash log.

In conclusion: the product looks like an evolution, not like a revolution but you can’t have them all. It is a better implementation and the producers already have plans for a third version. In fact, if you would like to take a peek to an alpha build of Firefox 3.0 you can take it from the download section. Please remember: the alpha builds are only for testing and sending feedback to the producer, and they aren’t recommended for daily usage. An interesting thing is the fact that the 3.0 Alpha 2 version passes the Acid2 test. A strong alternative for this product is Opera, a Web browser that is improved by its producers with every new version.

Publisher’s Description:

Mozilla Firefox project (formerly Firebird, which was formerly Phoenix) is a redesign of Mozilla’s browser component, written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform. When you download Firefox, it includes a popup blocker, tabbed browsing, a smarter search, hassle free downloading, and improved privacy and security.

(Originally reviewed by matty2 at reviewcentre.com)

Good Points

Free!
Nice browser layout
Easy to use browser layout
LITTLE search box at the top
Tabbed browsing
Customisable (sic)
Bookmark toolbar

Bad Points

Browser will collapse if you tweak a few settings
Hard to access history & favourites.

General Comments

First of all, I’m am glad to say that this browser is faster, more reliable, more customisable, and safer than the rest of them. Firefox is also free for download, which automatically boosts value for money up to 10/10.

Tabbed browsing is in place of windowed browsing (loads of windows open). Tabbed browsing was invented so you only have one window and all of the tabs are easy to get to without the hassle of the system memory packing up. Now, let me get this straight: Firefox didn’t invent tabbed browsing. Opera didn’t either. It was a browser called Netcaptor. Anyway, tabbed browsing is a fine feature in web browsing.

Another feature of Firefox is the bookmark toolbar. It allows you to click on a link already in the browser layout, instead of having to go into the favourites folder. It saves you time! You can still save favourites in the favourites folder, though.

Firefox is almost completely customisable. You can change the toolbar pictures, move them around, add or remove them… etc. You can also download different skins for it.

The amount of plug-ins (add-ons) available for Firefox is uncountable. The range from ForcastFox (Weather) to FasterFox (it should make Firefox faster) to Map+ (A map, obviously).

Also, you have the search bar at the top. This one isn’t one that will decapitate your view of the web page. All is does is sit there nicely in the top-right corner chopping off a little bit of the address bar. It lets you search through many search engines like Google, Yahoo, and others like Amazon, Ebay, and Answers.

Unfortunately, everything has it’s downsides. The problem with Firefox is that if you dive into the ‘Tools’ bar, you may change some settings that could obliterate the usage of Firefox. In other words: “A teensy bit of fiddling and your driving down diarrhea drive. That is not good.”

You also may have a bit of difficulty accessing the history and favourites (bookmarks) unless you get them from the top toolbar or put the icons on the browser through the customise window.

Overall, Firefox is, in my opinion, much better than Internet Explorer 7 and is great as it is free.

At version 1.5, Mozilla’s Firefox browser is still brand new software. Yet with recent detail improvements, this browser is already a wonderful alternative to using Microsoft’s IE6 browser.

OVERVIEW

Good: Firefox has a super-small installation (4.9MB), tabbed browsing, multiple shortcut features, integrating pop-up ad blocking, integrated Google search, large viewing area, compatibility with IE shortcuts/ favorites/cookies, clean interface, very user friendly design, and no glaring security holes.

Bad: images load 30% slower than IE; Firefox does not integrate well with Outlook email or Pocket PC Synching; browser plug-ins like Flash and Shockwave require extra user effort to install; some Javascripts will not run in Firefox. Some online banks and other password-protected websites are not designed to allow Firefox users.

Overall: Despite its small flaws, Firefox is an excellent browser that is within a two years of unseating Microsoft IE from its throne.

Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus. Disclaimer: Alex’s company AdaptiveBlue has a product called The blueorganizer, which is a Firefox extension. This review was originally posted on readwriteweb.com.

In this post, we take a look at what the Firefox team is going to deliver in their upcoming major release: Firefox 2.0. We ask the question: will it be enough to make significant ground on IE?

Current browser market

In just a few years, Firefox has taken the previously dormant browsing market by storm and woken the slumbering giant Microsoft. The Mozilla browser now owns 12-14% of the browser market (the number varies depending on the source - see Wikipedia for more). The Firefox brand is also making an impact, thanks in part to the Spread Firefox campaign. For example, last year Firefox was voted the #7 global brand by brandchannel.com. But the question is still up in the air: will Firefox ever get close to Internet Explorer’s market share?

IE: you snooze, you lose?

A recent post about IE7 on TechCrunch generated a lot of comments complaining about the lack of innovation in the Microsoft product. The timeline between IE6 and IE7 has been unusually long by software standards, so it was reasonable to expect a decent amount of innovation. But despite major improvements and work towards standards support, IE7 looks like a Firefox wannabe.

So one would expect that Firefox has a chance to further cut down IE’s lead in the browser market, by introducing further innovation and continuing to improve the browsing user experience. Let’s look and see…

User interface improvements

The first thing that stands out in the new Firefox is the more modern, snappier look and feel. Everything is more shinny, more playful and more clickable.

Tabbed browsing was a major browser innovation that Firefox popularized - and in version 2.0 there are further improvements to this. By default, the links now open in a new tab instead of a new window and each tab has its own close button. There is also a new handy way of switching between the tabs, via a pulldown list of all open tabs.

All these improvements are subtle, but good productivity boosters for the user.

Search improvements

Search is probably the most fundamental thing we do online and Firefox excels at integrating search engines in a very smart way. With this new release, Firefox adds the search completion mechanism, which works just like Google complete. As soon as the user starts typing, potential search phrases show up.

This feature has been also added to the Firefox search engine format, allowing each search engine to support it.

RSS Reader integration

Perhaps the most interesting new thing in Firefox 2.0 is the integration of RSS Readers. Since its early days, Firefox has made a commitment to usability and ease of use, which implies integrating all things web right into the browser. Wiring search engines into the browser is one example. In Firefox 2.0 we now see similar integration done with RSS readers.

When a user navigates to a page which contains an RSS feed, the RSS icon in the URL bar lights up. If the user clicks the icon, she is given a choice to subscribe to the feed using either LiveBookmarks or one of the popular online readers like Google Reader. This is a nice and clean integration, but one can’t help but wish to have an RSS Reader built right into the browser. Flock, for example, features one of the best RSS Readers and it makes a big difference for end user experience (note: Flock is a R/WW sponsor).

Other notable improvements

There are a number of software improvements in Firefox 2.0. Some of them are:

• Fixed memory leaks and improved performance
• Built-in phishing protection will warn the user of suspicious sites
• Persistent sessions will restore the session after system restart
• Smart spell checking for web forms
• Live Titles and microsummaries help sites convey the latest interesting content
• Improved add-on manager helps the users manage extensions and themes
• Enhanced security and localization support for extensions
• Support for JavaScript 1.7

The Firefox 2.0 release notes have more details.

Will this be enough?

It might not seem like Firefox 2.0 has a lot of new features, but we think it is a solid release. The team’s focus on performance, stability, usablity and security clearly results in a better, faster product - and users will be pleased with that.

However it is also clear that Firefox needs to do more innovation and web integration in order to gain bigger market share. In future we hope to see better bookmarks, better history, a built-in RSS Reader, more productivity features and more smart web integrations. Perhaps with advanced functionality like this, Firefox would make significant ground on IE. What do you think?