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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.