So I have now installed and have been using Firefox 2 for the last two hours. Here are my first impressions in short hand.
- Installing was a breeze (as you might expect)
- The process of making my extensions work was also fairly easy
- The seamless importing of my bookmarks and extensions was appreciated
- I had no trouble with my theme that I love working as an update was made (Noia 2.0 (eXtreme). Ironically I am yet to see the new default theme in action.
- I did have some trouble getting the Tool Bar for RoboForm to be put back where I last saw it. I ended up having to install a new version and it seemed to just appear. I have no idea as to if this was a compatibility issue or something else.
- I especially like the integration of my RSS reader into Firefox. This is a nice touch as it adds to the accessibility of RSS feeds to users, for me it just makes life a lot easier.
- The auto fill for searching is great and seems to work, although I have not used it a lot yet
- Better management of the search plugins is good. Previously deleting a search was acomplished with an “addon” (I hate the new name for extensions!)
- I hate the red X in the tabs, as I said in a previous post you can close tabs with a middle click (mouse wheel) and I could not see the point of putting it in. It makes my theme look a little dirty and not quite as slick
- The extra security features are a nice inclusion and the more advanced settings appreciated
- But by far my most appreciated and most used feature in the last two hours is the inbuilt spell checker for typed words on a page, in real time. I can not spell – period. This feature works in comments, blog posting in an AJAX interface, just about everything! So far has been right every time! I love it. I sincerely hope that in time this feature improves with country specific dictionaries and such. Although at present you can add words to a custom dictionary
While there is a lot more that could be said, these are the things that have struck me over the last couple of hours. I like Firefox 2 and I am looking forward to using the features. Damn this spell check is good, post spell checked already…
Great work from the Mozilla crew yet again. The best browser just got better.
Rooster's Rail 
October 26, 2006 at 4:29 am
Complete agreement on all points.
Spell check rules, tab closure sucks.
October 26, 2006 at 7:39 am
[…] Firefox 2 is out. Instead of blogging about it, I’ve been happily enjoying it. Rooster nicely summarized my opinion of the changes (geeks of a feather think together). They can be summarized as: […]
October 26, 2006 at 10:48 pm
[…] Yesterday I summarized my impressions of Firefox 2. In that summary I was said that one of my favourite features of the new version was the real time spell checking. I also said that I hoped that in time we would see custom dictionaries come online for users. Who was I kidding, this is the open source community and I should have remembered just how innovative it is. […]
October 27, 2006 at 12:38 am
[…] Overall this spell check feature alone is worthy of the upgrade in numerical status. The default theme, which I am always to lazy to change is b e a utiful. clean, crisp and with just the right amount of shine. like the hood of a new car this browser glistens. I concur with the rooster from the Rooster’s Rail about the red X though upon the right hand side of every tab. They just seem garish in contrast to the svelte design gracing the rest of the page. Now all in all i don’t want to reinvent the wheel with this post but rather elaborate upon my feelings and impressions upon first opening the newest version. The Rooster has an excellent post covering most of the features and i suggest you check his take on things out. […]
November 3, 2006 at 3:28 pm
You can get rid of the X’s by going to “about:config” and changing the browser.tabs.closeButtons
This setting controls how the red ‘x’ close buttons on tabs appear in Firefox. A value of 0 only displays the close button on the active tab, 1 (the default) shows it on all tabs, 2 results in no close buttons being shown at all, and 3 displays a single close button at the end of the tab bar.
~from Firefox Tweak Guide
November 4, 2006 at 2:59 am
That is what I did as soon as I found out how – I don’t have a single X in the browser now.