Posted on 07/11/2006 10:52:00 AM PDT by martin_fierro
Firefox 2.0 Beta Set To Launch This Week
By Gwendolyn Mariano
July 11, 2006 9:20AM
Samir Bhavnani, director of research at Current Analysis, downplayed the new features in Firefox 2.0, saying users might not see a whole lot of difference between 2.0 and earlier versions of the browser. "A lot of changes are background changes, which are security in nature," he said.
Get ready for a new round in the ongoing fight among Internet browsers. Mozilla is set to release the first beta of Firefox 2.0, a highly anticipated follow-up to the increasingly popular browser that many say will steal the thunder from Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft's next-generation browser that is slated to be released later this summer.
Although Mozilla already has made a test version of the beta available for download by way of FTP, the company will not formally launch Firefox 2.0 Beta until later this week, "until all testing has been complete," said Alex Guerra, a spokesperson for Mozilla.
"Possibly Wednesday or Thursday," he noted.
Firefox Features
New features in Firefox 2.0 include improved performance, new tabbed browsing controls, an antiphishing tool, and an integrated spell checker.
Samir Bhavnani, director of research at Current Analysis, pointed out that although Firefox has been able to garner a lot of positive publicity, Microsoft's Internet Explorer still has "a lion's share" of the browser market.
Bhavnani downplayed the new features in Firefox 2.0, saying users might not see a whole lot of difference between 2.0 and earlier versions of the browser.
"A lot of changes are background changes, which are security in nature," he said.
Browser Share
In related news, Amsterdam-based OneStat, a company that monitors Internet statistics, released a report on Sunday revealing that Firefox has a total global usage share of 12.93 percent, a figure that increased by 1.14 points since May.
By way of comparison, the total global usage share of Internet Explorer is 83.05 percent, which represents a 2.21 percent decrease since May.
OneStat's report found that, in the U.S., the most popular browsers as of July are: Microsoft Internet Explorer at 79.78 percent, Firefox at 15.82 percent, Apple's Safari at 3.28 percent, Opera at 0.81 percent, and Netscape at 0.20 percent.
When some people get bored, they eat. Me? I go look at extensions. I really do use the ones I have, though. My son would tease me unmercifully if he saw how many I have.
yea i noticed that with snapper, in the preferences... im using snapper 1.3 with linux works fine. :)
bflr
I rarely have crashes with Firefox...even with 20+tabs open. I can't remember the last time it caused me any trouble. Meanwhile, I can't even get IE to open a link in a new window without locking it up.
I have no idea what Firefox you run or what you're running it on, but mine has been a phenomenal improvement over IE in speed and reliability, on every platform I've used it on (XP, 2000, and ME--yes, even ME!). I won't ever go back to IE as my primary browser, and now, I only use IE when I am forced to by websites that are too dumb to consider that 10% of the market and adapt their sites to it.
I am curious about your crashing situation, seriously. Is there something program wise or hardware wise you've been running on that would make your system more volatile, at least in regards to Firefox?
"FF in windows VERY VERY RARELY CRASHES(but more than IE), it crashes in linux quite often(at least once during a 3 hour session) and I have tried MANY MANY different versions of linux with the same results...."
Sounds to me like your problem isn't with FF but with whatever Linux build you're running. I'll say again that I've had fewer problems with FF than I did with IE on any of my Windows machines, and leave it at that.
Wewt!
Freaky--FF on my windows computer is WAAAAAY faster than IE.
I am at a complete loss as to why the makers of FF would not want it to be even BETTER with Linux than it is with Windows, but hey, if you say so. The only time I've ever had problems with FF was using a Linux-based disk to surf from the CD drive instead of the hard drive, and that was I think primarily because of slow drive speed and low RAM, not FF or Linux. But I don't have Linux experience yet. I'll take your word for it that it's glitchy with Linux and MS on your 'puter.
Netscape with two tenths of one percent of the browser market. Now that's why I call a total thrashing. Whatever happened to the cocky Mark Andresson anyhow?
Kewl -- trying it out now.
I'll check it out later, thanks for the tip.
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