Is Firefox 2.0 a dud?

ZD Net ^ | 10/30/2006 | Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

[GeorgiaFreeper]

Firefox 2.0 has been out for a week and the download counter is already well past 2 million.  But a vocal group of Firefox users have generated quite a long list of gripes and grievances regarding this latest release.  Some are even saying that upgrading to 2.0 might not be a good idea.

So what's behind all this?  Here's a quick short list of the most popular Firefox 2.0 gripes:

• Random freezes
• Poor antiphishing technology
• Confused Options dialog box
• Bulky, inconsistent theme
• Incompatibility with extensions
• Memory leaks
• CSS issues
• Buggy history bar

[GeorgiaFreeper]

Heads up before you upgrade to 2.0 ...

[Keeper of the Turf]

I've been using it since it came out and I'd give it an A+.

[GeorgiaDawg32]

thanks for the heads-up..I love firefox (what the heck is that IE thingy people talk about??) but don't want problems with a new version..

[armymarinemom]

It does hog more memory than the last upgrade. It still beats IE 7 hands down.

[Revolting cat!]

IE 7 is worser.

[BibChr]

I am (A) not a bit FF fan, and (B) not a big IE slammer. BUT....

FF #2 has been fine; and...

I installed IE7 beta, and had to uninstall it; then installed IE7 final version, and had to uninstall it.

[Wyatt's Torch]

I have had horrible problems with it. It eliminated all of my bookmarks and does not allow me to bookmark any pages. Tabs do not work either. I am trying to figure out how to go back to the older version. Any suggestions???

[Fire_on_High]

I got it going as soon as one of the university sites leaked it a day early. It works wonderfully on my ancient puter. Yes, a few extension are still not updated, but that's minor. All said and done, it's a pleasure to use.

[SmithL]

IE 7 is worser.

And much-much slower.

However, I do wish more of my extensions still worked.

[GeorgiaFreeper]

Just make sure you backup your bookmarks and double check your extensions:

The claim that Firefox 2.0 is incompatible with a lot of popular extensions also seems true, though it has to be remembered that the Mozilla team have nothing to do with most of the extensions out there. They are third-party applications and require the developer to offer support for newer versions. However, extensions are one of Firefox's most compelling features and seeing a whole raft of disabled extensions, especially those that are well-used and loved, is going to put off a lot of existing users from upgrading.

[KoRn]

ping

[UB355]

I'm at 28,800 K usage, not a memory hog some are complaining about.

[smith288]

Shouldnt have been given a new major version. Probably more of a minor release in my opinion. Heck, my nightly Minefield is anything really different from the surface.

[SteveMcKing]

This came up on Slashdot. Here is a fine rebuttal:

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=203284&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=16629982


Go ahead and upgrade. There is nothing to worry about (unless you have particular add-ons that are incompatible).

[D-Chivas]

Firefox has been lousy ever since version 1.5, and I've been using it since about release 0.2.

I upgraded to version 2.0 last week and it's been crashing like Netscape 6.0 used to crash. Complete piece of crap. It makes Microsoft look very good and reliable.

[GeorgiaDawg32]

I have the 1.5.0.7 exe file (I always d/l each version to the h/d before I install it just in case of problems, I can go back to an earlier version)..freepmail me your e-mail and I'll send it to you..

[usmcobra]

Firefox 2 rocks, I love the spell check feature.

[KevinB]

It has worked great for me on three computers.

[BallyBill]

Sticking with 1.5 for now. Mozilla hasn't prompted me to upgrade yet, when they do I'll try it on my laptop first.

[Blueflag]

1.5.0.7 here.


Working just fine thank you very much ;-)