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

[holymoly]

I have visited their homepage and all the links point to 2.0.

http://www.mozilla.org/mirrors.html

Select a mirror.

Select "firefox > releases >", followed by the version of your choice.

[capt. norm]

The reason for thinking that way is the fact that I've never had any of the problems you mentioned and I am a heavy user....why does it happen to you and not me? That was my question.

I'm not a lucky person and my cheap-ass home computers are all "mongrel" home-brew machines that I have put together using my favorite components (cherry picking) from the ground up, so I should have been "bitten", but it hasn't happened.....yet.

At work, we have Firefox 2.0 on 76 machines (various manufacturers) and with very much non-tech people using them and the only complaint I've received so far was from a user who said "the mouse-pointer went off the screen and now I can't do anything!"...but that's nothing really new.

[ecurbh]

Is Firefox 2.0 a dud?

Nope. Much better than 1.5 IMO. The spell checker alone is a marvelous addition. No crashes here, and the memory leak problem seems to have greatly diminished.

[Fire_on_High]

RC3 did that sort of thing for me, but the official 2.0 didn't. The file itself was never deleted.

I'd tried RC3 for about 15 minutes and had to go back to 1.5.0.7, but then the update to 2.0 has been flawless.

[capt. norm]

The spell checker alone is a marvelous addition.

The spell checker freaked me out while posting a comment on this very forum. I had forgotten about it being added in the new browser and all of a sudden there were these red lines showing up under words I was posting. Thought FR had upgraded until I recalled the features I had read about for FF 2.0.

[mcshot]

I had similar problems and downloaded Mozilla Suite (TB & FF) and everything reappeared. Give it a try you'll like it.

[weegee]

Got a good link for IE 7 bugs?

I'm having to compatibility test IE7 AND Firefox.

[Revolting cat!]

No, I don't. I gave up when the installation of IE 7 bombed on me (and on many others out there reporting the same problem on MS' own forum), and MS kept silent. Went back to IE 6. I'm having to test some of our applications with it tomorrow (on somebody else's laptop, thankfully.)

[martin_fierro]

I've found FF 2.0 has a few quirks with FR, but still wouldn't use any other browser.

[clyde asbury]

Thanks for the tip on Swiftfox. After a couple of months of use, I'm pleased with it.

[newcthem]

Same here.........I loved Firefox..........last week I loaded this PieceofSh*t 2.0 and still can't get it to run, meanwhile it wiped my old Firefox. I sincerely wish someone had this stuffed where the sun will never shine.

[TruBluKentuckian]

Meanwhile... I keep cruising along wonderfully on Opera.

I tried Firefox, it's clunky and ugly. Opera, for me, is hands down the better browser. All of you that are having problems with it, give Opera a try if you haven't already. You very well might switch permanently.

[Skooz]

I've been using Firefox 2.0 for several weeks and have had zero problems. It's worked like a champ.

[HitmanLV]

My upgrade went fine, and I have had no problems with it at all. Many of my extensions were functional off the bat, and slowly and surely they are getting updated to true 2.0 versions.

Firefox rules it!

[HitmanLV]

You should get a little extension that backups and restores all your extensions, bookmarks, settings, etc, so you won't ever lose them. It's called FEBE.

[Gone_Postal]

I'm using 1.5. I just checked for updates and it says there are none.... so how would I get 2.0

[WalterSkinner]

..not bad
I still cannot get .pdf files to open and FavIcon doesn't work--but Firefox is a very good browser...

[Sue Perkick]

I don't believe 2.0 is an update. If you want 2.0 you have to download it. I believe it just overwrites the one you have. Someone can probably explain it better, but I believe they are two different things.

[cgk]

If you haven't yet resolved your problem with missing bookmarks: here's how I fixed that problem.

Uninstall the new version. Then open Task Manager to make sure no other firefox processes are running. Restart, then reinstall v 2.0.

All my bookmarks reappeared and I could use tabs again. I hope this helps.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

If you haven't yet resolved your problem with missing bookmarks: here's how I fixed that problem.

Uninstall the new version. Then open Task Manager to make sure no other firefox processes are running. Restart, then reinstall v 2.0.

All my bookmarks reappeared and I could use tabs again. I hope this helps.

---

I had same experience. Did 1 linux install and 1 windows install without problems, but a 2nd windows install had this issue and what you described fixed the problem perfectly. There was a FAQ on the FF website that described the fix. Folks should probably do this anyway (i.e. shut down all firefox.exe instances before installing).