A Review of Firefox 2

07/29/2007

On October 24th 2006, Mozilla launched the second generation of its popular web browser Firefox. With this release the Firefox community claimed new innovation, improved stability, and performance. So does Firefox live up to it's claims?

Firefox 2: Overview

For those of you who don't know already, Firefox is a free open-source browser which can be used as an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer. Based on Netscape Navigator, this browser provides a safe, secure, and highly customizable user experience. Now in its second generation, Firefox is run by roughly 16.8% of web users according to XiTi Monitor. However, some of the changes made to Firefox between 1.5 and 2 were negligible at best. It is very hard to say whether this release was worthy of its second generation title.

New Features

The first new feature of Firefox which is by far the most useful of the features is the built in spell checker. This feature is wonderful and is one of the major reasons why I choose Firefox over the rest of the web browsers. While Opera also has this feature, the one on Firefox is better because it runs the spell check in much the same way that your word processor does. As you type in the text fields of Firefox, it automatically underlines misspelled words. When you right click the underlined word, it gives you several options for correct spellings of the word. This is a great feature for those of you who frequent forums, use web based email, or use social networking sites. It makes your posts, emails, and comments look much more professional and easier to read. It is by far my favorite new feature of Firefox 2. Firefox also now includes an anti-phishing feature. While I did not test this particular feature, the reviews I have read on it have been lackluster at best. The Firefox anti-phishing feature is run on a blacklist of websites. This needs to be updated regularly to be effective. Fortunately Mozilla does update this list on a regular basis, but since new phishing sites are coming out all the time, these could render the anti-phishing feature ineffective. The advice I see time and time again that I will pass on here: do not rely on Firefox (or IE for that matter) as an anti-phishing agent. Practice safe browsing habits. I definitely would not put my security in the hands of this feature.

Another great feature that has been added into Firefox is the suggestions on the quick search bar. I have found this to be a very effective tool when searching and it has caused me to start using this tool that I rarely used before. Here is how it works. You start to type in a search in the search bar, for example if you type in suse scre and it will give you what it thinks you are probably looking for. For example I was looking for Suse Screen Resolutions and it came up right away with the quick search. You just have to arrow down or click on the search you want and it will come up. I have found this to be very effective in making my searching quicker.

Finally Firefox also includes a session restore. While not as good as the one on Opera, it is effective when you shut down your computer leaving Firefox open or if for some reason Firefox crashes. While this is a good start, they could definitely go further with this.

New Takes on Old Features

Many of the new features of Firefox are actually just modifications of old features. Among them is a new look for Firefox. Mozilla has gone away from the cartoonish look of the icons and made Firefox look a whole lot more stylish. With more of a professional look, it certainly looks better than before. However, this same effect could be achieved by just applying a new theme to Firefox, which is still an option for those of you who dislike the look of Firefox 2.

The next thing that Mozilla has done is they have combined extensions and themes into one place called Add-ons. This seems very logical and it makes customizing your browser easier than before. It is certainly an improvement on having them each open up in their own view.

Mozilla has also redone the options menu. While it looks better than before, there is nothing really special about it. It basically just provides the same functionality as before in a different view.

Tabbed browsing on Firefox 1.5 was pretty much a big let down. With Firefox 2 they finally fixed the issue that has been plaguing the tabbed browsing for so long. Opening up links in new tabs instead of new windows. This was probably one of the best fixes they did with Firefox 2 as I know this drives a lot of people crazy. I am glad they finally have it working correctly.

Functionality

Firefox 2 is a very functional browser. However, it still has some short falls. For starters, Firefox 2 opens a lot slower than Firefox 1.5. Regardless of computer, there is always a lag in opening it. While it's not as bad as Opera, it still is slow on initially opening the browser. However, the customization options dwarf that slow opening issue. There are plenty of options for customizing the look of Firefox as well as ways to improve functionality to best suit you. You can find several of them in my article 15 Fun and Useful Firefox Extensions. Actual webpage load time does not seem to be any faster or slower than Firefox 1.5. Other good things to note is that you can rearrange the tabs now so that you can group the ones you want more easily and you can view all the open tabs from the drop down arrow on the far right side of the browser next to the tabs.

Final Thoughts

While they have made some improvements on Firefox, there is nothing vast that really makes it stand out against other browsers or even older versions of Firefox. Almost all the upgrades could have been accomplished in minor patches. On one side they did not really do enough to it to make it worthy of a grandiose version 2 release, but on the other side, there is not all that much you can do with a web browser. I like the browser and it is part of the Speedys Software Essentials pack. If you have never used Firefox before, I highly recommend this as it is a massive improvement over internet explorer. If you have used Firefox before, check it out as well because there are some features in there that will really enhance your web experience.

Rating: 4.5/5


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