Firefox 2.0 reaches alpha

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A developers' version of Firefox 2.0 targeted that was released on Tuesday evening aims to test the back-end infrastructure supporting the browser's new bookmarks, or Places, functionality.

Firefox 2.0 Bon Echo Alpha 1, designed to serve as a developer's and tester's preview, focuses on improving access and ease of use for Web site history and bookmarks, according to the Mozilla wiki.

The Places functionality aims to consolidate user data formats, as well as improve the capabilities of Live Bookmarks.

"The BonEcho Alpha 1 milestone is the first of many developer milestones on the path to Firefox 2," Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering for Mozilla, said in a statement. "We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download Alpha 1, as it is intended for testing purposes only."

The final release of Firefox 2.0 is expected in the third quarter of this year. Its debut would come roughly two years after Firefox 1.0 was released in November 2004 amid much fanfare.

Talkback

I've tried it and it runs surprisingly well (it feels more like a beta or even an early release candidate). Extensions aren't instantly compatable, but that's a nominal thing; they'll work if you use the Night Tester Tools extension to 'force' them to (it just changes the value of the 'maximum version' it will work with)

I'm greatly looking forward to the reviews of FF2 vs IE7 vs Opera 9 that will be coming out later this year...

via Facebook 22 March, 2006 11:51
Reply

Does it matter as they are making much bigger mistakes ready for version 2.
Most home users have gone to Firefox for the tabbed browsing and ease of use including the single spot X button to close the active tab. The Mozilla developers have ignored these users and decided to make Firefox the same as other mozilla products and place the X close tab button on the relevant tab header so you now have to look for it, which detracts from your thought processes and ruins the usability. The trouble is you don't realise until you have closed the wrong tab for the umpteenth time and then it becomes a big issue whereas none existed before the change. reverting the behaviour back via an add on does not help as the confidence damage has been done. So places and history may work exceedingly well, but if you don't use the browser because of other issues, who cares!
One answer to my complaint was that IE7 does it that way. Great, I may as well use IE7 then ! Someone at the root of Firefox has decided they are the next big thing after BG and TL and have lost the plot big time as often happens with meglomaniacs

via Facebook 23 March, 2006 11:36
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