Opinions Wanted - FireFox 0.9.1

[larsenmtl]

FireFox 0.9 was released about 2 weeks ago, what's your take on it?

I know this wasn't a "major" upgrade for the fine folks at mozilla.org but I'm wishing I never made the change from 0.8. Maybe it's just the little things: The download manager seems slower to start up and update itself. I can't get it to automatically download to a selected folder (although I have that set in the preferences). The toolbar went larger (ughh...) as did the Bookmarks menu so I have to scroll now. The only improvement I really feel, after a few hours of use, is that it starts up faster. Oh, the GUI Linux installer was pretty neat, but that's really just overkill for most Linux users.

So, what's your opinion?

BTW, PIII 550 - Linux (Fedore Core I)

LarsenMTL

[Zcrysis]

Definately a bad update.

The windows version also has some issues with setting itself up as the default browser. It keeps forgetting if its set to that, and so lets IE retake the default setting each time.

Ive heard that 1.0b should be out at the end of this month and will be more closer to 0.8 then 0.9, as 0.8 is perceived to be the better iteration.

[RandomLetters]

On the Windows version, I had some problems with it freezing up in the .9 version when the download manager was open. But the .9.1 update fixed it, and so far it has been working like greased lightning for me.

[yosemite]

It's doing okay on Mac OS X, but sometimes it just craps out suddenly, with no warning. I am just using the straight 0.9 version, I guess I should update. For the most part, I like it, though.

[Ximenean]

I have gone back to 0.8 for the time being. Haven't tried 0.9.1 yet, but 0.9 locked up on me several times. I had become used to Fire<animal> being totally stable. From what I've seen it may have been caused by some of the plug-ins I use, though.

[minor7flat5]

Went to 0.9... Went back to 0.8

The problems with the download manager were the main reason. I hope they fix it before going to 1.0.

[Revtim]

I'm using it on WinXP.

The problems I'm having:
1) It didn't set it itself at default browser properly, as Zcrysis notes. When I click a link in another app, both Firefox and Mozilla (my previous default browser) come up with the link.

2) When I middle-click a link to open it in the background in another tab, and if it times out or whatever, the link is no longer in the address bar for that tab so I can't easily try again in that tab. They fixed this ages ago in Mozilla, they need to fix it in Firefox.

3) Not so much a bug, but something I miss from Mozilla: I liked the way you could open a new tab from the button on the left of the tab bar, a button which doesn't exist in Firefox. No biggy, I'll just get used to right-clicking an existing tab (or using the FILE pull down menu). I like how you can double-click an empty area of the tab bar to make a new tab, but often I do not have an empty area.

[minor7flat5]

2) When I middle-click a link to open it in the background in another tab, and if it times out or whatever, the link is no longer in the address bar for that tab so I can't easily try again in that tab. They fixed this ages ago in Mozilla, they need to fix it in Firefox.

3) Not so much a bug, but something I miss from Mozilla: I liked the way you could open a new tab from the button on the left of the tab bar, a button which doesn't exist in Firefox. No biggy, I'll just get used to right-clicking an existing tab (or using the FILE pull down menu). I like how you can double-click an empty area of the tab bar to make a new tab, but often I do not have an empty area.
A couple of fixes here:
Go to "about:config" in the address bar.
(Note: No matter how I type "about" + ":" + "config", vBulletin puts an underscore before the ":". The underscore doesn't belong.)
Scroll down to "browser.xul.error_pages.enabled"
Set the value to "true"
Restart the browser.
This will cause proper error pages to be given, along with a "retry" link, instead of that annoying "too bad, so sad" dialog box.

As for problem #3, just use <control-T> to bring up a new tab.

[LordVor]

My biggest complaint is that .9 is labeled a "release candidate" while implementing a bunch of changes and new functionality. Code is supposed to be frozen well before you get to the "rc" state, so that you can just concentrate on bug fixes in the rc builds.

-lv

[Kal]

Re: problem #3

Isn't there an 'open a new tab' button in the customize menu you get by right clicking a toolbar? Or maybe I got it through an extension or summut.

However I managed to find it, that's the first icon I have on my icon bar.

[Revtim]

Thanks minor7flat5, I'll do that change.

[larsenmtl]

3) Not so much a bug, but something I miss from Mozilla: I liked the way you could open a new tab from the button on the left of the tab bar, a button which doesn't exist in Firefox. No biggy, I'll just get used to right-clicking an existing tab (or using the FILE pull down menu). I like how you can double-click an empty area of the tab bar to make a new tab, but often I do not have an empty area.



Under View | Toolbars | Customize..., you can add a "New Tab" button to the toolbar.

Is anyone else experiencing that it won't automatically save to a specific folder?

[Basandre]

I got it for my home machine, which is OS X. I still haven't used it much, but it did fix the problem I had with the version I was using before. Whatever version it was (.8, I think), buttons in dialog boxes didn't work. Wow was that ever annoying, and .91 fixed that, so I'm all for it.

[Revtim]

Under View | Toolbars | Customize..., you can add a "New Tab" button to the toolbar.Thanks! I wish it could be in the same place as the Mozilla buton, but this is 99 percent of what I want.

[Brainiac4]

I'm finding it... annoying. I'm used to IE, but trying to switch back to a non-MS browser for a variety of reasons. I'm on XP.

There are just a bunch of things where it does not work as I expect. I want it to do inline auto-complete of URLS in the Location box, dangit. If I type in "sla" I want to see "slashdot.org" in the URL box. Not in a dropdown where I need to move my hand off the keyboard proper and over to the arrow keys to get to it.

It also seems to have slightly broken Java support -- one of the apps I need to use at work relies on a Java applet for a menu, and it does not appear.

And swapping themes seems to cause the browser window to lock up, with no content displayed. Restarting the browser is very fast, though, and it does seem to render complex pages (including lots of embedded javascript) faster than IE 6.

All in all, I'm looking forward to the next release.

[minor7flat5]

Yes, I also had the same problem with automatic save to a folder. That's the main reason I went back.

Brainiac4, Firefox grows on you. It has so many features that blow away IE that I rarely use IE. The most important feature for me is the Adblock plugin -- a plugin which allows you to use regexes to block any spammy thing you don't want to see such as images or Flash or whathaveyou. You can bet that anything with "doubleclick" is never displayed on my browser.

Of course, there are always those PITA sites that don't work anywhere except IE such as the one you mentioned. Additionally, I rarely use Firefox for delicate operations such as financial transactions since I don't want to risk any browser-related problems.

[larsenmtl]

Yes, I also had the same problem with automatic save to a folder. That's the main reason I went back.



Ok, now I'm getting somewhere. What a pain in the but.

Here's a Mozilla-forum thread about the bug: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=85923

Here's the Bug-report: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=244961

And here's a work around fix: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=356

I'm installing the extension "fix" now.

I also fixed my toolbar and bookmark size problem by loading up some different themes. I should have just gone back to 0.8

LarsenMTL

[Number]

It also seems to have slightly broken Java support -- one of the apps I need to use at work relies on a Java applet for a menu, and it does not appear.Did you install Sun's Java plugin (http://java.sun.com/update/1.4.2/j2re-1_4_2_04-windows-i586.xpi)?

[zweisamkeit]

I have 0.8 installed on my work machine and personal laptop. I had 0.8 on the home computer, but we have a new harddrive (and couldn't pull much off of the old one :() so I had to start over. Since 0.9 was out, I installed that instead.

Blech.

If I used a skin, a lot of times the scrollbars would just disappear. Also, for some God-only-knows reason, the stuff inside the browser window would sometimes start to vibrate. The rest of my screen was fine, just inside the window. Plus the big-ass toolbar really annoyed me.

I was willing to hunt to find where to download 0.8 again after a whole 10 minutes using 0.9. Until I get good reviews on 1.0b, I'm sticking with 0.8.

[Kal]

Just bumping this thread because I've found a proper fix to Revtim's problem in the form of this plugin (http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=69&vid=74&category=Tabbed%20Browsing), which adds a new tab button on the tab bar.

[Revtim]

Thanks Kal! Looks like just what I wanted.

[Brainiac4]

Did you install Sun's Java plugin (http://java.sun.com/update/1.4.2/j2re-1_4_2_04-windows-i586.xpi)?
Not yet, but I will at work tomorrow.

I found a fix for the URL inline autocomplete, by the way. There is a hidden preference setting for it. Go to "about:config" and add a New boolean item "browser.urlbar.autoFill" with value "true" and restart the browser.

I am happy.

(On preview, I see that Firefox suffers from the "underscore preceding colon" issue. The address is actually "about(colon)config" with no underscore.