I couldn't find anywhere what exactly is new in this release (compared to RC1). Could anyone inform?

Firefox Portable 2.0 RC 2 has been released. For the unfamiliar, Firefox Portable is Firefox packaged with a PortableApps.com launcher so it can be run from a USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, CD, etc and used on any computer. It can also be run from a local hard drive (even your desktop) making it a great way to test out another version of Firefox without impacting your installed version. Grab it from the Firefox Portable 2.0 RC2 Homepage: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test

They should have made it more stable, faster, more memory efficient, and cleaned some idiotic bugs that have persisted since firefox exists, like the copy paste problems, firefox was meant to be a very clean efficient browser, they should just keep it firefox, if they want spellcheck/phising/whatever they should release it has an "official" extension, or maybe release a "general version firefox" with all the official add-ons and a "clean version firefox" ... well now opera is looking more and more streamlined...

Fiend thats a very biased rant showing little understanding or consideration of general usability for general users. Most people dont experience serious problems with Firefox hence why its regarded as one of the if not the best browser out there. So whilst valid, your seriously exaggerating the seriousness of some bugs and other points you make. I too would like to see memory usage really improved, less toolbars as Fx has the most toolbars and clutter, and other bugs fixed. But Inline spell checking, phishing protection, are so basic and essential they warrant being a part of the browser for all users. Why, because a majority of web users write text be it in forms, emails on the net, and spell checking is a very basic thing to have. Phishing is a very serious online threat that all should be protected from, not a chosen few.

Add-ons are for things which are deemed not necessary to be in the default build as they dont benefit the majority, but even if its a small thing that benefits a minority, if it doesnt impact the majority adversely, it is still valid for it to be considered in Firefox. You totally contradict your argument by saying how good Opera is. Yes they have some fine features some of which Fx have now implemented. Great.

That's the basics. If you want bugs fixed, vote on them, help with them, report your problems, add comments, send feedback to Mozilla.

Firefox 2 is a great release. It would be nice to have noted somewhere the differences between RC1 and RC2 as per mernen's comment. In general I think with Firefox now dealing with web pages as tabs throughout (great) its sensible then to have a common thing as a "new tab" button. As an intended clean and simple browser, the Firefox interface has more toolbars, information, buttons compared with most other browsers now, particularly Opera and IE. This needs addressing urgently, theres no reason why a basic browser should be showing the most toolbars, most information, and most buttons compared with other browsers, more UI cleaning up, better space using, choosing what really needs to be in the UI, and innovation is needed. In particular the bookmarks toolbar, when bookmarks are used less and less and no other browser has an entire bookmarks toolbar, Firefox should not either. It clutters for the majority and isnt necessary. Nor is the status bar, load bar should be on each tab to be able to see loading status of each page without clicking on it. Link addresses should be upon the hover. Little else is used from it.

Great release as a whole.

Where did the options go? I loved to be able to highlight everything. All of a sudden this only highlights one instance!

I converted so many people to firefox and the only two things I ever showed them so they would stick to it would be tabs and search for text when you type. But the latter was relevant not only by itself, but also by being able to hightlight all instances of the searched term.

And this is the most strange when Safari just got this:

http://images.appleinsider.com/mom-safar3-1.jpg http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2111

Any one can give an explanation for this?

Nowhere in the announcement did I see a link to some install instructions for administrators. Will this ever be addressed? Most individuals who would want FF already have it on their PC. Wouldn't you guys want admins to deploy it in businesses now?

How do I install it on 50 PCs? Into a specific folder, along with some extensions, custom bookmarks, and pre-configured for all users?

Please start considering the needs of administrators who would like to test FF, but who cannot install it manually on all PCs.

Can the app folder just be copied to another machine into some folder and work?

How can a default profile be pre-configured? Which files need to be edited? What has to be edited? Where can we use environment variables (%USERNAME%, %APPDATA%, etc.), and special folders (Desktop etc.)

I found that if you do Ctrl+F for Find you can set the heighlight all flag. From then on the Quick Find will indeed heighlight all!

Once you get used to it the old functionality is still there it ust needs discovering!

I'd just like to note again a big concern noted several times already but worryingly not being dealt with. The Security/privacy option of "allow cookies from originating site only" has been outright taken away. This simple privacy feature existed since early Fx versions and even now exists in IE and other browsers. Its a very basic privacy/security feature, and with the addition of many things in the options window, in no way is it justified to take away such a basic privacy/security feature. This needs urgent attention as its been extremely underrated and will lead to problems, and people percieving Firefox to be taking away basic security/privacy features but adding other lesser known or needed features, and thats basically correct. This needs an urgent re-think.

eWeek has an article about FF-RC2, mentioning a few changes that are, umm, "negative" (in their view): http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2026597,00.asp

article starts out: "Firefox 2.0 RC2 Is a Step … Backward?" and then: "Review: eWEEK Labs was disappointed to find that a couple of well-liked search and cookie options have been changed in RC2..." (then article continues from there).

These changes are not show-stoppers for me, but it is discouraging to see good features go away :(

Yep, the Firefox 2.0 team really dropped the ball on the third-party cookie issue. Any workaround that requires Joe Sixpack to venture into the user-hostile about:config screen is A Bad Thing.

I wish the Close tab button at the far right hadn't been removed. There's a few times I have closed the wrong tab by accident. But by using the close tab button at the far right, you're sure to close the current tab.

Please bring back the global close tab button!!!

Thanks

Must be a bug or can anyone actually come up with a reasonable argument why it is an improvement to remove the buttons that are present on the bar when one uses the "Find in this page" option (either via the menu or via the keyboard shortcut).

The argument constantly brought forward why the option for acception cookies from the original host only was removed is not that good either: first, at least a lot of cookies are still filtered that way, so deleting the rest would be much easier. Second, one could warn for now and try to prevent the workaround -- the best way to do this IMO would be to simply also have an option to only allow Javascript from the original host only. That would solve the cookie workaround problem AND would prevent a lot of totally useless and intrusive Javascript from being run (Third party Javascript code usualy is just there for ads, stats and other and maybe even worse unwanted crap).

For some reason I'm getting a blank horizontal bar above the menu bar and it's the thickness of the menu bar. It shows up after a while and won't go away until I restart firefox. I don't remember if this is a version 2 only issue or not. But it's annoying. I'm guessing that it might be an old theme that left something in the configuration file.

In Firefox 1.7.x and prior, you could hold down the mouse button on a hyperlink and a menu would pop up allowing you to open the link in a separate window or tab.

With 2.0 RC2, this is only available if you click 'ctrl' when clicking the mouse. It's an added step that's a bit annoying.

If any developers are listening, please put this back in!

Thanks- Steve

Message 39 above refers to the Mac OSX version. If this is the wrong forum to post on, let me know which forum is correct. I hate to see this as a feature request since it has been a feature already. (or did someone declare it a bug ;-)

To add a key point about modal dialogs, the window.open dependent flag is only one possible workaround that we now seem in danger of losing. It would be fine if we had full support for EITHER the 'dependent' flag or the 'modal' flag, but now we appear to have neither. Right now, the modal flag doesn't provide true "application modal" behavior, it simply provides a means of keeping a dialog window on top of the parent window, but fails to provide event capture, and therefore makes it possible for a normal user to access the underlying parent window while the modal dialog is active. That's very bad; the user can invoke other functions on the parent window or worse yet, close it, leaving the modal dialog window stranded without a context, and floating behind other windows (now that the dependent flag is in danger of being discontinued). Imagine something as simple as a date selection calendar popup window, in IE one line of code gives you a true modal dialog that remains above the parent form window and captures events to prevent a user from doing anything else until the popup is closed. In Firefox, you can use window.open with the modal flag to do the same thing, but the user is free to click on the parent window while the popup is active, and is free to close the parent leaving the dialog stranded or lost. Worse still, the lost copy then prevents the calendar popup from reappearing the next time the parent is opened and the dialog is invoked! It's imperative we start taking the importance of modal dialogs more seriously, it remains one of the key differentiators between IE and FireFox, despite all the other great application development features in FF. We were on the verge of making FireFox a supported option for our web based applications, with FF 2 moving backwards on modal dialog functionality, there's just no way.

In prior releases to FF RC2, if I had tabs always showing, after closing the last tab, it would always close the window. Now, it doesn't. It's irritating since I assign keyboard shortcuts to my mouse buttons. Is there something in the about:config that needs to be set so it behaves like before?

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061003 Firefox/2.0

Recently when I run spybot, I find a lot of "spyware" from Firefox default tracking cookie. It used to be only one or two, but now it is 28. When I uninstalled talkback, this went away. Should I be concerned about these tracking cookies? Does Mozilla know more about how I use my computer than I want it to know?

Recently when I run spybot, I find a lot of "spyware" from Firefox default tracking cookie. It used to be only one or two, but now it is 28. When I uninstalled talkback, this went away. Should I be concerned about these tracking cookies? Does Mozilla know more about how I use my computer than I want it to know?

Can it be that Mozillazine is behind Techcrunch in Mozilla reporting? http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/17/firefox-20-about-to-ship-heres-what-to-look-for/

My RC2 started having weird problems after a week of flawless usage. There seemed to be 100% processor throttling for 3 seconds in regular ~ 20 second intervals which completely froze the browser. When I downgraded to 1.5 and replaced the profile with the old version, problem dissapeared and reappeared when I installed RC3 on top of this old profile. Anyone else noticed this?