Firefox 1.1 Boasts New Features

Distro Jockey writes "The Fedora Core Blog gives a review of the features we can expect from Firefox 1.1. Many uses have been running the latest trunk builds and seeing dramatic improvements in page rendering, managing many tabs quickly, and the much-anticipated fix for the /. layout bug. From the article: 'One major new feature in Firefox 1.1 is the "Sanitize" feature. This enables secure browsing with much more ease. Select the "Sanitize" option in the preferences and Firefox will scrub your profile of sensitive information (which you select in the preferences).'"

Kill IE7 before it gets going

[Anti-Trend]

I'm glad Mozilla.org is keeping the pressure on the Redmond-based behemoth. The fact that IE7 will continue to ignore established web standard makes me sick at the very thought of it.

My wife is an exclusively Linux user, and she does business with Candle-Lite. Unfortunately, their site is rife with IE-only garbage which makes it impossible for her to submit her orders online. If more people were using standards-compliant browsers, we really wouldn't have situations like this to begin with.

-AT

Re:What I'm curious about

[billieja2]

It isn't actually using that much ram. Minimise it then check the RAM usage. That worked for me. I think this bug has been reported.

Safari's builtin RSS reader and Firefox

[konmaskisin]

The Tiger version of Safari truly does load faster than Firefox now (this must have been a priority for Apple!) ... not sure if it's preloaded like IE is but it is quick now. Generally though Firefox is jus a better and more convenient browser.

There's only *one* area where Safari truly has a usabilty edge and that's RSS. The reader is *really* nice. Mozilla/Firefox could do something similar by improving Sage marginally (the article length slider is all that's missing it seems).

Is better syndication support (rss atom etc) being considered?

Re:Rendering Bug?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Bugzilla has banned links from slashdot.

I've been using the nightlies and haven't had a problem with Slashdot for a while.

That said, if you really do feed a copy of any slashdot page to a web validator, it comes up with 100+ errors. The problem is that direct linking of Slashdot to validators have been banned by Slashdot maintainers.

Re:Kill IE7 before it gets going

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, with 90%(ish) of the market, Explorer IS the standard. The W3C can come up with a lot of nice stuff, but people simply cant use much of it if 90% of their users cant experience it.

Re:What I'm curious about

[Guy LeDouche]

I'm still using 1.0, so I don't know how much has changed with regard to resource management in the maintenence releases so far, if anything. It may also depend on how image intensive the pages are, but even then it shouldn't use so much.

Re:back/forward

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also a nice feature that IE has had long before Opera, so whats your point? It's hardly an original idea, and there is no need to get into a pissing match about Opera, since obviously any good idea one browser has will make it into the rest, given enough time.

Cool thing about OSS projects is I can ask you...

[msimm]

Did you report it along with your fix? Because not everyone uses the image looper quite that much and this could slip through the cracks without someone pointing it out.

I'm sure they'd like to have as much working flawlessly as possible, so they'd probably really appreciate this kind of feedback. I'll assume you did report it (or at least verify someone else already had) and leave it at "this is the beauty of OSS" even the users have their part in the process (is IE displaying PNG's or CSS properly yet?).

"Private Browsing" and "Sanitize"

[Aqua OS X]

Really "Private Browsing" and "Sanitize" should be renamed "Porno Privacy Browsing."

I'm sure people will use these new features to protect sensitive data and whatnot... but come on... most folks will use this new browse mode to keep their filthy habits on the DL .

/. bug

[kinema]

"the much-anticipated fix for the /. layout bug"

I for one think this is great but is it really the job of the Mozilla devs to bring Slashdot into the modern times with a valid XHTML/CSS layout?

Re:Rendering Bug?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to validate Slashdot, saveit in Firefox and upload it to the W3C validator.

You will be horryfied by what you see. A so called site promoting free standards, but it can't even pass a simple HTML 4.01.

Re:Rendering Bug?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not about browser XYZ rendering slashdot correctly. There is a public spec for HTML. The code generated by slashdot does not follow the spec. The problem is that IE does a lot of guessing to try to figure out what the html is supposed to look like and too many lazy people create webpages that look correct in IE. They don't bother to create valid HTML. As a result, all other browser initiatives have to waste thousands of hours writing thier browser to act like IE.

Re:Firefox also boasts remote code execution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps because it's written: May 7, 2005?

Re:/. bug

[shobadobs]

There's nothing great about XHTML. Valid HTML works just fine.

Re:Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

[Anonymous Coward]

They've also copied the fast forward/back feature of Opera (it keeps the rendered page to go back to rather than having to re-render it). You can drag the tabs around to change the order as well - also an Opera feature. Also, Firefox can now resume downloads after closing and reopening the browser rather than having to do it all in one session, as Opera has been able to do for a couple of years now. SVG support is another not-new feature, although you'd be hard pressed to say that that was copied from Opera.

Not that any of this is a bad thing - a good idea is a good idea, and if it improves the state of browsers in general it's all for the best. But the improvements are hardly original

Re:The REAL news: Firefox 1.03 remote .exe executi

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox desperately needs a better mechanism for pushing out critical updates. The little arrow thingy is easily overlooked. The Moz team is great about fixing vulnerabilities; it's just a matter of making sure everyone gets the fix in a timely fashion.

Return of any pre-1.0 features?

[matt me]

Remember the fresh madness of blind feature destruction before Firefox 1.0 as the Mozilla team tried to relaunch their geeky browser for use by the average windows/IE user?

They took out the Javascript console, the stylesheet switcher, and even view source in some trunk builds. There was a huge uproar at this betrayal. Ditching the needs of the majority of the current userbase, loyal geeks, to make Firefox 'easier' for new users switching from IE. Petitions with hundreds of names were signed, and eventually, some of these were put back in.

We won some features back, but not at all. Many compromises were made, with features such as "find as you type" disabled by default (despite later winning browser feature of the year (even more impressive since it's not at all new)). These appalling default options make Firefox a pain to reconfigure a new profile from scratch. They don't make it easier for anybody. The navigation bar comes with giant icons, links are all underlined, and extensions are now a mission to install unless it's from update.mozilla.org And extensions are needed just to restore expected functionality - proper (XUL) error pages, a full tree in the add bookmark menu, copy image to clipboard, resumable downloads.

An old post, commenting on the fall of Firefox.
http://glazman.org/weblog/dotclear/index.php?2004/ 08/24/513-is-firefox-going-nuts-or-what [glazman.org]

We need a Firefox forwards not back campaign. Firefox is in danger of becoming a dumbed down browser for Windows/IE users and perhaps no better (default prefs / no extensions) come IE 7. The Mozilla suite (Seamonkey) remained safe for geeks, but now it's discontinued and they don't even provide .rpm's for Firefox.

We need a community fork of Firefox where the voice of the user is valued above media attention. Else we rely on the last remaining working Firefox developer not owned by Google to save us all.