Firefox 2.0 Beta 2

By Cyrris

Updated 19th September - With new screenshots of updated theme.

Those who know me will also know that I have been a rabid Firefox supporter for a couple of years now. I’ve been using it as my primary browser since well before it reached 1.0, and since giving IE the flick I’ve never looked back. I was happy with the 1.0 release, and I was also content with the changes and polishing done for 1.5. I hadn’t played with the first beta of 2.0, so today is the first time I’ve been dabbling with the new changes, and while I appreciate the thoughts behind them, I can’t help but feel they’ve been somewhat poorly implemented - especially the new user interface. Now, what I am really hoping is that all of my worries are simply a case of unfinished business, and they’ll all be cleaned up for the first release candidate or the final product. But if not, then I have some serious doubts that Fx 2.0 will be enough to still be worth switching to for the IE users who will soon be comparing IE7 and Firefox - it’s not as clear cut as the previous matching between Fx and IE6.

Some of the changes are of course no-brainers. There are additional tab functions, such as undoing a close tab action, which I have previously needed an extension to achieve. Session saving in case of a crash is also something I required an extension for previously, and is now built in. That said, I haven’t seen it in action yet, as Beta 2 seems pretty stable so far.

One handy new feature which I have experienced a fair bit while writing this post is that of the inbuilt spell-checker. It’s already been quite helpful in reducing the editing needed to be done on this entry, however it’s not without it’s shortfalls. As you can see from the image to the left, it does have some comprehension problems with regards to misplaced uppercase letters. “Some” would have been a good suggestion. Another irritating aspect is that HTML tags aren’t included in the dictionary already, so writing a blog post and inserting images highlights spelling problems for tags and attributes - img, src, and png are all flagged down, and on a web browser, they shouldn’t be. Especially a web browser which is so popular amongst the blogging community.

The add-ons management has been refined for 2.0, and handily makes the Tools menu a little smaller and neater. It’s a logical change which I think works well - lumping the extensions and themes in to one window. That said, the only extensions which Firefox is currently allowing to run are AdBlock Plus, Flashgot and IETab. I’m sure it won’t be long before most of the others are updated to work with the new browser, and with 2.0’s new tab functionality, the need for the Tab Mix Plus extension I used previously is nowhere near as great. I think only Duplicate Tab is what I am now missing from it’s feature set that I miss.

Perhaps what has me most worried with this release, however, is the set of changes to the interface. The default Winstripe theme has been updated, and while the ideas are generally good, I think the implementation is horribly unpolished, even for a beta release. Below are some comparable shots:

Firefox 1.5:

Firefox 2.0 b2:

Now, while a full screen view is recommended, just looking at the thumbnails shows many of the shortcomings of the new “improved” interface. I like to use small icons, and while they remain perfectly visible and usable in 1.5, they are now pixelated and rather amateur-looking in 2.0. Particularly the Home icon is much harder to see. The glossy look on the arrows and refresh button is not really suited to Windows XP, and using the Classic 9x/2000 skin makes it look atrocious. Oddly, hovering over one of the buttons does not cause a gradient button to form behind it, and this feels extremely strange and lacks the visual queues people would expect. It feels unresponsive.

The tabs are also dismal. Unselected tabs are now not “further back” as before, but instead faded and somewhat transparent. I find this extremely frustrating as it makes the icons and text on them harder to read, and removes the native look it had under XP. I am not sure how it looks under OSX or Linux, but the tabs also retain their new look under Win 9x/2000 and it is a horrible sight.

Bon Echo (18th September):

Update: The updated theme is quite an improvement. The tabs no longer have faded text, they look more natural (even in Windows Classic I should add) and hovering on the back, forward and refresh buttons now produce the expected gradient result we have all come to expect. The Home button is much easier to see (though a bit too brown), and the Back/Forward buttons have smoother edges, though they also appear squished. The refresh button no longer looks too washed out, however it’s shape is something that’s going to take some getting used to. Overall it’s a big step forward but still lags behind the Winstripe theme of 1.5.

One thing that also bugs me about the tabs is the implementation of the close button. Now, I do like how it is now featured on every tab, but having this obnoxious red button looks far too overbearing. Microsoft seems to have the right idea with Internet Explorer 7:

Notice the close button on the active tab is greyed out and doesn’t distract your eye. It does go red when you mouse over it, and it’s not too hard to click. Whether or not the close button should appear on unselected tabs is something I’m not entirely sure of yet. I am inclined to go for IE7’s implementation though, and save the space for extra title room. The one thing in Firefox 2.0’s tab implementation that has improved is the new list tab button. It is over to the far right where the close button once was, and is a simple small drop down menu which IE7 has as well.

Other things which I am liking is the new “Go” button. It integrates seamlessly in to the side of the location bar, and looks alright. It’s still a bit pixelated too, but I am hoping it’ll be smoothed over by final release. It also can’t be removed like the old Go button, which may bug some, but it’s so small I can’t imagine people really worrying. The new search bar has also improved, with it’s own Go button (something I have been wanting) and is slightly bigger all round.

Kindly enough, one of the people who developed the original Winstripe theme has put it up for download as a theme you can install. It does have a couple of bugs in beta 2 (namely the search bar and Go button are now completely out of whack) but I can tell I will be sticking with this theme once it’s smoothed over and 2.0 is released.

Now, there are some additional new features that I haven’t touched on - phishing detection and feed support have apparently improved, but neither of these are things I use. I have been skeptical of the 2.0 release ever since they dropped the much-touted “Places” feature and left that to do for 3.0. Overall I do appreciate what 2.0 brings to the table, but it has a long way to go (especially in the looks department) before I am happy with it. I do understand that getting a good consistent look across Vista, WinXP, Win9x, OSX and Linux is a bit more of a challenge than what the IE7 team has to handle, but there are some obvious and glaring mistakes in the UI which need rectifying. And why on earth isn’t “UI” in the Firefox dictionary?