Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

I really only have two things to mention:

1) IE breaking sites isn't as good as it sounds, because it's a completely new broken CSS model that has to be dealt with. Sites that use proper CSS with allowances for IE can be an infuriating mess because of the hybrid of fixed and left alone.

2) I don't know when they first decided to disable ActiveX by default, but Server2k3 x64 does the same thing.

"Microsoft releasing a browser with a pop-up blocker (first with XPSP2 and now with IE7) is pretty amazing when you think about it and I again think Firefox deserves pretty much all of the credit for this happening."

I don't want to bash Firefox here, but we should give credit to those who deserve it. Firefox becoming a mainstream browser maybe deserves the credit for Microsoft spotting the importance of pop-up blocking, but it's not like Firefox invented it. It's been a long-time feature of the Mozilla suite even before Firefox was derived from it ;-)

One question: does it have an option to make the UI not stick out like a sore thumb?

I find that the 'flyout' menus like: View->Encoding, changes to >> and the menu does not fly-out until you mouse over to the right. Not real inutuitive, as I thought the options were broken for the first several hours of use.

Its also not real light on memory use. Just 3 tabs, CNN/MSNBC and IE7 blog page was consuming about 10meg more than Firefox 1.5 with 11 open tabs. The longer I used it the more the memory use went up, and like Firefox, when closing a tab it does not 'free' up any memory. So those that have been complaining about Firefox not releasing memory, and being a 'hog', and making threats to return to IE are going to be in for a surprize.

I hate the UI in that you can't move the 'home' etc...and are stuck with a Tools button and >> only to find a 'help' hidden off screeen. I have not found a way to move it or re-arrange the buttons.

I'll stick with Firefox. Their tabbing is 'basic' to say the least and opening a new tab, then doing a search or enter a URL to keep from over-riding the currently viewed tab is 2 steps, that Firefox handles in one.

I guess I'll stop now. :)

I found the browser UI to be absolutely terribly. I don't understand why they have felt the need to reinvent where things go. Every browser (I've tried) on the market (and every program for that matter) has the "Classic Menu" at the top of the application. What is wrong with it? Why lower it? It makes no sense to me.

I also don't like the way that they have split back/forward/refresh/stop and home to 3 locations (upper left, upper right, and right in the tab bar) when they really belong together. The buttons I also found were too small. Particularly stop.

Other than that, credit where credit is due. The tabs are fairly good. Quick tabs particularly. The full screen mode and printing are both great. Zoom is excellent. The RSS integration is fairly good too. Clearing history etc is fine. Options is still messy. I don't like the Organise Favourites dialog either or the side bar thing. Generally I think they need to remove stuff from the tab bar. That space is useful for tabs!

(Thanks for the post Asa)

Hmmm, it is indeed a preview release of Beta 2 as in one of the replies I got when reporting a 1px rounding bug on positioned elements says:

"At this time, we cannot promise to address issues before our Beta 2 release. Any issues that are sent to us will be examined and we will attempt to resolve them to improve the upcoming beta."

It's a preview of Beta 2, Asa. This is not Beta 2.

I also don't like all those buttons on the tabbar but kudo's to them for not only catching up but also trying to push the browser further on. I suppose further customizing of the toolbars will be possible in the final release.

On launch
I think this is a neat idea. The FF1.5+ update screen is a perfect place to do it (I just saw it pop by several times for a 1.5.1 update that didn't install succesfully, but that's another topic)

Tabs
I really don't understand why closebuttons per tab were ever removed from FF... Can't live without them. I did notice though that in IE you can only close the current tab, annoying. Their overflow solution seems like overkill to me, most people won't be bothered by too many open tabs I think. A OSX appbar seems to me to be a better solution but without the vertical scaling. Simple and more intuitive (please do in FF? :) )

General
It seems to me they are really trying to cover every base here. There are even handlers to scale page margins in the printpreview which I think is way too much detail for most users. Tab overflow is another exmple.
On the look and feel department I must say it looks very polished but a bit too much for my taste (like the searchbutton).
Still, I find FF lacking in this respect. FF works on the most important OSes but by doing so it's visual design seems to only consist of the commonalities of all these OSes, missing out on what differntiates OSX or XP and feeling bland as a result. I really would like to see different skins per OS flavour as a default -more adopted towards that OS- making it feel higher quality and more professional. Just like its innards are.

I wish I could move the toolbars around. I don't like my home page buttons and such being over on the right side at all. Seems to be less functional then IE6 in that area, I can't even move the Links bar around. And I like displaying the full File menu, File Edit View Favs Tools Help, but I HATE it being below the address bar. My only other complaint is it ever going to get themes support ? The toolbar layouts and look wouldn't bother me so much if I had some theme choices to choose from.

On another note, the page zoom thing is something I wouldn't mind seeing in Firefox one day. My mother doesn't have the best eyesight, and when I want her to read something on a site, I have to go increase the text size a couple of times. A page zoom feature would just make it easier to make everything larger and then normal again.

"Maybe it's time to consider it for Firefox. Certainly, if we can do it in a way that's attractive and doesn't degrade the readability of the content (will this require Cairo?) then we ought to seriously consider it."

There isn't an official cohesive plan yet as far as I know, but zoom depends on Cairo because it would have taken a massive amount of work to fix for all GFX backends to the level of being able to deal with zoom. Zoom is currently waiting on Cairo becoming default and on some other graphics work going on, so zoom should be in Gecko 1.9 and hopefully will be in FF 3.0.

Asa, feel free to use their RSS "backend" platform all you want:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/01/522481.aspx

IE implementation, in this regards, has nothing with them being tied to the OS.

Thanks for the review, Asa. Very insightful. So you know, there are already some bugs and plans to fix some of the issues you mention (first run experience being richer than just a browser redirect, RSS support, tab overflow solution) for Firefox 2. The history navigation sounds interesting, and I can't help think that it's the way the "Go" menu *should* work.

Jerad, actually, it is tied to their OS and it will only be available to applications running on XPSP2 and Vista. We're not abandoning the hundreds of millions of users on Windows 2000 and Windows 98 (like Microsoft has) so that makes it tricky for us to use this store.

- A

Installation took a good while on my machine too. Lots of hard drive thrashing.

I really don't like the locked toolbars, as you mentioned.

I also noticed that my google toolbar showed up only when viewing the first tab.

A real page zoom is an absolute must for FF now (especially that all its competitors has it). With all the high-res laptop and desktop LCDs, you just can't ignore the need. You guys just have to do all that it takes to get it done ASAP (and 2 years into the future)!

You're too full of yourself, Asa, to view anything objectively. Particularly the overestimated efforts of all Firefox developers (yes, all of them, not just YOU).

For what it's worth, probably every browser made that calls itself an "alternative browser" has featured tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking and a search field. Mozilla, and later Firefox, were just one of many to implement all the popular stuff. What brought Firefox to the success it enjoys today was the hype, fuss and very loud and attacking advertising campaigns. Probably any browser, be it an IE shell, Opera or something else, could've achieved the same with equal promotion.

IE will not have access to a mad group of open source fanboys so it'll be difficult for IE7 to ever get back the users it has lost. After all, there will hardly be anyone to clutter walls and spam forums with IE promotion crap, even if it will have the same features as Firefox (...and every other browser).

Too bad for m$ for not inovidioting (see Rory) the browser once they had market share. Yep, just let the market die, than they can impose their own rules. Too bad Firefox came along and ruined their plans. WAY TO GO FIREFOX!!! for keeping the users in mind.

Where is support for SVG and other cool stuff out there?

"After all, there will hardly be anyone to clutter walls and spam forums with IE promotion crap, even if it will have the same features as Firefox (...and every other browser)."

Why? Because millions users have been use most new features of IE7 for several years yet.

remember, IE doesn't use plugins. flash and quicktime and the like are all activex controls in IE.

There's still one word that causes IE to fail: floats. While other CSS errors seem to have been fixed, floats are the one thing that makes web designers cringe. And, unfortunately, the issue magnifies when you click on the page zoom button. Text can be cut off by floats, ironically enough.

"What brought Firefox to the success it enjoys today was the hype, fuss and very loud and attacking advertising campaigns. Probably any browser, be it an IE shell, Opera or something else, could've achieved the same with equal promotion."

So, you're trying to say Opera and Maxthon et al. could have the same market share as Firefox does today if they'd only had a few more passionte users? So then - why didn't they have enough passionate users to get off the ground?

Hit this guy with a cluestick, guys.

Close buttons on each tab would make it far too easy to close a tab by mistake (this isn't an issue for a close button on the current tab, because you won't have cause to click the same tab again). This would be very annoying (especially as you can't undo this action in FF without an extension). BTW, I just middle-click on a tab to close it quickly (works in both FF and IE7).

"Some myths are mentioned in here... Interesting."

Go away.

"IE 7 requires windows validation to install."

Uh-oh.

David, Opera and Maxthon (and Avant, and Camino, and Konqueror, and...) don't have rich companies sponsoring them, nor do they have volunteers who can't think of any other use for their money apart from donating for a newspaper ad.

hmmm ASA on 'his' blog can bash of course anything, whilst remotely criticises ffx is like burning the bible.....what's wrong with build-in widgets.....got 70 extensions...of course Beta Preview 2 needed to be quickly and thoroughly reviewed and by own admit has proposals to rip any good idea deemed and perm add are éxtensioned'into ffx....great....still more and more my ffx starts to look like Opera. Where MS missed the boat big time was the possibility to add keywords and tags to their favourites...must be, else they'd break some functionality of the OS itself. Hope they read it and make amends :>]

Oh dear. Asa is taking credit for everything again.

"There's no doubt in my mind that the IE 7 project is a direct result of the work we've done to provide people with a better web experience through Firefox, and IE's inclusion of Firefox features, from tabbed browing, to web feed (RSS and others) support and pop-up blocking, is a validation of the pioneering, user-focused work we've done in building Firefox."

Those aren't Firefox features. They were available in other browsers long before they were available in Firefox. Whether Firefox "popularized" those features or not is irrelevant. They are NOT "Firefox features", as in pioneered by Firefox.

"Firefox really brought tabbed browsing into the mainstream."

Nope. Lots of browsers, and plenty of IE shells had that ages ago.

"Firefox also popularized the simple search field integration in the browser toolbar"

Again, no. Lots of other browsers and IE shells had the search field. Opera invented it.

"Feeds have been around for a while, but it wasn't until Firefox 1.0 and the tens of millions of people getting exposed to feeds through Firefox's Live Bookmarks, that the idea of including them in the core browser feature set sounded like a good idea."

Sorry, but Safari beat you there.

Yeah, I know you didn't outright claim that Firefox invented all of these things, but you are taking credit and pretending that IE stole everything from Firefox the way Firefox ripped off others (especially Maxthon).

Go away, Andrew K. or whatever your name is.

Asa, can you ban him, and start deleting his comments?

Seriously Andrew, go away. Asa didn;t get "owned" - you did. Asa's blog article about you set it straight, and you're losing even more credibility by posting here. We all know what you're doing, so just go away.

@ Maxthon Maxthon

You raise a good point; you're right that Firefox does seem to be claiming these as it's own; however, I think the point is that Firefox is much more of a mainstream browser than the others before it which has things like tabbed browsing etc.

"Yeah, I know you didn't outright claim that Firefox invented all of these things, but you are taking credit and pretending that IE stole everything from Firefox the way Firefox ripped off others (especially Maxthon)."

No, Firefox did not "invent" any of those features. However, calling them "Firefox features" doesn't imply that they were never implemented in any other program. It simply means that they were features that could be found in Firefox.

Something you can't deny though, is the fact that it was Firefox and it's followers who turned up the heat on MS. Firefox was the first browser to "get it right" and, because of that, winning over a broad user base. "Getting it right" means having just the right features, ease of use, etc...

Maxthon and Opera definately did not do this. Maxthon, by design, would never pose a threat to IE and MS since it is based on IE, and uses the rendering engine of IE which is what creates the windows lock-in. (Unless, of course, Maxthon was magically going cross-platform?) Opera has been hovering around (or below) 1% market share for many years now, so I very much doubt it was Opera who made MS get off their big fat @®$e.

Firefox reinvented the web.

"Le[t] me know what you thought...about my post here"

I sure don't like the "holier then thou" attitude as has been mentioned several times. I don't pretend to be an expert in the minutia of when specific features appeared in any given browser... but show a little maturity and don't call it all your own, and imply that "it's about time" that they are catching up.

You mentioned several times that they implemented features that maybe Firefox should consider. How would you respond if, after you released a version with said features, the IE team posted an article about how "Firefox decided to follow in the foosteps we layed out in allowing sorting by date in the RSS feeds... which we have had since day one of IE's built in RSS aggregation. Come on guys, you should have had this forever ago"

I'm going to guess that you would take offense to that.

Does the advancedment of another browser really need to be an opportunity to bash and sell your own product? How come it can't be something encouraging like "they added tabbed browsing, great! IE users will love this feature"

I'm a die hard Firefox lover not a Microsoft fanboy, so this isn't Firefox bashing, but again... show some maturity. This "we're better then you are" stuff is embarrasing. Put out a quality product, let it speak for itself, and leave the bashing to the fanboys. It shouldn't be coming from the company itself, unless it's outright labeled as "unofficial opion", but even then...
[/rant]

IE7 does have some annoying parts (I can't get links on Digg to come up unless I middle-click them...) but over all it seems like a good standardized browser. I am curious to see how extensions play into it all. I am annoyed with having the close tab "X" on the tab itself, with Firefox I'm sure someone could make an extension that would move the "X" to the side. Is there anyone who is going to make those kinds of changes for IE7? If not, I really don't see any reason to use IE7 over Firefox.

"How would you respond if, after you released a version with said features, the IE team posted an article about how "Firefox decided to follow in the foosteps we layed out in allowing sorting by date in the RSS feeds... which we have had since day one of IE's built in RSS aggregation. Come on guys, you should have had this forever ago""

Somehow I don't think Asa would break down and cry, much as I can't see how his current post is of any great offense to anyone.

Come on now, you consipiracy theorists and whiners - he's actually admitting several things that IE7 does better! Now stop the whining, will you.

I like this UI better than the one from beta 1. I don't mind the removal of the classic menu so much as I mind the "moval" of the classic menu. It's much better with the menu gone than with the menu in a nonstandard place, even if it does take a little getting used to.

I have to agree on the star drop-down, though. They should just make it bring up a sidebar like the Firefox history, or the Safari bookmarks.

On the subject of RSS, I'm not sure who can really take credit for bringing it into the mainstream. I still don't think Live Bookmarks are terribly useful except for a few edge cases (someone pointed out a while back that it's great for retreiving your latest or most-used bookmarks from del.icio.us and putting them in a bookmark menu.) IIRC the order of incorporating feeds into a browser was something like this:

1. Opera incorporates feeds into their mail/news UI (Opera 7.5, May 2004)
2. Firefox incorporates feeds as Live Bookmarks (Fx 1.0, Nov. 2004)
3. Safari incorporates a feed reader (Safari 2.0/Tiger, Apr. 2005)

I'm sure Maxthon and others are in there somewhere, and I know there are betas of everything, but I'm going with released versions of the big guns: IE, Fx, Safari, and Opera.

Going by dates alone, Opera's got it by several months, but Firefox got more users and probably exposed more people to the concept.

"This "we're better then you are" stuff is embarrasing"

Well, it would be if it weren't true ;-)

"Firefox reinvented the web."

Yeah... From "best viewed in IE" to "best viewed in Firefox". Great progress there, promoting Firefox compatibility rather than open standards.

Rick - who is saying "best viewed in Firefox"? What's that got to do with this blog post?

(But then, "best viewed in Firefox" tends to equal "best viewed in an up-to-date, standards compliant browser". That's the great thing about standards.)

There's no doubt in my mind that the IE 7 project is a direct result of the work we've done to provide people with a better web experience through Firefox, and IE's inclusion of Firefox features, from tabbed browing, to web feed (RSS and others) support and pop-up blocking, is a validation of the pioneering, user-focused work we've done in building Firefox.

No offence intended but this sounds like the result of an "ego trip". IE does not include "Firefox features", it includes features available in any other browser not named IE (non of them invented by Firefox/Mozilla, btw).

David Naylor: "best viewed in Firefox" tends to equal "best viewed in an up-to-date, standards compliant browser". That's the great thing about standards

That´s an Oxymoron if you know something about standards...

Let's think about this. Consider two sites, one designed for IE, one designed for Firefox, neither of which uses an IE-specific or Firefox-specific features.

Which one do you think is more likely to work without changes in Opera and Safari?

Firefox and Opera both have standards compliance as a goal. Both have bugs. Both have chunks of the specs that aren't supported yet. Both have non-standard features like XMLHTTPRequest, or features from alternate specs like <canvas> But Firefox's and Opera's levels of standards support have a lot more in common with each other than with IE, which, even with this new beta, is far behind.

Additionally, Mozilla has a long history of standards advocacy. On the web developer side of things, that's how most Firefox evangelism has worked: recommending standards-based ways of doing things instead of IE-specific ways. Not unlike Opera's own "Open the Web" initiative.

So if making a site (more) standards-compliant is the usual method of making it Firefox-compatible... do I really need to fill in the blanks here?

First you claim credit for IE7 itself.

Then you claim you had/did it first for 1/2 the features.

Then you go through all the features Microsoft has done better, and say Firefox should add them.

And you want a pat on the back? For what? A bloated ego and considering lifting all the cool new features your competitor is developing?

Anyone who uses beta software for anything important is dumb, so it's good to see you warning people. I remember when Firefox was pre-1.0 and had a nasty little bug where forms on tabs could read each other. ;)

Nice post, Asa. I don't agree with quite everything you say, of course (do I get to claim Firefox and the Gecko engine are a direct result of IE's Trident engine wiping the floor with the Netscape 4 engine?), but some good thoughts.

Two points:
- ActiveX isn't disabled by default. We do make users opt in to controls already installed on their system, except for pre-approved controls like Flash.
- The claim that the security exploit found can be used to take over your machine (as in, run exploit code rather than just crash/DOS) appears to be false.

-Chris

I'd like to comment on this:

"Yeah... From "best viewed in IE" to "best viewed in Firefox". Great progress there, promoting Firefox compatibility rather than open standards."

The point is this. If you design your site with standards in mind, NOT designing for a particualr browser; if you code to the standards and validate your HTML and CSS, it will look better in Firefox because Firefox (and Opera) have greater standards support.

If you design a semantic, standards based site, and view it in IE, then Firefox, of course it will look best in Firefox, as it supports the standards.

IE is pap. I have no idea why it's taken them this long to release a new version, which still lacks basic CSS support.

Regarding the close tab button on each tab: don't add that one to firefox. It's been removed for a reason (I suppose) and will only lead to clutter.

"validation of the pioneering, user-focused work we've done in building Firefox"

Oh well, there you go again. "pioneering"?! come on! those aren't your feathers.

Nice review. One thing that I did notice is that I never knew that I could have multiple homepages. After using IE for so long, I never even thought of that as an option. Now, I've been using firefox since 0.8 and never been happier, but there are still new features that I'm finding out about that I just wouldn't know to look for. A neat idea might be trying to set up a "refresher" or "new users" web page that would step the user through all the features, something like what you find on the GMail help page.

Okay, on reread, we know Mozilla is in bed with Google (really only the commercial branch ???) Asa plugs Google-Save Browsing.....an option included to have all your browsing traffic forwarded to Google for the ultimate profiling of YOU. Since the USA is demanding all the search info from Google, the closest thing is likely to be that YOUR BROWSING DATA will get included. THEN, not within 24 hours of ditching Sppofstick and installing Google Safe Browsing my harddisk starts acting up, run a RootkitRevealer and find obscureness.....after deleting and restarting harddisk goes into catatonic MFT/NFTS checking and finds: GOOG-BLACK-URL.SST. and deletes it :>). Now what the hell is that :

Dude, you didn't have to install Google Safe Browsing.

Good post, Asa. I agree that Firefox has helped to spur improvement of IE, and that Firefox has some things to learn from IE7. It's absolutely amazing that Chris Wilson [MS] shows up here and comments on your blog. Proof that Firefox has, and is still, having an influence on the browser world. And, interestingly, proof that MS cares (to some as yet unknown extent) about improving their product. I can only be impressed about how both dev teams have matured.

"We could replace our current "first start page" with a chrome page to offer some basic configurations options or feature introductions. What do you think?"
I'd go the Apple way : don't give people options they won't understand. Choose for them instead.
So choosing the manguage seems Ok to me, but if you target a wide audience most people won't know what phising is so you should enable it by default.

Nice job of evaluating where IE is strong and making suggestions for Firefox improvements. I also like seeing the many areas where IE has followed Firefox innovations. It is great to see the proprietary companies following open source! I also blogged about this at http://opensourceculture.blogspot.com/

MSNBC is *not* broken. (Not anymore, at least; you must've checked earlier than I have.)

See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11168010/ and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ in "IE7B2P" again. Looks nice to me (I use the C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS file to block a few ad/evil domains, so results will vary slightly). Only problem (if it IS one) is the middle column doesn't resize for larger browser windows, and that's true with any browser.

In any case, it's always great that both browsers want to pick up from each other (IE with the tabbing and RSS, Fx with the close buttons and Quick Tabs you say you might add) and that it's not a mere Lohan-Duff feud or something. ;)

Microsoft realizes they have competition. And competition is great, because they'll start trying to put out better software. Software like Mozilla, Google, and Apple release.

> There's a close tab button on each tab. This was once the way we did it, and is
> available now as an extension. I think we'll be returning to this for the
> upcoming release.

Have just seen the way this should be done... keep the favicon icon on the tab, but when u mouse-over it, it turns into the X for close window. Saw this in Akregrator and have been using it for a while. I am now 100% sure that this is the way it SHOULD be done!!

On my installation, IE did not require a restart and only took a few minutes to install. About as fast installing as Firefox I would say.

firefox is slower in many ways compared to the IE7 (i got loads of RAM too and installation is 1-time). also, interface is so much cleaner and simpler which is great really. and do you ppl actually use the classic menus??! it seems more sophisticated than FF1.5. Anyway, there is only one thing that makes firefox stand out from IE7, its flexibility. You don't like something, you get an extention and change it. You want your button to appear somewhere else, customize. Being a standard browser, IE cant do tat which is a bit sad. I think its the same downfall if you consider Opera as well, which i've used for a really long time. It was so light on my old computer. Same with the Azureus Java BitTorrent client being very popular.

And seriously, it makes more sense to place the newTab feature on ur right like IE7.

and here's a joke, this site is given "Suspicious Website" label in the phishing thingy. didn't you see that one coming? haha.

also if u close the browser by mistake with a 100 tabs open, when u relaunch u can right click on the tab strip and click restore previous tab group and all your tabs will come right back :D But nonetheless, great to see an unbiased opinion from the firefox camp

Yeah, firefox is better than IE7. I've been using ff for years. But, i just dumped it from my g5 mac and am using safari. Why, cause it sucks, slow balky and you can't load extensions, Which ff has recieved alot of complaints about and hasn't fixed. FF's code is getting bloated and poorly coded, you lost me and your losing momentum. I'm using safari and as soon a omniweb (which is lightning fast) enables pdf which can load in the browser I'm going to buy. Cheers and good luck with the ego thing.

I think there is alot to be said about comparing the two browsers, but it seems to be everyone that supports firefox always falls back on "you can do that with an extension" mindset. If you examine IE, you can do the same thing, plugins, heck, browsers based on the IE engine with all the add-ons a user would need. I think in comparing browser to browser, you just need to take the default installs and not depend so much on plugin's or extensions.

One word: Adblock.

That one extension alone literally takes IE7 and makes it look like crap.

I really hate how IE7 is following firefox's lead by implementing tabbed browsing that functions like Opera's. I can't beleive they would copy firefox like that.

Am I the only one who finds IE7 to look horrible?! I mean look-wise. At least when running in longhorn (I never tried vista, but longhorn was horrible) it looked decent and the look went with the rest of the system.

Internet Explorer 7 still has "security zones".

Therefore, I will not use it. Don't care what features it copies.

I love Firefox, but I must say I also love Internet Explorer's new and fresh UI. Average users want simple UI, and I think IE7 is really simple, at least at the first view. Removing some buttons and the menu bar is the best thing of the new UI. I think Firefox2's UI should be this way! Sorry for my english.

Please do not in your efforts to critique IE, start a campaign of revisionist history. Opera had tabbed browsing before Firefox. Did you thank Opera for making you guys see the light?

Doug, I disagree with you on that, but be that as it may, Netcaptor had tabbed browsing well before Firefox or Opera and I credited Netcaptor, and its author Adam Stiles, for that. (Did you read the post, or was this just another Opera fanboy kneejerk response?) It was Netcaptor that inspired Dave Hyatt's implementation of Tabs in Mozilla that eventually became the tabs in Firefox. I know because I was there :-)

- A

So to summarize...

"We made IE7 happen"
"We invented or take credit for all the features others built"
"IE7 is copying us"
"We should copy all the other stuff from them"

I was dissapointed on IE7's implementation of the center clicking on links.

They obviously attempted to copy the functionality of firefox but fell far short.

Center clicking a link opens a new tab with the url in the address bar... but it does not open the page...

so instead of center clicking once and opening it automagically you have to click 2-3 times just to open a link in a new tab...

I installed ie7 just be extracting the exe so i didnt have to install and it only took 3 seconds... I doubt it will take 3 seconds when I install it for real though...

when will you be getting your new job in MS then? ;)

"We made IE7 happen"
The popular press says the same thing.

"We invented or take credit for all the features others built"
Nowhere does anyone say that, though parts of it are true.

"IE7 is copying us"
Also, true and noted in the popular press.

"We should copy all the other stuff from them"
Tit for tat. Though good ideas are worth copying. They do it. Why shouldn't we?

All in all, it is still eight years behind in web standards compliance, does not do CSS well, doesn't even do some html well, can't do xhtml, can't do svg, can't run cross platform...Need I go on?

you absolutely cannot say that IE7 is copying FF so they are wrong. everyone copy each others' features when it comes to a browser. it's about moving into the next level and to do that you learn from everyone's ideas... c'mon, FF copies others as well. so does IE, Opera and blah blah blah. so juz leave it. besides, having similar features means a user has a choice w/o having to relearn something totally. (i use FF.)

>also if u close the browser by mistake with a 100 tabs open, when u relaunch u >can right click on the tab strip and click restore previous tab group and all .your tabs will come right back :D But nonetheless, great to see an unbiased >.opinion from the firefox camp
>.Posted by: limpingjarett on February 4, 2006 11:12 AM
Yes, the session saver extension rocks. It even opens up closed Windows and puts the tabs back in the correct Windows. Tab Mix extension is good for keeping a tab history and reloading a few tabs that you closed by accident.

>Yeah, firefox is better than IE7. I've been using ff for years. But, i just >dumped it from my g5 mac and am using safari. Why, cause it sucks, slow balky >and you can't load extensions, Which ff has recieved alot of complaints about >and hasn't fixed. FF's code is getting bloated and poorly coded, you lost me >and your losing momentum. I'm using safari and as soon a omniweb (which is >lightning fast) enables pdf which can load in the browser I'm going to buy. >Cheers and good luck with the ego thing.
>Posted by: whatever on February 4, 2006 11:12 AM

Firefox is lightning fast. Much faster than either browser you mentioned. O/C you can load a ton of extensions and slow it down. But barebones Firefox cannot be touched when it comes to speed

One thing to say. Please!!! 3/4 of the crap you are patting yourself on the back about Opera was doing long ago. If IE stole it from anyone it certainly wasnt Firefox.

BTW I use Firefox and Opera. Firefox tends to lock up with to many tabs open. While I have yet to have that problem with Opera.

I like Firefox if for no other reason that I believe it lit a fire inside MS to restart IE development. However, I would like to hear opinions on why Firefox will still be relevant after IE7's final release (whenever that will be).

If IE7 ships with most of the planned features intact and competently done (a big if), Firefox's most touted features like tabbed browsing, integrated search, and pop up blocking will be available in IE7. What will be my reasons for telling my friends and relatives, "hey you should use Firefox instead because..."?

More alarmingly, it is not hard to draw some parallels between Mozilla today and Netscape back when they transitioned from version 3 to 4. Netscape definitely had a lead in features but once MS caught up, it seemed that Netscape lost its innovative spirit and eventually bloated its code with a fancier UI while offering no significant end user enhancements. Netscape had its die hard users shouting that MS merely copied and playing catchup, but in the end, the vast majority simply did not care so Netscape became irrelevant.

I sincerely hope that Firefox stays relevant because it has been a great popularizer of many innovative features, but what is going to keep the momentum going for Firefox users?

First off, thank you Asa for giving a great review of the preview of Beta 2 IE 7. I was wondering what was so special about it and it's nice to know that the FF team is looking into the future and it's possibilities.

Now, I haven't read all the comments, but it seems to me people believe that Asa was promoting and indulging himself in self-gratification. First, he specifically congratulated the team as can be seen here:

"We've done some pretty amazing work here at Mozilla over the last few years..."

If he wanted to exalt himself, wouldn't he have already done it?

A lot of people also seem to think that he is also taking credit for certain web technologies such as tabbed-browsing, RSS feed reader, and the like, however, I cannot see how he was implying this at all. In fact, he specifically said he didn't invent these technologies:

"Firefox really brought tabbed browsing into the mainstream. (I didn't say we invented it, that credit belongs to Adam Stiles and his Netcaptor browser,)"

Notice also he said Firefox brought it into the mainstream. This means that they brought these features to people's attention and was perhaps their first time they've ever seen or heard of it. (Myself included, seeing Firefox on The Screen Savers when they were still around) And look! Asa is also congratulating Microsoft on some of the features they've implemented:

"IE's feed view has a type down search field that searches against all the content in the feed. This is nice and I think we should look into doing something similar when we reintroduce feed view in Firefox 2."

You might then be saying from the post above, Asa is indeed stealing from IE. How? In fact, IE stole many features, designs, and layouts from Firefox. They even could not come up with their own feed icon people were happy about (as was told on the official IE blog) and so asked Mozilla if they could use their's. Am I saying it was right for IE to "borrow" like they did? No, I disagree in how they copied so many things from Mozilla, however, this is merely a personal opinion and does not have any validation in any part, save for my own.

So, what can a person take from this review then? Simple. Firefox may not have reinvented existing technologies, nor has it taken credit for it, but did show people that they could get something better, something faster, safer, and smarter. Asa is also happy that him and his team has shown Microsoft the importance of the end user and how that end user, should be incorporated into the thought and feeling of how something (in this case a browser) is built.

I think the AOL browser, which is just a IE shell, has a nice feature that when you mouseover a tab that is in the background it shows a small preview of the page that tab under it. That would be useful when having lots of tabs open and trying to find the one you are wanting.

"Firefox is lightning fast. Much faster than either browser you mentioned. O/C you can load a ton of extensions and slow it down. But barebones Firefox cannot be touched when it comes to speed"

LOL, on LINUX maybe.

Load up the latest FireFox (let it fully load) and they hit: WWW.APPLE.COM

On my system, Opera loads it and finishes displaying it quite a bit faster. Not enought to make a difference in normal browsing, but enough that your statement is BULL.

Jorgie

To jorgie

LAWL!!!

HOW OFTEN do u need to start firefox/mozilla?

I only need 1 per week to start firefox...my computer is on 24/7 and so as my firefox!! so whoever load faster i dun't care :D :D :D

But does IE7 support skins?

If this is the future of IE, then IE is already dead.

Long live firefox!

Ok,

This is pretty bullshit, why compare two diferent browsers?

Every browser has it own futures, program code etc.

Yeah, Firefox is good, i like it

And yeah, IE is also good, for the normal user.

:)

Does anyone see the real problem here? IE7, doesnt play well with others. It killed my McAfee, and now, iam looking for another browser. FireFox???? It will take Microsoft, forevor to fix this crazy thing!!

[quote]And yeah, IE is also good, for the normal user.[/quote]
Yes... and it brings a lot of money to servicers :)

Firefox is so ssssslowwwww and it has much more security leaks then IE as proven by a internet security company(don't know the name of the company anymore though).
Firefox let's too many popups just get through.
Firefox let's spyware and other shit being installed on your pc without any warning or asking if you would like to install something.
And for some reason some plugins don't work with my firefox.
Why do you all like firefox? BECAUSE you are stupid and you all follow the mass, if the mass says USE opera! then you all go using opera.

Finally: I tried the ie7 beta 2 and I must say it looks good, it works fine and stuff but it still crashes sometimes(when i close a tab the whole thing crashes.
And i'm not satisfied about the rendering of the pages(seems a bit blurry to me), so there's still a lot of work to be done, but I think I will be using it instead of Firefox because firefox just doesn't work at my speed.

What ever happened to "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?" I'm no IE fan, in fact you can call me a Firefox fanboy if you want. And if 2005 was the year of Firefox, I hope that 2006 is the year of browsers in general. In fact, I predicted this would happen after the .9 preview started to really take off. I'm all for it, it's about time that browsers caught up with the rest of the innovations happening around the Web. If IE7 gets one thing right, it's RSS preview. ALL browsers should have this feature built-in. And a few other things, spellcheck on forms leaps to mind, tabbed browsing of course...

http://loadaveragezero.com/app/s9y/index.php?/archives/77-IE7-Gets-RSS-Right.html

DON'T REPLICATE THE TAB CLOSURE BUTTON

Microsoft helped pioneer repetitive stress injury among the human race. It would seem that they either have a philosophy that humans need to keep rotating one wrist in order to live, or MS is too lazy to develop better integrated user interfaces and controls for their products.

Putting tab "close" buttons on each tab would be an example. You would have to shift your eyes and hand to find the tab and close it, losing mental focus on your work. Firefox has one tab close button that allows me to keep the mouse in one place and close a series of tabs as I preview them. I often do a search, open many tabs for potential hits then scan and delete the irrelevant ones. There are other situations where I simply want to close multiple tabs without the distraction of having to shift my eyes and mouse.

Don't give in.

On tabbed browsing:

Firefox has the tabbed browsing turned OFF by default (meaning the Tab bar does not show if there is only one site/Tab active), when first installing.

Many novice users I have introduced to Firefox never figure out tabs, and never use them because they never see them, and use multiple windows just like IE6.

Since IE7 has tabs viewable by default, I think they will take credit for introducing Tabs to more users than Firefox, even novice users who have used Firefox for a long time.

I think Firefox needs to make Tabs viewable by default (even only one tab), and introduce the concept via a simple page/tutorial upon first install.

By the way, neither IE7 nor Firefox 2 will pass the ACID2 !

http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html#top

This is a shame for both browser !!! To be fair, IE7 beta2 is extremelly bad, but MS has said they will not pass it in their blog (trying to explain why it is not that important without much convinction).

Guys, if we realy want to push now on IE bad standards complience we need proof, so please realy think of making FF 2 pass the ACID2, this is a MUST DO !

Let's be better than Safari, or Opera ;-)

Asa,

Wow, incredible review! After reading it, I went out and got ie7 beta whatever to play with, and I have to say, I am actually fairly impressed. It appears as though Microsoft is wanting to come back into the world of updated browsing. That can only be good news for end users. I am by no means a programmer or even a hack, but I have been known to work the system for all I can and am a firm believer in the FF project. The one thing that has always bothered me is the fact that there are still sites that are more supportive of ie than ff, to the point that there are a few extensions to incorporate ie into ff. That is simply goofy. I am actually going to use the new ie to browse those sites (no way will I give FF up) and to check compatibility issues I have seen.
I hope this will help push Firefox into the next phase of development! I see no reason why this can't help in that regard and look forward to it!

I like Internet Explorer. The fact that some websites doesn't appear like they were ment to be makes me use Internet Explorer.

TestMan,

If Opera passes Acid2, how would Firefox passing Acid2 make it superior? Blow for blow Opera is a better browser simply because you can leave it running for weeks.

Feature for feature Opera outmatches Firefox as well. That's why Firefox has kiddies all over the world cranking out lame extensions which are then blamed if Firefox is buggy.

Asa, thanks for the good review. Although I've been using this preview for a while, I realised a few new things through ur review, and of course also through some of the comments posted, like middle clicking.

However, I would like to say that alot of the ppl who commented has not been really fair and impartial to ur review. I'm a IE user, only becos I dun see the need to switch to another broswer and also becos i dun find FF so much better as claimed by some who says FF is quite slow, which I've tried out due to having to make sure my sites work cross browsers as I'm a web developer. However, i agree that FF is e one who pushed IE to improve, and FF really has some real good features.

Those who treated this whole post as a war between the browsers, pls wake up and be more mature. I'm sure or certainly hope that FF is an initiative to offer end users a better way to surf the net, and if that's the case, its certainly not against IE for trying to improve, or even to copy some features, which others also copy from MS for some things. The end result all of us want to see is good browsers available for users. So let's just encourage all these developers, in both MS and FF camp, and even Opera, to continue to innovate.

I've just downloaded Opera 9.0 TP2. A long time Firefox user, comments on Asa's blog made me try Opera 8.51 recently... I've used it for a while, missing AdBlock (filter.ini hacking with 3rd party programs didn't appeal to me), but overall thinking that it's a damn fine browser and being rather impressed with it.

I got more and more customized with Opera in the last few weeks... To the point where I'm completely ditching Firefox in favour of Opera 9.0 TP2, surely never to look back on it.

If Opera 8.51 was damn fine, 9.0 TP2 is earth-shattering fine. I don't really care about that widget stuff, but I do care about the sheer beauty (especially with the redesigned info/error pages), simplicity, customizability, the now-included content blocking (yay!), site-specific preferences (more yay, I can tell Gmail to not use JS and get the normal interface!), the new search engine creator (which is AWESOME!!!), the wonderful history navigation (grouped by date and site, whoah!) and the page thumbnails I get when Ctrl+Tabbing around. And there's Bittorrent, which I've recently started using.

These things KICK ASS! I dare not even imagine how the final version will look like :)

It's ironic - I came to Asa's blog to read about Firefox, but eventually ended up using a "competitive" browser... I'm well on my way to becoming an Opera fanboy, but you know what? There truly is a lot to be fanboyish about.

On Tabs, I agree with others here,
Tabs are useful, so why they are hidden by default in firefox? the tabs bar it's not visible, and the new tab button it's hidden, they should be visible by default, or at least one of them, but probably it's better to show the tab bar and include the new tab button on it.
On the quick tabs feature:
I don't like the IE way, on firefox there are already two extensions avaiable to do this (before IE :-)
foXsposè http://viamatic.com/index.php/firefox that mimics OSX's exposè (like IE does)
and Tab Sidebar http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/TabSidebar/index.html
I think that the second it's more usable, and something similar should be included by default in the next firefox
On the initial page:
I agree with Asa, the first time page should be an introduction/preferences page, where are explained firefox basic functions (like Tabs) and where some preferences can be set

[snip]
There's a close tab button on each tab. This was once the way we did it, and is available now as an extension. I think we'll be returning to this for the upcoming release.
[/snip]

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo !
Please... don't do that.
thank you

ra1n:

foXpose and Tab Sidebar are okay, but the Opera way of showing all tabs is even better, and it's been around for even longer: The Problem with Tab Thumbnails

If possible, Firefox should copy Opera's way of doing it, instead of emulating the inferior IE7 quick tabs.

I think gregoire has a point, I dont know if its just that I have gotten used to the way you close a tab or not but I didnt like it when you could click on seperate tabs to close them.

I like it the way it is but can understand why some would like the new way. Mabey you could add the feature but give the choice which one you would like to use.

Great review asa, very informative thanks.

IE7b2's interface is nicer. Unfortunately the improved standards support is lip service:
1. + > CSS operators now supported
2. PNG support
3. :hover now applicable to all children of BODY
4. Box model miscalculations fixed

That's pretty much it. From a programmer's perspective all they did was (respectively): added two object scope definitions, added an image decoder along with alpha rendering, widened a parameter's scope, and reordered a few subroutines' precedence.

IE7b2 supports exactly the same CSS/CSS2 properties IE6 did and no more. Flawed implementations like allowing text-align:center to center block elements are still permitted. Broken HTML like BUTTON and OBJECT continue to manifest exactly the same problems they did in IE6, making their adoption impossible.

It offers web developers nothing except headaches for those who thought using + > to hide rules from IE a good method for code forking. If the next major beta has something resembling every other browser's implementation of CSS2, I'll be glad to eat my words.

I don't care about tabs. Never used them in IE, don't use them now in FX. Much easier for me to open a new window and then to Alt+F4 it. I already have a taskbar with tabs. Why would I want more?

Almost forgot. Unless someone mentioned this already: in IE a new window copies address from existing one. It does not work like this in FX that opens an empty window. I prefer IE way: to clone a page and then to dig further in a separate window.

With IE7B2 you still get adware/spyware/dialers ... same way as in IE6 - drive-by installations ... I don't care much about tabs, layouts and other candy features, I want SECURE browser and IE7B2 isn't.

Both FF and IE need "close all tabs" button. If we have "open in tabs", it can open a lot of tabs, it is hard to close them individually.

Both FF and IE are not quite convinient with TABS, FF has extension making it better. FF should consider changing default settings. For example, open new windows in tabs, etc.

Both not quite convinient with feeds. Most of sites suggest RSS as a php or asp or html link. Currently I have to hack favorites.html to make them showing as feeds in toobar, not just showing raw xml. And I can't open them as HTML after that. The biggest advantage could be to allow to filter feeds, highligh new items, etc. This is a structured information, not just some html text, we could use that!

The another great feature I dream about is to see the site diff: higlight text, which is added to the site after the last visit. Do that automatically and set a flag in toolbar (or favorite folder). For most of sites, I do not need to go there to find out that there is no new information.

> Is is good to be OS.
It is bad actually. This is why they need restart after installation. It is good to be free from OS, to be multiplatform -- this is a great advantage of FF.

Thanks,
Valery.

NETCAPTOR DID NOT INVENT TABBED BROWSING.
The Internetworks intoduced tabbed browsing in 1994.It may also reported to be in earlier private builds of Opera.I think first opera public release to have Multi Document Interface (MDI) came in 1996.

validation of the pioneering, user-focused work we've done in building Firefox.

Pioneering? Is that the new euphimism for "ripping off Opera"?

I guess IE7 requires a restart for the same reason the first version of the MS IE developer toolbar required a restart after install: because that's the way things are done in Windows' DLL Hell. I haven't tested it yet, but I assume that IE7 would work fine even if you didn't restart - on most computers at least, and the restart is just a precaution.

It looks like MS has the "restart after install" setting enabled by default on all installers and developers usually don't bother with changing that.

Asa is high on something. Probably his ego. Firefox didn't bring tabbed browsing into the mainstream, IE7 is going to do that. Whether you like it or not, it takes more than Firefox's market share (or lack thereof) to bring something to the masses.

I have installed and ran Firefox way, way before 1.0. Used Mozilla before that. Main issue was ease of use and tabs.

Installed IE 7 Beta 2 Preview last week and uninstalled Firefox today. You can dog IE 7 all you want; but it will maintain its marketshare.

BEWARE IE 7 BETA PREVIEW IF YOU USE OUTLOOK AND KEEP FIREFOX.

Installed IE7 Beta preview yesterday, and it killed ability to open links from HTML e-mails with Firefox if Firefox is default browser.
- Outlook 2000 SP-3 as e-mail client
- Firefox 1.5.0.1 pre-existing
- IE7 Beta preview installed

I primarily use Firefox, but access some pages only usable with IE. After installing IE7, reset Firefox as default browser.
When receiving mail in Outlook:
- HTML links in Plain Text e-mails openned OK in Firefox.
- HTML links in HTML format e-mails went dead (no browser openned).
If IE7 was set as default browser, all links in e-mails open in IE7.
After uninstalling IE7 (roll back to IE6), links in all e-mails openned again OK in Firefox as default.

Is this an IE7 bug, or deliberate attempt by Microsoft to kill Firefox?

I'm not sure the mutual copying of ideas is the desirable way to go on. But if you feel the need to copy all them visual and audio cues, pretty please make them optional, or stash them in some IE7-mimick-extension.
I'ld rather have the focus on extensions and normal proper handling of standards, imho those are ff's strongest features.

(can you get something more efficient to run the extensions page? I'm sure it could be faster)