Not dead, just hibernating. :)

So, I downloaded Firefox 2.0 beta 2 the other day, and this morning downloaded Firefox 2.0 RC 1. Impressions (from running it on OS X 10.4):

It feels a good deal faster than Firefox 1.5. Still not as fast as it could be, I suppose, but it’s more responsive. I’d forgotten that Firefox doesn’t have to be slow. :)

You can now subscribe to a blog in Bloglines via the RSS button in the location bar, which is sweet. It worked flawlessly for me.

Being able to close a tab from the tab itself is a nice addition which I’ve been missing (having used it in Camino and such). In the beta 2, the inactive tabs were faded out quite a bit so you could barely read the text; in the release candidate, though, they’ve pulled the text back into focus, so it’s a more legible dark grey. I think I like the tab overview button at the right, but it’ll take some training to get used to it (I keep thinking subconsciously that it’s the “close tab” button :)).

Another little gem is History->Recently Closed Tabs. I haven’t had to use it yet, but it’ll be quite handy, I’m sure.

Firebug (which I use for web development) already works with the new release, thank heavens. But it’ll only be a matter of time before the other extension developers catch up.

As far as the theme goes, it’s okay. The reload button wouldn’t be my first choice, but overall the look is tolerable — certainly much better than in 1.5.

Conclusion: it’s a keeper. I haven’t run into any stability problems, so unless I do (and I doubt it), I’m sticking with Firefox 2 from now on.

Posted in Firefox
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