FF & Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 Released

Earlier this week Mozilla released version 1.5.0.5 of both Firefox and Thunderbird. If your Firefox and/or Thunderbird did not auto-updated to the new version, you can obtain the download by selecting from the Help Menu, 'Check for Updates...'

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FF 1.5.0.5 Release Notes:

Firefox 1.5.0.5 is a security update that is part of our ongoing program to provide a safe Internet experience for our customers. We recommend that all users upgrade to this latest version.

• Improvements to product stability
• Added changes for Frisian locale (fy-NL)
• Several security fixes

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Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 Release Notes:

Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 provides stability and security enhancements that are part of our ongoing program to provide a safer email experience for our users. We recommend that all Thunderbird users upgrade to this latest version.

Here's what's new in Thunderbird 1.5.0.5:

• Improvements to product stability.
• Several security fixes.

The Rumbling Edge has a more detailed list of notable bug fixes.

Firefox 2.0 Release Schedule

I happen to come across the Mozilla Developer's Calendar which has the preliminary release schedule for Firefox 2.0:

• August 23rd, Beta 2 UPDATED
  
• September 8th, Release Candidate 1 UPDATED
• September 15th, Release Candidate 2 UPDATED
• September 22nd, Release Candidate 3 UPDATED
• September 26th, FF 2.0 FINAL RELEASE

All the releases are about a month later than the Historical Schedule dates. Not too bad considering MS may not have Windows Vista ready by the projected January 2007 date. A Seattle-based software developer (not MS or Mozilla) has challenged Bill Gates to a $10,000 bet: He says Windows Vista will not be released as scheduled in January.

FF 2.0 New Feature: Tab Overflow

While I was searching for news on an updated release schedule for Firefox 2.0, I came across an article over on internetnews.com about a new feature called Tab Overflow. This feature showed up in the Beta 1 release earlier this month. Funny I don't recall seeing anything in the What's New, must fall under the general category of 'Changes to tabbed browsing behavior'.

According to the article, the tests performed by internetnews.com, showed that this feature kicked in after opening 17 tabs while running at the 1024x768 resolution. The Tab Overflow feature will allow you scroll through your open tabs in the tab bar and still see what they are. A long time ago I took a look at the very hefty (weighing in at 266K), Tab Mix Plus extension and one of the options it allowed was a double decked tab bar.

Next time I fire up FF 2.0 Beta 1, I'll have to experiment with this. But I just can't see having 17 tabs opened at once. As it is now, I have 8 opened and for me that is a lot. The feature is suppose to be improved in the Beta 2 release due out August 8th. Which will likely be the next time I do anything with FF 2.0, unless I do some testings for Go Firefox!

Update: Time to Replace Those Old Windows

As y'all may recall, I finally broke down and installed Windows XP SP2 on my system. Well recently while working on a computer for someone else I ran into a bit..okay more like major problem after I installed SP2 on the computer. I couldn't get on the Internet anymore! 'Group Policy' was blocking access to the Internet because Windows XP thinks their computer is on a home network. Technically it is, but is not. This is the way their ISP configures Windows so both computers in the household can access the Internet at the same time.

Frustrated I removed SP2 from that computer until I could find out a way to remove the 'Group Policy'. I thought I had found such a method so I went ahead and tried to reinstall SP2. May be there was a problem downloading SP2 not sure, but it would not install. I am going to end up doing a full recovery on that computer and opted not to install SP2.

So what happens if you don't install SP2:

• You get this annoying message (which can be disabled) from Windows Update telling you no more support (tech support and updates) after October 10th. Well, there are folks out there still running Windows 95 and I ain't going to pay to get Microsoft tech support anyway.
  
• You won't be able to run the Windows Defender which is basically the old MS Anti Spyware and firewall. Since I started using Firefox, the amount of Spyware on my computer dropped to nearly nill. I use a third-party (and free) firewall program. I truly dislike the Windows Firewall, especially the one that comes with SP2.
  
• You won't be able to use Media Player 10. I don't use Media Player. For MP3's I use Nullsoft's WinAmp and for video's Real Player
• You won't be able to use IE7. I don't want to use IE7, especially after I went to install the beta version and it advised me to disable my virus protection and firewall and to BACKUP my system. I also wonder what kinda spyware crap will be installed with IE7. It is bad enough that MS Windows Genuine Advantage is behaving like spyware. MS is facing a couple lawsuits regarding this anti-piracy tool.

I have ended up removing SP2 from my system today and then ran all the updates need for SP1. I figure as long as I keep my virus protection up to date and continue using the Firewall I should be fine. Especially since I am using Firefox and Thunderbird instead of Internet Exploiter and Outhouse. Also there are plenty of free anti spyware programs such as Spybot and Lavasoft's Adware.

At the point the only thing Microsoft on my system is Windows itself. I have ditched MS Office for Sun Microsystem's Open Office and Front Page as since been replaced with Nvu which is based off the old Mozilla Composer. Both of these applications, just like Firefox and Thunderbird are free to download, use and since they are open-source make changes as you desire.

Preview: FF 2.0 Beta 1

Earlier today Mozilla announced the next next milestone for FF 2.0, Beta 1 has been released. There a handful of new features and changes with this release, which I will touch on briefly.

• Undo Close Tab. The one feature I always loved about SessionSaver was 'snapback tab'. Accidentally closed the wrong tab, just go into the tools menu, under SessionSaver, Snapback Tab and select the tab you wanted to reopen. FF 2.0 has this feature now and is much simpler to use. Simply right-click anywhere on the tab bar and select 'Undo Close Tab'. Firefox will automatically reopen the last tab you closed (repeat as needed for multiple tabs), putting you back right where you were.
• Note: Automatic restoration of browser session still only applies to a crash (or when you click the restart link in the add-ons manager) not if you close the browser.
  
• Warn when opening a lot of tabs at once. This options is so new it is not even in the help yet. To access this option, from Tools Menu, select Options...,click on Tabs and it is the last option on the list. I have not run into (or heard from anyone who has) any troublesome sites which open tons of tabs at once. I've had this happen on IE a site would open windows faster than I could close them. It got to the point Windows had a heart-attack and crashed, not a pretty site! Kudos to the developers for thinking ahead on this one.
• Inline Spellchecking. This has been an available feature for a while, but was not working correctly on certain sites such as Blog sites, Delphi Forums, etc. Still going to take some getting use to right-clicking on the misspelled words.
• Anti-Phishing. Major improvements have been made to this feature. No longer do you need to buggy Google Toolbar. Here's the info from the FF 2.0 Beta 1 FAQs:
  

  How does the Phishing Protection feature work in Firefox 2 Beta 1?

  Phishing Protection is turned on by default in Firefox 2 Beta 1, and works by checking the sites that you browse to against a list of known phishing sites. This list is automatically downloaded and regularly updated within Firefox 2 Beta 1 when the anti-phishing feature is enabled. Since phishing attacks can occur very quickly, there's also an option check the sites you browse to against an online service such as Google for more up-to-date protection. This enhanced capability can be turned on via the Anti-Phishing preferences pane. (Note: final set of anti-phishing service providers TBD.)"

WARNING: This is not a final release of FF 2.0, use at your own risk. But if you do choose to use this create & use a new profile before doing so!More information and the download link can be obtained at The Mozilla Developer News.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer interview with Blake Ross

On June 30th, Todd Bishop of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer interviewed Mozilla Firefox Co-Founder Blake Ross over lunch at Gnomedex. This is very good interview and covers a lot ground. There are a few questions/answers that I want to expound upon.

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Q: The community is at work on Firefox 2.0. Given the success of the first Firefox, is there pressure to make big advances with the second one?

Ross: Some of the feedback we have gotten about the 2.0 release (test version) has been, what's new here? It looks like the 1.0 release because most of the work that has been going on has been to make it more stable, how do we fix the memory problems that people are complaining about, how do we make everyday tasks easier – like spell-checking, for example, in Web forms. Little things that you're not going to notice when you first fire up Firefox 2.0, but you're going to use it for two weeks and say, yeah, this is definitely an overall better experience.

On May 15th in my entry: A New Milestone for FF 2.0, I discussed some of the new features with FF 2.0 after having an opportunity to try out the latest test version. Yes, to the casual user it is going to look very similar to the 1.0.* versions. However, it is more the simple changes such as the new add-ons interface (combines themes & extensions managers into one easy to use interface) that make the difference. By far the best change with FF 2.0 is having the close button on each tab without an extension. Unfortunately, I have not used FF 2.0 that much yet to see if there has been improvements with the memory problems. There is the possibility of a Beta release coming out some time this week and I'll investigate this more then.

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Q: I know you're asked frequently about Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft's next browser. How much have you used the test version, and what do you think of it?

Ross: I've used it a little bit. The truth is that it actually looks pretty good. People don't expect me to say that, they expect me to say that it's terrible. They did exactly what we were expecting them to do, which was take a bunch of time and get IE7 up to feature parity with Firefox.

I have not yet had an opportunity to take a look at IE7 and not really sure if I am going to at this point. I don't like the install process telling me to back-up my files, close all programs and then to DISABLE my anti-virus and anti-spyware protection. Makes me a bit leery of this here product.

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Q: Microsoft essentially allowed Internet Explorer to go dormant for several years, until Firefox started coming along and chipping away at its market share. What do you think about that, and what does that say about the state of competition?

Ross: That makes me furious, to be completely honest with you. That, more than anything is why we really had to start Firefox in the first place. People think that we started Firefox just to take down Microsoft, just to win some kind of competition. Why would we want to win? There's no money involved for us, there's no IPO for this company, it's a non-profit. Why would we want to do this unless there's a real need?

The truth is I think Microsoft is very directly responsible for spyware and adware and the pop-up ads in general that proliferated across the Web after they abandoned their product. I mean, this is the world's most-used software application ever ... and I just think it's irresponsible for a company to abandon it simply because they can't find a financial incentive to continue development on it.

This is by far the best part of the interview, Ross's answers are right on target. Did some research in Wikipedia about Internet Explorer's Release History:

• IE 1.0, August 1995, shipped with Plus! for Windows 95
  
• IE 1.5, January 1996
  
• IE 2.0, November 1995
  
• IE 3.0, August 1996
  
• IE 4.0, September 1997
  
• IE 5.0, March 1999, shipped with Windows 98 SE
  
• IE 5.5, July 2000, shipped with Windows ME
  
• IE 6.0, August 2001, shipped with Windows XP
  
• IE 6.0 SP1, September 2002, shipped with Windows XP SP1
• IE 6.0 SP2, August 2004, shipped with Windows XP SP2
• IE 7.0 Beta 1, July 2005
• IE 7.0 Beta 2, January 2006 (Preview)/April 2006 (final)
• IE 7.0 Beta 3, June 2006
  
• IE 7.0, 1st half 2007, shipping with Windows Vista

Looking at this history it easy to understand what Ross meant by "abandoning their product". When (and if) IE 7.0 comes out in 2007 is going to be the first time in nearly 5 1/2 years since there has been a major (not counting the bug/vulnerability fixes) new release of IE. In the mean time AOL/Time Warner's Netscape continued release newer and improved version of Netscape 7.0:

• Netscape 7.0 – August 29, 2002 (based on Mozilla 1.0.1)
• Netscape 7.01 – December 10, 2002 (based on Mozilla 1.0.2)
• Netscape 7.02 – February 18, 2003 (based on Mozilla 1.0.2)
• Netscape 7.1 – June 30, 2003 (based on Mozilla 1.4)
• Netscape 7.2 – August 17, 2004 (based on Mozilla 1.7)

In May 2005, Netscape released version 8.0 based on Mozilla Firefox and has since released version 8.1 in January 2006. While IE still continues to be the dominate browser worldwide it has been losing ground and remained dormant. From OneStat.com, the most popular browsers in the USA are:

1. Microsoft IE ~ 79.78%
2. Mozilla Firefox ~ 15.82%
3. Apple Safari ~ 3.28%
4. Opera ~ 0.81%
5. Netscape ~ 0.20%

Overall, Mozilla Firefox's global usage share has reached 12.93 percent! Not bad for a browser which has only been fully on the market since November 2004! Noticed from the IE time line above, how work on IE 7 starts around the time Firefox is released? Could have been Microsoft realized they were in trouble, users were discovering and liking Firefox. No longer we consumers going to put up with crappy software, especially when obtaining another browser is so much simpler now. Which leads me to the final question I wanted to expound upon:

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Q: Is the ultimate potential reach of Firefox limited by Microsoft's distribution of Internet Explorer as an integrated component of Windows?

Ross: Obviously it is to some degree, I can't claim that it's not. But I think that's much less of a problem in 2006 than it was in 1998 when Netscape was fighting this battle. Because there's a pretty huge difference between something shipping in the operating system vs. having to go to Best Buy and buy it, and the world we live in today, where broadband is obviously a pretty key component of a lot of people's Internet experience. It's much easier and it's much more natural today to download and install software. Firefox is what, 6 megabytes on Windows, that's a 1-minute download on broadband. I think that the barrier to entry for us to get people to download Firefox is much lower than it used to be.

People realize now they have a choice in their Internet experience and are no longer just limited to what comes on their computers. Mozilla makes it very simple to get Firefox, no registration, no OS validation, no jumping through half a dozen links, etc.!

There are several more questions in the interview. The complete interview, Q&A with Firefox's Blake Ross: Extended version can be found on Todd Bishop's Microsoft's Blog on The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Time to Replace Those Old Windows!

From the Microsoft Windows Site:

End of support for Windows 98 and Windows Me

July 11, 2006 will bring a close to Extended Support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me as part of the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy. Microsoft will retire public and technical support, including security updates, by this date.

End of support for Windows XP Service Pack 1

On October 10, 2006, Microsoft will end all public assisted support for Windows XP Service Pack1 (SP1). After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide any incident support options or security updates for this retired service pack under the policies defined by the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy.

Full Article

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I've already discovered the need to upgrade to Windows XP SP2 recently when I had tried to upgrade my Windows Anti Spyware now known as Windows Defender. Also when I attempted to upgrade to Windows Media Player 10, I also received notification I would need to have Windows XP SP2. Even after these notifications, I was hesitant to install Windows XP SP2 after a previous install when it first came out left me unable to connect to the Internet. The Anti-Spyware wasn't that big of a deal since I use other programs and as for media I use either WinAmp or Real Player. I later figured out my connectivity problems were caused by the crappy Windows firewall. I have since installed SP2 and disabled the Windows firewall and am using a third-party (as in n0n-Mirosquish) firewall program.

So you are probably wondering why the Guru finally broke down and upgraded to SP2, when I had such hostility towards that upgrade? One day I was running the usual Windows Updates when I got a popup on my taskbar's system tray informing me after October 10th no more updates. So I was left with a couple options, upgrade and hope I would able to access the Internet or do nothing and hope for the best. I could just see booting up one morning and getting the message:

This version of Windows you are running is obsolete and may no longer be used.
You must upgrade to Service Pack 2 in order to continue using Windows.

After a very long update process I was able to get Windows XP SP2 install along with all the other 'critical updates'. So far so good, I now have the new Windows Defender and I can still get on the Internet. I haven't bothered yet with Media Player 10, at least I don't think I have.