FireFox 0.9 RC

Any better than 0.8?

[digitalv]

Just noticed that FireFox 0.9 was out - anyone have any experience with it? Is it worth upgrading from 0.8?

[sned]

I spent about an hour fooling around with it trying to get my extensions and themes back in, but to no avail. Didn't import the 0.8 bookmarks, etc. back in ... so I went back to 0.8 (I am running on windoze though, could be the problem.)

[isitreal]

I was reading some stuff on mozillazine [forums.mozillazine.org]
about 0.8 to 1.0, if I read the stuff right, they are just working on getting rid of bugs now on the next releases, so there may not be that much advantage in moving from 0.8 to 0.9, I'll have to read up on that and see, I just switched to 0.8 a month ago, better favorites management by a longshot was the only real major difference, css/html/dom wise it's the least buggy browser out there that I test on, that's for sure, can't say I see many display bugs currently, less than other browsers for a while now. I'd wait at least for the real release, not the release candidate unless you like testing or whatever.

Still the only browser on the planet to correctly support position:fixed and overflow:auto at the same time.

Also out is another branch, running I think gecko 1.8a1 and 1.8a2, that's called 0.8+ or something, but won't be the one that is running version 1.0 when it comes out, if I read correctly, that's actually more interesting to check out since it does incorporate actual differences, not just bug fixes.

It's kind of a pain switching, I have far too many mozillas installed on my computer so the new ones never know where to get their favorites/cookies/passwords etc from, always the wrong place, probably my first windows isntalled version, 1.0 or something.

[asquithea]

I haven't downloaded this one yet, but many of the comments on MozillaZine indicate that this new version is not going to be a smooth transition for many users. Unless you have some experience installing nightly builds (as opposed to point releases), do NOT install this Release Candidate.

That said, I downloaded the 20040604 nightly for Win32 a few days ago, and it's rock solid, so if you want the newest version of Firefox without the flakiness of the new features, download one of the later 0.8 nightly builds -- they'll be much easier to install cleanly in the immediate future. See
The Burning Edge [squarefree.com] for details.

General problems with the 0.9 RC include extension management (you'll see incompatibilities with old extensions until the various developers get their act together), and new theme that has been universally not acclaimed (!). See Djst's webblog [weblogs.mozillazine.org] for a comparison of the 0.8 theme with the 0.9 theme [weblogs.mozillazine.org]. Bleh :-(

Bear in mind that the purpose of beta and release candidate versions is to iron out problems and incompatibilities, so it's reasonable to expect that some significant things will be broken until the point release.

[MatthewHSE]

I gave this one a try this morning. Like has already been said in this thread, it's not going to be any easy transition. Many or most extensions are not compatible yet with the 0.9 builds, and there have been some pretty drastic changes here and there in options and configurations, etc. Still, it has some very nice features that I believe will go a long way toward helping FireFox get more mainstream users.

My personal opinion is that the 0.9 upgrade is not currently worth the hassle. I may give it another try in a month or so after more themes and extensions have been updated. Overall, I expect to stay with 0.8 until 1.0 comes out.

[digitalv]

Overall, I expect to stay with 0.8 until 1.0 comes out.

That's what I've been leaning towards myself based on these responses. I only started using Firefox a couple of weeks ago, having been an IE user since 4.0, and it has already become my default browser. It ain't broke so I ain't fixin it :)

[isitreal]

I was also very conservative to switch to Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox, it wasn't until phoenix 0.6 that I thought gecko/mozilla was good enough to really replace IE 5.5, which was my last default browser, I don't switch lightly because of the difficulty in synchronizing favorites, easier now between firefoxes of course since it's a single html file. Mozilla itself has always been far too slow and bloated.

I've never thought Opera was good enough, I still don't, although if I was surfing on a cell phone or a handheld (shoot me if you see me do that...) it would be my first choice, also if I needed to add a browser to a 133mghz windows 95 box Opera is great, I've done that it works really well.

I am checking out the new 0.8.0+ firefox builds, those are not the main branch though, but the next version, alpha stuff, but I don't use those nightly builds too much, just to see where it's going.

[vkaryl]

That's what I've been leaning towards myself based on these responses. I only started using Firefox a couple of weeks ago, having been an IE user since 4.0, and it has already become my default browser. It ain't broke so I ain't fixin it

Ditto. Couple of months ago, not weeks, for me though.

[R1chard]

For me, IE has never been anything more than a curiosity that I use every once in a while to see what's broken. I thought that Gecko had been an IE5 beater since early 2001...

Anyway, from the point of view of a theme developer, I just wish that they would stabilize the format so that you don't have to update everything in your theme every 3 months. I'm betting that from version 1.0 or 1.1, we'll see an explosion in availability of compatible themes and extensions, as it becomes less susceptible to change and people start putting out finalized versions for the long-term.

[sebbothebutcher]

well... i didn't notice any significant difference... the only thing i don't like is the new design! the 0.8 design is much better in my eyes... i used the "classic.jar" from 0.8 and replaced the newer version with it. now firefox 0.9 looks quite similar to the previous version... ;-)