Tabbed browsing. Firefox popularized tabbed browsing, enabling multiple Web sites to be viewed as separate tabs contained within a single browser window, and improving people’s efficiency by helping them better organize their desktops. In Firefox 2, tabbed browsing has been further improved with the addition of individual close buttons on each tab, enhanced tab navigation features, and a session restore system that automatically restores previously-open windows and tabs when a new browsing session is started.
The individual close button is a feature I love of Safari. Why should I have to switch to a tab just to close it? But, session retore? YES! I've wanted that for a while. I don't know if it restores the history of each tab, but it's downloading as I post so I'll see. I'd also like it if it keeps a running save of the history, like a wordprocessor does. That way if it does crash (it will at some point, and we all know it) you don't lose track of everything you had been doing during that session.
Anyone else trying it out?
Start Firefox, go to Prefs/Main/When Firefox Starts: Show my windows and tabs from last time. And it keeps back-button histories! Ok, for now I'm back to Firefox. I used Safari when it came out, as it was fast and sleek. Then there were no more Safari updates for 10.2.8, so I had to eventually jump ship to Firefox to use some websites. Then I got the mini and it runs 10.4, so I could run Safari 2. It's got some page rendering issues, and other minor annoyances, but it was fairly fast and less of a hog than Firefox 1.5. Now, Firefox 2 has added feature I like from Safari and added features I wish it had. When Safari 2.5 or 3 comes out, I hope it won't take an OS upgrade just to run it. I haven't figured out why Safari 2 won't run in 10.2.8, except for forcing a user to buy a newer OS X...
EDIT: It even saves your place on the page, ie, if you're reading a long Wikipedia entry on Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, it'll take you back to the screen full you left it at. Woo!
Nice to see they FINALLY got RSS built-in to it. Overall, it DOES have a nice feel to it, and is very fast. The main problem that kept me from normally using it was the FireFox was not able to render pages for me, that Safari 2 would do excelently (btw, which FireFox *STILL* can't render eBay right... *grumblegrrgrumblegrr*) I see it also has a spell checked built into it. That *might* be kinda annoying, then again maybe not...
the session restore is a feature ive been beeging for in safari for a long time now (that and more general compatibility).. however,its nothing new.. Ive had it in firefox for so long on my PC at work i cant even remember the name of the extension.
but, if peopple dont want to upgrade to FF2 (cant see why they wouldnt want to...byt) thenthere is an extension that provides that functionality... including crash restore.
Well, wait for Leopard to come out and then you'll be able to see every window you've had open at any time backward in history or something like that. Your computer will be like a Kafkaian labyrinth.
Both Shiira and Opera already have the individual tab close thing, and I think it's Opera that let's you return to where you left off on your previous session.
I just dropped FF2 on the Indigo iMac I recently picked up. It's running a basic install of 10.2.8 (and a Pacifist installed 9.2.2 from my iBook Restore CDs, yea Pacifist!) and while I had FF2 downloading Camino in the background while I messed with some System Prefs, the Finder crashed and restarted. I was surprised to see Firefox offer o restore the session that I was in when it crashed! Woo, again! It seems they've got most of the featurs of the extension you liked built-in. I'm using it and Camino on this old iMac, as it's a 400MHz with 128MB RAM. I'd like to see which feels better on a low RAM machine. I've got 4 desktops with 512MB, the iBook has 640MB and my slow Linux PC laptop has 256MB. I'm forgetting what life was like with a massive 128MB in the heady days of 2001... Not that I had that much RAM in a machine until I bought the iBook in 2002. It boggles me that a half gig feels constrained at times in 10.4.
EDIT: I should note that the crash and restore session happened before I enabled the Session Save in the Prefs. Thus, if FF2 crashes, it'll play nice and ask if you want to back where you were before it crashed, even if that's not your preferred startup mode (ie a homepage or some such).
I just tried it outta curiosity. FF2 supports dragable tabs, ie move the order around. I haven't found that in Safari yet, so if it does it could someone tell me the shortcut? In FF2 you just click-n-drag.
Firefox 1.5 supports that as well, just for the record. At least the Linux version... ;^)
i just started using ff2 yesterday, ind i love it! except for the fact that most of the extensions haven't bees ported. I absloutely love the restore feature, and that they put the close tab button on the tab.
I just checked on OS X and 1.5 does it as well. I guess I didn't really notice an issue with it until I was into Safari again.
So does 1.5 on Windows XP.
I'm waiting for Firefox 3.0. The nightly builds are very nice; Firefox finally has cocoa UI widgets. No more ugly buttons.
Firebird 0.6 did as well. As well as the original plugin for mozilla.