Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.10 were released on Friday, February 23rd. The update release are mainly security and stability bugfixes for the Firefox 2.0.x and 1.5.x versions of the browser. According to the Firefox 2.0.0.2 release notes new changes also include:
Windows Vista Support: Many enhancements and fixes for Windows Vista are included along with the following caveats.
Steve Reynolds, Microsoft Internet Explorer Program Manager, announced on the Microsoft Internet Explorer Blog that an update for Internet Explorer 7 is available. The IE7 update "addresses an issue experienced by some users where CPU usage is high when they are navigating a page that contains multiple frames or when multiple frames are navigated simultaneously". If you have experienced any such performance issue, Microsoft is encouraging you to download and install the update.
SeaMonkey, the Internet suite package formerly known as Mozilla Suite, was just released under version 1.1. SeaMonkey is like the old friend that you don't call anymore because you're too "busy" spending time with your new friends, Firefox and Thunderbird. Yet you still wish that old friend the best of luck and perhaps it's time for a reunion of sorts.
You can check out the online readme file for the new features and fixes in SeaMonkey 1.1. However, the best summary likely comes from SeaMonkey's Project News page.
Some critical security and stability updates have been made available for my favorite Internet browser, Firefox, as well as my favorite e-mail client, Thunderbird.
As part of Mozilla Corporation's ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 1.5.0.9, Firefox 2.0.0.1, and Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 are now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux for free download from getfirefox.com & getthunderbird.com.
We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. This update is available immediately in 41 languages including Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Hungarian, and more.
I'm currently testing a development version of Mozilla's Firefox 3 (codenamed Gran Paradiso). The contents of the release notes for Gran Paradiso Alpha 1 may surprise a few users.
Currently Firefox 3 is scheduled to be officially released in May 2007. When Firefox 3 is finally released it is expected to no longer support older versions of Microsoft Windows including Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows ME. Support for Apple's Mac OS X 10.2 will also be dropped. For the Mac platform, Mozilla is recommending users run Firefox using OS X 10.3.9 or higher.
Several new features for the Alpha 1 version of Gran Paradiso include:
Many of the new features are a result of changes in the Firefox rendering (layout) engine, Gecko. For this alpha version, Gecko 1.9 Alpha 1 is being used under the browser's hood.
I know giving Microsoft a hard time is everyone's best pastime sport, but perhaps IE7 is an improvement over IE6. While there have been some complaints about IE7 "breaking" sites...the uproar is a lot quieter than I expected. I had anticipated a little bit more from the general public. Also, it is also nice to note that IE7 isn't included in many of the "critical"updates that the rest of the IE suite are.
From the IEBlog:
While browsing some of my favorite sites looking for quirks in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) that I needed to be aware of for Web design, I came across one of the most helpful design tools I've seen in a long time. Caleb Gilbert recommended at Drupal.org a site called Browsershots. His recommendation was prompted on the need for non-IE7 users such as Mac users to actually see what their sites would look like in IE7. This is a design tool not only useful for those designing themes for Drupal, but about any other content management system or Web page you may get your hands on.
Lorelle VanFossen makes some great observations in his post with regards to which browser, Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2, work with Wordpress. Internet Explorer 7 was just released for Windows XP last week. If everything sticks to schedule, Firefox 2 will likely be out sometime this week.
Ms. VanFossen's article doesn't say it, but IE7 has been noticed to work better with AJAX type sites than IE6. Of course the original question though is how does IE7 compare with Firefox when running Wordpress?
In case you missed the brief announcement, the second release candidate for Firefox 2.0 went public last Friday. The release notes for Firefox 2.0 RC2 are available at Mozilla.com while download links have been made available at Mozilla.org.
I've already written quite a bit about the new features in Firefox 2. If you are interested in reading my articles on Firefox 2 please check out the articles from the list below: