Eclectic Echoes

Firebird is now Firefox

Firebird is now up to version 0.8 and caries a new moniker—Firefox. I’ve been using version 0.8 builds of Firebird for a bit and highly recommend it. It’s very fast, tabbed browsing is awesome, it has excellent pop-up blocking, real support for web standards, integrated search, and the keyword shortcuts for bookmarks are indispensable. The latest version (the rename was to avoid confusion with another open-source project) has improved bookmark management, off-line browsing, more streamlined download manager, a new front-end for adding extensions (XPI files) and finally comes default with a windows installer. (I should say that installers have been available prior to this release, but not as part of the Mozilla Foundation’s default distribution—you either had to compile the source yourself or use a contributed— in other words, unofficial—install package.)

Hopefully they’ll get the new extensions set up at texturizer.net soon, as right now the built in extension links and those at the mozilla.org site point to a non-existent firefox directory. As the extensions get tested against Firefox they should start showing up there. In the mean time you can continue to use those from the firebird extension page, but be warned some of the extensions will not work with Firefox, some will cause Firefox to quit with XBL binding errors and some of them will have odd effects on the browser (like preventing use of post button submits—that one baffled me for a couple hours the other day) For right now, I am using both Firefox and Firebird 0.8+ (my own compile from Febuary 4th’s source tree) as all the extensions I like to use are working in that build. Once those extensions are working (like Tabbrowser Extensions and WebDeveloper which both generated XBL errors in Firefox) in the new Firefox I will completely switch over. If you are upgrading from a previous version of Firebird to Firefox, be sure to create a new profile to use with Firefox and definitely read the release notes before installing.

The Mozilla Foundation also released Thunderbird 0.5 for mail, which I am currently using as my default mail client. The big news with this release (for my use at least) is better IMAP performance. Also of note is the improved migration from Netscape 4.x. Thunderbird is a tad bit behind Firefox development wise, but I have found the 0.4 and 0.5 version to be very usable and my wife (who is decidedly non-tech) is extremely happy with the 0.5 version.

The Mozilla foundation has also launched a new effort to get Firefox more widely adopted and increase awareness in general. Once the issues with the extensions are ironed out I will be adding one of the buttons to the site permanently.

Update 20040210 — That didn’t take long!

As I noted above there are some issues with some Firebird extensions working in Firefox, but most of the extensions either have been or are getting updated even as we speak. One of my essentials—Tabbrowser Extensions—now works fine when loaded into Firefox. Note that you will still need to either create a new profile and migrate your old bookmarks etc. or disable all extensions in your Firebird profile before upgrading to Firefox. Personally, I really recommend going the new profile route. Updated extensions are being collected and loaded up at the Firefox Extension Room at MozDev. Already most of the Firebird extensions are listed there. As the load relaxes from this initial release announcement the extensions should be available at the regular sites (those listed in the main post and linked from within Firefox itself) as well. So now Firefox is set as my default browser and Firebird is no more…