Firefox 2.0b2, WMP 11b2, Vista RC1

It's been one big happy pre-release week.

Firefox 2 Beta 2 was released on Thursday. Major updates include a new UI, improved tabs, and phishing protection. I'm using it now and it seems much smoother and a lot more stable than Beta 1.

Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 also arrived on Thursday. Most of the improvements are in fixed bugs and increased performance.

Finally, Windows Vista RC1 was officially completed and released to TechBeta, TAP, and Connect members yesterday. MSDN, TechNet, and Beta 2 CPP members should get their hands on it next week. This build is supposed to be much better than Beta 2. Paul Thurott has already begun a review you may want to read if you intend to participate in the RC1 CPP.

Hurrah for Firefox 2.

Thanks for these, I wouldnt have known about any of them.

Firefox 2 looks pretty wicked. I must say, I am impressed.

Originally Posted by 2 Dope

Firefox 2 looks pretty wicked. I must say, I am impressed.

Really? I disliked the new skin, specifically the new home button.

Originally Posted by Razekial

Thanks for these, I wouldnt have known about any of them.

Yeah, me neither. This is good news. *patiently waits for final releases*

-TFS

I thought it funny that we saw Firefox's second release right along side all of Microsoft's. Eh. Time to update WMP 11.

I am most definitely liking Firefox 2. Thanks for posting this. I'm usually completely oblivious to these things. ^^;; The tabs are certainly better. *is impressed*

I do use Firefox, but surely it takes up a lot of resources. Not that Winamp has much to do with this, but people always tell you to stay away from things like Windows Media Player and such, but when I did a check, even the Winamp Lite version took up more resources than Windows Media Player.

Will this new Firefox take up even more resources? I'll stick to Firefox even if it takes up more resources than Internet Explorer, still. The common Firefox (or, atleast mine) seems to take up a little more than Internet Explorer, but what about this new version?

I'm at ~40MB right now, but that number grows as more sites are visited during the session.

The most I've ever gotten Firefox up to was 250MB on 1.5.0.x.

Originally Posted by F3

I'm at ~40MB right now, but that number grows as more sites are visited during the session.

Huh. I had recently switched to Opera, and looking at it's memory usage, I'm using a cool 30MB. Firefox was just getting more and more frustrating and buggy.

Originally Posted by Mr. Wonderful

Huh. I had recently switched to Opera, and looking at it's memory usage, I'm using a cool 30MB. Firefox was just getting more and more frustrating and buggy.

Hmmm, I haven't had a problem with Firefox since version 1.5 came out. I prefer it to Opera, certainly, since Opera takes forever to load large webpages.

The tab-scrolling feature in Fx2.0b2 (Fx is actually the preferred abbreviation, according to their website) is pretty sweet, and I must say I like the drop-down tab list as well. There's also a spellchecker function in the text boxes, though I don't know if that simply comes with Fx or if it came with an extension I downloaded. Either way, very cool.

I got it, and to tell you the truth, all I see is a cleaner interface. I'll stick to Opera, thank you. It's just so much nicer. And GDwarf, I don't think I've ever had that problem. Not exclusively to Opera, that is.

Originally Posted by D3PyroGS

The tab-scrolling feature in Fx2.0b2 (Fx is actually the preferred abbreviation, according to their website) is pretty sweet, and I must say I like the drop-down tab list as well. There's also a spellchecker function in the text boxes, though I don't know if that simply comes with Fx or if it came with an extension I downloaded. Either way, very cool.

Yeah, inline spell checking was added in Beta 1.

I was using Beta 1 of Firefox for a month or two and updated to Beta 2 a couple of days ago. it does seem much smoother overall, though I had to manually download a version of Adblock that worked with it.

Yeah, inline spell checking was added in Beta 1.

Hmmm.... yeah, didn't notice it in Beta 1, but I have definitely noticed it now. It's almost annoying. It's underlining my first word in red, and though it's not as bad as, say, Microsoft Word, I could see it getting kind of annoying as I go on. Then again, that's what custom dictionaries are for right? Then again, if anyone could add anything to a dictionary, it wouldn't be a dictionary, would it? Or is this the wrong place for that kind of philosophical question? Or is this simply way too many questions?

All that unnecessary stuff aside, I totally overlooked the WMP11 Beta 2 release. I'll have to check it out, because right now I'm using Beta 1, and it is definitely an improvement.