Thanks to Ryan at CyberNet for this info. Mozilla has released a ‘Pre-Beta 1’ version of Thunderbird 2.0. Pre-Beta is kinda funky name, likely this is a release-candidate for Beta 1 since the install folder was Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0 Beta 1. Still hunting for release notes as well as an exact (other than mid-September) release date for the official ‘Beta 1’. There have been some changes since the last Alpha 1 Release back at the end of July. It looks as if Mozilla has given Thunderbird UI a bit of a visual refresh as well. First screenshot below shows the…

Like most web browsers, Firefox will display security warnings such as: Entering Secure Sites Low-grade Encryption Leaving A Secure Sites Information about to be submitted is not encrypted Some of the items are not page are not encrypted To disable these warnings in Firefox 1.5.0.X builds (Firefox 2.0 users see below) you will need to it via about:config… Open a new tab (if you have the about:config extension installed, click the icon and skip to step 3) In the address bar type about:config Enter security.warn in the Filter bar to limit display to just options containing ‘security.warn’. Double-click on the…

A while back I experimented with Yahoo Mail Beta after learning of a trick from CyberNet to trick Yahoo into offering their Mail Beta. While I did like the interface which is similar to that of Outlook and Thunderbird it did tend to run a bit slow when it first loaded and causes my Firefox 2.0b2 to use a lot of memory. A couple items of interest the ‘bulk’ folder has been renamed to ‘spam’ and you can also view RSS feeds within the Mail application. Yahoo has now made their mail Beta available to all. The performance has improved…

I’ve been keeping an eye out on Go Firefox! as well as mozillaZine. There seems to be a couple issues with some folks with the addons manager and secure websites. The biggest problem folks seem to be having is related to their Firewalls blocking Firefox 1.5.0.7. For firewall related issues check out: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firewalls For an easy to configure firewall I would suggest Sygate Personal Firewall. It is free and anytime an application tries to access the Internet or has changed since you last ran it, Sygate popups a box describing the issue and asking if you wish to allow this…

Along with Firefox 1.5.0.7, Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 has been released as well. The release notes for Thunderbird are a bit brief: Improvements to product stability. Several security fixes. The Mozilla and OSU OpenSource Labs FTP Servers appear to be overload at this time but you should be able to download Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 directly from the product page. Most users should be able to upgrade Thunderbird (if it hasn’t told you to do so already) as well as Firefox by going to the Help menu and selecting ‘Check For Updates…’

By default Firefox is setup to allow no more than two active downloads at a time. Okay this in fine and actually good for folks on dial-up but what about us broadband users? Well, you could install some third-party download manager software or may be an extension. But wait, there is a much easier way! This simple tweak is from CyberNet News and can be done in a matter of seconds and works on Firefox 1.5.0.X, 2.0b2 and the 2.0b2 nightly builds. Again, this is NOT recommended for dial-up users: In a new tab type ‘about:config’ in the address bar…

Once again CyberNet News has the info before Mozilla has even updated mozillaZine. Even better Ryan has created a neat little download widget for Firefox 1.5.0.7. Simply select your language and then click the button for your OS. Cain’t get much easier than that!