Today Mozilla has released three major updates (postponed from December 14th): Firefox 1.5.0.9, likely to be the last release on the 1.5 builds. Remember, all support for the 1.5 builds will end on April 24, 2007. Firefox 2.0.0.1, 183 bug fixes including (but not limited too): Crashes (42), Memory Leaks (3), Regressions (41) and Privacy Related (4). Thunderbird 1.5.0.9, 7 bug fixes* including: Build Configuration (2), Functionality (2), Spellchecker (1), Mac-specific (1) and Miscellaneous (1) Auto-updates should start kicking in later this evening. If you want to update sooner visit getfirefox.com (note: at time of press, Mozilla has not yet…

If I could put together an extension suite, I would create a Tweaking/Troubleshooting Suite which would include four very useful extensions; about:config, ChromEdit Plus, Infolister and Nightly Tester Tools. I will go into a brief summary of each of these extensions below. For more detailed information, click on the extension name. about:config – adds toolbar icon to open ‘about:config’ in a medium size pop-up window. Very handy as you don’t have to keep switching between tabs (twek directions are in one tab and ‘about:config’ is in another). ChromEdit Plus – automatically locates and allows you to edit your (based on…

The next Thunderbird 2 milestone, Beta 1 was released earlier this week. The final release is still a couple months away (first quarter 2007). Here are the new features for Thunderbird 2.0b1: Message Tags: Create your own tags for organizing email. Messages can be assigned any number of tags. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email. Visual Theme:Thunderbird 2’s theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability. Session History Navigation: Back and Forward buttons allow navigation through message history. Folder Views: Customize the folder pane to show favorite,…

For those of you eagerly waiting today to download the new Firefox 1.5.0.9 or 2.0.0.1, you will have to wait a few more days. From the Firefox 1.5.0.9-2.0.0.1 Community Page, the new (tentative) release date is Tuesday, December 19th.

As we near the release of the first major update for the Firefox 2 build (and the last for the 1.5 build) I still have people asking about Firefox 3. Mainly what is going to be different and new with Firefox 3. Our buddy Ryan over at CyberNet News has compiled quite the list (with links) of the possible Firefox 3 features. Some of the big ones of course are going to be: Places Acid 2 Compliance (Alpha 2 & nightly releases) Cairo rendering engine Double-decker tab bar (anything gotta be better than that horrible Tab Overflow feature) The next…

I have heard many folks do not like the inline spellcheck feature with Firefox 2 (personally I cain’t use Firefox without it). Many people like the ‘classic’ Spellbound which would allow you to check spelling when you wanted to in a separate window. While it may be possible (with a lot of work-arounds) to get the ‘classic’ Spellbound to work with Firefox 2, there is a simpler solution…Spellbound-II, a resurrection of sorts of the classic Spellbound 0.7.3 extension. This is from the same developer who created the new ChromEdit Plus Notes: Extension only supports the en-US dictionary Remove ALL prior…

Some folks, including myself do not like the tab overflow feature that was added to Firefox 2. For those of you who are not familiar with this feature when the width (in pixels) of the tabs becomes less than set amount (default is 100 pixels) Firefox will add scroll buttons to each end of the tab bar (see sample here). The purpose of this feature was so that all the tabs open will have a minimum width of 100 pixels. At 100 pixels the tabs are still relatively readable. It is important to understand that tab-overflow does not kick-in when…

For quite some time, Firefox 3 has been called Minefield. The name Minefield was actually the name of the trunk Firefox 3 is built on, not the project code name. The official project code name for Firefox 3 is Gran Paradiso, named after a mountain group located in Italy.