October 02, 2004 | Category:

FireFox 1.0 Preview

Having installed Firefox 1.0 PR recently on Windows and Linux, I have to say how much I’m impressed by it. I think it’s finally ready for the masses. It automatically, and sensibly, imports various pieces of data from existing browsers (history, bookmarks, etc), and has a completely uncluttered interface.

The sensible approach to updates surprised even me. Firefox checks whether it or any extensions have been updated in the background, and displays a small icon next to the throbber when changes have been made. The actual updating process is a simple click-through dialogue, making having the newest versions of everything trivially easy.

Then there are the extensions themselves. Old favourites like Mouse Gestures and tab browser extensions still appear, while new extensions like FoxyTunes are proving to be very handy.

Let me just emphasise that: FoxyTunes is incredibly handy! It integrates with most music players (Winamp and iTunes included) to provide controls inside the browser. I can’t imagine being without it in a browser now.

Finally a release to recommend to non-technical friends.