{"id":294,"date":"2006-11-25T21:05:52","date_gmt":"2006-11-25T21:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/archives\/294"},"modified":"2013-08-26T18:13:19","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T23:13:19","slug":"firefox-20-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neosmart.net\/blog\/firefox-20-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefox 2.0 Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Besides the ugly new theme, the convoluted \u201ctoo-cool\u201d first-run website, and the myriad of half-baked features that Firefox 2.0<\/a> brings to the scene, there\u2019s a couple of not-so-welcome policy changes in Firefox 2.0 that make us wonder what\u2019s going on at Mozilla. Basically, these changes go against everything that the Firefox team has been doing for the past couple of years, and make it look like Firefox wasn\u2019t run by an open-source community so much as a big corporation with nothing but money on its mind.\n<\/p>\n

When Firefox 2.0 came out, we didn\u2019t really care to review it \u2013 after all, there were plenty of reviews already out there from the Beta and RC stages. But now, a month into the RTM release of Firefox 2.0, we find a re-cap being called for.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The \u201cNew & Improved\u201d Theme?
\n<\/h4>\n

We\u2019re not going to delve into this too deeply, suffice to say that when we first said<\/a> Firefox\u2019s excellent theming engine\u2019s only shortcoming was the lack of a decent default theme we didn\u2019t think they\u2019d actually change anything. What we really<\/em> didn\u2019t expect was some washed-out toolbar icons that looked like they came from Internet Explorer 4 with some \u201cWeb 2.0\u201d shading (gamma circles) applied. They just don\u2019t fit Firefox!<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

Ugly, New First-Run Website?
\n<\/h4>\n

Since the release of Firefox 2.0, the first-run homepage<\/a> has undergone several iterations \u2013 all of which are absolutely appalling compared to the original \u201cWelcome to Firefox\u201d page that used to display in the old 1.5 series. To tell the truth, it looks like someone handed a 3\u2013year-old a bunch of vector-drawing tools, and told him to \u2018go Picasso\u2019 \u2013 without the slightest idea regarding color theory, aesthetics, or knowledge of the generally-accepted location for body parts \u2013 except it didn\u2019t come out quite as nice<\/a> as Picasso\u2019s work did.\n<\/p>\n

Who blends orange and blue? It turns a ghastly shade of green, and especially when you add to it the improperly done \u201cwave lines\u201d it\u2019s just a complete eye-sore to be showing around to someone turning on Firefox for the first time. Compare that to the default Internet Explorer 7 page<\/a>: clean, aesthetic, and simple! <\/em>But the problem is, that start page was changed several times since 2.0 was released, yet it still looks appalling.\n<\/p>\n

Lack-Luster RSS?
\n<\/h4>\n

Firefox was one of the first browsers to take RSS to the next level, and is largely responsible for the ubiquity of feeds today. But for some reason, Firefox has serious issues implementing a decent RSS reader into the browser. Before 2.0 you could view the headlines for RSS feeds and click-the-link<\/a> to view the rest. Firefox 2.0 has an \u201cimproved\u201d RSS reader that finally displays full-text articles<\/a> for feeds. But it still lacks the ability to filter out entries based on categories and tags, nor dynamic searching of feed entries.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In short, Firefox 2.0 treats a feed the same way it does a website: content to be displayed. It doesn\u2019t take advantage of the adaptability nor the customization capabilities that RSS brings to the table, and doesn\u2019t \u201cmanage\u201d data so much as dump it into a table and then display it.\n<\/p>\n

Policy Changes?
\n<\/h4>\n