|
Trae vs. Firefox 2.0 | |
Posted Oct 25, 2006 - 12:31:43
|
|
 Okay, for those of you who don't like the video style entries, here's a text one. I don't want to hear any complaints about it though (kidding).
Yesterday afternoon, Firefox 2.0 came out. Now, you all know I'm a big Firefox fan (and a fan of "alternative" browsers in general as competition is good), so needless to say that I was very, very, very excited about this. I was a good, patient boy though, and didn't succumb to the leaked version from the day before. Which is a good thing.
So, anyway, I downloaded 2.0, and overall I like it. It seems to run slightly more quickly, and there are some really cool features (like the Spell check for all textareas). Overall, I think it's a nice improvement over 1.5 - and I reccomend that all Firefox users make the upgrade (and that all IE users make the switch).
But, honestly, they made some changes I don't like. On the upside, I'm a geeky enough person to know how to "fix" things to the way I prefer. First off, for some odd reason, they've added in two buttons that used to be optional - the "Go" button at the end of the location bar, and the "Search" button at the end of Search box. Now, for the average user, these being there really won't detract from their experience. For me though, screen real estate is at a premium (as I have a low resolution screen), so getting rid of them became a priority. Now, this was relatively simple for one, but a bit more complicated for the other.
To get rid of the "Go" button, you have to go into about:config (by typing that into your location bar). Now, you have to be careful while messing with this, but this is where you can edit all the nitty, gritty settings in Firefox that they don't give you a nice menu for. You need to find the preference "browser.urlbar.hideGoButton" (you can find it quickly in the list by using the "filter" area and searching for "go"), and change it from False to True by double clicking on it. There, that was it. Now the "Go" button will disappear from your toolbar.
Now, the search button is a bit tougher. It requires you to mess with something called "userChrome.css" - which is a file that likely doesn't actually exist on your computer. It involves adding this setting to the file:.search-go-button {
display: none !important;
} But, again, if you don't have the file... well, I've made one for you if you want it. Just download this example version to your profile's Chrome directory (in Windows C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\default.Something\chrome\) and the next time you start the program, that extra button that you don't need will be gone.
Finally, they've changed tabs slightly, so that rather than having a single close tab button on the right, each tab has it's own X button. I... am not a big fan of this. Again, this has more to do with my limited screen real estate. This new method will be nice for my mom, as she has problems with the X on the right sometimes, but for me... well... eh. This has an easy fix though as well. Just go back to about:config and find the setting browser.tabs.closeButtons and change its value to 3. This will give you the old style X button on the right again.
Honestly though, I think this is why I love Firefox. The average user doesn't have to mess with any of this stuff - the browser just works. But if I want to get under the hood and tweak the program for my personal preferences, I can. It's nice software. *nods*
On a side note, those of you who read this site via RSS readers or on LJ may not have noticed that TRHOnline.com has a brand new front page. I completely redesigned it from the ground up. The site itself looks the same (and will continue to), but the mainpage for the site has been redone to introduce more users into the rest of the website... and... it looks neat. Tell me what you think about it.
- Traegorn
I'm quite impressed with redesign of the front page. I applaud you for your results!
^_^ I like. It wasn't really all that difficult before, though.
Well, the idea was that with the old look, first time visitors would skim over it,. and there really wasn't a good emphasis on most of the site.
I just want to note - that right now I'm running Firefox 2.0 on a computer with a much nicer screen than my laptop - and at higher resolutions all of my complaints about the cosmetic changes I teach you how to undo in this post evaporate. The layout looks wonderful.
Again - I think that people will love this browser out of the (metaphoric) box. I'm just addicted to tweaking things.
I do love the new Tab functionality... mm hhmmm.
|
