Firefox 1.0 Makes Flashy Debut

Firefox 1.0 has excellent bookmark-management features, some of which were present in earlier versions of the browser. Users can, with one click, sort bookmarks according to site name, location, date last visited, etc. The newest bookmark feature is Live Bookmarks, which allows users to browse RSS feeds from their favorite websites directly from the site’s bookmark or in sidebar in the browser window. —Firefox 1.0 Makes Flashy Debut  (Wired)

Some kind of spyware got into my laptop computer sometime last month. It very cleverly closed the browser window when I tried to search Google for certain keywords (including, I presume, any keyword that would help me remove whatever virus it was). I loaded Firefox in order to find a good spyware removal tool, and haven’t gone back to “Internet Exploder”.

Students reared on Internet Explorer look at me blankly when I talk to them about “bookmarks”. IE calls them “favorites.” But the verb “bookmark” is so much more handy than “add to your favorites” or “favoritize”.

I have the version 1.0 preview, and I won’t upgrade until the big rush is over. I love the tabbed browsing feature. The search bar is awesome — when you hit CTRL-F, a search bar appears at the bottom of the screen, and you can immediately start typing. The browser starts searching with the first letter that you enter, so that you don’t have to type in a search term and press “Find”. For example, to search for “immediately”, the page will automatically scroll to the first appearance of the string “i”, “im”, and “imm” as you type. If there is no word with the string “imm” on the page, you get a soft, blunt burping rejection noise, and part of the search bar flashes red.

I also like that your browsing isn’t interrupted by a nagging message saying that you don’t have a plug-in required to view the page. Firefox delivers that message in a bar that appears at the top of the browsing window.

While some pages optimized for IE don’t work so well (the web page access to Microsoft Outlook offers only a subset of the features available to IE users), my only other complaint is that the firefox logo doesn’t look anything like a firefox — it looks like a little tomato.

3 thoughts on “Firefox 1.0 Makes Flashy Debut

  1. Hmm… I can invoke the search by typing the slash, but I can’t do it just by typing. Maybe there’s a box I have to tick in a setup window to turn that feature on?

    I do wish FF would search the contents of form fields, though.

  2. Firefox’s in-page search feature works even without invoking the “find” dialog [Ctrl-F]. Just type to find links beginning with the letter, or preface your search with a slash (/) for non-hyperlinked text. Ultra-handy, and one of my favorite FFox features from way back.

  3. I have been eager to check out Firefox [little tomato logo-aside] but so much of what I do at school is with Microsoft’s Sharepoint services and Writingblog so I’ve hesitated. If something changes with all that, let me know!

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