Firefox 2 Favorite Features
Firefox 2 is just around the corner. With the recent release of Firefox 2 RC2 I’ve started using it more. It has a number of new features that you can read about in the release notes. I’ve already written about JavaScript 1.7 which adds some cool new features for developers. Of course those will only be really interesting if/when some other browsers catch up and implement the new changes as well.
I thought I would give Firefox some props for some of the user-centric features that it’s added with this release.
Search Plugin Improvements
A subtle, but incredibly useful change is the improvement of many of the search plugins. They have added suggestions as you type. So as you type, you will see suggestions pop up. This means less typing and less misspelling. Anticipating users needs just makes the application that much more compelling.
Inline Spell Checking
Ok, so maybe it’s just me, but I misspell things all the time. I like the addition of the search suggestions for this reason. But the bigger win for me, and something that should be appreciated by all the bloggers out there, is inline spell checking for web forms. So as I type this blog post, if I misspeell something it will show up with little red dots underneath it. If I then ctrl-click or right-click on the word, I’ll get spelling suggestions. Spell checking on the web, where have you been all your life? (I remember back in 1999 working for an internet startup that this was an often requested feature for our web application. Implementing it took quite a bit of time and effort even with a 3rd party package. Better late than never I say.)
Miscellaneous Features
There have been some small tweaks that have improved the browser as well. Changes to the tabs to include a close button on each tab are welcome by me.
They’ve also extended the standards support to include Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and new web standards for client-side persistence. While these are generally developer centric features, I think that the these will be used by rich web applications in ways that could greatly improve the user experience.
A Wag of The Finger
Firefox still does not correctly render the Acid 2 test which I find unfortunate. I would like to see them catch up with Safari and Opera in terms of the standards compliance of their CSS implementation. Oh well, maybe next time.
All of this together points to a really great release for Firefox 2. I look forward to the final release.
What I would like to see most is native support for authentication mechanisms like Yahoo! Browser Authentication (http://developer.yahoo.com/auth/), Google Account Authentication (http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/AuthForWebApps.html) or InfoCard (http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/reference/infocard/default.aspx). The one I like most is InfoCard because it is a distributed system. I could get identities from my employer, bank or even a non-work organization like a sports organization. Then instead of saving all of my passwords for each website I would just use my cards. Fortunately there is already an InfoCard extension for Firefox (http://flickr.com/photos/igb/139296069/).