Firefox 3.5 Released

[Dylrob]

Actually tab browsing was introduced in the IE shell "NetCaptor" about 2 years before Opera implemented it.

[Madam Broshkina]

I get constant low memory warnings with 3.5 and Windows 7. The back and forward arrows become invisible when this happens. On my other computer running Vista it works fine.

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

Actually tab browsing was introduced in the IE shell "NetCaptor" about 2 years before Opera implemented it.

wikipedia

Browser tabs were introduced by NetCaptor in 1998, later by IBrowse in 1999, following by myIE2 and MultiZilla (an extension for the Mozilla Application Suite[1]) and Opera in 2000, Mozilla Application Suite in 2001, Konqueror and Safari in 2003, Internet Explorer 7[2] in 2006 and Google Chrome in 2008.

This is something I never new.

1) Never heard of Net Captor. What is an IE shell anyway? It certainly wasn't in any IE updates, not that I ever updated to,

2) IBrowse? myIE2, MultiZilla? Are all of these shells for IE and Netscape/Firefox?

I'm guessing these were plug-ins?

If so, then I will reiterate. I think Opera was the first browser to have tabs in the default installation package, without having to download any specific plug-in or shell.

I'm actually going from memory of an article I read in Maximum PC or CPU magazine with they were having the browser wars (IE7 vs FF3 vs O9.6... or something like that)

[zelda_pinwheel]

hallelujah !! finally they've added tab drag features so you can detach tabs by dragging them, or move them into a different window. and i've got the impression it doesn't recharge the page each time (or if it does, it's lightning fast...). brilliant ! thanks for the alert, woody ! this looks like a great upgrade.

[griffonwing]

you mean you couldn't rearrange tabs with FF3? egad. I've been able to do that with Opera. Or do you mean drag a tab and make it it's own window? I just take the tab, and drag it off the browser (in full screen, I drag it to the start bar). It removes itself from the broswer and is now in its own location.

Just checked. I can also drag tabs from one browser window to the other.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

you mean you couldn't rearrange tabs with FF3? egad. I've been able to do that with Opera. Or do you mean drag a tab and make it it's own window? I just take the tab, and drag it off the browser (in full screen, I drag it to the start bar). It removes itself from the broswer and is now in its own location.

yes, you could, but you didn't have all the options i liked in chrome, and it was my impression that when you dragged a tab out of / into a window it recharged the page. although i could be wrong.

opera does have some very good features, and it's a decent browser, although it has its own little display quirks which do not endear it particularly to my webdesigner's heart. i've tried it in the past but there's just something i find unfriendly about it, overall. and i've never found the most interesting features intuitive to use. in fact, if i remember, i recently tried the "detach tabs" feature, and it must have been an earlier version than you are using because there was a whole complicated process you had to go through which in fact involved finding and installing a special script, and i actually never managed to get it to work. it's worlds better than IE though, obviously. that goes without saying. if everyone using IE switched to opera tomorrow i'd be much happier.

[Jaime_Astorga]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

it's worlds better than IE though, obviously. that goes without saying. if everyone using IE switched to opera tomorrow i'd be much happier.

Not bashing Opera or anything, but saying a browser is much better than IE is like saying somebody is a much better runner than Stephen Hawking =P

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

yes, you could, but you didn't have all the options i liked in chrome, and it was my impression that when you dragged a tab out of / into a window it recharged the page. although i could be wrong.

opera does have some very good features, and it's a decent browser, although it has its own little display quirks which do not endear it particularly to my webdesigner's heart. i've tried it in the past but there's just something i find unfriendly about it, overall. and i've never found the most interesting features intuitive to use. in fact, if i remember, i recently tried the "detach tabs" feature, and it must have been an earlier version than you are using because there was a whole complicated process you had to go through which in fact involved finding and installing a special script, and i actually never managed to get it to work. it's worlds better than IE though, obviously. that goes without saying. if everyone using IE switched to opera tomorrow i'd be much happier.

I'm currently using Opera 10 Beta 2. You can get it here

http://www.opera.com/browser/next/

Some of the quirks you experienced before may have been squashed. I think 10 RC has an Oct release expectation.

And I definately agree with Opera being better than IE.

Chrome, to me, is way too minimalistic. I suppose Opera, to me, is like a comfy chair

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

Not bashing Opera or anything, but saying a browser is much better than IE is like saying somebody is a much better runner than Stephen Hawking =P

point taken.

[Gaurnim]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

2) IBrowse? myIE2, MultiZilla? Are all of these shells for IE and Netscape/Firefox?

Dont know for the 2 others, but myIE was a very interesting browser based on IE, but with tons of additional features. I liked a lot the text surfing option, for quiet office surfing.
It is now known as Maxthon.

I moved to Firefox after some time, because Maxthon was based on IE's rendering engine and as such suffered from at least some of the same security problems.

A quick look in Wikipedia gives IBrowse as an AmigaOS browser :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBrowse

[griffonwing]

Also, Opera 10 has a built-in file-sharing ability. You can log into it and give a website address to a folder on your PC. You can send someone the website address and they can read from the folder you specify. No uploading, no FTP. It's perfect for small groups of friends or a business partner.

[zelda_pinwheel]

actually i agree that chrome is minimalistic, which is paradoxically precisely what i like about it and *also* exactly what has prevented me from making it my main browser so far (i know, i'm crazy. ). i like it for "casual" browsing sessions because it seems very lightweight to me, even the graphism with the flat colours that remind me of card divider tabs seems less massive. and i like the flexibility of being able to drag tabs all over the place as it suits me, because i am fairly OC about keeping my (numerous) browser windows sorted and organised. on the other hand, when it crashes, there's no "restore session" function to get back all the (multiple) windows you have open previously (that i've found, anyway, despite the fact that it can save a session when you shut it down, and it will remember individual windows in the history, and allow you to restore them), and it's missing most if not all of the features i use in firefox for work and organisation (and fun. mozilla powerturtle, anyone ? bork bork bork ?). it makes a good secondary browser though, i think. and it seems not to drain too much memory, so i can keep it open alongside whatever other browsers / apps i'm using more intensively, for my entertainment purposes.

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by Gaurnim

A quick look in Wikipedia gives IBrowse as an AmigaOS browser :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBrowse

Ahh.. no wonder I'd never heard of that browser.

I actually tried out many browsers in the past. IE, Netscape Navigator/Communicator, Mosaic, Firefox, Amaya. I settled with Opera.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

Also, Opera 10 has a built-in file-sharing ability. You can log into it and give a website address to a folder on your PC. You can send someone the website address and they can read from the folder you specify. No uploading, no FTP. It's perfect for small groups of friends or a business partner.

hm, that is a handy feature, which would have been useful for my developper frequently. but now i'm using dropbox, which has the advantage of syncing online so that i don't have to be online for the files to be accessed, and also i can access my own files from any post with an internet connection. it's really practical for working with other people remotely. i used it every day on my last project.

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

actually i agree that chrome is minimalistic, which is paradoxically precisely what i like about it and *also* exactly what has prevented me from making it my main browser so far (i know, i'm crazy. ). i like it for "casual" browsing sessions because it seems very lightweight to me, even the graphism with the flat colours that remind me of card divider tabs seems less massive. and i like the flexibility of being able to drag tabs all over the place as it suits me, because i am fairly OC about keeping my (numerous) browser windows sorted and organised. on the other hand, when it crashes, there's no "restore session" function to get back all the (multiple) windows you have open previously (that i've found, anyway, despite the fact that it can save a session when you shut it down, and it will remember individual windows in the history, and allow you to restore them), and it's missing most if not all of the features i use in firefox for work and organisation (and fun. mozilla powerturtle, anyone ? bork bork bork ?). it makes a good secondary browser though, i think. and it seems not to drain too much memory, so i can keep it open alongside whatever other browsers / apps i'm using more intensively, for my entertainment purposes.

Wow.. take a breath there!

Opera auto-saves your session, and you load up all the windows where you last left them.

It also has a new trash feature that, if you close a window, it's not lost. You dont have to go to the History and see the last website youve been to. You can just click on the trash can and open up any window that you closed since the session began.

Especially if you accidentaly closed a window 3 hours before, and only now need that website again. 2 clicks and it's back up. Very handy.