By on December 13, 2006

Is it Safe to Upgrade to Firefox 2?

24



I’ve not yet upgraded to Firefox 2 and would love to hear your feedback before I do. In light of all the horror stories surrounding those that upgraded to IE7, I want to make sure things are all clear with FF2.

I’d heard Firefox 2 did some weird things when first launched – not loading pages – but is it safe now?

Please leave a comment or a vote.

 


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24 comments on “Is it Safe to Upgrade to Firefox 2?”

  1. Brian Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 3:57 pm

    I installed 2.0 not long after it was released but it froze and crashed a few times after I started using it. So I went back to using 1.5 since then. I’m on a Mac by the way. Maybe it was a fluke thing but it happened enough times to make me not want to bother with it until it is updated.

  2. Chris Winfield Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 3:57 pm

    It crashes…

    A lot..

  3. Keri Morgret Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 4:04 pm

    I’ve been using it for some time (weeks, if not a couple of months) and I haven’t had any problems that didn’t also exist in 1.5 (memory bloat).

  4. Tamar Weinberg Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 5:01 pm

    Truthfully, I don’t think there’s any issue with it. I had an installation problem in the beginning (corrupted install file) but it’s been working great for me. I like it much better than 1.5.

    If you’re unhappy with it for any reason, you can roll back easily — I was able to — but I quickly gave Firefox a second chance and couldn’t be happier that I did.

  5. Tamar Weinberg Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 5:03 pm

    P.S. I’m not Chris, but we do share the same website ;)

  6. Chris Travers Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 6:09 pm

    Generally it works fine, but sites that use activex for running video etc create an issue. The activex is not pre-loaded, as you may know. The “error” popup links to a page with download links, but none for this purpose go beyond 1.5…and the alternate converters on offer were messy.

  7. graywolf Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 6:42 pm

    It really all depends on how updated or firefox 2.0 compatible your extensions are. A lot of the ones I use aren’t. I found a workaround but it’s still a PIA. Here’s more details (sorry for the link drop)

    http://www.wolf-howl.com/tools/dont-upgrade-to-firefox-2-yet/

  8. Andy Beal Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 7:43 pm

    “If you’re unhappy with it for any reason, you can roll back easily”…there’s a novel concept. Someone should suggest this to Microsoft!

    Thanks all for the feedback!

  9. Patrick Schaber Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 10:08 pm

    I’ve had it for about two weeks and so far so good, but have noticed that it is slow to load at times. I have not had alot of luck with the Google toolbar built for FF2.

  10. SEO Buzz Box Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 10:37 pm

    I can’t get the most important seo extension in the free word to work so I uninstalled v2.

    Also noticed that flash crashes it.

    Nice blog you got here Andy, can you slow down your posting rate a bit, it burns my brain. ;o)

  11. d-a-n-i-e-L Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 11:25 pm

    I’ve had problems with FF 2.0 crashing MUCH more often than 1.5. It is under ‘extreme’ circumstances, like 10+ tabs with multiple high memory/flash pages, but it does happen at least twice a day.

  12. David Temple Says:

    December 13th, 2006 at 11:50 pm

    I always let others test new things like this and it sounds like there’s a few bugs to work out. Don’t know what the advantages are but will keep watching other comments.

  13. ExposureTim Says:

    December 14th, 2006 at 1:53 am

    You haven’t tried FF2 yet?
    You are kidding, right?

    It’s fine… It’s crashed on me maybe twice in the last months+ when I was trying to access Java-heavy chat-type pages…

    But, more importantly I find it bizarre that an SEO-SEM/technology thought-leader such as yourself hasn’t even tried it yet. Wow! Are you kidding?

  14. Marios Alexandrou Says:

    December 14th, 2006 at 8:23 am

    You could always get the portable version of FireFox 2. Doesn’t need to be installed, won’t mess up your existing install of FireFox, and can be easily deleted if you have problems with it.

    I’ve been using version 2 for a while now. No problems with Flash, plugins, or crashes.

  15. Jestep Says:

    December 14th, 2006 at 9:09 am

    I have it on a few computers, and it has more bugs than I could ever imagine.

    The positive, is that it saves your session if it crashes (Could also be a security hole), so you get everything back you were working on when it failed. Also, a lot of the plug-ins don’t work from older versions.

    Personally, after having used it for a few months, I would definitely stick with the older version until everything is smoothed out.

  16. Andy Beal Says:

    December 14th, 2006 at 9:14 am

    “But, more importantly I find it bizarre that an SEO-SEM/technology thought-leader such as yourself hasn’t even tried it yet.”

    This thought-leader has too many useful plugins he wants to make sure work. ;-)

  17. ExposureTim Says:

    December 14th, 2006 at 12:00 pm

    I run 22 plug-ins, they all work fine. For one (I think it was IEview) there was a work-around of some sort, but otherwise all are good by now.

  18. Andy Beal Says:

    December 14th, 2006 at 9:41 pm

    Thanks everyone for your advice. I went ahead and upgraded. I’ll let you know if I have any problems.

  19. ISK Says:

    January 13th, 2007 at 7:34 am

    Mozilla Firefox is absolutely versatile, and problem-free. I’d prefer THAT to IE7 any day. You can access any site, while being able to do virtually anything you’d want, easily, while having so many features, both inbuilt and for download.

  20. Bilou Says:

    January 19th, 2007 at 11:32 am

    d-a-n-i-e-L

    I tried Firefox a few years ago in the early release days. It was good, very good, but it lacked a lot of features I needed. So I stayed with Opera (die die die IE) which I had adopted early – in desperation – even though I had to pay (Its free now , of course).

    Now I come back a few years later (don’t ask me to count)because I felt that perhaps Opera was coming to the end of the road as they have a lot of success in non-Windows fields. Problems are only getting attention if they affect security (OK, at least the priority is right), and I look at Firefox again ’cause I need more features and …. aargh! Firefox is still battling with stability and vulnerability!

    What to do? what to do? Yee gods!!!

    Can I humbly suggest an idea for a dual development path:

    Path 1: Stability and security are the priorities. The browsing experience will not change much but it will be secure and stable.

    The developers will be the core engine designers lead by teh strongest most useful person. They will back up, when they have time, the younger, less experienced, rocket engine guys. They and only they, can control that split. No priorities from Mozilla’s ego orgy are allowed

    Extensions will be approved as and when there is time. The browser will present an interface that allows them all, but will warn the use/r ifa an extension is not “qualfied”

    Path 2: The rocket engine up the proverbial a**. A browser that will rock the planet, dethrone MS and absorb more carbon dioxide a day than Amazonia.

    There will be so many extensions that Windows will become obselete – the most useful one being “Quit Vista and reboot into Firefox -retain web connexions -reduce power consumption -make me a happy baby -Bring me a 12 inch pepperoni now!” (the – dashes referring to options of course.

    There will be an annual $1,000,000 prize for the best extension of the year., and an annual prize of $5,000,000 sharing 50:50 between group 1 and 2 IF the group 2 guy/lady admits that the group 1 guys fixed his/her code for free.

    Go go Gadget!

    Now as for what I saw out there on Firefox; I scanned the web for the moment and that wonderful promising browser seems to be in the hands of wannabee Calidornian marketeers with little experience of the real world. Sigh!

    So I guess I stay Opera until FF’s (largely political I think) problems get fixed. The fix?

    A boot up the ass of cetain individuals who think they know more than their public and can control them like they were on firewire. Pure arrogance.

    A return to (better) coordinated distributed development.

    Am I dreaming? MS must love the present situation!

    Love ‘n all

    Bilou

  21. Phill Says:

    January 11th, 2008 at 6:25 am

    Used to use Firefox 2, but down loaded netscape navigator 9 to try it. It had been fantastic, no crashes, does everything that I want it to do and, probably more. Has all the features of Firefox. And as for the comments by Brian: (I’ve had problems with FF 2.0 crashing MUCH more often than 1.5. It is under ‘extreme’ circumstances, like 10+ tabs with multiple high memory/flash pages, but it does happen at least twice a day.) Perhaps it is the capabilities of his computer that is the problem, try closing some tabs. FF2 is FREE, stop belly aching and get on with life.

  22. John Matthews Says:

    February 15th, 2008 at 6:05 am

    I’ve been using Firefox 2 since it came out, and have had very problems with it. It rarely freezes, it is also faster than IE. I have hardly used IE since going over to Firefox.

  23. Alexis Says:

    February 20th, 2008 at 10:46 am

    I still may be in the dark ages, but I prefer IE to Firefox. Firefox 2 may just be my justification to switch over.

  24. jonathan Says:

    June 25th, 2008 at 11:18 pm

    well i went from Ff2 to 3
    stay with 2
    3 has been crashing alot
    but when i had firefox 2 i opened up 34 tabs (shoping) and sailed through the internet really fast
    as for a previous post about netscape they suck they are now out of buisness
    and IE i got firefox asap in school because it crashed every 7 mins. (i know because i counted it lol)