Sly Firefox

The Fire Ant Gazette just installed Firefox 2.0. So, after reading that I checked for updates in Firefox (Help > Check for Updates...) and I get "No Updates Found"!

Though, if I visit this site, I can download Firefox 2.0. This is quite odd. Shouldn't this major release show up as an update...especially when one manually checks for it from the Firefox browser?

By the way, I'm running version 1.5.0.7.

Update
Just installed the sleek update. Is nice!

I changed a small setting: The tab closure button now only shows up on the active tab which makes for a cleaner look.

Comments

[Alex]

I'm guessing it doesn't show up as an update because it's an entirely new version, and could disable a lot of your extensions and skins. They don't want people thinking "oh, ok, sure, install the update" and then realizing 5 minutes later that their whole browser has changed.

I'm loving it too though. Took me a while to convert all my extensions so they'd work with it, but other than that I had no problem. Even made it portable so I can carry it around on my USB key.

[Isaac Schrödinger]

If that's the case, then how would current users find out about the new version?

I think that Mozilla can provide Firefox 2.0 as an update with a word (or words) of caution so that people can decide with full knowledge.

Come to think of it, the browser can provide an option to check for compatibility updates of the skins and extensions and show the user what is, and isn't, workable with the new version.

That would be an excellent feature.

[Eric]

Isaac, my installer did just that...gave me a checklist of the extensions that were incompatible, then went out and found those which could be updated to compatible versions...then retrieved and installed those updates. Very slick. Surely it wasn't a Mac-only feature.

As far as why Moz doesn't provide major version notices? Perhaps it knows the power of the blogosphere. ;-)

[Isaac Schrödinger]

Eric: "Isaac, my installer did just that..."

True. I downloaded the installer and executed it and got the same result. I think that Mozilla should add this feature to Firefox--so one can check for compatibility without (or before) downloading the installer / new version.

[David Boxenhorn]

without (or before) downloading the installer / new version

Yes! Whether I want to upgrade depends on that. I don't know what to do now. I guess I'll just give it some more time to improve my chances of being okay.

[Eric]

Well, that's a tough one. I assume that the issue is the compatibility of extensions and plug-ins, etc. How would an installer know what you have in your setup BEFORE you download it? It needs to run some kind of system profiler to identify the add-ons, and to understand your operating system setup.

Also, while I'm very thankful and impressed that Firefox checked for compatibility with my existing extensions, I also believe that it goes above and beyond the call of duty, considering that all of them were developed by third parties not officially affiliated with Mozilla. Even in the best case scenario, the user has to assume some level of responsibility (and risk); that's just the nature of open-source software.