Five minutes with Firefox 1.5 Beta 1

Firefox 1 Minute

Want to live dangerously? Then download Firefox 1.5 Beta 1. I tried it out this morning and uninstalled it within 5 minutes. No, there’s nothing obviously wrong with the software itself. Download was fast, installation was smooth, pages loaded with impressive speed…

But 5 out of 7 Firefox extensions on this system are incompatible with this beta version, including several that are indispensable in my daily use. It appears that the new release is going to require a rewrite of lots and lots of extensions, which means big headaches to upgraders.

I was able to uninstall the beta code and reinstall the current version (1.0.6) in minutes, without losing any of my settings.

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Published by Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

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9 thoughts on “Five minutes with Firefox 1.5 Beta 1”

  1. Give it a week or so and I reckon the popular extensions will come back to life – in most cases, the extensions will work fine and all that will be needed is for the author to issue a small update to allow it to work with 1.5. All my extensions worked with the alpha builds, though as the version number has changed since then it means I only have one extension working.

    It would have been nice if there had been more warning during the install though – sure, it’s a beta, but I imagine quite a few people will be checking this out.

  2. Neil, I think the problem is that the architecture for extensions changed between FF 1.0 and 1.5, so the magnitude of impact is much greater. The RoboForm adapter in particular is essential to me – it’s too painful to even consider using a browser without it – and RoboForm says they do not support beta releases at all. We’ll see if they make an exception for this. In fact, that would be a good test of your theory that major extensions will be rewritten in fairly short order.

  3. Ed – I’m with you (although I did use 1.5 all morning before reverting back to 1.0.6. I rely on too many extensions to work “without a net”. As my most critical extensions are updated, I’ll take another look but right now the enhancements in the new release don’t balance against the loss of functionality.

  4. See the Extensions reads:
    http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/beta1.html and
    http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.5beta1.html#issues (suggest reading the release notes before installing – especially beta)

    This is from the second link:
    “Extensions installed under Firefox 1.0 may be incompatible and/or require updates to work with Firefox 1.5 Beta. Please report any issues to the maintainer of the extension. When you install Firefox 1.5 Beta all of your Extensions and Themes may be disabled until Firefox 1.5 Beta determines that either a) they are compatible with the Firefox 1.5 Beta release or b) there are newer versions available that are compatible. This is because Firefox changes from release to release and as such the ways in which some extensions integrate changes, meaning there can be problems when running an older extension with a newer version of Firefox. If you find that your favorite Extension or Theme has not been updated to be compatible with this release of Firefox, write the author and encourage them to update it.”

    Thanks,
    Chuck

  5. Chuck, I saw that and in fact almost included it in the original post. As others have noted, similar boilerplate language has been in every beta release of Firefox that I can remember. What makes this one different is the fact that practically every extension I had installed was disabled, with no updated versions available.

    I thought that was worth pointing out.

  6. Ed:

    From what I read, in many cases it’s simply a matter of the new beta version checking a ‘version campatibility bit’ in the extension. If the extension reports to Firefox that it’s compatible up to 1.06, and the version is 1.5, Firefox makes no further effort to check the extension.

    For many of them, it will be as simple as changing the compatibiltiy bit after a quick check to make sure it works. In fact, there are instructions out there for how to simply the change the bit yourself in your own installed extensions, then check for yourself whether they actually work with 1.5.

    As you mentioned though, some of the changes are deep enough that some of the more involved extensions will have to be re-written.

  7. The temptation to try new software is always tough. If you are using your work computer, always be conservative. It only takes one download to create issues that distract you from your practice.

  9. thanks chuck!
    the nightly tools are fantastic,
    i got google toolbar, tab X, miniT, Adblock (this runs anyway)and BugMeNot exentsions installed and running in 1.5 wihtout a hitch 🙂

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