Ars Technica has a fairly in-depth review of Firefox 2.0 RC2 (as in “Release Candidate 2”). They like it well enough, but see it more as an incremental improvement over 1.5x. That led them to ask:
“Is the 2.0 designation deserved?”
To which they replied:
“I suppose that depends on your perspective. At the risk of veering into a largely irrelevant philosophical rumination on the ontological significance of version numbers, I feel inclined to point out that the implications of version numbers vary greatly between various open source projects. In some cases, there is a well-established nomenclature and version numbers can be used to infer all sorts of useful things about the nature and status of a build. In other cases, it may simply be an arbitrary value selected for the sole purpose of making it possible to distinguish between builds. For Firefox, it doesn’t seem like there is a fully consistent version numbering model yet. Rather than expressing disappointment about the lack of new features in the upcoming 2.0 release, users should remember that Firefox release numbers aren’t always going to be a helpful medium for establishing expectations.”
Read the full review here.
BTW, they also think, after banging on it quite a bit, that RC2 is stable enough for regular use. Release Notes and downloading here.
