Yesterday I finally was able to move my grandparents off of Netscape 7.1 and onto Firefox 1.0.6 and Thunderbird. My grandparents got a new desktop computer and the first thing I did was put Firefox and Thunderbird on there.

To prepare Firefox for their use, I did the following:

1. I changed the name of the desktop shortcuts to say “Internet” and “E-Mail”.
2. I put a print button and bookmarks button on the toolbar.
3. Import old bookmarks

To prepare Thunderbird for their use, I did the following:

1. Nothing outside of the normal e-mail setup, copying the old e-mails from the old computer, and importing their address book.

I was actually kinda scared at what they were going to say if they noticed the toolbar icons looked different then Netscape (which they used since the 3.x days). They don’t take change too easily.

I pointed out the two icons on the desktop (“Internet” and “E-Mail”) and they said “Wow, that is easy…different but I like it.”

Within no time, they were surfing around the web and checking their e-mail. I did no training on using Firefox or Thunderbird. Everything seemed very logical to them.

If I can switch them to Firefox and Thunderbird, anyone can be switched. That is why Firefox and Thunderbird seriously rock. Simple enough my grandparents can use it. Powerful enough that I can use it. Plus everyone inbetween is happy.

Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 was released earlier this week and I downloaded it within hours of its release. I must say, this is a much improved web browser for a number of reasons.

1. This thing cruises. Back/Forward buttons are instantaneous. Page rendering is much quicker, even by Firefox’s fast standards to begin with. Startup even seems a tad faster. Overall, much improved in the speed department.
2. The little fixes to the UI continues to be one of the stellar parts of what makes Firefox so great. The UI got some tweaks to look much better in Windows XP. The RSS icon now appears on the address bar. The Options dialog is completely redesigned and makes much more sense now.
3. Updating Firefox should be much easier and more reliable now. So far there hasn’t been any updated extensions or Firefox patches that I need to get, so I haven’t tested it. Supposedly the notification of an update is much more noticeable now. This has always been one of my biggest issues with any software program in general, not just Firefox, so I can’t wait to see if Firefox got it right.

The only issue I have with Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 (man is this stable or what, I don’t even have any bugs to report) is the fact that the LiveLines extension does not work. Hopefully an update will be released soon.

Overall…if this is any indication, Firefox 1.5 is going to be a great improvement over Firefox 1.0…and that is saying a lot given how good 1.0 was.