Scott M. Fulton at BetaNews isn't happy with Firefox 2 and thinks that it doesn't compare well with IE7. Actually, that's a misrepresentation of his remarks. Basically his gripe boils down to that IE7 is a much more signifacnt upgrade over IE6 than Firefox 2 is over Firefox 1.5. This is a true and accurate statement. The biggest thing I notice between Firefox 1.5 and Firefox 2 is that half of my add-ons no longer work. Other than that, I don't usually notice any differences. As he says:
One little secret about Firefox, though, whose relative dirtiness may only be appreciated by enthusiasts, is that a well-used version of Firefox is by definition a well-customized one. Thus a great many things about that well-tweaked user environment, such as the relative positioning of the "Back" button with respect to the "Forward" button (a serious point of contention among FF2 beta testers), will actually be covered over by the user's choice of theme.
And:
The on-tab close box is a new feature of FF2, but for many Firefox users, it isn't a new feature. Session restore capability has also been available as a Firefox add-on for well over a year.
But wait, he really gets going here:
But Firefox's safe bet, by comparison, has garnered some less than flattering results, including one from my friend and colleague, Angela Gunn, who this morning in her USA Today blog called F2 "the most disappointing browser upgrade ever," promising more comments soon.
And this comment sums up my impression of Firefox 2 perfectly:
It's genuinely worth asking whether Firefox 2.0 should have been called 1.6. Its more intuitively organized Tools | Options dialog box is a welcome improvement, but all of its improvements are along those same lines.
As they say, read the whole thing.