Firefox 3

[oz]

Just wondering if anyone else has tried, or is running Firefox 3 (currently in beta)?

I usually don't run beta apps but Firefox 3 b3 is running about as stable as Firefox 2 does on this box. It's a bit faster at rendering pages and has some nice new features. Bookmarks are now maintained and organized in a totally different fashion, and I'm still not used to that.

The "places" drop-down bar is a bit annoying, but I'm starting to get used to that. It might prove to be a time saver.

The only extension that I use is Adblock Plus and it seems to work perfectly with FF3, so far.

How about the rest of you... any opinions to share?


Edit: here are some screenshots of FF3b3 for anyone wanting to see what it looks like.

[Thrillhouse]

I've been using it for a couple of weeks. I can't say I notice any significant performance improvement but that's not to say there isn't one. I really haven't dug down deep enough to find anything significant. The one thing I'm not really a big fan of is when you close a window with multiple tabs open and it asks you if you want to save the tabs for the next session or just quit without saving. It's a minor thing but I would rather it ask me when I started a new session. Also, it might be configurable somewhere. As I said, I haven't really tried to change many things. I'm not even using any extensions.

Best new features: uses native GTK theme and no more memory leaks!

[oz]

The one thing I'm not really a big fan of is when you close a window with multiple tabs open and it asks you if you want to save the tabs for the next session or just quit without saving.

Best new features: uses native GTK theme and no more memory leaks!

The first time you try to close Firefox with multiple tabs open, it gives the following warning (at least the version I'm using does):

Do you want Firefox to save your tabs for the next time it starts?

(checkbox here) Do not ask next time

Quit - Cancel - Save and Quit

So it appears that if you select the checkbox, you won't see that warning any longer. I'm not sure where you get it back if you should want it to return.

Yeah, the memory leaks being plugged is great!

[Thrillhouse]

So it appears that if you select the checkbox, you won't see that warning any longer. I'm not sure where you get it back if you should want it to return.

Yeah, I knew that was there but, for me, I really don't know if I want to use a previous session until I'm about to open a new one. If you ask me when I'm closing the old session, I won't know for sure. Maybe I'll want to use it the next time, maybe I won't. If I check the box, it will keep the same behavior regardless of what I really want. Like I said, it's a minor thing and I can understand why they implemented it (they don't have to cache a session if it's not needed) but for my personal tastes, I'd rather decide when I'm about to open up a new browser.

[bigtomrodney]

Your word is good enough for me oz, it's installing as we speak. You mention Adblock Plus, which is a favourite of mine. Is there official support for that plugin? I will most likely run it anyway but I believe the developers were asking that people whose plugins weren't specifically for FF3 shouldn't run them as it may cause some of the earlier memory leaks. Then again I suppose it only matters if you are reporting bugs.

[oz]

You mention Adblock Plus, which is a favourite of mine. Is there official support for that plugin?

It's officially supported up to 3.0b4pre, so I think that includes this FF beta release. It installed perfectly on my box and has given me no problems whatsoever.

Have fun with it!

[bigtomrodney]

Running it now...render seems to be a bit faster alright! Fonts look different, I'm not sure whether smaller or smoother but different.

Actually I'm not running b3 at all. I didn't realise but this is alpha8. D'Oh! The Ubuntu repos let me down after teasing me with dev builds.

[oz]

I would think there are lots of differences in a8 and b3, but not sure. This is the first version of FF3 I've tried.

[oz]

I downloaded b3 directly from the Mozilla site, extracted the files, dropped the folder into my home directory, and clicked on the firefox file within to run it that way.

[stinkoman]

doe FF work on windows? id like to play around with it, and since my main use is my lappy which is still windows, id like to give it a try.