Firefox 3 gets the thumbs up from Mossberg, RC2 now ready
Firefox 3 just might get me to kick the "native app" kick I've been on for months. As an experiment, I've been using the included Mac and Windows apps on my machines since October. In the case of browsing, that meant Safari on the Mac and Internet Explorer on the PC. After just a few days with Firefox 3, the native app streak might be coming to a close.
Walt Mossberg thinks it's the best browser for consumers at the moment and although one could argue for or against another personal favorite, I'm inclined to agree with him. Sites render accurate and quickly, bookmarking is easier and the browser seems more intuitive to use in general thanks to a smart bookmark feature for most visited sites and such. I'm still seeing a minor issue or two with pen input, but I recognize that this affects such a minute percentage of the user base that it's irrelevant to mainstream media. [Although I would like to see these issues fixed, Mozilla team! ;)]
Release Candidate 2 for Firefox 3 hit yesterday and I immediately pulled it down. You can grab it right here to try it out for speed and ease of use. Oh, and just the other day folks were chatting up the memory issues seen in Firefox 2. I haven't done any specific comparisons, but my general impression is that Firefox uses much less memory in general, even over a long day with multiple tabs open. I live in the browser for ten or more hours a day and I have yet to close and reopen Firefox 3 just to reclaim memory. For mobile devices with limited resources, this might be a consideration. If you've seen otherwise, please chime in.
Just installed it on the Mac and it is definitely nice but one killer for me- Google Browser Sync is not compatible and can't be installed. I'll have to go back to FF2 for now.
Posted by: James Kendrick | June 05, 2008 at 07:59 AM
Incompatible extensions are likely to be an issue for a few months. Did you go into about:config and turn off the check for extension compatibility? Good chance that it will work then.
Posted by: Kevin C. Tofel | June 05, 2008 at 08:09 AM
no, how do you do that exactly? google toolbar is not compatible either.
Posted by: James Kendrick | June 05, 2008 at 08:20 AM
In the address bar, type "about:config" (without quotes)
Right click anywhere in the browser and click New, Boolean.
Enter this name for your preference: "extensions.checkCompatibility", again without quotes.
At the next prompt choose False.
Restart Firefox.
I just did this and was able to install Google Browser Sync. Didn't test the functionality, so let me know if it doesn't work... there might be another preference to add or edit.
Posted by: Kevin C. Tofel | June 05, 2008 at 08:33 AM
How about Evernote clipper? Any way to get that on FF3?
Posted by: Shawn J. Roberts | June 05, 2008 at 09:02 AM
I did this and before I could install any extension ran into trouble. Restarting Firefox after adding the config setting rendered Firefox unable to run and I had to go back to FF2. This was on the Mac. This incompatibility is why I haven't tried FF3 yet and I'm going to wait until all my extensions are supported.
Posted by: James Kendrick | June 05, 2008 at 09:05 AM
I've been using FF3 right through the betas up to RC1 and just installed RC2 on my M700. All has been well apart from some pretty constant crashing on Vista 64 on my desktop. Firefox would just bug out and have to be restarted a few times a day. I think a few people have had stability issues.
Hopefully RC2 may resolve. I do like FF 3, it's fast, I love the plugins like the essential Adblock/Flashblock (turned off for JKOTR!), and the wonderful grab and drag.
Posted by: Gavin Miller | June 05, 2008 at 09:11 AM
Don't know what to tell you in terms of extensions... I did this on my Mac with RC2 to create the instructions and it works fine for me. Regardless... any time an application is updated, there are legacy issues to deal with. Firefox is no exception and this isn't necessarily the final version. This is also part of the reason I've stuck with native apps... no legacy issues to deal with. It's a trade-off for functionality in some cases, but I can live with that.
Posted by: Kevin C. Tofel | June 05, 2008 at 09:23 AM
i have been using FF3 from betas to the new RC2 and its nice but it still got some problems i also had with FF2, im the type of person that browse alot of webpages and forget to close the tabs, often running 90-100 tabs and to me FF3 use the same amount of memory as FF2 did around 500mb-1gb depending on how many days it have been open, but in general a great browser :)
Posted by: Jimi Handberg | June 05, 2008 at 01:33 PM
Wow, I and I thought I had a lot going when there were 8 tabs up... :)
Posted by: Jasen | June 05, 2008 at 02:42 PM
That's one hell of a widescreen monitor you must have Jimi! :)
Posted by: John in Norway | June 06, 2008 at 05:53 AM
im using the Tree Style tab extension to make the tabs going vertical on the left side, using a 1680x1050 resolution
Posted by: Jimi Handberg | June 06, 2008 at 08:49 AM