Firefox 3

Its out. Anybody tried it yet?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7457503.stm

They're trying to get the record for most downloads in 24 hours. I'm downloading it now - slowly - the site is on its knees... :/

i just started using ff3 cause ie7 is WAY too buggy, its good the downloads seem faster than ie7.

And the awesome bar is, err, awesomer... than IE7. Really, it is :)

Still using Epiphany, though; searching via the address bar is a basic concept that I cannot do without, yet Firefox still doesn't do it. (Okay, there's keyword search, but Epiphany has a dropdown for "Search with x" when I start typing, which is way easier to deal with).

I'm getting seriously p****d off with IE crashing. Version 6 and 7. It's especially annoying when buying something and you get a page does not exist error, or performed illegal operation... etc etc

So, firefox is my main browser now.

Just installed it - looks great.

AVG8 Linkscanner isn't yet compatible with FF3 though. No biggie.

I had to install Firefox 3 RC1, since XP SP3 kept crashing Firefox 2.
Firefox 3 RC1 and RC3 works fine though, RC2 was a bit buggy, and they are much better than Firefox 2 too.

Can't seem to get at ff3 here, no matter what link I follow, I get a ff2 download page. And that includes the link in the email I got because I pledged to download! What gives? Are they blocking UK?

I had to click the download link 4 times before it worked - just keep pressing the "Try Again" button in FF if it fails. I guess the server is being swamped with download requests.

It works from this site: http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/

I got it from http://www.mozilla.com but something odd has happened - all the links now show Firefox 2 again there.

[edit] Check your email.

Opera 9.5 is out too: among other things I got a sensible speed up (I use it with about 40 tabs open and the improvement it's very noticeable), and start up loading is faster as well.

ta gfk, the europe link worked (no email yet tho...)

Maybe your spam filter got it as it had a link to an EXE in it.

Oh well, no probs if you're sorted. :)

np - sorted. and it does seem noticeably quicker too...

I've downloaded Firefox 3, but my main browser will still be Safari.

Been using Firefox3 since beta1 came out (as to which 4 more beta releases followed, which then led to the two release candidates later), and it's come quite a ways.

For those updating from FF2 to 3, the biggest change you'll probably notice (and soon love) is the overhaul on the address bar. Rather than it sporting an auto-complete function, it now searches for anything relevant to the current typed text and gives results based on that.

I don't know what kind of problems you guys have downloading Firefox 3.
Just goto http://www.mozilla.org and click on the big firefox picture.

didn't it do that before Gen? it happens in my search box

Firefox 3 came with Ubuntu 8.04. I removed it and installed Firefox 2 instead. Mainly because Firefox 3 was still a beta and seemed to be dead slow. I'll stick with Firefox 2 for now.

Opera still looks to be the fastest browser to me. It should be my browser of choice, but I stick with IE7 for an easier life.

I only use FireFox for web development. It has some great developer add-ons.

I've installed in on my MacBook and am typing this from Firefox 3 right now. It looks great, I only used Firefox 3 before in Ubuntu 8.04, which ships with a Beta version of it, but... you know, it looks incredibly better with the Mac skin.

By the way, although I will use it from time to time, I'll stick to Opera. The release of Opera 9.50 a few days ago was definitely much more exciting to me. I've always used that browser on Windows. I didn't on Linux because Flash didn't work, and on Mac it simply looked awful, but all that is gone with the 9.50 release, and it works flawessly on all platform.

And now... I'll go back to studying (I'll be done with my exams next friday!)

IExx ? what is this? ;-)

IE8 is most likely what you will develop your web stuff for in the near future.
The beta is much better than IE6 ever was and a whole world in front of IE7 on the CSS and W3C compliance front.

And the new features just make it too nice on the long run, thought my main browser is still FF2.

No need for FF3 especially as it "inheritet" the same security features on Vista etc as IE with its sandbox design ... and as IE it breaks plugin based content in the webbrowser thanks to that sandbox.

But luckily due to the new standard compliance, anything developed for IE8 is supposed to work flawlessly on FF3 as well.

Only if FF3 got real JavaScript support.
While it has not had many problems with html, xhtml and css, its javascript support still lacks more than just a little. Its no uncommon thing that I am forced to fire up another browser for different pages where Firefox just will not do anything -> IE8 on Windows, Safari 3 on OSX
It got better since Phoenix 0.42 (^^) but it is still off from the competitors and that althought Firefox bases on Mozilla which was created by those who brought Javascript on the plan at all.
Have not tested FF3 for quite some time as the relevant plugins for me (Foxmark as top 1) have not present so it was worthless sadly.

The latest Foxmarks works with FF3 just fine. Actually Foxmarks incompatibility was the only thing stopping me from downloading the FF3 beta versions.

FF3 is faster and uses less memory than Opera according to benchmarks, which you can debate about, but I think it is not justified to call Opera the "fastest browser".

Opera is the fastest. FF3 was, but then Opera made itself even FASTER.

Note the all-caps.

I presume that is by measuring javascript performance only?

I think so, but the scrolling is smoother in Opera than it is in FF3, so...

Opera is the fastest at firing up in my experience. FF3 is still slooooow to fire up.

I love Opera, and used it almost exclusively when I used it at all.

Sadly, it doesn't appear to be as compatible with as many websites (that I visit) as Firefox is, so when I got myself a new computer and had to choose what third-party browsers to install over IE6 (spit!), I went with FF3. The loss of Opera's general niceness was felt, but the wealth of add-ons for FF3 eased the pain a little.

IE7 can bite my buttocks.

I use Opera all day long, and have been switching to IE7 (sadly, because FF2 was slow as all heck) whenever some turkey creates their website badly. Thankfully now, I can replace IE7 with FF3.

Opera is still numero uno for me.

Why do people install XY over IE6 instead of giving IE7 or especially IE8 Beta (much better) a go.

I guess it's the general anti-MS attitude among people like us.

Speak for yourself.

I'm not anti-Microsoft at all - I just didn't like IE6 (or 7 for that matter) and moved to Firefox because of that. You're quite wrong to assume that anybody who uses Firefox is doing so just because they hate Microsoft. Firefox is just a better product at the moment.

IE7/8 is slow, has loads of memory leaks and memory usage, has bad CSS etc standards support, so FF3 and Opera is clearly better than that. Also, IE7/8 is closed source and doesn't even have support for linux. Why anyone would use that?

I agree about the CSS standards, but you can't say IE sucks because it's not open source or built for Linux. Almost every program I run is closed source and built for Windows, and yet they blow every open source Linux alternative out of the water.

I totally agree. It's just that anti-MS attitude discourages some people from even trying out new MS products, no matter how good they are. I tried IE7 when it came out but it didn't beat FF2 at the time. I'll surely try IE8 too when the final is released.

Wow. I just downloaded the latest version of Opera, and it is FAST. It starts up roughly 10x faster than Firefox (1 second, compared to 10+ seconds), loads pages about 2x as fast, and going back / changing tabs is much quicker.

Vilu: I think most people don't hate Microsoft, but it's just some of their products are inferior to others (I could give a couple reasons why I can't stand IE after using Firefox / Opera). But I agree that a general anti-MS attitude isn't good - Microsoft makes a lot of really good products, like Visual Studio for example, and it would be a mistake to avoid them just because they're from MS.

FF has always taken for *explicit* ever to load on my computer. It takes 10 seconds + to load for the first time, every time.

IE? click & instant pop, even for the first time.

I'm a huge anti-ms nutjob, but I don't let that get in the way with what's infront of me. I don't use or develop browser plugins, so I see no need to use FF or Opera.

nawi: how about not putting IE8 into equation if you have not even touched it?

IE6: Bad CSS support, other problems
IE7: Already much better, near CSS 2.0 compliant
IE8: W3C compliant for HTML 4, XHMTL, CSS 2.1. So actually its in front of Firefox. Above that its the first browser offering serious developer support (beside OSX for webapplications)

Firefox is great, but FF3 definitely needs more than that to compete in todays world. It has been a great thing in the IE6 times where not much was needed to be better. But MS has put a lot of development time into IE7 and IE8. Thats pretty well shown by the fact that FF3 adopted different IE7 and IE8 design features like the Sandbox of IE7+

I think we can all agree that Firefox has done a remarkable favour for all of us by bringing in some arm wrestling into the browser "market". Without it MS would've never felt the need to develop IE any further.

When Netscape was still alive and kicking, we saw the birth of IE5 and IE6 as MS was under the same pressure as it is now. Yay for competition.

That's because IE is built into the OS and is loaded before you ever do anything. So of course it's ready and waiting. FireFox doesn't have that luxury, so of course it's going to be slow loading up the first time. Personally, I have it in my startup and I never close it. Problem solved.


I would have said the opposite. FireFox has succeeded despite the anti-MS brigade, not because of them. Among serious computer users (eg: professional techs) , the anti-MS student attitude is extremely offputting and encourages them to dismiss things without trying them. FireFox has become surprisingly popular and mainstream despite many techs and other professionals having a downer on it without trying it. I guess it's won people over.

FF3 gets 71 for Acid3, while IE8 gets 17, so you're facts are wrong.

Microsoft's monster will never be as complaint as Firefox.

Before FF3 my analogy of the browsers was-

- Opera is like a small army jeep. It's fast and fun, but it can be destroyed easily ;)

- Firefox is like a tank. It's slow, but it's strong.

- IE7 is like a minivan. It gets you around, but it's clunky and annoying to use, and it's boring to look at.

I think Firefox has now been upgraded to an apc :) It's fairly quick, but still a strong workhorse.

It remembers all your porn. Click the down arrow on the far right.

It's nothing a well-timed Ctrl-Shift-Del couldn't fix ;)

That doesn't solve the issue at all. Try it.


Anyhow, I posted a few minutes ago about it in the blurry image thread:

The addon Mouse Gestures does not work.
Can't live without it.
Will go back to Firefox 2.

By the way.
Has anyone tested Zotero?
http://www.zotero.org/
Looks very nice:
"Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources.."
Maybe a good tool for programmes who have a lot
of bookmarks.

Well, the trick is obvious: Don't let anyone else use your Firefox profile! I believe there is an extension to switch profiles somewhere...

Switch over to the mbn theme (yes, on blitzbasic.com) and take a look at quote boxes.

I only get the corrugated lines around quote boxes in FF3, saw this problem in one of the beta versions and just decided to wait.. obviously they've done nothing to fix it.

I made the mistake of updating to IE8 beta 1. I normaly use IE7 to avoid any incompatibility with some of the websites I normal browse.

Had to resort to Firefox 3 which is my latest backup browser. In IE8 I'm having window scrolling with the mouse wheel problems.

If you move the wheel to fast the page jumps to the top.

I can't place the mouse text cursor in a edit box correctly, Usualy ends up in some random position in the same paragraph, but not my chosen character.

If I use the cursor keys the result is that the cursor goes in the wrong direction, and at the end of a paragraph jumps to the beginning of the paragraph I was in.

The BBC website doesn't load correctly. When I click on an article the footer bar hovers in the middle of the page overlaying the article text.

-----

I've never had so much trouble with IE before, really disappointed since normaly I have a perfectly trouble free experience :(.

Looks like I'm stuck with FF till the next IE8 update, will be interesting to see if I end up sticking with FF by then.

One thing I don't like about FF is that I can't seem to create a empty tab to use like I can in IE7. Something I do all the time.

>>One thing I don't like about FF is that I can't seem to create a empty tab to use like I can in IE7. Something I do all the time.<<

..hmm..Ctrl+T working fine here..

I don't use keyboard shortcuts in browsers, since I usualy use the mouse with scroll wheel and back and forwards buttons only. IE has a new tab button to the right of your tabs which is really convenient, wonder if theres an addon.

Ctrl+TAB did work though thanks.

Something weird, ever since I used CTRL+Tab I now have a new tab option in my tab bar right click menu. Something I had already tried before. Since it's there now I'm happy :)

You can also right click on the toolbar at the top, choose customize and add the new tab button...

Evak: I made that stupid decision too. thats why I'm using firefox.

Has anybody figured out how to stop FF3 from virus scanning everything you download?

[edit] Never mind, done it. If anybody else cares:

Type 'about:config' into the address bar.
Look for 'browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone' and set its value to 'False'.

Thanks, very cool tip! (at least for me)

Can someone explain to me why ff3.0 doesn't display the buttons on my website correctly? :(

http://dfa.awardspace.info/ Under FF2.0 and IE8 I have no issues...

Because the developers are idiots.

Dunno... looks like a vertical alignment problem.

I don't think its helping that your end pieces and the middle sections of the buttons are different heights. The ends are 23px and the middle is 31px.

try setting the padding top to 3px on td.button

There are some CSS changes in FireFox 3 - one that comes to mind is the way that it calculates elements sized with em; previously em was used to define as the number of times the size of a normal text size item (e.g. width 10em was the width of 10 characters), but now they have changed this to be that 1em is the size of the parent container (or something along those lines). With regards to em, it's very much easier to now use % or px instead.

@Perturbatio: Thanks for the fix! Works well.

FF3 is a pain in the arse - CSS is different from other FF (and correct cross browser code)! And if you are a flash coder then beware it's broken big time! Quite frankly FF3 should not have been release in it's present state - go back to ff2 and wait for them to fix the damn thing.

Get some : http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

I just started using FF3, much better than IE8 beta. Didn't notice a flash problem but I usually quit loading flash heavy sites before they are done. Generally hate them.

Installed FF3 a few days ago. No problems here and I really like it.

Has anybody else noticed that sometimes after you download a file, if you then try to delete that file you can't because its still "in use" by a Firefox.exe process? You have to kill the task from Taskmanager first.

I'm unsure at this stage whether this might be related to Firefox scanning everything it downloads for viruses. I'll keep an eye on it.

I downloaded FireFox on the day it came out. Although it took three tries to get the download without errors in the file, it still was worth it once I got it. Significantly better than FF2, and not even comparable to IE7.

The server kept dying though. The whole world was trying to download the same thing at the same time...not too good if you're trying to keep your site online...