Firefox v3
Posted: Thu 19 June, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts, Work-related |3 Comments »So yes, yesterday I downloaded and installed the new version of Firefox, Version 3. It’s being touted as the latest, greatest with supposedly some 5,000 improvements and fixes to it since v2.
And yes, it’s OK. At the moment it’s missing two of the add-on extensions that I swear by – Paste’n’Go (which allowed you to just paste a URL into the location bar, and immediately go to) and the Google Browser Sync extension (which allowed me to synchronise bookmarks etc. between my installs of Firefox on the laptop, home PC, and the PC at whatever workplace) – and it’s already been announced that Google won’t be doing the browser sync extension for v3, which is a massive pain. )Then again, it looks like Weave by Mozilla Labs may be an answer to that)
For the most part the changes between v2 and v3 aren’t all that visible. There’s some additions to the location bar which may or may not end up being irritating over time – I like having a location bar/history that just tells me the URLs I’ve typed in, not that does an automatic search of other urls I might be meaning instead. It may be that I get used to it, it may be that it irritates – if it’s the latter, I’ll find a way to kill it.
All told, it looks OK, and seems to be pretty usable. So far the only other significant annoyance is that it no longer highlights https secure connections by turning the entire location bar yellow. It does seem to change the favicon section to a padlock, but that’s simply not as immediately noticeable – and it’s a big change for people who’ve got used to seeing the location bar change colour to indicate a secure connection.
Still, it’s an advance, and we’ll just have to see how it goes. And there’s always Opera if I get annoyed by Firefox…
I’ve found Firefox 3 to be a lot faster than 2, both in startup time and rendering of pages. The location bar changes are great, as the drop-downs not only have your history in them but also all your bookmarks. The padlock for a https site also has a drop-down menu, showing you more security information about the site, and the encryption.
“And there’s always Opera if I get annoyed by Firefox…”
Or Safari? No?
Um, no. So far, having used it repeatedly I just don’t see the appeal of Safari, and find it’s more hassle than it’s worth.
Sure, if you’re on a Mac and don’t have any better options – but I’ve got Firefox and Opera that come up *way* before Safari on the list. It’s useful for testing stuff, but other than that, Meh.
I have found it doesn’t let me track comments with co.mmets.com, and if I close Firefox down it forgets my bookmarks, toolbar personalisations and previously typed in urls, and the PC needs rebooting.