64 replies to this topic

[gameratheart]

I was only recently made aware of the release of Firefox 3, having not been notified by Firefox, and problems with my internet connection that caused Trap17 and similar websites to slow to snails-pace, so I ended up missing the download day and haven't got it yet.

The thing is though, I've been hearing a lot of negative press about it. I know that there was concern that Firefox would break Flash support a while ago, which was fixed, and I hear it's kind of restrictive as to downloading addons and junk.

Now, I did actually test Firefox 3 Beta 5, and my only real complaints were with the theme and that stupid address bar. But the thing is, I'm very comfortable with Firefox 2 and don't wanna upgrade if it's going to break stuff or add features that I'd rather do without. So, I'd like to hear from current or previous Firefox 3 users about their expirience with the new browser, and give their opinions as to whether they'd reccomend getting it. That way I think we'd have a balanced argument where the winning side would soon become obvious.

So, what do you think? Is Firefox 3 really "all that"?

Edited by gameratheart, 20 June 2008 - 09:26 PM.

[truefusion]

I'm currently waiting for Ubuntu to update Firefox 3 in their repository, 'cause i don't want to change paths. I've just been running Ff3b5 and the only thing i don't like about it is the address bar—it doesn't show your history of typed-in URLs in the drop down, it shows bookmarks set for the address bar. Other than that, upgrading doesn't bother me; i don't need to bloat my Firefox with extensions, a few is all i need. For everything else i use Opera.

[AbdurahmanL]

Oh yeah, firefox 3 is faster, more responsive, better looking, doesn't crash like my old one did. But I didn't try the betas so i switched directly from firefox 2 to firefox 3. I'm lovin it!

[Forbez]

Firefox 3 owns you, owns Firefox 2, owns Internet Explorer, owns everything! It is domination in the form of a browser. Nothing else compares, it's truly that brilliant.

But mind you, they stole a lot from Opera though.

[Wolfpack]

gameratheart, on Jun 21 2008, 12:26 AM, said:

I was only recently made aware of the release of Firefox 3, having not been notified by Firefox, and problems with my internet connection that caused Trap17 and similar websites to slow to snails-pace, so I ended up missing the download day and haven't got it yet.

The thing is though, I've been hearing a lot of negative press about it. I know that there was concern that Firefox would break Flash support a while ago, which was fixed, and I hear it's kind of restrictive as to downloading addons and junk.

Now, I did actually test Firefox 3 Beta 5, and my only real complaints were with the theme and that stupid address bar. But the thing is, I'm very comfortable with Firefox 2 and don't wanna upgrade if it's going to break stuff or add features that I'd rather do without. So, I'd like to hear from current or previous Firefox 3 users about their expirience with the new browser, and give their opinions as to whether they'd reccomend getting it. That way I think we'd have a balanced argument where the winning side would soon become obvious.

So, what do you think? Is Firefox 3 really "all that"?

Firefox 3 is beyond amazing, it kicks Firefox 2's sorry little *bottom*. The awesome bar is really awesome and nothing less, I hadn't tested the release candidates but the final version really left me with my mouth open.

It uses less memory and the javascript is way faster, but it has some stability problems specially when connections are lost, sometimes it freezes some seconds and sometimes it just plain crashes. It now renders Acid 2 properly so that's a plus.

Basically, you can't see most of the innovations, but I'm really glad they're supporting more and more the new CSS standards.

I just don't like that most of my plugins are not compatible, but I guess that will get fixed as time goes.

[Saint_Michael]

firefox 3 has its pros and cons, some people didn't like the way the nav bar is now and how it is incorporated with the bookmarks. Of course, I think it is a lot better because now you just type a copy of words in and it auto searches the bookmarks or sites you been to. The biggest thing that everyone likes is the memory that doesn't get sucked up by Firefox and everyone likes that. Of course if your a plug in nut, you have to wait for plug ins to get updated, a good chunk of them been updated during the beta's and updates been popping up left and right since Tuesday. As for the reason you didn't get a notice through ff2 because they are two different browsers, strange as that may seem, and so you would have to had installed one of the beta's to get those updates and what not.

[Vardigon]

The response times in Firefox 3 are indeed much faster. You might want to wait a while though, as a lot of the plugins haven't caught up with the release of FF3. It's brand-spanking-new. The page load times are quite good. FF3 uses 6.8% of 1 GB of RAM on my computer. (You do the math.) I had to get the source out of the testing repository as it hasn't been added to the stable branch yet :/.

Of course, the fastest browser is elinks. xD

Edited by Vardigon, 21 June 2008 - 01:59 AM.

[ivantoar]

It's definitely worth upgrading. Faster, more reliable, doesn't crash like FireFox 2. Since I got it in 18 June, I haven't experienced any crash even a little with FireFox 3. But the most hurting is not all plugin compatible with FireFox 3, and some note as my older brother complains, smart tag makes people can know about porn page he had opened (as description of the page used as tag). LOL!

[Carson]

I think it is worth upgrading to firefox 3. To the normal user there isn't a heck of a lot of difference. There are a couple of new noticeable features, but nothing that couldn't be done with plugins anyway.

The most noticeable thing for me was my website in Firefox 3. Before the upgrade my drop-down menus were laggy and wouldn't animate properly(I think this was due to them being designed for IE because they worked perfectly in it). In Firefox 3 they work perfectly. I'm sure there are a lot of other behind the scenes features as well.

I'm still getting the same old freezing up problem though. If I minimize FF after a while of browsing, it freezes when attempting to restore.

[gameratheart]

Looks like most of you are pretty one-sided as to where you stand with it...

[Janissary]

Im a firefox fanboy and a regular user. I mean I dont know things like memory leak or crashes but hotmail service has issues with FireFox3.

Im lovin'it

Edited by Janissary, 21 June 2008 - 05:59 PM.

[truefusion]

gameratheart, on Jun 21 2008, 09:03 AM, said:

Looks like most of you are pretty one-sided as to where you stand with it...

Were you expecting a story that had more than one side? You asked if it is worth upgrading—this is a yes or no question. In the end, you're the one that's going to decide that for yourself.

[serverph]

for my experience with FF3, so far so good. no freezes, no lags, no apparent problems.

and out of 20 extensions i use, 15 are working... a big thanks to their developers of course for bringing their updates in sync with the FF3 release. of the remaining 5, i should wait for an update, or if not replace them with a similar tool soon enough (i'm sure there are better alternatives out there, which i haven't checked in a long time).

a huge difference with FF2.xx is speed and memory use of course. but if that is not a "selling point" for you to upgrade, then just stick with the old version.

Hidden

FF3 easter egg: about:robots

[Saint_Michael]

Well out of 76 extensions 23 are not working:lol:. However, I do have a interesting problem with Firefox 3 and that is it doesn't fully close on me for some reason, I have to go into task manager to close it fully, and for some reason I keep having problems loading trap17 as well . Other then that no real other "Major" Problems myself.

[i_speel_good]

It works pretty well. Many add-ons ('read it later', 'greasemonkey') have been updated with Firefox 3 combatibility. My father installed Firefox 3 in the computer while I was away to come back and find Firefox 2 without any cookies, passwords, bookmarks, addons, search engines. That's a heavy bug, installing a version when another is already there. I had to remake/reinstall everything. Thankfully I had an old backup of my bookmarks.

So remember, before upgrading to Firefox 3, backup your bookmarks (Bookmarks>Organize Bookmarks and export it as html or backup as json)

[boxed]

Yepp, i damn love Firefox 3! , you should go for it

[Gregarious]

When I first saw it, the address bar stood out massively. It looked useful, since you could pretty much search with it, but it was garishly ugly. Luckily, "oldbar" lets you go back to the original design of the navbar with the search-y feature still intact. It's beyond useful and I now can't stand using IE, which obviously doesn't have it. That said, I do notice speed problems with it at times as it loads my history though they're much better than the overall speed problems with IE when you turn it on =P Anyhow, that's besides the point. I'd say that F3 is worth getting just for the new address bar, which is pretty darn awesome. There are some other cool new features too, but they hardly compare.

[NJ_STORM]

FF is nice, and upgrading it is a very good idea also. But saidly there some websites that well don't work well or at all with Firefox 1 or 2. Thank goodness for IE.
Only thing that I do not care for with FF is all the little add ons. For someone that knew FF very well it's okay but for someone that is very new to it, It is a headach of sorts trying to figure it all out. I felt that way when I first started to use it.

[diiiii]

I have firefox 2
and it works fine
if I updated to 3 I wouldn't see why...

I don't use firefox much anyways..

I use the cute lolifox
because I like anime and stuff

[varalu]

Yes it is. There are so many performance issues that has been resolved and it supports so many tabs. I am telling you this because, previously i firefox used to crash so many times when the number of tabs grows beyond a limit... Now thats not happening.

[kobra500]

Quote

they stole a lot from Opera though

was that written negitively?

in the computing world, stealing and adapting ideas from rival browsers is a good thing, everyone makes it out to be bad, however, if you think for a second you'll realise why, sometimes people dont all have the same ideas, so they make a browser without stealing any from your rivals and your left having to use 2 or 3 browsers because 1 doesn't do everything. It's like this

"OS X is better because Microsoft stole ideas from it" , yes and throughout time Mac os stole ideas from microsoft, and visa versa, it doesn't matter, that saves you having to dual boot windows and a really bad os such as Mac OS x or in fact every peace of terrible software apple has ever written. I'm no Bill Gates fan, far from it in fact , but even i have to admit his stuff is good!

I will start using linux but not till i get my new computer, my current can't run it.

Anyway back to the point at hand , firefox 3 is very good, I remember Beta 3, the only issue I had was the style, no Home button i think. anyway they've fixed it and most of my addons have been updating recenly. It looks good, sounds good and is good with some outstanding features.

Oh and also, i'm back online now

[rayzoredge]

I was in OP's position for a good while, wondering if it was worth upgrading from FF2 to FF3. I've installed FF3 on my work machine and had some nitpicks, but after eventually upgrading all of my personal computers with FF3, I haven't really noticed much to gripe about.

A lot of improvements to the browser isn't going to be noticed by Joe Schmoe. I haven't reviewed the changes and improvement list yet or just don't remember them, but I'm sure that a whole new world is opened up for web developers. From the average user's point of view, we'd probably only notice the address bar, the download history, and maybe the lessened possibility of crashes. I don't know what people are talking about with the "fixed" memory leak issue... the process still is a RAM hog, but since I have 2GB of RAM, I'll trade stability and security for resources at this point.

In short, upgrading to FF3 hasn't left me in a tizzy, and I've been able to use FF3 as easily as FF2 without having to scramble to find where things are or have to learn anything new. It's still the same great browser, but with a lot of improvements in the background that not a lot of average users will actually discover to appreciate.

[samlockart]

I'm really LOVING firefox 3, I have been using it since beta 1 and it's GREAT, the nav bar is AMAZING now and I can't really picture me going back to firefox 2. The only con is that not all plugins are supported... yet.

also this should make firefox a happier faster browser


cheers, sam.

PS pop one of these in the nav-bar:

about:robots
about:mozilla

Edited by samlockart, 23 June 2008 - 01:37 PM.

[Forbez]

Yes, yes yes and guess what? Yes. But give it a couple of weeks lol. I believe there are still a few bugs, none that I've experienced but their probably is. Wait for the next update or something. What I found frustrating was that I had a very organised Links bar, which I've now lost. I had to rebuild it all over again.

But it is a vast improvement from Firefox 2.0, lots of changes. Reminds me a lot of Opera though - less stolen like my previous statement.

Edited by Forbez, 23 June 2008 - 02:07 PM.

[rpgsearcherz]

I would upgrade just because even if it's not better in terms of the things you can visually see, it may have updates to security, crashing issues, etc.

Usually the only things that I do NOT upgrade immediately are those released by Microsoft.