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June 17, 2008

First look: Firefox 3, and a hunt for compatible extensions

Update: Mozilla.com is reachable again for Firefox 3 downloads.

The Mozilla servers are unreachable due to the crush wanting to download Firefox 3, the first new version in three years. I stumbled quite accidentally on a working download link (for the Windows version) on the upper right side of the page at FileHippo, and snagged my copy: http://www.filehippo.com/download_firefox/

During installation, it checked each extension for compatibility, which took a few minutes.

Not compatible, from among those loaded on my system:

~~Adblock Plus~~ Compatible version here
~~Bugmenot~~ Compatible version here
Cache Viewer
~~ColorfulTabs~~ Updated itself.
~~Colorzilla~~ Compatible version here
Copy All Urls
Copy URL+
~~Firebug~~ Compatible version here
~~IE View~~ Up and working now
~~Restart Firefox~~ Gone, but Quick Restart does the same thing
~~Scribefire~~ Compatible version here
~~Tab Mix Plus~~ Compatible version here
~~Web Developer~~ Up and working.

I'm hunting down updates, and necessarily publishing as I find each one -- I have to restart to be sure each has loaded properly, and I'd lose earlier changes to this post if I didn't save. The updates are usually available at the developers' sites, and are sometimes considered beta because FF3 hadn't officially released.

Session Manager doesn't seem to be built into FF3. This is critical to me, so I downloaded the Session Manager add-on.

First look:

Just in these few minutes of pulling this together, I can feel it's much faster fetching pages, opening links, and loading them. Later I'll test how robust it is with my usual 85 or more tabs open. (That used to finally halt FF2.)

Now I know why the new location bar -- with its mix of bookmarks and history -- is so controversial: Start typing "mo" and every link that ever directed me to a page for Mozilla users will show up:

If you don't like it, there's an extension that reverts to FF2 style.

More later. I wanted to get that working download link out to those of you tired of banging on the servers at mozilla.com.

Lifehacker is all over this: Power User's Guide to Firefox 3 and more at their full Firefox 3 coverage here.

Reviews:
Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Is the Best Browser For Web -- For Now WSJ's Walter Mossberg.

PC Magazine: Firefox 3:

This new version of Firefox brings it to the head of the class in security, speed (except for startup speed), standards compatibility, and thrifty memory usage. In addition, its powerful new location bar enormously facilitates browsing.

Posted by Sheila Lennon at 5:11 PM | Permalink

Comments

I just want everyone to know that the link is for the Windows version. I thought "sweet!" and then it didn't work on my Mac. :(

Posted by: Jim on June 17, 2008 1:55 PM

What version of IE View do you have installed? The current release (1.3.7) is fine w/FF 3, and has been for a while now. If you have an older version, FF may have trouble downloading an update as their servers are slammed right now.

Posted by: Paul Roub on June 17, 2008 2:39 PM

Now that it's up, both IE View and Web Developer are updated and working. Not the rest of the list, though.

Jim, I'm sorry about the Mac version. The Mac user in my house uses Safari, so it didn't occur to me.

Posted by: Sheila on June 17, 2008 2:56 PM