Firefox 3 Beta First Impressions
Firefox for the Mac, not exactly a stellar browser. Yet, I persist. Why? Maybe it’s because it has all of my bookmarks and passwords saved, and maybe I’m just attached.
With the release of 3.0, Mozilla promises things to get better for Mac users, as well as continue to build on something that is already great on other platforms. The first things I noticed when I opened the new beta for the first time.
- Oops, brand new version. No plugins work.
- They ditched the ugly Windows like default form styles. Now it’s pretty much Mac like all the way through, but without that annoying blue glowing border Safari feels it needs to add.
- The UI… not so much different. I don’t really mind it anyways. Camino claims to have “Mac style” but it’s just laid out differently with different icons.
- A new feature,”starred” pages, or something. I won’t use it. I bookmark things for later, but it pretty much ends there for me.
- Some minor display changes. Looks like you can no longer leave some elements without a width and expect them to fill out 100%.
Some of the features that were promised in the new release can be found here, but here’s the highlights:
- Fixed memory problems, of course.
- Files can be handled by web services. Still not 100% on what this means, but there’s lots of potential for that to be really cool.
- “A much needed print support to prevent cut paragraphs and true WYSIWYG.”
The list from the linked site on features that should be included is very interesting, and many points are right on.
Among the highly desirable requirements:
- A private web browsing mode. I guess this would mean no cache, history, password or entered form information storage.
- Save web pages as PDF files, integrated with history. That would be just awesome.
- Support pause/resume downloads across sessions.
Nice to have:
- Unified bookmarks/history. Does this mean no Places?
- Support for Windows Vista parental controls. I really hope this one goes up in the priority list. This would be the first concrete downer for Firefox when confronted with Internet Explorer 7.
- Tab grouping and expose. This sounds like Internet Explorer 7 Quick Tabs or the foxPose extension.
- Allow add-ons to be installed without rebooting Firefox.
The one that really catches my eye is tab grouping and expose. As a Mac user, my one single favourite feature of the OS is Exposé. If you could properly work that in to FF, for users of all OS’s, that would be amazing. I don’t think the linked extension, foxPose really gets the authentic experience. Can it be done? Maybe not.
Your Honour, we Have Reached a Verdict
Wait. Just hold out until it goes gold. It’s not ready right now, and losing all your plugins for a while is getting kind of annoying. Give the developers some time and you’ll be fine to upgrade.
Leave a comment
Mike
November 21st, 2007 at 9:48 PM
I probably wont test out firefox 3 until it goes gold, I had many problems with the previous update to firefox infact I couldnt even use firefox until the released the last version!
If only microsoft could keep up, I bet they havent even started sp2 for ie7 yet little alone ie8
Connor Wilson
November 21st, 2007 at 10:50 PM
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I read somewhere IE8 has a 2010 estimated release date.
MrCorey
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:11 AM
Connor, if you want to use your plugins with this version, you might be able to if one plugin has been made compatible, namely the MR Tech Local Install plugin. With it, you can hack your Firefox a bit more than otherwise, with one feature being that you can “make compatible” your plugins. What it does in this case, really, is override the Firefox version check of the plugins so that they “think” that they’re running on a compatible browser.
You’ve piqued my interest, though. I’ve not run FF3 since some of the earliest Alpha builds.
Henry
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:26 PM
I’m downloading it now, i normally use Safari and i doubt this will change me.
Ok, downloaded and opened. First impression - doesn’t work on OS X Leopard, well it does but it looks terrible. Sorry but that for me has already failed the first hurdle.
mark rushworth
November 24th, 2007 at 6:10 AM
ive found that when surfing sites like brainfuel.tv the fonts are all mixed up… also it hates FCKEditor and doesnt load contents into the popups.
Rob Schultz
November 26th, 2007 at 3:02 PM
I like being an early adopter, but Safari is the one for me. It’s fast, pretty, and works oh so well.
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