Agreed that Firefox is the best browser. It has its bugs, but then so does every application ever made. It definitely beats IE, can you imagine a browser without tabs and extensions, where you have to have 50 windows open at once? *shudders*

gcguster99t

@boandmichele: I agree that FF is perfectly fine. It's certainly head and shoulders above IE.
You mentioned about a person's FF session taking more than 70Megs of RAM... I laugh, because mine typically gobbles about 500Megs (I have 2GB RAM, and my current session is using 309MB), but I often leave about 50 to 80 tabs open. I'm a website pack-rat, what can I say...
Still, FireFox never bogs down on me and NoScript squashes all sorts of badness. Bonus.

thepounder

@balls187: fail. ff is no more bloated than any other mainstream browser. yes 200 megs for a browser is ridiculous...

but:

FIREFOX DOES NOT LEAK MEMORY. the extensions leak memory. (at least many of them do) examples include IE Tab, FasterFox, and other ones that i cant remember.

i am on a 7 year old p4, xp pro, 384 meg. firefox is instant, and much faster than the 2 year old p4 at work with quadruple stats. its all in how it is configured, and how your system is configured with it.

if someone's FF is (regularly) taking up more than 70 megs or so, they are doing something wrong.

boandmichele

@EverlastinG: Dude, 200 MB's for a webbrowser is ridiculous.

FF is bloated, and they need to fix it.

balls187

i dont think ff leaks memory... anymore... what I think (just think idk how it manage memory) its that it just saves the render of the webpages u visit... permanently up to a limit... so when it start fresh, it doenst consume much memory, but once u visit several pages and close them, the render is saved somehow (i guess to save me time if i want to reopen a closed tab) Its kind of annoying... 1st versions of ff werent that bad as the last ones... my ff uses about 200 Mb of memory permantly once i visit several tabs... even if i close them all but one... I have to restart it becaouse it turns too slow (my comp isnt the better anyway)... They should implement some kind of garbage collector to free memory if havent used sumthing in the last 10, 15, 30 mins... xP peace... spread the word!

EverlastinG

I love Firefox since I switched from IE7, but it does like to take my memory from me :). I wish they would make it a little more lightweight. But it is ten times better than safari, my safari would eat up memory then crash. Hopefully they have changed for the best.

GeorgiaBoot

I just wanted the zoom. You could do it in IE7 and Opera, but not in Firefox 2.0 Firefox is still the best browser in the world, and now that it has zoom, it now pwns all.

nintendude

Will Places sync with del.icio.us? Or will the del.icio.us extension sync with Places, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. Either way, I like this feature. Tagging is the way to go and I can already seem yself using smart searches for bookmarks.
But Places doesn't look as cool as the early mockups :)

MrCrispy

Sweet I can't wait. I am a huge fan of Firefox. I here there are some cool features for tab previews as well...

behzadk

is firefox 3 any more stable/efficient on mac os x? i love firefox, but it crashes so often on my mac and seems to memory leak often. anyone tested it on a mac?

kidwei

Benrad, although you don't use bookmarking, the new features in Firefox 3 should still make your browsing better. You can star pages quickly which will give those sites more weight in the autocomplete when you are typing in the address bar. There will also be an improved algorithm for determining what site's are relevant based on what you typed in. They are calling this the 'Awesome bar'. You can see more info about it here: [ed.agadak.net]

JohnM

I don't really even use bookmarks all that much anymore, so I'm not all that excited about the Places feature. I can't remember the last time I didn't manually type in the sites I use on a daily basis. Everything else is there for me in Bloglines, but I guess it's just a matter of preference.
I certainly hope they fix the memory leaks (my current ff process is using 200 MB).

BenRad

Can someone help me with firefox now. When I open up say 20 bookmarks firefox goes slower than it really should ever go. I have 3 gigs of ram so why is it going so slow. Will this be fixed with firefox 3?

whoiseric

The UI changes are being rolled out in stages due to the number of icons needed (200+) The next beta will have a larger difference. Most of the changes are in the backend. The address bar changes were backed out less than a week ago due to a performance degradation (if I'm thinking of the correct bug) and they also are scheduled to return in beta2 it's not quite the same as locationbar2 though
The extension issues crop up with every release. Most of them will work fine with 3 I use MRTech Local Install to force them. There is a few issues here and there but the most popular extensions will likely be ready to roll for launch. Most of the features are things that aren't obvious. Things that improve security and phishing protection. They chased a lot of memory leaks and fixed something like 15000+ bugs. It's still under development but it's on the home stretch. It's probably still about 3 weeks away at least.

As a disclaimer I'm not from mozilla I just follow along as best I can. If you want to help test the beta the test day is Friday. They typically are short mac and linux testers. The testing they do is straightforward and there's help on the irc server.
For more info these 2 links:
[quality.mozilla.org]
[quality.mozilla.org]

ecmuller

They did improve the memory usage considerably according to them. I was on their site the other day and while I didn't read much of the details, it went on about this thing they removed that wasn't needed and tweaked that thing. It was definitely something they were focusing on, and have promised.
I want to try it but I don't want to compromise the smallest bit of stability. Anyone having any crashes?

jackquack

Can't wait for it. I wonder if they improve the memory ussage because it consumes a lot in windows specially when you have tons of tabs and windows open.

ChambrasWeed

Seems like a 2.5 update at best rather than 3.0.

Craig

The crucial issues are speed, rock-solid reliability and usability. You can have any number of cool features, if the browser itself isn't rock solid and quick as lightning, it becomes a big drawback. Browsing is such an everyday activity these days that the browser can't get in the way; IE, for instance, I can't stand because of all the built-in time wasters and the dog slow reaction times it sometimes exhibits. Let's hope FF3 turns out lean and mean as opposed to feature bloated and torpid...

cr0ft

not much difference. too bad you only have mac screens.

radink

I agree with SUMOCAT and others of similar opinion. I would actually like to see firefox work on plugging up memory leaks, speed, etc. The idea of an extremely minimal core browser that is fast, light and solid - and can be extended by users via extensions etc seems like an ideal vision to me.

I find that on my home machine (Ubuntu) especially, firefox seems slow and heavy - improvements in these areas may not be flashy and showy - but in the end would serve the browser far more than simply adding flare.

invid

It took me a long time to upgrade from Firefox 1 to Firefox 2 because of extension trouble. It is nice to hear that Firefox 3 will be able to use all the old extensions with relative ease. I do hope that there will be a portable version if this.

barrowbl

I can't wait. Thanks for the screenshots Adam.

shane_mckinley

I just hope they fix the memory issues.

Lazarus

seriously though, how much memory does it leak?

babaki

I see nothing exciting.

Capone

Missed this one or what ??

[techxtreme.blogspot.com]

Firefox 3 Beta 1 leaked days before release!

abhinavsood

Thanks for the clarification Adam.

What's the trade off for included features vs. extensions that do the same? For example, if Firefox 3 implemented Tab Mix Plus as a feature that comes with the browser, would that speed up the browsing experience b/c you're not having to add the extension, or slow it down because it's bloating the program?

ryetronics

@kureshii: Agreed. I'd be happy with a faster, streamlined browser that I can customize. As long as it's snappier and supports All-in-One Gestures, GeckoTIP, and Grab & Drag (and lets me move buttons around, unlike IE7), I'll like it.

sumocat

@ryetronics: The design update is there but it's relatively small compared to the rumored interface refresh that would make the apps looks like the OS's native browser (so Firefox on Mac looks more like Safari, Firefox on Windows looks more like IE7); but you likely notice small interface changes here and there.

Adam Pash, LH Senior Editor

You mentioned the new design update, but from what I saw on the release it hasn't been implemented yet. Or has it?

ryetronics

Well, to be honest I don't really want too many features in FF3 - that's what the extensions are for. What we really need are essential features that ALL FF browsers should have (not all the abovementioned qualify), and improvements to FF2's features.

kureshii

Everytime I tried installing the latest version of Firefox, none of my add-ons worked with it (probably because of the version number) but I hope this isn't a problem when they launch. It's a deal breaker for me.

tparlin

I'm really enjoying Firefox 3b1's speed on my aging Powerbook G4, especially in Gmail. But has anyone noticed that the fonts are all funky in Gmail?

levjoy

@Adam Chernow: At least when I looked, it was a solid beta. Actually, it was a solid alpha.
Anyway, I only mean that you can download and it won't mess up your system, and you can install on a different folder than Firefox's default.

Don't be surprised, however, with lacking extensions compatibility and one or another crash.

Cidinho

It sounds really cool, but as my experience with Firefox 3 was called.. er... only the old Mine*something*, I haven't seen these features yet, so I can't comment on them. I just hope my del.icio.us extension will be alive, and possibly with those stars.

Cidinho

Hmm... Looks interesting. I'm not sure I like the new bookmark system and it looks like losing the ability to use keyboard shortcuts for "remember password" is bad, but overall I'm sure it's a good browser. I haven't downloaded it yet, and I don't think I will until I'm sure the beta won't mess up my system.

So how's extension compatibility in this version?

-A

Adam Chernow

@barrowbl: If you're waiting for a portable version, keep watching portableapps.com ;-)

I am looking forward to OS integration and better memory management, features which are necessary but can't be added/are difficult to add with extensions.

If they really want to add other features, they should do it in the form of "official" extensions. I think certain extensions like Tab Mix Plus (among others) could be bundled with all FF installations, if they are looking to extend FF's features - I'd like the option to remove features I don't use.

And about memory management... it's not excessive memory usage I'm worried about (20 tabs in history + large cache = >500mb firefox memory footprint typically), it's inefficient memory usage that gets my goat. There's a reason I upgraded my laptop's memory - please use as much of it as I specify, to store useful things and not bloatcrap.

kureshii

If you've ever had the misfortune to look at or work with Firefox internals and its architecture, you'd weep with frustration. Its a horribly convoluted mess of xul and js with features being piled on top of a flawed core.

Why is it that rendering is still signle threaded and a misbehaving website can bring down the entire browser, instead of just its own tab? I'll tell you why its because the javascript interpreter has single global lock, among other things. FF is not a pretty beast!

MrCrispy

@boandmichele: Oh, like opening a second window?
@MrCrispy: Sadly that's been a complaint for years.

Using Opera: faster and more stable.

Major-General

@MrCrispy: Since Firefox was built originally by guys who were frustrated with the slow progress of the original Mozilla Suite (ironically much of the slowness due to QA evaluation), it's not really surprising that the system has flaws.

Ben Googer and Blake Ross wrote the original Firefox to scratch their own itch, not to create a new world-dominating web browser. (That was just a neat side effect.)

mb

@abhinavsood:

Dont be so silly, the RC's of FF3 have been on the Mozilla FTP since the release of FF2

minus19

For my everyday browsing, I use Opera. Sure, it does not have all those fancy extensions, but who needs those, when it has some of the most useful features there are already built in, like:
- the ingenious Speed-dial
- mouse-gestures
- voice recognition
- the highly configurable quick-searching (where you type only "g" in the address bar to get to "www.google.com" or "g something" to search google for "something").
- bookmark sync with Opera mini (the mobile and PDA version)
- the trash can (where all the tabs you close are put, so that you can reopen a tab that you closed aaccidentallywithout a problem)
- the built-in imap and pop mail-client
- the RSS reader
- etc...

The most important points though are that it is very fast and it doesn't take up a lot of memory. Plus it currently is the most secure browser there is.

I simply love it.

jsertic

Such a shame Locationbar2 isn't included. I've been using it, and find it quite useful and a nice vicual touch.
Well, obviously the extension will still exist so nothing lost for me.

nakke

I hope they softened the fonts on the screen. most websites i build without the anti-aliasing effect are uglier in ff then in IE or Safari.

swiftouch

So, where do I download the beta at?

Brendan Ross

Don't know where else to ask this so hopefully this will get read by someone who might know--Is there a way to get Firefox to open your homepage with Ctrl-T rather than simply a new, empty tab?
Seems like it should be possible, but I don't see an option for it anywhere.

kala_way

I'm not a regular user of Flock, but it looks like Firefox 3 is taking a cue from Flock's "starring" and tagging of bookmarks.

I'm a user of Opera and enjoy its mouse gestures and nice features here and there, not to mention its excellent speed. It's more of a decision about what exactly you want to do with your browser.
Social networking? Use Flock. Fast browsing and rendering, good features? Use Opera. Extensibility for your favorite stuff? Firefox.
The only thing I'm skeptical about is the speed decrease that each extension imposes on the Firefox browser. Decrease in performance vs. time saved by using them.
Try them all, see what you like. Except for IE. It just sucks. :)

Steven Bao

I am just hoping minor UI issues are addressed in this release. For example, if I right-click on a link and click 't' it will open in a new tab, and the focus will remain on the original page. If I right-click on a bookmark link, and click 't' I 'Cut' the bookmark link. If I open it in a new tab, the focus immediately switches to the new tab. These inconsistencies are a bit annoying, but hey... What can you do?

Mungo

Mungo