I've been using FF3 beta 5, and so far its the best browser I've ever used. Still crashes, just not as often. As for Yahoo Mail, I HATE the new look, and the fact that they can't seem to filter spam anymore, so I've abandoned Yahoo Mail completely.

MissCellania

so, if I install FF3, into say, a "Firefox 3" folder, and it imports all my bookmarks and extensions etc, is it safe to delete Firefox 2? By that, I mean will uninstalling Firefox 2 remove all the extensions that FF3 is now using, or does FF3 make its own copy of them.

I want to completely replace FF2, but don't know the best way of going about it.

Al Iguana

I started using FF3b2, and it had severe issues with the Yahoo All-New Mail, among a few other things... Religiously crashed on me, so, I've decided to hold off on FF3 until either a final RC is out, or just wait until it's official.

My copy of FF2 is insanely slow and annoying, and IE7 (and now IE8 beta) is also hosed, so I've been running Safari since it's the one browser that works the way it should right now. Irritating.

But I looooved the speed and look of FF3, was just bummed it crashed so often.

tf5_bassist

I replaced FF 2 a couple of builds ago with FF 3 beta and it has worked flawlessly. The only problem I encountered extension-wise was trying to make the PicLens extension compatible with FF3 which it did not like at all. All other extensions (a hell of a lot of them) work fine.

jarhead

I'm loving FF3 - my biggest complaint is that a right click print option is MIA. So, i'm stuck going to File -> Print any time i want to print anything.

The over sized webpage suggestions are also taking a little getting use to, but i'm still not sure if i just need to adjust, or don't like them.

Beta 5 has been very stable for me. Beats the pants of IE 7.

Glamdering

@ParaXnoia: As far as I've noticed, the beta 5 has been very stable. I've completely moved on from Firefox 2 and have had nothing but good experiences with Firefox 3.

oldredhat

I'd like to try it on my Linux (Ubuntu/Gutsy) box, but you didn't say much about the Linux beta in the post. Any issues you know of?

applewax

I'm a beta tester, I've been using the nightly builds and trunk builds and can say it's not anywhere near as stable as a constant user would like it to be. While the stability has improved from the beta 5 RC, it's still somewhat lacking.

I do find it a better browser than IE, still. And its speeds have improved dramatically, from actual loading time, to page loading time. The look is cleaner, and just a better overall experience for the end user when it works as it should. :P

ParaXnoia

I too have been using Firefox 3 since Beta 2, and I love it. I'm running it on my MacBook Air as my primary browser, and have had virtually no problems with it. It's much more memory friendly and visually pleasing.

Pylon83

Gina, are you guys going to do a full migration from 2 -> 3 post when 3 comes out of Beta?

My FF2 has been modded to the max and hope to get FF3 up with the same mods.

Anyway, looking forward to FF3 final version!!

Maurik

I've used FF3 ever since Beta 2 as my default browser, and I love it a lot better than FF2. The memory footprint is obviously a big improvement, but I just love the Awesome Bar (which is the only thing I'm calling it from now on). I don't even have to hit Ctrl+Enter anymore to go to websites. I can just type in a word usually and it goes to where I want, possibly requiring me to scroll down the suggestions. No more searching through history, bookmarks, or even going to Google!

SenorDunda

FireFox 3 is impressive - but one irritating feature is the OVERSIZED address suggestions while typing URLs

All in all, it loads faster and does not crash as much - but who knows, after all the add-ons updates what will happen

SEARCH ENGINES

The only thing it's missing for proper OS X compatibility is proper "tab" support. You still can't highlight fields that required a selection, only those of a text box. Otherwise, great browser. That's the only annoying feature. When I need to fill out forms, I have to click with the mouse, scroll down, and select Illinois.

JustEaton

yeah, I would assume so, if it is being updated automatically.

Btw, I find FEBE great for messing about with this kind of stuff. It backs up everything, passwords, cookies, extensions.

[addons.mozilla.org]

Works on Windows, Mac and Linux too.

Al Iguana

This crashes on me all. the. freaking. time. Not complaining since it is a beta, but really every 30 minutes it will crash on me.

HibikiRush

@Al Iguana: Ah, I stand corrected! I'm still going the portable route on my PC (it does overwrite Firefox in the Applications folder on the Mac, however.)

It's possible the final release WILL work that way on Windows, hard to say though.

Gina Trapani

I've been using FF3 for about a month or so, I believe, and it really is great. The speed of loading webpages is much improved, as is the general handling of the application. The interface is neat and the address bar is so much more useful.

detection

@Gina: No, it doesn't. It installs FF3 in a different folder, and I can still run launch FF2. It just copies the bookmarks, extensions into FF3, rather than overwriting FF2. Which is why I'm confused: if it DID overwrite FF2, a straight upgrade, then that would be better imo.

Al Iguana

Love the interface, the ICC color profile support for a better Flickr experience, and of course the memory stability.

However (and I know this is a cross-browser issue), I'm still regularly getting flashes and freezeups from Flash on the Mac. Anyone have a workaround on this? I'm stunned that there hasn't been a fix yet.

iddqd185

@Al Iguana: If you install Firefox 3 as usual, I'm pretty sure it will overwrite Firefox 2 and use its existing user profile. You won't have to delete Firefox 2 or import anything manually; the straight up Firefox 3 beta installation will do that for you.

Gina Trapani

I really do not see the point of making backups or using a portable copy. Firefox 3 converts your existing settings, bookmarks, and other documents into the new sql database format. The existing flat files, xml formatted, are left in tact, in palce, as backups.

The only thing you lose (and I don't see anything that fixes this) is new bookmarks you made in FFx3 do not get downgraded if you revert to FFx2. This does not effect anything - unless you mess up settings for FFx3 and eventually upgrade to FFx3 such that the "messed up settings" are still there. However, these can be easily cleared by removing the new .sqlite files.

But hey, what do I know.

maztec

Hmm, not being able to use Tab Mix Plus is a deal-breaker for me.

I tried the Nightly Tester extension, but something must be conflicting because then it wouldn't even allow me to launch FF3b5 (portable). I changed the profile back to the default, and it was fine, of course.

I'm hoping someone will report that they got TMP working, and if so, did you use NT extension or did you do a manual edit?

ribex

I tried using the Nightly Tester extension above to make all my extension available in FF3b5, but it wouldn't launch.

Had to go into safe mode to disable all add-ons and then just re-enable the ones that I really need.

Change to your FF3b5 path below and add -safe-mode on the end:
"C:\Program Files\FirefoxPortableTest\FirefoxPortable.exe" -safe-mode

zakharm

I have tried each Firefox 3 release since the second Alpha drop, but always went back to Firefox 2. One reason was due to addon functionality, but thanks to the aforementioned Lifehacker fix, I've disabled compatibility checking and still retained Adblock's function (whew)!

Other than that, I've really been turned off by the new GUI. The icons are inconsistent, and the `keyhole` back and forward buttons are just whacky. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but damn.

Anyway, when Beta 5 was made available, I decided to just take the plunge and go cold turkey to Firefox 3. So far I haven't been disappointed. I don't much like the changes in Firefox 3. Frankly, I never had memory leaks, etc. because I use a user.js file to tweak some functions. So to be honest I do not see many major improvements! It does seem that Firefox 3 is faster, snappier. And everyone's going to upgrade eventually; I might as well start getting used to it. :-)

bswilson

@applewax: or just install swiftfox [getswiftfox.com] , he compiles the newest builds in .deb as well as regular tarballs and probably .rpm's so it's available for every distro, the great thing is that u don't have to go playing with repo's and dependencies because it's all self contained and it won't replace your FF2.

AnthoMacP

@applewax: You can install it if you enable the Hardy repositories. I am using it on the Hardy Beta release with xubuntu and it is working like a champ. No issues so far that I have come across.

tmetzcc325

What extensions work in Firefox Beta 3 without official support? I would love to switch but I don't want to lose my extensions.

I could always test it out myself but no time right now.

HaloZero

@godwhacker: Adblock Plus works for me with b5 using the about:config mod.

Gina Trapani

@HibikiRush: You aren't alone, it's crashing on me constantly as well. I suspect I've got an incompatible or buggy extension.

The How-To Geek

3.5 takes out ad block, therefore fail, and i couldn't roll it back to 3.4 in unbutu

fail

3.4 rocks hard though

godwhacker

Each beta release installs into a folder named for the beta... right now I've got beta 3, 4, and 5 installed and can switch between them.

If you want to run Firefox 3 and 2 at the Same time, you'll need to not just create a new profile, but also modify the shortcut:

"path to firefox.exe" -P newprofilename -no-remote

The no remote will allow both instances to run at the same time.

The How-To Geek

FEBE is way better than mozbackup for profies. works on linux too. I'm gonna give the portable version a go to see how many of my extensions need an update.

Extensions are actually a real hurdle to upgrading for firefox. It was the same when I upgraded to FF2, and it actually put me off upgrading for a few months until there were security issues.

Some of my favorite simple FF1 extensions never got upgraded at all. :-(

They need some form of built in "upgrade compatibility checker" where you can filter your extensions by FF version to see which ones will work on which versions.
(Eg: I could go to the add-ons list and choose "FF3b5" from a dropdown list and it would put big red Xs next to any that won't work.)

soul_grind

@Weedenbc

In my experience you need to have more than 1 tab open, and on a Mac you can't just close out the window either. You have to go to Firefox > Quit (or hit Cmd-Q) and it prompts you to "Save and Quit".

On Windows, I don't really remember, I haven't been on Windows in a few days.

Alternatively, just go to Preferences > Main/General, and select When Firefox starts: "Show my windows and tabs from last time"

jw0ollard

I've had no problems with FF3b5 on Mac OS X, Linux, and even Windows! It's a brilliant piece of software.

RE: AdBlock Plus troubles.. I was pretty mystified by AdBlock's behavior after the upgrade. It was AdBlocking some sites but not others!! More often not blocking. Anyway, you simply need to get the latest devbuild from here ==> [adblockplus.org]

I haven't come across a single non-working extension so far. *Crosses fingers*.

jw0ollard

Okay loving it but how the hell do you get it to save your last session? This is a dealbreaker for me if that feature doesn't work!

weedenbc

@oldredhat: I know it's somewhat stable for the casual user, but seeing as my job requires me to be on the internet for quite a while, I notice the crash rate more so than most. It's not that big of a deal - it has a better memory footprint than FF2, it's a lot faster, looks better, but it's still not the quality I would expect of a final Mozilla product. Which it's not. That's all I was trying to say. (Don't expect it to be bug-free)

ParaXnoia

Man Mozilla sure has a good thing going
Great guide Gina, I'm gonna use this guide when I switch people from from IE to Firefox :)

superbryant88

I've pretty much fully switched to 3.0 beta, but for some reason i am having issues with beta 5. It doesn't seem to like flash all that much. I rolled back to 3.0b4, and i am happy. Now that i started loading up the browser with extensions, i find that it still eats ram, but not nearly as much as FF2 did, and it doesn't seems to be a lot more stable.

Pasha

I wanted to love FF3 and it is indisputably faster, less of a memory hog and more fully featured than FF2. However, it crashed about 10x more often on my OS 10.4 machine than FF2 so I had to downgrade. Looking forward to upgrading again once it's out of Beta.

wwwhitney

Wow! I just tried the portable FF3, and man I got to say the speed is like I got on a fighter jet, compared to which FF2 is actually a blimp. I've been sick of FF2's memory bloat and I see that FF3 has fixed those issues. The 'Nightly Tester Tools' extension got most of my extensions enabled, but some of them (like delicious) won't work. No big deal, I can wait for those till the official release. In summary: I'm sold on FF3. Thanks Gina for posting this field guide.

c2d

@jw0ollard:

Show my windows and tabs is enabled in preferences but when I start it up I get just my default tab. Really annoying.

Also, I just noticed that Remember the Milk for Gmail isn't work, nor does my only Greasemonkey script (HTML Signatures).

weedenbc

I'm running FF3b4 on Ubuntu 7.10
I installed FF3b5 and processor usage shot up to 100% and consistently crashed, so I went back to b4, no problems.
I'm going to skip b5 and see what comes next.

Confuzius

@ribex: I'm using Tab Mix Plus just fine in 3b5. I had to get it from here:
Halfway down the forum thread - [tmp.garyr.net]
Direct link to the xpi - [tmp.garyr.net]

andrewheiss

I have to say that this "Firefox 2 eating up over a gigabyte of memory only to freeze up and crash" thing, I've never seen in all the years I've used Firefox. In 1.5 I remember it going to 240MB, and, yes, it has crashed on me before, but it's a rare occurrence. I have 10 systems I watch for family and friends, too, and none of them have ever reported this. On my FreeBSD machines, it only hovers around 126Mb at the most.

So I don't get it.

rob_belics

The last time I forced all my extensions to work on Beta 4, the browser would load and immediately crash, so I probably wont do that again, and just wait until June. I love my extensions too much.

Webran61

I love firefox 3 b5 but can't live without firebug.
Luckily firebug 1.1 seems to be compatible. You can get it here:
[getfirebug.com]

jordan314

I'm def. going to try this later tonight when I get more time.

SA

Running FF3B5 on Leopard. Pages load ridiculously faster than FF2, and I find this reason alone enough to switch full time. Unlike others I have not found FF3 to be at all unstable. I enabled extensions and the only bummer for me right now is that many extensions actually do no work or have serious bugs in FF3. For example Firebug, which is definitely too bad... hopefully makers of extensions will start to figure it out now.

buzzyapyear

Well this is a fun new toy, and I like it, but this huge menu that comes down from the address bar? Its fancy ability to learn what I'm going to do? It sickens me; where's the off switch?

@rob_belics: I have to agree with you. Every once in a while when I was doing too much I've seen FF2 go as high as half a gig, but only with a good few dozen pages open.
As is, this instance of FF3b5 is already listed in task manager as having a peak of 133MB, and it's running at 79MB now as opposed to FF2's 90-ish for opening the same page. Yes, that's smaller, but only by about 13%, and considering it turned off about half of my addons...

The Amazing Ant

I used beta 4 and it crashed about every 2 hours. And this seems like a lot of work just to get a browser running to save some ram. My FF2 runs fine.

radink360

I have been using it for a month or so now and just updated to the newest revision. Everything for me is GREAT except I can't use sparky!

Like mysticgeek said above I am going to try the "make your extensions work" tonight. ..Fingers Crossed..

Warm geeky regards,

KLG

AskTheAdmin

I installed it over the weekend and found over half my extensions did not work. I will try the "make your extensions work ... " method this week ... hopefully I won't experience too many crashes. If I do ... I would like to narrow it down to which extension may be messing it up.

Out of the box ... with no extensions enabled ... I have had no issues so far on Vista SP1

mysticgeek.htg

I've used a few of the earlier betas and switched back, primarily because I'm so dependent on thhe Del.icio.us Bookmarks extension. But I'm curious about something: Does Gmail's chat feature properly display chat windows in Beta 5? It didn't in any of the previous versions I tested.

mrshl

I'm also using the Tab Mix Plus dev version mentioned by andrewheiss, seems to work pretty well in 3b5.

The How-To Geek

@Gina Trapani:

thanks, i will give it a try when the unbuntu experiment resumes

godwhacker

@jw0ollard: Thanks! I guess firebug doesn't auto-detect their beta update but 1.1b is working great. Smell ya later FF2.

buzzyapyear

..perhaps I have have to do the renaming thing...lol

da5id_nz

I tried running the portable from the flash key and swapping over all my bookmarks and extensions the first time the beta came out about a month ago. It seemed to work OK at first, but I made the mistake if pressing 'Restart Firefox' on the Add Extension dialog page thing and I ended up with some strange amalgam of both browsers - not sure how. I think I'll play it safe for now and wait.

da5id_nz

@Buzzy

Firebug works just fine. Download the 1.1beta from the developer site. Its link is somewhere above you in the comments. I've had no issues thus far.

jw0ollard

@The Amazing Ant: There's an addon called OldBar that I use, because I feel the same way. Let me see if I can find it. Yep: [addons.mozilla.org]

ParaXnoia

FF 3 B5 it great but whatever you do DO NOT INSTALL DownThemAll yet - it will cause your D/L prompt (where to save / open file) to be sized oddly and is proven to cause web pages to lag indefinably while loading

Darkmatter91

I switched from FF2 to FF3 this past week when I made the switch from Windows to Mac as I got a Macbook thursday. I figured it would just be best to go for FF3 anyways as I had to start over my setup and the transition went very well. I'm impressed with the new features and I'll be using it from here on out.

bRADynelson

I've been having a really hard time using flash video, such as YouTube. My mouse pointer does not allow me to click on the buttons unless I right click somewhere else, and then the buttons work for about a second. Not very enjoyable.

Brendan Ross

Whats wrong with me?

I have been using FF for years and never had a crash or any of the issues stated here.... And I run an ancient Vaio for my business and image editing.... Check out my lowly Vaio stats.

BTW. The FF 3Beta will not let you load most add-ons, though ForcaseFox cast will work.

Vaio PCG-R505 jl/c
XP-H all updates
FF Portable
700 mhz Pent III
384 ram. Maxed out!

Nylo

Never mind; apparently the theme I use automatically updated itself to the FF3 version, which didn't uninstall when I removed FF3. Just had to download the older version and things are good again.

EstherM

I decided to try beta 5 because I do have a problem with FF2 hijacking memory and crashing frequently. I did a normal install (not the portable), but into a different directory than my FF2 install. It seemed to be OK, but I too use Yahoo Mail and it refuses to accept the beta as one of its accepted browsers for the newer interface, and I just can't face 2 months of the old interface. So I removed it (using Add/Remove Programs) and opened FF2 - it's completely screwed. My extensions all work, and my prefs are fine, but the location bar is about 2" tall, and there's a funky green arrow pointing down at the far left of my first opened tab. Any ideas how to get my location bar back to normal? I've tried opening in safe mode and using the Restore Toolbars, but that didn't do it.

EstherM

@tf5_bassist: About Yahoo Mail: Beta 4 crashed on me about every 30 minutes when Yahoo Mail was up. However, Beta 5 has been very stable for me. Running Yahoo Mail continually for more than 3 days and never crashed. Give it another try.

--Bill

bigbill25

I recently moved over to Firefox 3 Beta 5 COMPLETELY, I was sick and tired of Firefox 2 I just couldn't take it anymore. I uninstalled FF2 (Even though I was planning on waiting for the stable FF3 release) and installed FF3b5. Other than some extensions which didn't work (I'm going to try the 'workaround' right now), overall I'm really satisfied with FF3. The only problem I have is that every once in a while for no apparent reason it will crash, but it's less often than FF2 and it's with more reason, being a beta and all. FF2's memory leaks were reaching into the Gig sometimes (~800mb with very few tabs), and would give me very random irritations and glitches. I'm really starting to miss my extensions though and hope that the nightly tester extension works. I really like what we can do with the custom search engines now though (Applying keywords through the interface). The bookmarks system overall is a lot nicer and quicker. I'm still trying to get used to the new way of selecting text though.

Blaenk Denum

OK then, the first thing that I noticed when I opened Firefox 3 Beta 5 was the new, sleek interface. I like it, I like it a lot. As far as I can see, there hasn't been much speed difference in opening web pages. I was easily able to load my .pcv file backups of my bookmarks, history, etc. using MozBackup. One thing I hate though, is the overly large and unneccicary URL suggestion box, I much preferred the one from FireFox 2, as it was small and did not get in the way. I also prefered it when a pop up box would appear on the screen asking me if I want FireFox to remember my passwords, as I was confused at first when I didn't see it onscreen before I found it at the top of the page.

Overall, another great production from the Mozilla team, although some of the new additions are a bit impractical.

Sendaii

@SEARCH ENGINES: In Beta 5, they've tweaked it a bit, with a smaller lineheight. Still some room for improvement, though.

dedalusjmmr

yea i've have Firefox 3 B5 for a bout a week or so. It's great. Startup is pretty okay, rarely any crashing, and super fast. The gui is visually pleasing yet subtle like always. The best thing is that its no harddrive whore. Firefox 3 usually runs around 30,000 - 60,000k in the memory department (according to task manager.)

CGrant

@Sendaii: I was also confused at first with the new dialog for keeping passwords, but there is an advantage: if you misspell the password, you can keep trying and say FF to «remember» ONLY after you got the right one. In FF2 you had to reply without knowing if you typed it right.

Changing the subject: I have lost Weave between Beta2 and Beta3. What happened???

dedalusjmmr

@andrewheiss:

Thanks so much. I heart Tab Mix Plus!

So far I've gotten all 22 extensions to work except Sirius player and Google Notebook. Notebook works except for the "Note This" button.

Not sure I like the new URL bar, but I like the speed!

Uma

@ParaXnoia: Now I can truly move to FF3! :D
Thanks

The Amazing Ant

What I did was set up the WINE environment on my linux pc and installed the WINDOWS version of FF3. That way, i run the native linux FF2 and also run the WINE'd FF3

Devezu

YEAH... I betaed FireFox 2, but I'l wait for the release of FireFox 3. I want to be fucking surprised.

Sailorcancer

I can't get my bookmarks from FF2 imported! I've tried the method described here, but that didn't work, and have moved my bookmarks.html file to different FF3 directories (I'm not using the portable one)

Also, I used the Nightly Tester Tool and when I made all compatible, Firefox crashes on startup.

CurlyCarlos1234

Is it just me ?

When I run the portable beta under Windows, the task manager shows both firefox.exe & FirefoxPortable.exe as running.

Is this normal ?

Hardly the reduction in memory footprint I was expecting !

direwolf

I understand FF 3 Beta 5 is (practically) fully functional. I've hesitated up to now because of extension issues (I have 70 of them I all need/love). One one hand more and more extensions are being updated (some new ones even require FF3 only!), one another hand this article is tempting me to try to impose non updated add-ons as within the techniques described. That's one thing.

Another thing is this point : if FF3 Beta5 is the last beta on the row, why is the final release expected only for June? I am wondering if the final release is not itself waiting for XP SP3, due within the next month or so. Is this a possibility in your opinion or am I on a wrong path?

DonDiego

If I'm understanding the new dev correctly, Firefox 3 has a different organization and storage of bookmarks. Does anyone know if it would be possible (preferably easy too) to modify Launchy so that it would recognize new or updated bookmarks? Currently, it just sees the old bookmarks from FF2.

block_bhs

So far so good for me. I can't wait until the ifox theme gets on board with FF3.

withe011

I've been using ff3 for the past two days and I feel like a heavy burden has been lifted off of me. 2 was becoming "glicher" by the day, I started losing my connection frequently and having to resort to restarting my computer. I like this little thing where you can just pull a picture off a page and into your folder that's convenient a downloads are faster too. Its not as pretty or there aren't really any themes or extensions, but for right now its worth it, really.

crypticbluerose

I tried the Nightly Testers Tool to get my old extensions working in FF3. After the reboot, however, my back/forward page buttons were completely missing from the GUI, and the command didn't work either. If NTT is to blame, idk, but I would be wary. A quick reinstallation fixed my problem. Good thing my firefox 2 folder still existed so my bookmarks, etc, could transfer again. When I need to use an extension, I'll just open up FF2. I'll be using FF3 in the meantime. The speed difference is incredible.

kilroy2

I was experimenting today on how to get extensions not previously installed in ff2 to work in 3.0b5. I edited the file C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5\extensions\{972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}\install.rdf I changed the line reading: [em:maxVersion] 3.0b5[/em:maxVersion] to [em:maxVersion]2.0.0.13[/em:maxVersion] (those square brackets are regular brackets in the file)
Then i went into about:config and changed the value extensions.checkCompatibility to false. Once this was done, I went into the dreaded IE & navigated to addons.mozilla.org and downloaded the extension files to my desktop. Once you have downloaded the file and done these 2 things, you just drag the extension file onto an open firefox window and install. This has worked for many extensions of mine. Hope it helps

blakeHymer

Has anyone actually figured out a plugin with right click image uploading? I tried the Imageshack one but it's so outdated it won't go even with Nightly Tester Tools.

slowmotiony

Thanks a lot! I've been trying out firefox 3, but I never stuck with it because I didn't have my plugins. Nightly Tester Tools worked perfectly, except for tabmixplus. That can easily be fixed by this update: [tmp.garyr.net]

Mersine

this is lightning! SOOO glad I finally did it.

Norcross

Been using Firefox 3 since Beta 2 and its been freaking sweet since. But however, when you make the extensions work with Firefox 3, sometimes during your browsing it just crashes.

Randomly, so I just uninstalled all extensions until the official release of Firefox 3. Firefox 2 is alright, but I certainly love everything 3 offers. My most favorite features, which most has come to love is the address bar, when you search it gives you results and things. I find this really helpful, and I'm glad Mozilla done this.

Overall, love the experience for Firefox 3

ma5t3rw1tt

Even after following the directions about getting my extensions to work in FF3, I had to disable about 2/3 of them to keep it from crashing. Now-- my opinion is:

Lean, clean, & fast with no extensions-- WAIT it's SAFARI now!

farmerfresh

@lionelbob: Not everyone seems to suffer from the memory leak. I didn't for the longest time (from 2's release until the past two months), and then seemingly randomly it started - and would use up to 500mb-1.5gb in as little as 15 minutes of browsing. It was crazy, and after multiple searches and going-through of help documents, found nothing that helped.

3 is much better so far.

katra

Firefox 2.0.0.13 uses only 64M viewed in Windows XP task manager. I don't use any customizations, pretty much vanilla. Where does this "Gig of memory" thing come from?

lionelbob

I think I'll wait. All of the extension hassle and possible crashes doesn't quite seem worth a slightly smaller footprint.

And when I tried out the last beta, it still used quite a bit of RAM even without extensions installed.

Like I said, I'll just wait. I'm not expecting much out of FF3. I imagine that by the time I get my extensions all up an running the footprint will be about the same as FF2.

gpzbc

I really don't see that big of a speed improvement but I have tweaked my firefox 2 to the extreme. And as for memory problems I have really never had problems with it. I really do like the way it loads the page and then lets you chose if you want to save password or not. The only problem I have had with this is the address bars autocomplete when Its disabled it works just fine. sooner or later we will all be switching and by then there will be more extensions working with it and more ways to make it faster just like when firefox 2 came out so I am looking forward to the final release.

wannamac

Am I the only human being that does not see Firefox crashing every day?
I use FF2 as my default browser, and I use it heavily. But I have no complain about crashes (slowdowns while opening pages, yes, but crashes never).
Crazy program indeed :)

Dan

The yahoo mail crashes are irritating, and so was the lack of AdBlockPlus. Thanks to this post, AdBlock is back. So I can deal with yahoo.

Thanks LifeHacker!

smackswell

Something that should probably be said:
Install the Nightly Tester Tool first in FF2 so if you have extensions that crash your FF3 cause of incompatibility, you can figure out which one it is.

@Dan: The slowdowns really kill me in FF2. Im looking forward to them being fixed in FF3.

Lazarus

I have turned completly to FF3 since beta 4 with no regret.

But I found that right-clicking is somehow unresponsive (got some delay before the right-click menu appear).

Am I the only one to encounter that problem ?

Flocon

I'd love to use it, but Google Browser Sync does not work with FF3, and I just need it.

Or is there some other extensions sharing bookmarks, passwords and cookies ?

GuillaumeJay

This beta is a joke right? I tried to install it on Vista using a non-administrator account. Normally, all softwares (including current version of FF) that I install using non-administrator account will ask for the administrator password. FF beta did not and then it failed to install complaining that it could not write to c:\program files\....

arungupta

I have been using FF3 since the second Beta too..although I avoided the config mod not because of it but because my most important extension (foxmarks) is not FF3 ready in itself....still having issues with the new smart bookmarks unfortunately

All in all...I LOVE this new FF edition!

navigator99

I wanted to be in love with FF3, but right now a couple of the plugins I feel attatched to (aka, don't want to use another program to do the same thing [sage and evernote being two]) aren't working and that just ruined it for me.

Not quite ready to do the config thing, wacky behavior is not welcomed this week, haha, as I am sort of full up on 'surprises' right now.

Still, sounds and looks like FF3 is going in the right direction.

zianeu

I don't detect much of an improvement in speed over FF2.

Does anyone actually see a visual improvement in terms of buttons, menus and UI over FF2? It looks far, far worse to me. Can't stand the new back and forward buttons in particular.

Also, bookmarks are disappointing. Why does Ctrl+D result in a tiny, un-resizeable box?

That said, thanks for the guide.

Ansel

It's lovely...however, forcing old extensions to work? Not a good idea.

PillowFight

@SEARCH ENGINES: I have posted a userChrome.css fix for your issue (and a bunch more Firefox 3 only tweaks) here: [eriwen.com]

emwendelin

is there anyway to revert the effects of the Nightly Tester Tools? I just downloaded ff3 portable and copied over my profile, then used nightly tester tools to "make compatible" all of my extensions.

Upon restart of ff3, I can't get in, instead, I get stopped at a crash dialog right after the ff3 portable splash screen.

Is there any other way to undo the work of Nightly Tools besides wiping out my profile for ff3 and recopying it? Like a safe-mode? Thanks!

bandgeekndb

Overall I gotta say I'm impressed with FF3. The memory cleanup is a huge improvement, only thing is it doesn't support Google Browser Sync, so that's a little annoying.

Eschguy88

Thanks so much for mentioning Nightly Tester Tools. Adblock and Greasemonkey are working again! Adblock's icon, however, is quite messed up, but oh well. Other extentions don't seem to work, but at least I got two of the most useful ones back! Thanks!

mig_coconut

I've been using F3b and have only noticed 2 vaguely annoying problems that I don't know how to fix.
1)The forward and back arrows disappear from my taskbar every time I restart! Two clicks to put them back but it's a tad irritating.
2) Some graphics (usually adverts, though not always) appear as big red boxes. Only happens for about 10% of graphics and I think 80% of those are ads, but again a tad irritating.

Anybody have any idea?

kala_way

Made the switch to beta 5 yesterday on my main laptop at home...am using the about:config mod to enable a few of my "older" extensions. AdBloc seems to be hit and miss...but fire gestures, smart bookmark, retailmenot extensions are working fine so far.
The nightly tester extension I installed on my workstation crashed my beta 5. I am not able to restart it. Can someone tell me how I might be able to go in and repair the "damage"?

amw1972

@GuillaumeJay: That's exactly why i haven't switched. I love Google Browser Sync's ability to synchroize bookmarks, history and tabs across multiple browsers.

weizilla

Crashing with Google Toolbar 3.0.20070525W. Otherwise, working fast and great!

docpanda

yeah, this crashed about 20 times within my first 15 minutes trying it, so I'm back to FF2 for the time being.
i know my entire problem is with add-ons, so once I see a stable release with addon support, I'll be more than willing to support it.

TheWoj

I don't know about this, but I installed Zone Alarm and Firefox 3 beta 4 on my computer around the same time, and one of them totally screwed it up. I'm pretty sure it was Zone Alarm, but you can never be sure.

gamer4250

Does anyone know how to get download manager tweak to work in 5b, or another extension that allows the download manager to be put in a tab. Currently its installed but it gives me these errors.

chrome://downloadmgr/content/downloadtab.xul
XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: chrome://downloadmgr/content/downloadtab.xul
Line Number 52, Column 5:
----^

and i have no clue as to what that means.

Chaoticevl

I'm totally digging the latest beta. I always run a portable version (too many computers to worry about keeping profiles synchronized) so this was seamless - thanks for the great tips on enabling extensions.

wu-wei

i installed the nightly tester, and it made my whole 3 beta 5, it won't even come back up anymore, it crashes before it even comes up...so I can no longer use FF3...thanks alot Lifehacker

notyavgkat

@Dan: I use FF2 nearly all day, every day, and do not see the crazy crash problems that lots of people seem to have. All I do is, when the memory footprint gets too big, I restart the browser. I'm not doing anything that important most of the time anyway, and once it gets bloated it slows everything down anyway.

I think I'm going to go cold turkey and switch over to FF3b5... right after lunch. :o)

mochamatt

I too have been using the BETA version of FF3 for a while and, aside from a couple of add-ons that have yet to update - Greasemonkey in particular is the most notable absence - it has been an absolute breeze. That said, the GooglePreview has been crashing almost every time I use it. (normally after having searched on Google already, and typing in the search box.)

To carry on what was mentioned earlier, the "amazing bar" is truly an innovation Mozilla should be most proud of. For sites that I regularly visit, I just hit Ctrl+T then start typing the url and pick the one I want from the list. Truly awesome. :)

vegbruiser

I've never had any big problems with FF2, but I decided to download and test out FF3, beta release 5. I deleted FF2 after spending about 10 minutes with the latest release.

My only complaints are the URL Suggestions. They are too over-sized and bulky.

FF3 is amazingly faster and even the beta release kicks the hell out of IE.

antmilla

I like FF3, but I have had regular crashes with it when using Gmail--every time I click on a link in a message, FF3 crashes. I disabled Better Gmail (sorry, Gina), and no crashes for a while. I noticed when I checked the Better Gmail page that it says it's tested through Beta 4--perhaps that's the problem?

Dan Butcher

The main issue I've run into with Firefox 3 (beta 5) is actually the add-ons site. It refuses to give me links to add-ons that are for "older" add-ons.
My quick work around?
Install the User Agent add-on and pretend you're IE 7.
Whatever works, right?

amandakerik

Portable FF3--Love it!
It is much faster than FF2 for me.

Othniel

I just switched to FF3 beta 5: when I tried to enable all extensions as you suggested everything crashed. I had to disable all extensions.

enricoalberto

@Webran61: I had the same issue with this current beta. I basically had to create a new profile and start over (which wasn't so bad I guess since I could still access my old one in FFx2). However, I would never recommend people use nightly tester tools now. Beta 5 worked fine until I made all my extension compatible. I could never figure out what specific extension was breaking it either.

Lifehacker: You might want to put a disclaimer next time.

Ninjeff

Anyone have a workaround for the new version checker at Firefox addons? You can't even download the xpi if you're running a beta.

davebarboza

I'd use it but none of the Google extensions I use have been updated for 3 yet. I can't live without my Google toolbar nor my browser sync. I have to have the sync as I switch back and forth between three computers several times per day. That extension is God's gift to me. ;)

magnoliasouth

amw1972

For those who think FF2 doesn't have memory problems, go browse DeviantArt.com for 10 minutes and see what happens...

jluce50