Firefox 3

[red-e-made]

The features certainly make it look attractive. Have any brave souls in these parts taken the plunge yet? If so, what did you think?

[rps63ifid]

I've been using it as my primary browser since early summer without major problems on at least a couple of my systems. At this point, I am using Beta 2 on all my boxes regardless of OS (and I have it on WinXP, Linux, and Mac OS X). I will admit that I typically go light on the use of plugins (at this point only using Firebug) and themes in FF on all my platforms (always have and probably always will, just so that I don't get pinned back from upgrading).

I only have two complaints at this point. The first -- and this is pretty minor, in the grand scheme of things -- is that Beta 2, with its chameleon-like ability to take on the appearance of the underlying system, seems to look better on Fedora 8 than on Mint. I haven't paid that much attention to the details of what exactly FF3 relies on for that ability in Linux, but it seems like Fedora's stock icon set and or widget set have more of what FF3 is looking for than Mint's. Obvious example would be the folder icons on the Bookmarks toolbar: in Mint, they look like the old stock GTK grey folders, while on Fedora they are the same blue folders you see everywhere throughout the theme. Perhaps that is something the visual designers from the Mint house could look at enhancing? I have included a screenshot showing this from Mint; let me know if you want a similar shot from Fedora 8.

The second is much more significant: for whatever reason, FF3 on Mint seems to have a problem with PNGs with transparency. More often than not they simply aren't visible; sometimes, if it isn't full transparency, you can see a "ghost" image. Looking at Ars Technica's page header in FF3 on Mint, it comes through as a washed out pink; on all my other platforms, it comes through as a rich red. Most of the time, though, the PNGs just vanish -- sometimes, I can right click on them and view just the image on a new tab or save it to view it outside FF, but that's a real pain.

Performance and stability for me, though, have been great. Some of my co-workers have held back from upgrading just based on their reliance on different plugins not yet available for the FF3 framework and the absence of their favorite themes.

--
/ron

[rps63ifid]

I just installed it today, its remarkably solid. it looks a lot more "gnomey"

just a quick How To for those who are wondering and reading this

-go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

-download the tarball and extract it somewhere that you will remember (desktop)

-open the file named Firefox

-when it prompts you, click Run


its as easy as that, enjoy....and again its extremely stable, I have yet to find a bug

To get all of the stock plugins to work -- and most seem to -- also do the following after extracting the tarball:

1. 'cd' into the 'plugins' folder beneath whatever folder you extracted it into (I always use /opt/firefox on my boxes):

Code: Select all

cd /opt/firefox/plugins

2. Set up symbolic links to the entries in the stock installations plugins:

Code: Select all

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* ./

[merlwiz79]

Which plugins?
It's just a matter of changing the max version number.
Link to them and I could change it.

[exploder]

I tried Firefox 3 a few days ago. The appearance the browser has in Mint is pretty bad. I agree with rps63ifid's findings, it does use a lot of stock gnome icons. I only have one plugin installed which is Adblock Plus and there was no compatibility problems with it. Speed and memory use was almost identical to 2.0.0.10 for me. Firefox 3 might be a few milliseconds faster.

For the moment 2.0.0.10 is the better choice for me. The appearance is better and Firefox 3 did not have any advantages over the current supported version on my system.

[red-e-made]

(never mind, see below)

[red-e-made]

That is not working for me, when i run firefox.sh, it opens the 2.0.0.6 Firefox for me.

what am i doing wrong ?

You click on the file "firefox", not "firefox.sh", and choose "Run" when prompted.

I'm using Firefox 3 right now, and have made it my default browser. Two issues that bugged me about it - appearance and the lack of extensions - have been overcome.

In terms of appearance, FF3 mimics the appearance theme you choose for your windows (System>Preferences>Appearance>Theme). As I've already customized a theme that I like, the appearance of the browser is no problem for me.

One thing that was a big minus, though, were the lack of extensions compatible with FF3. To fix this, I did the following:

1. First, after you download the tarball, extract the folder inside of it, rename it something (I chose "firefox3") and put it in your Home directory.

2. Open about:config, right-click, and add two new booleans: extensions.checkCompatibility (with a value of false) and extensions.checkUpdateSecurity (I originally gave this a value of false - I've since switched the value back to true, and have added new extensions without a problem, so I'm not sure how necessary this is).

3. Go into the .mozilla folder in your Home directory and copy the Firefox extensions in the extensions folder, then paste them into the extensions folder of your Firefox 3 directory.

Bam - they work.

One thing, though - whatever your previous Firefox theme was will probably look awful in Firefox 3 - uninstall it and choose default.

Also, bear in mind that your results may vary depending on what extensions you were using.

[red-e-made]

To get all of the stock plugins to work -- and most seem to -- also do the following after extracting the tarball:

1. 'cd' into the 'plugins' folder beneath whatever folder you extracted it into (I always use /opt/firefox on my boxes):

Code: Select all

cd /opt/firefox/plugins

2. Set up symbolic links to the entries in the stock installations plugins:

Code: Select all

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* ./

Or, you could just go to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins, Ctrl + A, copy, then paste them into the plugins folder of the Firefox 3 directory.

[red-e-made]

Simply, i love it. I was thinking about switching to other browsers, but Firefox 3 is AMAZING and it's really keeping me on Firefox. The new Gecko that has blazing fast rendering and native widgets is great, The new AwesomeBar (address bar) is very nice and very useful once you get used to it, Places is just perfect and pretty much exactly what i would've liked to see and the new themes are damn sexy. The only downside is that very few extensions work with Firefox 3 currently and they enabled the secure updates for extensions which is gonna make life a wee bit more hectic, but i only use 1 or 2 so...meh.

Now, here's my suggestion for all you having issues with the manual Firefox install procedure...Simply:

Use Swiftfox. It gives you debs of Firefox 3 Beta 3pre, it's a bit optimized for your CPU, and it syncs up with your profile, extensions, bookmarks, history, etc.

http://www.getswiftfox.com ...He updates it about every week or 2 so it's quite more up-to-date than Beta2

Sounds intriguing. I've checked it out and am just wondering - where are these extensions and themes you mentioned?

[red-e-made]

The only downside is that very few extensions work with Firefox 3 currently and they enabled the secure updates for extensions which is gonna make life a wee bit more hectic, but i only use 1 or 2 so...meh.

Actually, I just counted and I have 13 different extensions running on Firefox 3, all of them working fine. You just have to add the checkCompatibility boolean in about:config that I mentioned earlier in this thread.

[red-e-made]

I mentioned nothing 3rd party...The themes are the new built-in Windows and Mac themes and Firefox3 fitting with your GTK theme on Linux....As for the other stuff i mentioned:
Gecko = The rendering engine Firefox uses that will be version 1.9 with Firefox3, and it offers native widgets on webpages.
Places = The new bookmarks/history/download history storage system in Firefox 3 (both the backend and frontend now).
Awesomebar = The new Address Bar that has 2 lines, that can find what you type anywhere in the URL or the page title.

Ah, OK, gotcha.

Yeah, my window theme combines Daryna and Clearlooks, giving my FF3 theme a clean, simple look to it. The extensions are working fine, too.