schlitt.info - php, photography and private stuff ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ :Author: Tobias Schlitt :Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:29:46 +0100 :Revision: 1 :Copyright: CC by-nc-sa ================= Firefox 3 out now ================= :Description: Last night the Mozilla developers released Firefox 3.0 to the wild. Congratulations for the new major version! Last night the Mozilla developers released `Firefox 3.0`__ to the wild. Congratulations for the new major version! .. __: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/ |image_1| .. |image_1| image:: http://sfx-images.mozilla.org/affiliates/Buttons/firefox3/468x60.png :target: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/ I've been using the RCs since some weeks to see what the new version can. My impressions are a bit mixed. On the one hand, I love the new rendering, which seems much faster and smooth. The new bookmark management is quite cool and after some fiddling I also got my foreward/backward button back, which is 1 button instead of 2 now. Luckily, most of my favorid extensions already have adopted Firefox 3 and run smoothly. `Web developer toolbar`__, `Flashgot`__, `Adblock plus`__, `Flashblock`__, `Google preview`__, `Download Statusbar`__, `Greasemonkey`__ and the `StumbleUpon`__ work nicely. `Firebug`__ ist still in beta state for 3.0, but also works fine so far. .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60 .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/220 .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865 .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433 .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/189 .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/26 .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/748 .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/138 .. __: http://getfirebug.com/releases/allReleases.html However, there are still some, which did not see new releases for ages and therefore do not seem to be even near to a Firefox 3 version. I needed to switch from `All-In-One-Gestures`__ to `Firegestures`__, which was fine, since I mostly use the "back" functionality which works the same in both. `Tab Mix Plus`__ does not work at all, but is essential for me. Started from the undo close tab history, which gives you a list of recently closed tabs instead of just restoring the last, over the duplicate tab function to the central close button, I'm missing a good part of my used Firefox functionality. .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/12 .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6366 .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122 I'm a bit sad, that I neither have the time nor the possibility to dig deeper into XUL stuff to fix the issues myself, which would be the open source way to do it. However, I still hope that someone else out there will have or that other people will come up with a different extension which brings the same nice features. So long, I can live quite good with Firefox 3 for now. It still hangs in certain conditions on my system, but that should be fixed in one of the next bug fix releases. I know very well, that X.0 versions are never absolutly stable. Amazing, how stable Firefox 3 already is! **In that sense, great work, Firefox hackers!** Everyone out there should download and try out Firefox 3.0 today, to help with building the desired `world record`__. There have already been more than 250,000 downloads from Germany, as I write this article. So, let's see where this leads. :) .. __: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/ **Update** (2008-06-18, 19:08): The `Search Status`__ extension works, seems I had disactivated it for some reason. .. __: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/321 **Update** (2008-06-23, 10:36): Thanks to a comment here, I got aware of a recent `dev build`__ of Tab Mix Plus. Luckily it seems to work quite fine, so my FF3 is near to be complete now. :) .. __: http://tmp.garyr.net/tab_mix_plus-dev-build.xpi .. Local Variables: mode: rst fill-column: 79 End: vim: et syn=rst tw=79 Trackbacks ========== Comments ======== - asdfs at Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:04:49 +0200 well, your tab plugin sounds like an exact copy of the opera tab behaviour. On my systems, opera is way faster and more stable than ff, too, so you might just wanna use opera... ;) - Toby at Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:07:35 +0200 Sorry, no chance, Opera is not open source. :) - Daniel Cousineau at Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:41:59 +0200 You can try using the Nightly Tester Tools to force an install of Tab Mix Plus. There's a chance it might work, but also a chance it might crash Firefox hardcore (if so you just uninstall...) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6543 - Toby at Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:02:36 +0200 Hi! Thanks for that hint! I'll try to install it and report my experiences here. However, I doubt it works since the tab handling optically changed in FF 3.0. Thanks a lot! Toby - Arne at Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:19:57 +0200 SearchStatus 1.25 working fine for me in FF3. - Toby at Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:05:06 +0200 Oops, I seem to have deactivated it for some reason. Thanks for the hint! - maex at Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:50:29 +0200 I'm using the lastest development Build of Tab Mix Plus. I works so far really good with firefox 3. Maybe you just give it a try! http://tmp.garyr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7031 (link in in the signature) http://tmp.garyr.net/tab_mix_plus-dev-build.xpi Otherwise the best feature of FF3 is for me the new location bar. In the beginning its a bit annoying but after two weeks usage i don't want to miss it anymore ... - Toby at Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:33:47 +0200 Fantastic! It works like a charm. :) Thanks a lot for the hint!