Firefox 3.0 Beta 1

By +Frank B.
in Back Page News

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Grand Master

The Teej

Posted
Posted

When I went to install the UK version, it all came up in Russian... so I promptly downloaded the US version :p Not too much of a difference that I can see... this is all the ideas they could come up with in the alpha? I hope they break the mold and come up with new ideas in the beta, because this is more of a Firefox 2.1 then a 3.0.

Grand Master

neostyle

Posted
Posted
I hope they break the mold and come up with new ideas in the beta, because this is more of a Firefox 2.1 then a 3.0.

thought the same , but after reading the release notes i realized the amount of new features .

btw : this build is the fastest browser i have ever used

rln

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0b1/releasenotes/

Grand Master

shakey_snake

Posted
Posted (edited)
Not too much of a difference that I can see... this is all the ideas they could come up with in the alpha? I hope they break the mold and come up with new ideas in the beta, because this is more of a Firefox 2.1 then a 3.0.
Well, one difference between a beta and an alpha is that a beta is:
Features are fully implemented, if not finalized
So yeah, what you are seeing is "all the ideas they could come up with".

However, the rendering engine has been greatly optimized, and there are a lot of new UI features and enhancements, so I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for. :wacko:

Edited by shakey_snake
Experienced

bigmehdi

Posted
Posted

I've disabled the compatibility check as advised and many of my extension remain incompatible.

I didn't test them all, but I just gave up after testing a few.

My theme "alternative fusion" ---> glitches on tab

tab preview ---> doesn't work

tab mix plus ---> doesn't work

viamatic foxpose ---> doesn't work

searchWP ---> not fully compatible, some "functions" doesn't work

stumbleupon works, which is at least nice.

Firefox 3b1 load page really fast which is nice, but still many incompatibilities with my extensions remain.

Also I don't know how firefox 3b1 could be considered "as secure",

so better not send critical data with it.

Proficient

mlauzon76

Posted
Posted (edited)

I noticed that the Beta 1 for Firefox 3.0 was made available sometime yesterday. I?ve been curious as to whether the Firefox dev team would do a serious revamp for this release or just concentrate on bug fixes and performance improvements. Early indications seem to suggest that it is indeed a major revamp of both the core and the UI, and that Firefox will be a much better browser for it.Check out the Firefox 3.0 beta 1 gallery.b>

176748.jpg

I?m not a big Firefox user because I find the memory management to be very poor most of the time and the spiraling memory consumption affects both Firefox?s performance and the overall performance of my systems. I like Firefox but Firefox just doesn?t like me, so, while I have it installed on most systems, I mostly use Internet Explorer 7 and Opera for day to day browsing. Every time I say this I?m faced by a chorus of users telling me that there?s no problem with the way that Firefox handles memory, but this isn?t what I?m seeing. When a browser starts to edge near to consuming 500MB of RAM on a regular basis, something is wrong. Sure, I hammer the browser and have dozens of pages open at a time, but since both IE and Opera can handle this load, I expect Firefox to do so too. So far, it can?t, and because of that the icon doesn?t get clicked on that often.

Over the past few years I?ve felt that Firefox has lost its way and moved too far away from its roots. Firefox used to be about security and performance, but lately I?ve felt that add-ons and junking up the interface with eye-candy has taken priority over security and core stability.

176760.jpg

Is Firefox 3.0 going to be better? Given what I?m seeing so far, I think so. Why? Because it looks like Mozilla have gone back to basics and worked on what really matters to users - security, speed and ease of use.

Everything about Firefox 3.0 beta 1 is fast. The download package is small which means that it comes in fast, the installation is fast, the browser fires up fast, pages and tabs open fast, the browser shuts down fast, and the uninstall process is fast and painless (I always like to test the uninstall process on applications because there?s nothing worse than having a bad house guest on your system that you can?t get rid of). This is all good stuff.

Without a doubt the Firefox 3.0 UI has been dramatically improved. Compare version 3 to version 2 and you instantly see the difference. Everything is brighter, clearer, and easier to access. Things that should be simple, such as bookmarking, saving passwords, and finding words and phrases in the text of a web page are now simple. Page zooming is brilliant, as is the feature that resumes interrupted downloads.

176771.jpg

Security is also greatly improved. Only time will tell if the core of Firefox 3.0 will be any more secure than previous versions, but without a doubt version 3 makes it harder for hackers to get a foothold into systems. Not only have the SSL error pages been redesigned, but there?s also malware and web forgery protection available. Add-on and plugin security has also been beefed up considerably. To top that off, Firefox integrates with your anti-virus app and with the Parental Controls feature in Windows Vista.

176766.jpg

Firefox 3.0 is so far looking good!

If you?re interested in taking Firefox 3.0 beta 1 for a spin, be sure to read the disclaimer:

Please note: We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only.

I didn?t have any problems but yCheck out the Firefox 3.0 beta 1 gallery.irThoughts?gallery[/url].

Thoughts?

Source: ZDNet

Edited by mlauzon76
Proficient

mlauzon76

Posted
Posted
what do you mean a revamped ui? I can't really see the difference except a new bookmark icon(the star) and the webpage icons to be changed to be standalone rather than integrated in the address bar..am i missing something?

Why don't you go to the web site where the article is, and leave the above question for the author -- which is not me! -- of the article?

Proficient

nonick

Posted
Posted
Why don't you go to the web site where the article is, and leave the above question for the author -- which is not me! -- of the article?

heh why are you so over protective? Did that hurt you that much? I didn't even notice the link in the end.

Anyway firefox 3 does look nice(and I'm using it right now) but with 5 tabs open it is using 75MB of ram, and the UI hasn't been changed that much.

edit: It looks like he is talking about vista and how the new firefox supports it properly, aka glass and others. I'm sticking to windows XP for now so I didn't see the difference..

Proficient

mlauzon76

Posted
Posted
heh why are you so over protective? Did that hurt you that much? I didn't even notice the link in the end.

Well, lately everyone has been asking me about why I wrote this, and why I wrote that...when clearly at the bottom I list the source's link; yet everyone still thinks I had something to do with the article because no one wants to go to the source!

Proficient

mlauzon76

Posted
Posted

A few months later than had been planned, Mozilla released on Monday night the first beta version of an overhauled Firefox, the widely used open-source Web browser.

firefox_3b1_about_270x398.png

Firefox 3 beta 1 includes a number of significant features that Mozilla said should improve security, ease of use, rendering of Web pages, and location of previously visited Web pages. And for the new era of rich Internet applications, the browser can run Web-based applications even when the computer is disconnected from a network.

The software is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux at Mozilla's download site in 20 different languages.

Although Microsoft's Internet Explorer remains the dominant Web browser, the open-source rival has achieved a critical mass of users--Firefox has been downloaded more than 400 million times--and it's now common for designers to make sure their Web pages work with the browser. Even Microsoft has bowed to the reality, testing its Live.com Web sites with Firefox and helping with technical issues such as playing Windows Media files from Web pages.

According to the release notes, the core Gecko rendering engine--the component that interprets Web page instructions and draws text and graphics on your screen--has seen major changes in the upgrade to the new version 1.9 used in Firefox 3.

"Gecko 1.9 includes some major re-architecting for performance, stability, correctness, and code simplification and sustainability," the notes said. Those changes "put foundations in place for major performance tuning which have resulted in speed increases in beta 1, and will show further gains in future beta releases."

The Firefox 3 beta had been due to arrive in July, and there's no word yet on when the software will come out of beta. "The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users," the release notes said--a polite way of saying it'll be ready when it's ready.

A quick test

A quick test of the new browser revealed that various important sites including eBay, Gmail, Amazon.com, and Icanhascheezburger appeared to work fine.

However, I got error messages at two, both with snazzier Web 2.0 user interfaces. Yahoo Mail threw errors and choked, and Adobe Systems' Buzzword online word processor told me the browser wasn't supported. On the other hand, others rich sites were happy, including Picnik and Flickr's Organizr.

firefox_3b1_error_msg_270x79.png

Even in just a few minutes of use, I found the location bar's automatic search handy. It popped up lists of previously visited URLs and page titles that contained the words I typed into the location bar, trimming a couple steps out of a few searches.

firefox_3b1_locationbar_400x33.png

One of Firefox's chief merits is the large collection of extensions that can be downloaded to bring new abilities to the browser. Alas, all four of the ones I use--Fotofox, FireFTP, Delicious Bookmarks, and Foxmarks--don't yet work with the new beta. That's no surprise--the release notes warn such breakage is likely.

Another feature I've been eagerly awaiting is the support for color profiles, which lets people see photos correctly even when they're encoded with color systems besides the long-in-the-tooth sRGB standard. It's not enabled by default, but I switched it on and was delighted to see the test images in a CNET News.com story displayed correctly.

New features

Besides Gecko 1.9, there are a number of areas of change for Firefox 3. Among them:

  • Security. New features include the ability to integrate antivirus software with downloads; one-click Web site identity verification; automatic testing to make sure plug-ins aren't older versions found to be insecure and automatic disabling if they are; and support for Windows Vista parental controls.
  • Ease of use. Touted improvements include downloading that can be resumed after the browser has been restarted or network connection reset; users can zoom and out of Web pages in their entirety, including layout, text, and graphics; plug-ins can be managed centrally with the Add-On Manager; and mailto links can now launch Web-based e-mail applications such as Gmail, not just local applications on the PC such as Outlook.
  • Personalization. Web pages can be bookmarked with one click and tagged with a double-click (though the interface looked rough to me); the aforementioned feature provides a list of possible matching Web pages based on what you type in the location bar; and a new Smart Places folder provides access to pages that are frequently visited or that have been recently bookmarked and tagged.

firefox_3b1_navigation_400x172.png

Source: News.com

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