It will be better when all my favorite extensions and themes are updated to be compatible....

:)

I haven't gotten around to loading it on my Mac or Linux box yet but did load it onto my XP laptop.

It still does the two things (in Windows) that drive me nuts. If I fat finger a URL the entire application locks up while it tries to resolve it. So I have to wait for it to time out before I can say change something.con to something.com.

I realize that it's not Firefox's fault that I can make and drink a pot of coffee before Adobe can load its reader to display a pdf inside of Firefox. Once again does the entire app have to lock up while this happens, shouldn't I be able to happily surf away in another tab while I wait? Also given that there are several lightweight PDF readers out there these days couldn't Firefox just bundle one of those as a default and let you switch to Adobe if you really want to?

Did gchat in gmail crash when you downloaded Firefox 3 or Firefox 3 beta? I had problems before with FF2 and gchat, but it seemed to be linked to an add-on that I had...either adblock or the weather feature. I fixed that by uninstalling the add-ons, but this time around with FF3 that did not work. Any thoughts? My co-worker's gchat isn't working either, so we're both stumped.

The main reason I used Firefox (I use a Mac) was the AdBlock Plus extension. Now that it's available for Safari, I'm not really using Firefox so much, because I really like the web-clips-to-Dashboard feature (though that can get to be a huge resource hog if you're not careful).

There are still some things I like better in Firefox, like the fact that I don't end up with an open downloads window when I download anything. And the fact that when I "open [several pages at once] in tabs" in Firefox 3 it doesn't hijack the tabs I already have open.

Hey Rob, isn't all the anti-Microsoft posturing exhausting? You "fired" IE in 2004 and yet it's still kicking. Why can't you write a review of Firefox without bashing Microsoft and IE in the very first two paragraphs?

i am happy with firefox but just one thing, when i look at the rss feed on my bookmarks toolbar,for some reason it can't recognize quotations and insted gives me some 's instead of 's

I don't care for the new behavior of the location bar. I used to get to this website (for example) by hitting cntl-l, typing "was", hitting down-arrow to select the top of the list, and hitting enter. Now I get a page that I last hit months ago that happens to have the word "was" in it's title.

Wonder if the feature can be turned off.

Hey Norm,

There is an extension that solves your pdf woas... it's called pdf download and you can use the add-on search to find it...

On my monitor, when viewing a web page with FF3, the text is noticeably thinner, weaker, and harder to read, than it is with IE7.

I guess (?????) that this is because IE7 uses something called ClearType, and FF3 doesn't.

Mac user here. I use Firefox regularly and also Safari. I would use Safari exclusively but would miss having a button in the tool bar to open a new tab and auto-complete suggestions in the search box. But then, Safari lets me sync bookmarks between my Macs.

Glad to see FF3 finally uses a more Mac-oriented interface. I was using a faux-Safari add-on (don't know how PC users can stand those garish toolbar icons and colors). Looks like I'll still be a two-browser user for a while.

Norm, you should also consider an alternate PDF reader like Foxit. Adobe Reader is out of control.

John J:
Try setting a different default font in your preferences (I think that's under Tools -> Options on Windows?).

@Norm
The Adobe Reader for PDFs has gone completely off the deep end. You might want to try what I have been doing: set Firefox to automatically just download PDFs, and then open them with the program of your choice at your convenience.

To do this, go to the Preferences dialog (under 'Edit > Preferences' in Linux, I think under 'Tools > Options' in Windows), and select the 'Applications' tab. Scroll down the Content Type list until you find "PDF Document". Click on the menu in the "Action" column; and you can select "Save File", to always download, or "Always Ask" to pick what you want to do each time. It's also in principle possible to set up an alternate viewer here, by picking "Use Other", but I'd recommend trying that before relying on it.

For anyone who wants to add the yellow URL bar back in for secure sites, you can check out a Lifehacker piece here: http://lifehacker.com/396582/turn-firefox-3s-location-bar-yellow-at-https-urls.

Norm - try the URL Fixer add-on. I've installed it but haven't fat fingered my typing since. go figure.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2871

check update from my 2.0 said no updates available. Did install 3.0 via Mozilla.com

It's probably the only browser I'm using now. Love the extra extensions it has.

@shorter:

I believe the new location bar can learn your preferences. In other words, the more you type "was" to get to this blog, the higher on the list it will go until it is at the top for you again.

It will also search the title, as the author mentioned, so you could get here by typing "Faster Forward". Combined with the learning feature, eventually all you will have to do is hit 'f' and it will be the first result in the bar. Or if you have the page bookmarked, you can tag it with anything you want (i.e. "tech news") through the "Places" feature (Ctrl-Shift-B) and get here by typing that.

It takes some getting used to but it's definitely a very powerful feature.

Also a mac user here. Safari's GUI is what FF3 is based on. Look at the location of the buttons. With that being said, Safari has a built-in pdf reader, which loaders much faster than any extension. Idk for sure if it's implemented in the PC version.

Glad to see FF3 file size getting smaller, unlike Vista, which is a dual layered DVD. I don't have much problem with "thinner, weaker, and harder to read" text on Safari on mac. It's because Windows uses Times New Roman which is a very pixelated font. Helvetica is much more smooth, thats why its for titles, like bigger text. But the location bar thing is still pretty cool. Good job Mozilla.

And last but not least, for the other mac user who said Safari and its lack of a new tab button. try command + t. by default settings, it opens new tabs. check the apple quick tip of the week podcast. its a free podcast that shows you tips. one episode is about safari shortcuts.

Two problems already. After installing FF3 and one add-on (the URL misspellings one), I closed the browser and tried to reopen it. I could NOT get it to start up again, though IE7 would launch normally. I had to restart (and my computer, Dell Laptop running Vista, took an unusually long time to shut down...a few minutes, actually) before FFox would launch again.

Second, when I open up a new browser window, it keeps asking me to "enter the master password for the Software Security Device." What's that about?

Something odd has happened frequently: say I've closed Firefox then, later, click the icon to re-open. Wait. Wait. I've discovered that if I open Process Explorer I will find that Firefox is running but doing nothing. I manually select "kill process" to stop the quasi-FF and then I can restart the browser. Not sure if this holds for the final FF 3 but it happened a lot with the betas and RCs. Any ideas about this?

I have been using firefox since the start. With FF3 I have a problem I can't resolve. I does not remember my usernames and passwords. For example I have to sign in to Weather Underground every time I go to it and reset my prefences. Before I would have to sign in maybe once every 3 months. Even if I check the box to save my password in eBay for 24 hours, I have to check in every time. I have tried all of the solutions on FF help and none seem to work.

@ tony and twosticks:

Ditto and ditto.

Caution - FF3 did not preserve my bookmarks. It overwrote them with it's own set. Not that it's a bad thing to re-do these, but it is a pain!

"For example, when you right-click on a link, you get "Open in new tab" and "Open in background tab" commands--other browsers only provide one "open in new tab" command, which sensibly opens that new tab in the background instead of shifting your focus to it immediately."

Since when is that bad thing? It gives more complexity to Opera. If want to go to a new page, but don't want to sacrifice the current one, I can use "open in new tab" to go the new one. Then close that and go right back to the one I had before.

I lost my ability to open ASX files, which is a real bummer.

FF3 is great; I love the auto-complete. I'm still waiting for a couple of extensions to update, but other than that, no problems.

@Bart: Because IE sucks.

@downwithie7

Yeah, I know Command+T opens a new tab in Safari, but I usually browse with my mouse, not via keyboard. Having to move to the keyboard to open a new tab is a pain. Wish Apple would add this to Safari. It's a simple thing.

Re the smart auto-complete: Rob, as I was reading your Myspace meh, I went to check the new look. As soon as I typed "w" in the location bar (same page as your Myspace review), the top link shown was www.myspace.com. I hadn't visited myspace in over a day, and had browsed numerous sites since. Coinkydink? Does smart auto-complete use data from the current webpage?

So far I like it despite the fact that Google Browser Sync is never going to be ported to it (and none of the other sync plug-ins are quite as robust).

Biggest problem appears to be that it does not work correctly with Lotus Domino Web Access. Errors pop-up in DWA7 and 8 when trying to attach a file, and errors pop-up by themselves occasionally.

No doubt this is just like the last time a Firefox update (2.0.0.10) broke DWA where Lotus was ultimately the culprit for lax coding. Let's hope that they fix this ASAP.

Compared IE and Firefox in 2006 you say. This is 2008 and we are using IE7. Two years is a long time in IT. It would be beneficial for all to criticize Microsoft based on technical details and not based on biases. Is there anything else in the repertoire ? I have tried Firefox 3 and found it not so great compared to IE7. Regarding which is better in security, hope that you will consider addressing that issue technically.

Initial install resulted in crashes, but it now seems okay. I will never use IE again unless certain idiot developers require it to view or use a page I must have.

I've used Firefox for years, and like it a lot. That said, I have already uninstalled 3.0 and gone back to a previous version for a very annoying reason--it can't seem to handle igoogle as a home page. It pushes it too far to the left, obscuring part of the page and leaving a wide blank space on the right. It does this every time you open the page except the first time--so it's capable of displaying it right.
I'll reinstall it when they've worked through these bugs.

@ tony, twosticks, and cbr your problem is generally an easy fix. See: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+will+not+start

I think this article has all the links and info you need to resolve the issue. My experience has been that this issue is most often caused by a corrupted user profile. In extreme cases you may have to create a new profile then import your info from your old profile. And for many of the common questions and problems with Firefox 3, try the Firefox knowledge base: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/

@ beep:

Funny, iGoogle works fine with me. What does happen is that I'm asked for a password (see my previous post) every time I launch my home page. I usually just click cancel and things work normally. I have Hotmail embedded in my iGoogle page, though, and I can't get it to stay logged in. Hmm. Anyone else being prompted for a password? When I have time I'll go searching through the help files.

@slgrieb: Thanks! I'll play with it and see what happens.

The awesome tool bar is ANNOYING. I want the option to turn that off so my browsing is my business.

I wrote about this previously and someone responded that all I have to do is make sure I set preferences so that no history is saved. Well in a word---NOT! Ass-some Toolbar still retains the data. Those fine folks at Mozz. need to offer users the option to turn it off.

@Dorne: "Gives more complexity" is not any kind of a compliment in my book. The absolute last thing the world needs is more complex software. Thanks for proving my point, I guess...

@NYC: Hate to break this to you, but Web browsers have kept a record of your browsing history on your computer since the days of NCSA Mosaic. Firefox 3 just does a little more with that data than previous versions, without ever sending it anyplace else (and like earlier versions, its "Clear Private Data..." command under the Tools menu will wipe out those records whenever you want).

- RP

Just don't use it to help you with any secure transactions:

http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/06/18/vulnerability-in-mozilla-firefox-30

On the question you raised about dropping the yellow/gold background on SSL sites, I remembered I read a post about the original motivations behind it but the Moz security UI guy and dug it up: http://blog.johnath.com/index.php/2007/03/13/revisiting-security-ui-part-1-of-2/

I guess dropping the color of the bar wasn't raised at that point (I thought it was, ah well), but I think the reasons for deemphasizing the lock also apply to the gold background - namely that its absence will occur when it is most important to look at. I don't think they implemented it totally right, but I definitely agree with the direction and the motivation.

SilverLight content doesn't work in Mozilla 2.0.x or earlier versions at all non of them

Mozilla 3 show you the page with the classic download SilverLight but when u install it and restart the browser the SilverLight enable page doesn't show its multimedia content as IE7 does, I think that SilverLight is the problem and not Mozilla 3 but I'm not really sure...

NYC, there are a few things you can do to get rid of the awesome bar. There is an extension called Old Bar (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6227) which restores the look of the bar to the old style version. In the reviews of that extension, someone also said that to change the search algorithm (so the huge lists don't appear) simply do the following :

-In the "Awesome Bar" type in: about:config
-Search for browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped
-Toggle it to "True"
-Restart browser

Firefox 3 crashes and crashes and crashes. It does not work with XP when you log off Yahoo! mail, it is unpredictable when you try to play video content especially if it comes up in another window. Some sites just crash the browser when you try to log-in. I don't like doing it, but I am forced to use IE 7 for Yahoo! mail and for some video viewing. Lots of bugs.

I've recently tried to downloab BOTH IE7 and IE8 beta, only to discover that if you have SP3 on your system, the downloads apparently don't like SP3 being there. They all indicate for SP2.

There goes the neighborhood. LOL

I've gone back to Firefox 2. Firefox 3 crashed a lot more often than Firefox 2. What made it worse is that FF3 lost the open tabs after a crash, while FF2 didn't do that. This is very annoying. Usually I don't mind an occasional crash if I can resume by reopening it with all my tabs. But if tabs are gone, crashes are not forgivable any more.

Firefox has crashed a half dozen times a day since I downloaded it onto my Mac.

About 5 months ago FF2 stopped showing some graphics. Amazon was one site with no graphics. The graphics are there in IE7. I thought my problems would be resolved with FF3, but they have not. If a site looks rather bland, I switch to IE7 and can see the pics.
What gives?

Well, I have had all sorts of problems with Thunderbird. First time I installed it wouldn't connect or accept password. Second time I installed I resolved that problem but address book was from earlier iteration and all emails from verizon email page end up ONLY in T-bird and I can then no longer access them in verizon. Worked out address book problem but the latest problem is the worst of all. If I open my email in verizon or start.verizon.net on the web, the next time I open Thunderbird it has all the emails but NOT in duplicate; it has snagged them from verizon and then I can't view them at all on any other machine. I have talked to other people who say that the mail servers must be out of sync. That may be, (and I have a friend who has had the same problem in MS Outlook Live).
I also realized that I may check my email from up to 5 different computers; I suspect that Thunderbird cannot accommodate that? I am totally ready to uninstall T-bird but have to make sure I can save my emails.
Oh, and I tried making an additional folder in T-bird to put emails I want to keep but have read and I moved everything into that from inbox. But that folder doesn't show up on my verizon email page, either directly through verizon software or through the web. I am ready to lose my mind.
Felt like I was a good little techie but it has totally backfired on me and I may go back to just using verizon for email and mozilla for internet surfing.

I found the best solution tos the location bar mess ist to switch to Opera.

Firefox3 has an overall handsome appearance. I like the tint Bookmark side bar, which distinguishes it from the main Web page.

Strange things are happening in certain online sites. For instance: msnbc.com / the games based on Adobe Shockwave Player (have latest update) disappear/reappear at random.
Just a slight scroll (up-or-down) will restore the game temporarily.

On cnbc.com there is a Quote Watchlist, where one can add stocks or funds to have a realtime data updated every 15 minutes. Since I installed Firefox3, this no longer functions.

Oh, and I cannot get my bookmarks to appear in alphabetical order as they did with older versions. I try the Help section, to no avail.

Am I correct in attributing the problem(s) to the updated browser?

Anyone? Thanks!