Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 released

[fvbounty]

I haven't tried Firefox in awhile, put Firefox 3 on yesterday and I'm very happy with it, does seem faster than IE 7, It will take some time to get used to but overall very good!

[XJ.]

Originally Posted by ctal

It downloaded fine for me tonight three separate times, to three different computers. Between 75 and 200 kBytes/sec, over a fast cable connection, which is pretty good considering that they were hoping to have around 5 million downloads on launch day, iirc (thereby giving them a good publicity splash).

Yeah, must have been something on my end. I finally downloaded it late last night at around 300kBps So far I like it (and it's less of a memory hog than FF2).

Now - I just need my toys back (FF3 compliant extensions and themes).

[jmlikos]

Thanks for the info. I'll get it when I get home from work.

[k0NG0]

Originally Posted by ephekt

I've tried this... Opera uses nowhere near the amount of memory that FF does, even on heavy Flash or anigif pages. FF will also bloat up to 200-300MB while doing nothing but browsing forums. Hell, I got up to 250 with nothing but a 5 or 6 cisco.com pages open today at work, and they have no flash and very minimal images and js.

Granted, I like FF so I generally just endure, but it's absolutely ridiculous that this happens.

That does sound weird.

I have Gmail, Google Reader, a GooTube movie and three other tabs going and it's using around 170M RSS (virtual memory size isn't even remotely interesting). My computer has 512MB of RAM and the only time I've had a problem was when X leaked for a couple of hours, then thrash city.

[celsmk]

I installed Firefox 3 yesterday. It looks snappier and interface is really nice.
There are a few incompatibilities though:
1) AVG 8.0 Safe Search extension
2) UPEK Protector Suite QL (fingerprint security app bundled with my Sony Vaio notebook)

[FearFactory]

hmmm i really don't like the adress bar, too big and why history is not organized by day and week..?

[SupDawg]

One nice thing that I like about FF3 is when you delete a bookmark, the bookmark menu no longer disappears. That was always something that was annoying to me about previous versions.

[SupDawg]

Another small bug they fixed was the error messages when using the add on stumble upon

[polonyc2]

Bug mars Firefox 3.0 launch

a shadow has been cast over the latest version of the popular open source browser already: a critical security flaw brought over from Firefox 2.0.x which remains unfixed.

According to CNet News, the bug was discovered by a contributor to TippingPoint's controversial bugs-for-cash programme Zero-Day Initiative. Reported to Mozilla approximately five hours after Firefox 3.0 enjoyed its official launch, the bug is described by TippingPoint as allowing an attacker “to execute arbitrary code” providing there is some user interaction “such as clicking on a link in an email or visiting a malicious web page.”

Fans of the browser will be disappointed that this next-generation release – which contains many changes designed to improve user security – has fallen so quickly. Although at first glance having a bug from the previous generation of Firefox make its way into this newest release is at the very least embarrasing, what TippingPoint hasn't yet made clear is whether the bug is one known to the Mozilla team before the release of Firefox 3.0. Although TippingPoint does describe the flaw as “affecting Firefox 3.0 as well as prior versions of Firefox 2.0.x” it doesn't make clear whether this was something the Mozilla team could have reasonably prevented...

Firefox 3 suffers its first vulnerability | Defense in Depth - computer security, hacking, crime, viruses - CNET News.com

[fvbounty]

Originally Posted by celsmk

I installed Firefox 3 yesterday. It looks snappier and interface is really nice.
There are a few incompatibilities though:
1) AVG 8.0 Safe Search extension
2) UPEK Protector Suite QL (fingerprint security app bundled with my Sony Vaio notebook)

Yes AVG 8 safe search doesn't work on FF 3

[jmlikos]

So far I like it pretty well. Still getting used to it. It's all good, I've been a FF fan since I started using it over IE. I think some themes and some add-ons are missing from the old version.

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by k0NG0

John Resig - Firefox 3 Memory Use

The UI is the best it's ever been in Firefox. And the OS integration is pretty good too.

that guy works for Mozilla!...not the most impartial of studies one would think

that's like someone from Nvidia releasing statistics showing that Nvidia's graphics cards outperform ATI's...to be taken with a grain of salt at the very least...show me some impartial studies

like this one...

Firefox 3.0 wins memory battle, says tester

Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox 3.0 browser uses memory much more efficiently than its rivals, according to an independent tester who wrote a memory-monitoring utility to track usage by Firefox, Internet Explorer (IE), Flock, Opera and Safari...Firefox 3.0 was the clear winner, not only because it used the least amount of memory of any of the tested browsers, but its memory use didn't noticeably grow over time...

Firefox 3.0 wins memory battle, says tester

[jaketerminate]

I think the downloads window needs some masquera.

[k0NG0]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

that guy works for Mozilla!...not the most impartial of studies one would think

that's like someone from Nvidia releasing statistics showing that Nvidia's graphics cards outperform ATI's...to be taken with a grain of salt at the very least...show me some impartial studies

Except you can download the code used by Mozilla for that particular test and run it yourself. Check out the last couple of paragraphs here.

So it's not surprising that independent testers are reaching the same conclusions when the tests run by Mozilla themselves are completely open and fair (if they weren't, you'd have heard about it shortly after those results were released, lots of scrutiny for open source projects).

It doesn't get much more impartial than a test that just loads a bunch of popular websites and measures the memory use for the various browsers. It's not like you can cherry-pick thirty sites that will work great on Firefox 3 but not on any other browser. There are no drivers to tweak, etc.

[celsmk]

Originally Posted by celsmk

I installed Firefox 3 yesterday. It looks snappier and interface is really nice.
There are a few incompatibilities though:
1) AVG 8.0 Safe Search extension
2) UPEK Protector Suite QL (fingerprint security app bundled with my Sony Vaio notebook)

As a positive remark, UPEK has already fixed its issue with FF 3.
At the down side, I´ve seem a few download failures using FF3. For example, downloading files attached in gmail fails quite frequently.