Firefox 3 (Beta 2)
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I’m just going to come out and say it. Firefox is the best browser around. I know that their are some great niche browsers out there that may accomplish one task better than Firefox, but you’d be hard pressed to find a better all around browser out there. More importantly, the Firefox Community is constantly building a million different extensions and add-ons that take it from being just the best browser around to being just about anything you need it to be.
As amazing as Firefox is and can be, it’s not [at all] without it’s faults. The browser seems to have some sort of memory issue that often causes it to hang, which often takes over my system until I force quit the thing. I’m not going to pretend to understand or claim to have regressed the issue, all I know is that when Firefox runs out of memory or sits in the background for two long, it goes “bye-bye” and then takes my system with it when I try to tab back to it. Though not enough so to deter me from using the software, it can be extremely frustrating when your job involves having Firefox running 8 hours a day.
This morning, however, I was delivered some salvation. When I came into the office this morning and launched Mail.app, a little story came down my Ars Technica feed talking about the release of the latest Firefox 3 beta. While the new features seemed cool enough, the real intrigue to me was the cited memory leak fixes and memory management improvements contained in this release. This was obviously exciting to me, as it could very well mean the solution to my frustrations. So, I downloaded the software and have been running it all day.
Having spent the last several hours using the browser, there are really only two issues which I can actually live with at the moment. 1) None of the previous extensions and add-ons I’d installed in Firefox 2 work, and 2) the beta hangs when I attempt to quit.
Surprisingly, since I usually tout the add-ons as one of the greatest features of Firefox, the lack of support is almost a non-issue. I run so many extensions and add-ons that I honestly couldn’t tell you which ones I have installed. They’re all there and their uses vary according to which sites I’m on. Learning to live without them doesn’t take much. In fact, I’ve gone the entire day without even running into a situation where I noticed or missed one of my add-ons. Additionally, the hang when quitting hasn’t really hurt me much yet. Believe me, I’d rather have Firefox hang at the end of the day when I try to quit it, than have it happen every 30 minutes all day long. Plus, all I have to do is remember to force quit it when I want to close it.
Those two hurdles being out of the way, I have to say that I’m really loving Firefox 3 (beta 2) so far. Everything seems a little snappier and my repeated memory hangs are completely gone (at least I haven’t run into one all day). I’ve all ready replaced the old version and am using the beta as my primary browser. It also doesn’t hurt that someone on Digg.com linked to a pretty little Firefox Theme that makes the browser look more “OS X-esque”. I think everyone should give it a try at the vary least. If you don’t like it, you can always regress to the older version.
posted by Christopher Schnese
