Mozilla says Firefox 3 ready for prime-time

BOSTON (Reuters) - A new version of Mozilla's popular Firefox Web browser is ready for download with improved security and memory use as the tiny company takes a stab at Microsoft Corp's dominant Internet Explorer.

The program's creators told Reuters on Thursday that the privately-held company's trial version of Firefox 3 browser is ready for the masses to use after months of development.

[TwissT]

I love Firefox, once I tried it I instantly stopped using Internet Explorer

[littletad]

I love using the themes and the extra optional add-ons. They do a good job of tab use, the interface, and the efficiency. There is really nothing like it. The customizing features blow away anything else.

[Tarmgar]

Much agreed.

[sestan]

man seriously, I don't know how anyone can go back to IE7 after Firefox. Just the extensions alone make me a believer

[Cicinho]

Also with this beta 4 I have had for a while, still a few bugs like at random times when you load a page and try to scroll down it auto scrolls back up and keeps doing it until you refresh.

Also when i went to post on PS3 forum and i clicked reply it took me back to the home page :S

Back to Firefox 2 until the full version comes out.

[chaosatom333]

so soon? I just gotten use to firefox 2.
I wonder what those monkeys are doing with IE7, now that firefox 3 is out.

[kcdude]

There was an IE8 beta out but I think I heard some people are having trouble finding where to download it. Anyway, I tried it out and it sucks just like IE7, the interface is the same and I don't really notice any differences. Firefox rules!

[BloodySinner]

I'm currently using Firefox 3 beta. I'll wait for the update to arrive.

[Rice]

Prime time...

[LJWooly]

I disagree!

[Finalfantasykid]

It is awesome. Most of the differences are subtle, but they make an absolutely huge difference. The new URL bar is one of the greatest features ever!

[GETPWNT]

Why does IE still exist???

[Finalfantasykid]

Internet Extinction

[meepmoopmeep]

i love Firefox over Safari because of the plug-ins. i just wish they made v.3 for the Mac at the same time. Who knows when a Mac version will be out.

[Adamalicious]

Firefox 3b4 is every bit as available for OS X and Linux as it is for Windows

http://www.mozilla.com/en-U...

see! :)

[primordialmeme]

The new bookmarking system is sh!t

I click the star and it then asks me to file the bookmark in one of a number of places...so then I choose to file it under the bookmarking menu and it wont show up in my bookmarks! I'll wait till its finished.

[mithril]

i use firefox 3 beta 4 since 2 weeks, and no problems, more fast with ajax applications(javascript).

[Kakkoii]

I really hope they release a version that uses the Old GUI.

I really hate the slightly changed look and operations of Firefox 3.

My biggest issue with it is:

The new Address Bar. It now searches your bookmarks and uses KEYWORDS! to list URL's.. How stupid is that. And when it lists them. It shows a description of the URL also.. Like wtf.. If I've already been to the website. Then I'm most likely going to know what's on it already.

Now... Why the hell is it searching my Bookmarks??
If I want to go to a page that's in my damn bookmarks.. The i'll go into my DAMN BOOKMARKS and click on that page.. lol.

This takes up a huge amount of screen space. It's very inefficient and unneeded. It defeats the purpose of the original drop-down list that I've grown to know and love. And know so many other people love and use on a regular basis. It's the quickest way to navigate to pages. You type the first few letters of a website with one hand and click the listed URL with the other hand.

In conclusion..The new address bar seems like it's made for half blind stay at home mothers who don't know a thing about computers and need the address bar to explain everything to them.

[Finalfantasykid]

I disagree with you about the address bar. It shows the description of the site because it uses it to rank the site when you type something into the bar. It does this for every site in your history. So for example if I were to type into the bar "prime" this page would most likely be the first result in the search. Infact, you could type "pri" and this would probabably be near the top.

For me this saves a ton of time since I don't need to go to the front page of the site and navigate around until I find the same page.

EDIT: I just checked the search "pri" in the address bar, and this page was the first result
---
Also if you don't like the new GUI, you can always just download one of the thousands of themes. Many of them are the original themes.

[SSJSubgeta]

i have not tried the betas at all. I guess i haven't missed much.

But if any users who are trying out the betas, is there an option to turn it off or change it to the old classic interface?

oi Kakkoii! kiitedesho... submit that hole post you just posted here to them as feedback for them to look at.

[Finalfantasykid]

Nope, but like I said earlier, you can simply download a firefox 1.0/1.5/2.0 theme and always use that.