Slashdot Mirror
Firefox 3 Beta 1 Review
DaMan writes "The newly-released Firefox 3 beta 1 has been reviewed by ZDnet and the verdict is that it is good. '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.'"
"Because it looks like Mozilla have gone back to basics and worked on what really matters to users -- security, speed and ease of use"
Well, thank the Spaghetti Monster. Why did it take so damned long to convince them that was more important than constantly fiddling with the widget layer and whatever else they were doing? Why the nearly 5 year flame war over whether a browser that takes up 2 GB of memory is technically leaking it or not?
Who would have ever thought that having a secure browser that quickly loads pages and doesn't crash your machine would be enticing to users?
Does it still have memory leaks? Nothing else matters (esp. new features) until they've fixed those. They aren't *quite* so bad on Linux but my friends who use MS Windows have real problems with this.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Sure "it's good" because it's from Mozilla, and people don't try to look or find the bad side. If it was IE8, the review would be: Is it good? Not enough... even if there were wonderful things on it.
The vendors don't care because the consumers wouldn't, either.
I installed the Firefox 3 beta today as well and was positively surprised to see everything react much snappier than my current Firefox. AJAX-laden sites like GMail, Netvibes and Digg comments didn't have the usual effect of slowing down the browser to a creeping halt as they do to Firefox 2. If this holds up then I can't wait for the final release.
But, and there's always a but: every fresh Firefox installation feels snappy. 2.0 did, and 1.0 did as well. It's always been like that, sort of like a fresh install of Windows. It's when you start installing extensions that it goes downhill, and as a web designer I need quite a few extensions. What I am waiting to see is how Firefox 3 will play along with those. I don't think the author of TFA considered that factor.
parasight.de
What's the verdict on GPO management for firefox? I've seen an XPI that allows for IE-like management of firefox from a domain controller, but it hasn't been updated in quite some time (I've tried it for 2.0.9, but the XPI will only work with 2.0.0). Will 3 support honest-to-god, grown up management? or will I still have to use hacked together scripts from "Billy Bob's house of chick, waffles, and firefox"?
That's my biggest knock on firefox right now; trying to manage it centrally is more hassle that it's worth. I've seen the tools out there now and my choices are A. a collection of logon and logoff scripts B. roll my own MSI's and have to re-push firefox when I need to make a change or C. create custom config files at install before the machine is rolled out, then go back to and do B. if I need to make a change.
Oh, and it'd be nice if I didn't need administrative rights to finish installing some of the updates (Either 2.0.7 or 2.0.9 wouldn't finish auto-updating unless a domain admin was starting firefox.)
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Yes, of course, that's why Windows and Internet Explorer are both bit parts in the computer industry, while Linux commands a 90%+ market share.
Preinstalling Firefox would do a hell of a lot to gain market share for it, especially if it was the default browser. But then, to be honest, I'd rather have no web browser bundled with a Windows install, thanks very much.
I write bullshit
Giving users an "easy way out" is important; it builds trust by showing respect up front. Letting people know they can get rid of something lowers the resistance to try it.
How would you like to try a roller coaster that seemed like it could be a lot of fun, except you couldn't see where (if!?) people were supposed to get off afterwards.
Users will feel safer trying to install a program if they know it will uninstall cleanly, or at least be easily removable (as in: programs that live solely in their install directory).
The same goes for (business) relationships. If you sign up for anything at Fog Creek or Dreamhost, there is a prominent button saying, essentially, "I want out, and don't ever bother me again." Conversely, with most phone or insurance companies, even figuring out where to ask is a challenge. What kind of impression would you like to make on your company's potential customers?
"Good news, everyone!"
If you had no web browsers preinstalled, how would you go about downloading Firefox? I mean, that's the only reason IE is preinstalled with Windows, right?
I have bad karma. What do I care what you think?
However, if I'm going to use Firefox without the extensions, then I might as well be using IE or Opera. Opera is fast, but without the extensions, isn't even close having as many features as Firefox. Extensions are what gives Firefox it's usefulness. Here's the extensions I use on a regular basis. Flashblock, Hackbar, IE View, Reload Every, Save As Image, Web Developer. That's what suits me. I'm sure everyone else who uses Firefox has their own list of extensions that they find useful, yet would be completely useless to me. Take away the extensions, and you've just taken away the whole point of running firefox.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I love that you managed to slip in "the whole "installer" insanity" after pissing and moaning about your platform's procedure.
Nothing but class.
> and I already started getting errors.
And filed a bug, right? That's the point of a beta: to get feedback if things don't work somewhere for some reason...
There is a few new features in the DOM, CSS and Javascript (including a good subset of XPath and XSLT) which will help offload some parts of the big script libraries to the browser.... now if only they'd get up to speed on the things that Webkit is doing!
;-(
Not that it matters really when IE7 is still light years behind
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
It's not that horrendously difficult to keep control of memory in C programs
The Firefox developers just told you that the browser bloated by hundreds of megabytes, had lots of memory leaks, and that they needed to focus for an entire release on fixing those problems, and you still claim "it's not that horrendously difficult". Evidently, it is for Firefox developers.
lots of us do it every day.
OK, so there are two possibilities: either you are a lot smarter than both the Firefox developers and me, or you simply don't know how much trouble you're even in and you just think you have memory management in C under control. Odds are it's the latter.