Firefox 3 has arrived
Careful! This post is looking a little old and could be inaccurate in many, many ways
Although I blogged about Firefox 3’s imminent arrival only a few days ago, I must admit I had forgotten that today would be launch day. My reminder was a BBC News article about their attempt to break the record for most downloads in one day. When visiting the site I found that I was too early and that the launch was actually at 18:00 GMT, this would be perfect as I could download the browser at home without any impact to my normal working day.
Downloading the browser was not so easy because as you’d imagine the Mozilla website buckled under the amount of traffic all responding to a rather exact download time. It wasn’t until 19:17 that I eventually managed to download the new browser with the download figure at 578,345,066.
Install
The installation was quick and easy but some of my extensions did not install or update. The most important of these was Firebug which I rely on completely as a web developer. As yet I have not found a suitable download of the extension so hopefully this will become available soon, and until it is I will not be updating my work version of Firefox.
Initial Reaction
When it comes to new software I am always looking for what’s new in the graphical interface as it is these changes that first confirm that you are using a new version of the software. In the case of Firefox there are few developments in this area. Although not the most important aspect of the browser I think that Firefox 3 could have benefited from a sleeker professional look. This would only improve the view of new users moving from the more graphically pleasing Internet Explorer 7+.
Most of the new features of Firefox 3 are functional improvements aimed to secure and speed up the browser. In the short term it’s difficult to notice the benefits of these improvements, over time these improvements should make more a better browsing experience and show why so many people are moving to Firefox as their default web browser.