Firefox 3 Released

Version 3.0 of Firefox is now available. Visit mozilla.com to get it.

Some quick notes based on my first impression:

• You can't get the new version by using Help → Check for Updates, at least not right now. You must visit the site and click the big green download button.
  
  
• The site is a little slow to respond right now, unsurprisingly, but not prohibitively so.
  
  
• Download and installation proceeded without a hitch.
  
  
• The new version will overwrite your existing version of Firefox, assuming you have one installed. This did not cause any problems for me. As far as I can tell, my settings were preserved; e.g., bookmarks and browsing history carried over, my existing choice of which toolbars to display and how to display them is correct, my non-default start page remains as specified, and so on. I don't use any skins or customization of this nature, so I can't say how that will work. Drop a note in the Comments if you experience something weird in this regard, please.
  
  
• The out-of-the-box appearance of Firefox 3 is not greatly different from Firefox 2. The menus and keyboard shortcuts appear pretty much the same, which is a relief to those of use who like not to reach for the mouse. The icons in the navigation toolbar look new, but they're in the same positions.
  
  
• The first time you start the new version of Firefox, you'll notice a short delay while it checks your add-ons for compatibility. If it finds any that are not compatible, it reports these and offers to look for updates. Add-ons for which incompatibilities exist and no updates can be found are disabled, with a promise from Firefox to check for such updates periodically in the future.
  
  Two add-ons that I use that had to be disabled: Get Mail, which basically adds the shortcut key CTRL-m to launch my email program, and XPL LinkScanner, a utility that checks websites for nastiness. I believe that both of these are non-standard add-ons, that Get Mail can be updated by an alternate method, and that the disabling of LinkScanner, as I use it, is a non-issue. I'll have more to say about this in my next post.
  
  Add-ons that I use that were not disabled by the the new version of Firefox: Flashblock, Image Zoom, McAfee SiteAdvisor, and PDF Download. Note that PDF Download did not offer an update when I first started the new version of Firefox, but it did, to v. 1.0.1.2, when I just clicked the "Find Updates" button in the Add-ons Manager (Tools → Add-ons). Could be that they just made one available in the hour or so that I've been playing with the new version.
  
  

So far, I have noticed only one tiny hiccup: the default installation procedure results in shortcut icons being added to the Windows Desktop and to the Windows Quick Launch toolbar. If you already have a Firefox shortcut on the Desktop, you may get a second one. I did already have a shortcut icon in the Quick Launch toolbar, and the installation added a second one. No problems were caused b deleting this or the one on the Desktop. My old Quick Launch shortcut still works, as does the shortcut I created in my customized Windows Start menu -- kudos to the Firefox team for this.

One minor observation: The default appearance of Firefox 3 means that the "back" button in the navigation toolbar is larger than the other button. If you have customized Firefox to specify smaller icons in the nav toolbar, this does not show up -- the back button is the same size as the other buttons. (I note this with happiness.)

One minor gripe: The new location bar (where the URL of the website that you're visiting appears) is a bit busy for me, when I'm typing in a new URL. If you're the sort of person who types in URLs by hand, you may notice this, too. The old way that the location bar worked is that as one began typing, a drop-down menu would appear. The menu would list possible matches from your browsing history, based on the letters typed so far for the new URL.

The new approach preserves this behavior, but also adds to the list matches from the titles of previously visited pages. The display, consequently, is more cluttered. The old version displayed a list of URL, one per line, all in the same font. In the new version, each candidate entry now takes up two lines. The first is the title of the page, the second is the URL for that page. The URL appears in a smaller font.

This could be something that everyone except me likes from the get-go. It irritates me because if I'm typing a URL, I am thinking of URLs, not page titles, so I'd prefer to see only URLs as candidates for completion. In the rare case that I'm trying to recall a previously-viewed page by keywords in its title, well, that's what CTRL-h is for, right?

I expect that I'll get used to it, but it's annoying that I can't flick a switch in about:config to restore the old behavior.

[added] Oh, one more minor observation: In what must be connected to the developers' love for their new location bar, the History appears to be set to 90 days by default. I had mine set to 10 days, I believe, but I can't swear to it. Since there does not appear to be any penalty for leaving the (new?) default setting as is, I guess I will.

Overall, no complaints. The claim is that the new version is slimmer and speedier. It does feel that way to me. There are bunches of improvements described on Mozilla's FAQs, Features, Tips & Tricks, and Release Notes pages that I have still to look at.

In the meantime, while I'm working on my next post about the disabled add-ons, feel free to share any new goodness that you've come across.

Shameless rah-rah-ism and a cool interactive map here:

As of this moment, Firefox 3 has been downloaded 1,091,511 times from the US. Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the UK all show about 100K downloads.

Iran is already up to 58,294. China (77,086), Russia (32,905), and India (15,835) are all surprisingly low, but I'm thinking time zone differences are at work here. (I explain away Iran with absolutely no evidence by asserting that this coffee-loving, teetotaling nation is filled with night owls.)

Some also-rans: Greenland: 28, Afghanistan: 38, Iraq: 82, Nepal: 146, Cuba: 513, Sri Lanka: 656.

Israel: 7583. Palestinian Territories: 95.

South Korea: 17,872. North Korea: 0.