Firefox 3 Beta 1 is now available for download, Melissa Shapiro reports via The Mozilla Blog.
Please note: Mozilla does not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only.
New features and changes in this milestone that require feedback include:
• Improved security features such as: better presentation of website identity and security, malware protection, stricter SSL error pages, anti-virus integration in the download manager, and version checking for insecure plugins.
• Improved ease of use through: better password management, easier add-on installation, new download manager with resumable downloading, full page zoom, animated tab strip, and better integration with Windows Vista and Mac OS X.
• Richer personalization through: one-click bookmarking, smart search bookmark folders, direct typing in location bar searches your history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles, ability to register web applications as protocol handlers, and better customization of download actions for file types.
• Improved platform features such as: new graphics and font rendering architecture, native web page form controls, colour profile management, and offline application support.
• Performance improvements such as: better data reliability for user profiles, architectural improvements to speed up page rendering, over 300 memory leak fixes, and a new XPCOM cycle collector to reduce entire classes of leaks.
Testers can download Firefox 3 Beta 1 builds for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in over 20 different languages.
Firefox now uses the OS X spellchecker and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. HTML forms on Web pages now have a native look and feel on Mac OS X.
More info and download links here.
Yeah… but is it still butt-ugly, or have they got the Mac widgets implemented yet?
well, hopefully they sped the thing up… Slowest.Browser.Ever
Hey you two up there, “Beta Version”.
Willie G: “well, hopefully they sped the thing up… Slowest.Browser.Ever”
I’m not sure about that; I use Opera almost exclusively and it’s pretty damn slow too.
Not to be confused with Shin Hayata’s Beta Capsule that transforms him into Ultraman to save the day.
Hey Mr Hinky Dink….
I’m not talking about the Beta being slow… I am talking about the current iteration of Firefox, and expressing my hope that the new version prefaced by this beta is faster.
Now, go take some reading comprehension classes.
Ok, based on this release it is still fugly.
ARRRRGH!!!
I registered as a user but didn’t see the box “Notify me of follow-up comments?”
My mailbox!!!!
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Incoming mails are coming in so fast it sounds like an alarm bell ringing
I have to say that from 2.0, 3.0 beta is looking good finally. They have done much better on integrating with OS X and away from the dull PC look, and it is quite fast. I have always liked there off shoot of Camino, but I have preferred Firefox. Cant wait to load this on my work computer….
I don’t need it. I don’t want it.
Faster, native widgets (native looking at least, although since they use OS X’s spellchecker I assume it’s fully native). Lots to like
No worries Willie. What’s comprehension mean?
” full page zoom”
I hope Apple takes their cue from Firefox and IE (I know, I know, heresy) and adds this feature into Safari too. It seems like a good idea, and there’s times where it would be really useful.
it definately feels alot faster than safari. the interface is the old one, the new one will be customized for the mac os. (previsouly they have tried to keep things similar across platforms but are changing their directions) which i think is a good idea.
safari often hangs when you first click on a link, if you click the link again it will often load straight away, I would like it to be more agressive in pulling the webpage. ive found this on my macbook and macs in store, its the most annoying thing about safari.
Screw Firefox 3. We obviously need to party with someone named Sixvodkas.
To those talking about how fast this Beta is, betas area always fast. You can’t tell even *slightly* how fast or not fast it’s going to be from a Beta, period.
Personally though, I was surprised to find out after testing this sucker, that this is supposedly a “late” Beta?? I find this unusual as the bowser seems completely unfinished in some areas and, as some have already pointed out, it’s basically as fugly as the 2.0 version. If they said it was an early Alpha it would make more sense.
It seems to me like they *tried* to make it more “OS-X’y” but they picked Panther instead of Leopard. It uses so much of those old grey-lined backgrounds (eliminated from Leopard) that it looks almost retro. The tabs are still upside down for some stupid reason and all the close buttons and widgets are done in an (older) OS-X kind of style, but placed in Windows locations. WTF??
None of this makes any sense and goes directly against what the developing team has been saying all this time which is that they want the OS-X version to “look like an OS-X application.” It just doesn’t. At all. IMO they totally failed on that front. It doesn’t look any more like a Mac app than the last version and we will still have to download a plug-in theme to make it look like OS-X. So what’s the point of even trying to make it look like a Mac app if you have to download a theme anyway?
This is just more proof of the fact that geeks can code, but don’t know squat about design principles, and that a technical product can be made by committee, but for true artistic endeavors, you need a single, artist to guide the work who is actually good and has vision.
Haven’t used Safari for a while, but it’s interesting to note that so far I’ve only found one browser that completely nixes MDN’s pop-unders [and just about everything else] – and Safari ain’t it. The li’l window pops open for a fraction of a second before it disappears. Beats me why annoyone would use a pop-under annoyway [sics deliberatis]. MW: see? No I don’t. Almost.
Vlad,
Mac OS X already has Full Screen Zoom and better than any weak ass browser’s, too:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/10553/
@ Jeremy
Are you serious? you mentioned a few times that this is a beta and still try to rip it to shreds… WTF yourself buddy. As a beta its a good build and definitely faster than the previous 2.0. Of course you cannot tell the true speed as its a BETA R-Tard. And as well as being a Beta the final interface is not FINAL, think before you type a ridiculously long paragraph going on a cyclical rant. If you have comments write the Mozilla guys. That is if you can make sense from what you are trying to type. PROOFREAD buddy.
For my Gecko browser, I’ll wait for Camino.
Camino has that smokin’ hot OS X bod, but I still go to plain Jane Firefox to get the washin’ done.
It’s a little buggy… got spinning wheel of death that went on and off and on and off, some buttons froze and locked up not only the browser, but my whole OS. It made my display pop on and off repeatedly from sleep dark to on in a 1/2 second cycle for some unknown reason! whew!!
@Mac OS X Full Screen Zoom
I’m fully aware of the zoom feature for OS X, but it is not the same thing. This is a full page zoom like if you were zooming in on a document in Pages or Preview. It’s very different than zooming in on your cursor, which is great for some purposes, but not if you just want to make the webpage itself bigger or smaller within your browser window. Think about the behaviour of making a PDF in Pages bigger by using the “Zoom in” button vs the “Full-screen zoom” of OS X and you’ll see what I mean. Plus, this would allow you to zoom in as well as out, and have it as a setting and not just a temporary thing.
Still prefer SeaMonkey to Firefox. Better security and still a Mozilla fork.
I think the OSX theme is not firefoxy enough–it looks too much like safari. I never liked the “look” of the old firefox, but at least it looked like something. This one (for now) looks like a weak attempt at making it feel more “mac-like”. Nice try, but I hope they do something better in the final version.
Happy turkey day
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