RSSMozilla releases Firefox 3.0 Beta 2, new features premiere
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published December 19, 2007, 4:01 PM
The next version of the world's most popular alternative Web browser is taking shape, with a more stable Beta 2 released yesterday. Added to the feature set are some new conveniences you may wonder how you managed to do without.
Until recently, test versions for the next edition of Firefox -- codenamed "Gran Paradiso" -- have been interesting but not altogether stable, which isn't surprising for builds that were clearly labeled "alpha." But yesterday, Mozilla sprung the trap on the Beta 2 release of Firefox 3.0, and early on, BetaNews noticed the improvements the organization had long been promising now appear to be working more solidly.
Unlike Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, which shuffled the locations of features and buttons around faster than Bud Abbott playing the old shell game with Lou Costello, Firefox 3.0 looks pretty much the same as it did before. So the changes are subtle, then when you find them, they become profound.
One simple change that we'll certainly come to appreciate has to do with passwords. If you're a regular Firefox user, then by now, you're familiar with logging on with a username and password, and then being asked whether you want Firefox to remember that password...before it actually posts your data to see if you log on. Well, now that's been fixed.
In Firefox 3.0 Beta 2, you'll notice that an IE-like "information bar" takes the place of the old alert box, only it now appears after you're successfully logged on. You click Remember, the bar goes away, and your validated password gets remembered. (In this screenshot, along the left side of the window, note the presence of an upgraded version of the All-in-One Sidebar, which is a third-party gadget for Firefox and not a Mozilla product.)
The new address bar has some subtle but curious improvements. For instance, notice the page icon beside the URL now looks more like a button. Like always, you can drag and drop it someplace to create a shortcut. But now, clicking on it reveals a panel with authentication and identity information for the Web site, if it has a certificate that validates the site. This is one way you can now check to certify if a site is what it says it is...and here's where BetaNews makes a note to itself to get our own certificate problem taken care of.
Next, you'll find some improvements to Firefox's download manager. For instance, beside each download in progress, there's now an independent pause and a stop button. And when you right-click on a download entry, you can copy the URL from which the download is originating to the clipboard. This is often different from the page you're looking at in the browser (which is especially the case with FileForum downloads).
Finally, many Web users can't possibly remember what content was on any number of a hundred or so pages based on their URL. Typically, that makes the history recall feature of the typical address bar gadget quite useless.
At last, Mozilla has addressed this problem by organizing the contents of remembered pages not by their URLs only, but by their title bar contents first. In this particular case, our test browser obviously was being used by someone with a one-track mind, but you get the picture.
BetaNews FileForum has a direct link to the latest Firefox betas now, for Windows XP and Vista, for Linux, and for Mac OS X.
I think I have to get a big screen to understand new features premieres.Every new properties capture all of your screen so you need to have a big wide screen for what get more information about your valuable life time.
Get a big wide screen display and two mouse. One for your left hand one for your right hand.
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|I liked the look and feel of it, but I can't stand not having most of my plugins working for it yet. I'll have to wait til it's in its final stages, I think.
... I really wish they'd install the "double click to do "x" action" natively into firefox. I have mine set to close the window when you double click the tab, or if I click on something that is where tabs reside, but no tabs are there it makes a new one. It's made the difference, and is one of the reasons (that and Foxmarks) that I can't see upgrading yet.
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|IT didn't work with a lot of the extensions and plug ins I use so I'll wait.
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|Nice review.
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|does it pass the acid test
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|I run nightlies, and yes it passes Acid2.
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|Been using it for two days now. It's been impressive, and is by far the best browser I've used. Very fast, Stable no crashes as yet. Great new features and the security appears to be impressive.
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|does it works with all the most popular plugin like adblock, customizegoogle, etc..
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|It does not work with adblock, fasterfox, or FDM plugins from what I can see. Not sure if there are betas of these out there that will work with FF3, but I havent been able to find any.
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|It does work with Adblock Plus, as well as Gmail Notifier and Forecastfox Enhanced.
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|I wonder why FF just not let us choose where the Tabbar should be placed :(
I like the tabbar at the bottom and FF just does not allow that - just like IE :O
I know there is this plugin TabMix Plus, but there is know update for it. Its not such a tough thing to put in that option directly instead of through a plugin ... after all, they let us move the address bar, search bar and the links bar!
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|Switch to Opera ! This is one of the (numerous) features that don't exist on FF or IE...
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|dont switch to opera unless you wanna get dizzy, vomit and pass out
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|Don't listen to smalld*** (just quoting....), give it a try !
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|Switch to Opera if you want to use an incompatible, ugly piece of junk with no decent plugins and an annoying fanbase.
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|Yeah cause Opera is sooo ugly. Look how awful:
http://img155.imageshack...g155/5209/opera9eq6.jpg
It's also more compatible than any other browser (passed Acid2 already long ago) and has plugins for anything you need. So in other words your a doofus who doesn't know how to work it.
Granted this article is about Firefox so people should stick to the subject, but if you are going to come up with idiotic lies I must respond.
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|HEY BetaNews Guys!
Once you've fixed your little certificate problem you can enable SSL (HTTPS) for your login page.
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|What I find extremely annoying is the (apparent) fact that the "New Tab" button is non-existent on a fresh install of the browser.
For an organization that used to tout the tabbed browsing features as one of its biggest advantages over IE, I'm surprised this has never been done.
They go through all the trouble of making a start page on first run that clearly directs the user to click the 'x' to close one of the two tabs that open by default now, but no clear indication for new users on how to open one once it's closed. I always have to customize the menu bar to add it.
Has anyone else noticed this, or am I missing something?
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|I've noticed it just never paid it much attention. I always just set Firefox to always show the tab bar so I can just double click the tab bar to raise a new tab.
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|Firefox 2 had one, atleast mine does and I dont remember adding it. That would be kind of annoying thou without it because I do use it alot.
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|Just remember Control T for all browsers.
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|Double click in an empty spot in the tab bar to open a new tab. This is probably why there isn't a new tab button by default--you don't need one...
Although I myself prefer a button, and it's not very intuitive to double click the tab bar...
If it doesn't work for you, I've probably confused a Tab Mix Plus feature with a Firefox feature (but I don't think so).
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|I must admit I'm rather embarrassed that I did not know about the double-click feature on the tab bar... being a Firefox user for so long. Thanks to you and crashoverride for that. :)
Agree, it's not very intuitive, especially since a new user would most likely not know to do this, even if the tab bar stayed open always (which it does not by default).
About the CTRL+T shortcut, I'm not so sure about it's intuitiveness either. I'm constantly surprised by how many users still don't know about simple Windows shortcuts like copy and paste.
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|I install the "New Tab Button" extension for all the firefox users at work for this reason. Yes, you can get it with a key combination or a double-click (if the place to click is visible) but without needing full-blown tab extensions this adds an easy button and is much more obvious for regular users.
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|Hi Yountmj,
I agree that they need a new tab button. Personally, I've always just pressed Ctrl+T, which is a lot faster any how.
Cheers,
Christian Blackburn
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|Firefox 3 is shaping up to be a very worthy successor to 2.
"In Firefox 3.0 Beta 2, you'll notice that an IE-like "information bar" takes the place of the old alert box, only it now appears after you're successfully logged on."
It should also be noted that installing extensions and themes from sites other than the Mozilla addons page will produce such a bar as well. While this feature is obviously copied from IE it is welcome none the less. Gone are the boxes popping up in the way.
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|I'm happy to stay with FF2 for the moment. It took me ages just to make the switch from 1.5 to 2, but oh joy was I happy when I did!
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|Ive always moved right away and its been great.
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|My own general rule of thumb is to wait for the beta. Alphas are usually far more unstable. 3.0a1 crashed when I visited GMail... to be fair it could have been an extension I suppose. 3.0b1 crashed only 3 or 4 times and I've had it since it came out. Using 3.0b2 now and I think the only problem I've had is a Tab Mix Plus bug that occurs in 2.0 as well.
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|Opera 9.50 rip off!
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|Bad troll, shoo!
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|lol
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|So....people should be used to browsers ripping each other features off by now.....get over it.
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|truth
nice of firefox to implement new features in their browser that have been around since opera 7 or so (looking at download features and remember passwords). wonder how long the fanboys will go before praising these features i had been using for years previously. opera still does more out of the box than firefox does. i really can't see what makes firefox better than other browsers, including opera seeing how you have to install so many extensions just to get firefox close to emulating opera.
i'm no opera fanboy, but i have not found a better browser yet.
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|I think you misread the point about the passwords: it now lets you see if the login is good before you OK the save of the credentials. Opera has not had that feature since v7. In fact, no shipping version of Opera currently has that feature, since it was just implemented a few months ago with the 9.50 alphas and now betas.
Extensions are both FF's advantage and its disadvantage, depending on your POV. Its biggest advantage over all the alternative browsers is that its marketshare has forced sites to make themselves compatible with it. Opera will never have that, I'm afraid, so it'll continue to be Opera finding ways to patch itself around site problems forevermore. It's only getting worse with the Web 2.0 era.
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|I have tried opera, in all honesty the look, feel and configurability of it doesn't compare.
I also even till this day have issues viewing things in opera. Also firefox has now become almost if not more so supported then ie. I couldn't believe my eyes when a program like lotus domino had issues with ie7, even now and I started firefox up and it worked perfectly, I am sure there is a fix or reasonable explanation, but I couldn't find it in 5 minutes.
What makes FF so great is in fact the extentions, between ad block plus, tab effect, customizing the interface. bookmark toolbar, foxmarks, and the google toolbar. Then being able to get rid of something if you don't like it, not just turn it off or make it out of view but literally get rid of it.
I am really thankful FF is here, and they continue to improve. I will never go back to IE as long as I have a chioce.
As for opera, I can't figure out why they are not doing better, im sure its frustrating. But as long as they are around, we know ff will keep improving haha. Let's not forget about ie.
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|And I bet Opera ripped off Safari since it's the best browser ever;-)LOL
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|Looking good so far, I've run into no issues as of yet and it seems a lot snappier than previous versions. Just a minor nitpick, I don't like the grabber located between the address bar and search bar. Fortunately it's easy to remove (right click, select customize and add a flexible space). Have not tried all my extensions yet but I expect they will need to be updated anyway.
I left Firefox for Opera about a year ago, but if this version keeps shaping up as well as it is I will probably be switching back to Firefox.
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|cool... and almost all of the 2.0 extensions are working fine (i just had to adjust the max version)!
now i hope the guys from yahoo will fix the mail interface to work with gecko 1.9...
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|How did you get FF 3.0 Beta 2 to work with all of the 2.0 extensions, because mine dont, I have many extensions like tabbrowsing, fasterfox etc which do not work at all with it among others.
JC.
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|http://www.oxymoronical.com/web/firefox/nightly
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|i was able to get all but 2 of the 33 extensions (foxmarks and 2 Pane bookmarks) to work using he Nightly tester tools that are linked below. Although i should say that a few of these were updated to work with ff3 but most are still only compatible with FF2. So their is a certain degree of success and failure with using the tester tools.
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|Go to about:config and disable extensions.checkCompatibility and extensions.checkUpdateSecurity and you'll be able to turn all your updates on without needing to edit them.
Alternately install the Nightly Tester Tools extension which does this for you.
Extensions I've used which DON'T work include ChromaTabs (worked in 3.0b1 but not in b2), Split Browser (crashed 3.0b1 when I tried it... didn't try it in b2).
Most of the other ones I tried worked.
Tab Mix Plus works but the styling of the tab bar is a bit off now in b2 (it was ok in b1, TMP devs need to update it I guess).
Update Notifier can notify about updates but it can't install them, you need to go to the Add-ons dialog and Find Updates manually once it notifies you.
Adblock, Firebug, Wed Developer Toolbar, FlashGot, Greesemonkey, IE Tab, Nuke Anythign Enhanced, Stylish, User Agent Switcher, and that Foxkeh extension with the Japanese name all seem to work.
Stylish works better than in 2.0 even, since 3.0b1 introduced a change to allow CSS updates (specifically, by Stylish) to always affect the page immediately (sometimes they didn't in 2.0, IE when a page loaded with a style on, and you disable it, you'd have to reload to see the effect of disabling it).
Although I did have problems tweaking chrome CSS in b1... occasionally when writing a Stylish stylesheet I couldn't get a CSS change to commit, even when closing and reopening windows. I had to restart Firefox to get the CSS changes to commit. Haven't tested it in b2 though.
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|I can install Tab Mix Plus using the nightly tester, but I have zero options available for TM?
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|IE Tab did not work (would not even install) when I tried it in Beta 2 a few minutes ago. Additionally, the Google Toolbar will not install. AD Blocker works great, as does script blocker.
The fact that Yahoo mail (the newer AJAX version) does not work is irritating, but I am sure that will be taken care of, as will the other issues I mentioned.
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|Why did you directly link to the beta? I don't understand why at least you could link to the bouncer (the program in charge of redirecting your download to an available server), even if don't want to link to the DevNews article or the bouncer loading page. Ftp.mozilla.org is just one server or two that also serves things like the nightly builds. When I go through the bouncer I get sent to servers that are meant to handle loads.
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|They could also use metalinks, which would link to all download sites and spread the load between them. Info at http://www.metalinker.org/
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|Im not seeing where he linked?
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|Probably because that site is down?
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|neat
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|I have been using the SwiftFox(Firefox 3 beta 2) for Linux for awhile and I just hope the plugins can be updated to work with the new version. I really miss some of my plugins!
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|This is the only thing I am waiting for to switch to FF 3.
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|SwiftFox is awesome. I can only imagine how fast THAT must be... Firefox 2 is a bit slow for me cause I'm using a few extensions... SwiftFox 2 runs about the same on Linux as Firefox 2 does on Windows!
Unfortunately I only use one computer dual booted with Ubuntu and Windows XP and I'm doing a lot of Windows-only stuff I don't want to mess around getting to work in Ubuntu. :( But hopefully soon I'll be spending more time in Linux, especially since I got my favorite games working.
Scroll up, there are a few ways to force extensions to run in FF3. My post above offers a simple about:config tweak.
Just keep in mind if you intend to file bug reports, to be sure to try and reproduce bugs with extra extensions disabled to be sure they're not interfering.
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