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Mozilla Firefox 3.0 final release under way

By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews

June 17, 2008, 11:37 AM


Download Firefox 3.0 Final Release for Windows from FileForum now.

Downloads commenced after 1:00 pm EDT will count toward Mozilla's try for the record.


The try for the Guinness World Record for the single most downloaded piece of software in a single day has begun. Mozilla is keeping careful watch as its servers will attempt to handle millions of requests for Firefox 3.0.

BetaNews itself has counted for at least one of those downloads, of course, as we'll be updating our own copies throughout the day. We don't expect any major surprises with the software itself, since RC3 to us looked very solid, with the exception of some screen refresh problems that, in our testing, we tracked down as being caused by other software, not Firefox.

We did get one surprise this morning, however: Mozilla's developers' blog, from which we get release notes and comments on active projects, is down this morning. We hope to see that up soon so we can let you know if any RC3 issues that we missed were found by others and fixed.


Update ribbon (small)

2:35 pm EDT June 17, 2008 - In perhaps the most blatant display of truth in software publishing seen in quite some time, Mozilla's Firefox 3.0 final release version is bit-for-bit identical with Release Candidate 3, unveiled last week. Evidently, RC3 passed the test with flying colors.

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By Doddy N. Lesmana

edited Jul 5, 2008 - 8:03 AM

I have problem to open Mozilla firefox release 3.0. After I installed it can not opened and write "The application has failed to start because js3250.dll was not found. Please tell me how I can install for fix this problem ? Thank you for your best cooperation. Doddy

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

edited Jun 18, 2008 - 1:17 PM

The final count accoring to http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/ is:
7,876,850

That's not as high as I'd thought it would get to.

Score: 0

By raikaizeru

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 1:38 PM

There still an hour to go and almost 8mill already. Maybe it'll get 7mil more in last hour :P

Score: 0

By davidtb

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 12:22 PM

I bet people who use it at home, would love to be able to download it at work.
If they only offered it in .zip, gee.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 12:43 PM

???

Score: 0

By yountmj

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 1:02 PM

The system administrator there has probably disabled downloading of .exe files.

*shrug*

Score: 0

By dvferret

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 3:42 PM

And its so funny how stupid some of the system admins can be too. Back in high school, it was so easy to get past all of thier blocks. Now im in college and the computers there are even easier to bypass the crap they have on them.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 4:33 PM

Mine was delightful.

I could run anything I liked if I renamed it winword.exe

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 1:41 PM

Then his administrator would also likely frown on him using a browser other than what is offered by IT...

One might think the OP is b****ing just to b****.

Score: 0

By joeshmoe7

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 9:38 AM

Wow, finally those dam pages that used to take forever to load on a certain site, are now very fast. Nice upgrade. No problems. Seems to open faster too. Overall it feels a lot tighter.

Score: 0

By sturgess

edited Jun 18, 2008 - 8:10 AM

I have been using FireFox 3 since the first beta, now that was a disaster. But it just got better and better, and is now as good as any browser out there. But then so is the new version of Opera, been using that since the beginning of time and this latest is as good as FireFox. So what to do ? Well I'll tell you what to do, go with Opera as only a few dozen very sensible folk like you and me are using it. The bad guys are only interested in the big players of this world and that is why they will leave us few, us happy few alone.

Score: 0

By MJLand_ro

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 7:24 AM

boy, oh boy ;))

Score: 0

By robmanic44

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 6:41 AM

Are we having fun yet?

Score: 0

By ajayseo

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 4:29 AM

We have also downloaded the version of Firefox 3

http://www.maharashtradi...com/busby-seo-challenge

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 7:52 AM

Super. You can be proud of yourself.

Score: 0

By roj

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 11:04 PM

PC_Tool:

I graded it as a browser and not based on the hype. That's why it gets a FOUR and IE7 gets a FIVE. If I graded it based on the hype, it would receive a TWO because it falls so far short of the overblown hyperbole.

I calls 'em as I sees 'em and have never cared about the popularity contest on the boards, this one being no exception. :)

It is what is.

'nuff said.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 8:52 AM

IE7 gets a 5?

*laughs*

What does IE7 have over Firefox?

No, seriously. Why does IE get a 5 from you and FF a 4?

Speed? (Ajax, pure HTML..)

UI?

Extensibility?

Resource Footprint?

Score: 0

By yountmj

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 7:38 AM

Nice "reply"...

Based solely on the ability to completely uninstall it if necessary, Firefox will always rate higher to me than Internet Explorer as an application, not simply just a browser.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 7:54 AM

Deep integration of the IE browser into the OS is a great thing. Unfortunately the competition has castrated it, screwed the users and even sold them for stupid (not that that would have been difficult)

Score: 0

By joeshmoe7

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 9:26 AM

"Deep integration of the IE browser into the OS is a great thing"

you're kidding right?

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 11:28 AM

Actually, not at all. As far as I am concerned for some machines I'd like an OS that simply IS a browser.

Score: 0

By dikbozo

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 10:47 PM

10:47 P.M. 2,800,000 +.

Score: 0

By idodialog

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 9:12 PM

I must have been one of the early downloaders - had it since the first 15 mins and its been running for about eight hours with never less than 6 tabs open, currently 15 tabs (up to about 25), its using 121mb of memory which I'd say is fantastic especially as I'm running 18 add-ons. Big thanks to all the Mozilla people.

Score: 0

By ghostface147

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:38 PM

Firefox 3 regularly crashes OS X 10.5.3 on my MacBook Pro. Safari 4 developer preview is more stable. So to me....frequent crashes equals garbage!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 5:59 PM

Servers seem much better now. Looks like they finally got things under control.

...about time.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:38 PM

Doesn't sound like your most productive day today...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 8:45 AM

Nah. I made those 'productive days' years ago.

Now I don't need to.

Ain't life grand?

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 11:30 AM

I hear ya... Just seems dull spending them monitoring mozilla download servers instead...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 11:46 AM

Heh...

Should it amaze anyone that what seems dull to one person doesn't seem dull to another?

That said, each post takes under a minute.

That's, what? 13 minutes accounted for?

Hardly the waste of a day... :)

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 6:38 AM

Heh. ^This^

Score: 0

By muka3d

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 3:09 PM

Actually, Firefox 3.0 final for Windows is identical to RC2...

Score: 0

By Diam0nd

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 7:07 AM

Is that so, genius?

Score: 0

By yountmj

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 7:41 AM

Considering how the Windows version of RC3 was identical to RC2 (Mac OS X version was different), I would say so.

Score: 0

By userind

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:58 PM

installer available now...

Score: 0

By userind

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 2:51 PM

Not available yet...pages are showing up, but not the final installer

view homepage screenie's here...

http://interestingwritin...fox-3-new-homepage.html
http://interestingwritin...fox-3-new-homepage.html
http://interestingwritin...pagethird-screenie.html

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 2:33 PM

The site (US) has been updated!

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Version 3 is Officially launched (in the US).

(Still slow and prone to "interrupted" connections)

Score: 0

By Galway

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:30 PM

Noscript works under V3, and it only broke 1 add-on for me, that being foxlingo. Not noticed anything major(ie6 to ie7), few icons have changed and it appears fast and slick. Its free, and just a browser at the end of it all, but for now its my main choice.

Score: 0

By AsianAngel

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:54 PM

Which version of Fox Lingo do you have? I currently have version 2.2.3 (just got it yesterday) and so far it seems to be working fine after the Firefox installation...

Score: 0

By Galway

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 4:48 PM

2.2.2 It is currently disabled, and the options are gray'd out. I suppose it will update itself, but at the moment its not giving the option. If its fixed, I may as well just uninstall and add the new version, but I would have thought V3 would have updated it without intervention.

Score: 0

By AsianAngel

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:26 PM

Woohoo! Just got the 4 language versions that I wanted. ~__^

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:20 PM

The servers are deader than corduroy bell-bottoms.

Score: 0

By Galway

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:33 PM

Copy the ftp link into *insert FTP program of choice* and hammer it till you get a connection. Took me all of 4 minutes.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:42 PM

I've got the installer a while ago. Just commenting on the state of play with the servers vis-à-vis the record breaking attempt.

Score: 0

By reech

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:17 PM

Note to self: Going for records doesn't work if you don't have enough server bandwidth.

Score: 0

By MJLand_ro

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 2:14 PM

here in Romania the release would have been 1 Hour ago... but no luck, the www.mozilla.com site is down :(

Score: 0

By AminSamizadeh

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 1:18 PM

Seems the official website is down so go get it from the address below:
ftp://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.0/

Score: 0

By bmwkalyan

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:20 PM

Great it works, Thanks Dude

Score: 0

By Briantist

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:34 PM

At least the Google Toolbar plugin works again!

Score: 0

By nasserd

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:20 PM

What's the build number?

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:44 PM

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9)

Score: 0

By yountmj

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 7:24 AM

You left out something... the build number. :)

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 8:44 AM

Heh...

Yeah, well...my cursor didn't want to go down that far.

This is what not proofreading gets you... ;)

Score: 0

By DakotaSunRunner

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:19 PM

Yessss some one with some sense on this web site. Thank you "computershack", your perhaps the smartest one here. I should think others would have more important things to worry about than a web browser.

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:34 PM

More important? Such as what, in your opinion? Global warming trends? Drug trafficking in Montreal? That the latest GTD software has been updated or that Logitech has finally gotten around to releasing drivers for your mouse?

The URL here is www.betanews.com, a site for beta programs, and a prominent piece of software has left beta for final release. That's rather important news to the rest of the tech world, but you go back to whatever world-changing, "more important things" you have on your plate. We will keep our snivelling, mindless selves happy with some obscure little browser.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:42 PM

Yeah, but he's not funny...
Then again I only came here to find someone to insult and those guys further down counting the minutes gave me a stop. Whatever - this site is betanews so FF *IS* a big deal in this context...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:55 PM

Then again I only came here to find someone to insult

Ooh!

*jumping up and down*

Pick me! Pick me!

;)

Score: 0

By preinterpost

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 1:59 PM

I almost did but find you posted enough already in this thread...

You know, there's a recession looming. Ask ladylust... Then again Jaq might censor me again for this... Hmmm, maybe Jaq *IS* ladylust..?

Anyway, back to work already... (I'll check back in a few h to see how things turned out...)

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:11 PM

Wait...

How much is "enough"?

Is there a wiki somewhere for it?

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:42 PM

Who's worried? We're just talking about it.

FFS, if you're not interested, WTH are you doing here?

Oh, yeah...trolling.

Score: 0

By computershack

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:14 PM

You're all sad. It's a browser FFS, not the second coming of Christ.

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:37 PM

And you're a tard. It's not just ANY browser, it's Firefox! THREE! It may not be the 2nd coming of Christ, but it's damn close!

I like trollbaiters, I really do. They keep me entertained.

Score: 0

By Ethelred

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 6:05 PM

Firefox is real. Waiting for the Second Coming is waiting for the longest vaporware in history. Over 1900 years and counting.Even has Duke Nukem ForNever beat. Don't hold your breath waiting for either. Unless you are looking for a Darwin Award.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:41 PM

Just because we are commenting on it does not mean we think of it any different than any other piece of software we use.

Just because *you* aren't interested doesn't mean no-one else can be.

Go troll somewhere else, boy.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:16 PM

Yes, we buy our own bread and wine now. Online. For that we need a friggin browser.

Score: 0

By computershack

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:27 PM

Judging by the fact you've managed to make that post, you already have one.

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:41 PM

Not quite so fast, there, mental giant. He damn well could have made the post from a public terminal. Then again, judging by your previous post, you don't generally make it a habit of thinking hard.

So much effort into posting a burn, and you fail. That's gotta suck.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:38 PM

The people releasing FF3 claim mine is crap and their users say I am an idiot using it. I only want to be just like them!!!

Score: 0

By thndrgrv

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:02 PM

Toronto - LOL just trying to get onto the website to download FF3 and it stalls and it times out =))))

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:03 PM

Yep. They're getting hammered now.

*Visions of servers melting into pools of silicon and plastic*

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 12:55 PM

Direct Link:

http://www.mozilla.com/e...x-3.0&os=win?=en-US

Nabbed from the 2.0.0.14 download link, just replaced the version numbers.

Tested and working. No idea if it updates the count, but then again, I couldn't really care less.

Edit OS/Lang as needed.

Score: 0

By raikaizeru

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 1:01 PM

Updates do not count. Only downloads

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:04 PM

Not an update link, it's the direct 3.0 link....though good luck getting it to work right now. ;)

Score: 0

By imafurby

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 3:05 PM

clocked in around 1 minute just now.

Score: 0

By Heshow

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 12:45 PM

If this the Mozilla Firefox 3.0 final release why i get this welcome page
"" Thank you for helping test this third Firefox 3 release candidate! This preview release is being made available for testing purposes only. You should read the release notes before getting started ""

Score: 0

By Metshrine

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 12:52 PM

Because instead of waiting until mozilla oficially announces it, betanews has to jump the gun yet again just to be the first with the "Firefox 3.0 released" news article. I guess they get brownie points among news sites for being the first to announce what has been known to be happening today for about a week already.

Plus, mozilla hasnt posted the new and updated pages for 3.0. Thats why rc3's page still shows.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 12:14 PM

Wish they'd be quicker about updating their web pages.

(as of 11:15am CST)

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

and

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

and

http://www.mozilla.com/Firefox

are all still on 2.0.0.14.

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/ is down. (up and down..database doesn't seem to be able to hack it)

...but they don't even have it. The link:

"If you don't already have the fastest, most secure, most customizable web browser, get it for free today!"

goes to the last link above.

*laughs*

Classy release, folks.

Score: 0

By skider86

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 12:33 PM

The 3.0 release is scheduled for 10AM PDT so the various web sites will not be updated until that time and not before. I would send you to the Wiki that shows the milestones, but it is being overrun with traffic. They were on schedule as of 6AM PDT -- here is that link to the page:

http://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_3.0

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 12:48 PM

Few minutes then.

Good deal. :)

Thanks.

Score: 0

By gawd21

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 2:54 PM

EDIT: I wish I hadn't of waisted my time on this crappy version.

Score: 0

By skider86

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 12:36 PM

The FTP server had a file last night that said downloading from it would not count towards the record.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 12:44 PM

He may not be the least bit concerned about the silly record.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 12:21 PM

My point was that it should be noted (not just conveniently left out of the article) that the official release has not yet happened.

It hasn't actually been released...yet.

Hopefully we'll get a better update once the official launch begins.

Score: 0

By gawd21

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 2:54 PM

EDIT: Crap!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 12:55 PM

http://www.mozilla.com/e...p;os=win&lang=en-US

Just change the default download link from 2.0.0.14 to 3.0 and you're good to go. ;)

Dunno if it counts towards the record. Don't really care...

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 12:23 PM

I'm not saying it should be like this, but:

It's been like this for all previous releases of Firefox.

*Edit* And it seems it's not released for another 35-ish minutes.

Score: 0

By mike_diack

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 1:18 PM

It’s just been a bad joke - and has backfired badly. Here at 6pm UK time, in theory the build should be out (since its now 10am in West Coast USA), but unsurprisingly the server’s are DOS’ed and unreachable and much of the world that could’ve been downloading (i.e. East of the UK) are now asleep.

Really badly organised Mozilla. Why on earth didn’t you publish what time (and time zone) it’d be available in.

Mike

Score: 0

By gawd21

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 2:56 PM

You aren't missing anything. It's a buggy crappy release, that is as bad as an alpha. Stick with 2.0.0.14.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 3:02 PM

That's amusing, considering it seems to conflict with the opinions of damn near everyone else using it...

Score: 0

By gawd21

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 3:09 PM

Read the review page.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 4:01 PM

I did. 4.2/5 Hardly a bad sign.

2 people grading it based purely on hype, not on it being a "browser". (Apparently, hype = negative score?)

How about judging it based on it's capabilities compared to other browsers, guys... Hmmmm?

And yours, which is incredibly amusing as links work just fine for me and the addons site (a mozilla site) is being hammered like crazy right now (and even so, I was able to get through).

Didn't see a single one there that had an honest comparison to *any* other browser with regards to speed, rendering, usability, intuitiveness, GUI, etc...

I'm glad you all have an opinion, but don't expect anyone to take it seriously.

All of my bookmarks are intact (using Weave...which *may* have saved me from this problem...if it's an actual bug), all of the browser links are working for me...

Seriously, download Glary Utilities, defraggler, uninstall FF, run them and try again. I'm betting it's your system and not FF.

Score: 0

By gawd21

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 4:03 PM

It doesn't even open the links. It is as if they aren't there. There are only positive feed back for people that didn't even review it. There were two low ratings based on the flaws in a final release that is buggy. It is still slower that IE7 as we already know and why do we need to even comment on that? If you can't get it to work correctly why would you rate it higher? I am using a clean install of Vista X64 Ultimate. installed on 06-14-08 SP1 installed today.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 4:52 PM

It doesn't even open the links. It is as if they aren't there.

..and I am telling you it's still on your end *unless* there's a problem between 32bit/64bit Vista.

Because I have had RC3 on Vista 32 ultimate since it came out. No issues.

This is RC3...hence...

I don't know where to tell you where to look. You say it's a clean install and I'll take you at your word, but there's got to be something else going on. Driver issues or something...

It's not that I believe FF is infallible. It's the complete lack of anyone else reporting similar issues with RC3. That would have definitely been a blocking bug.

Score: 0

By mike_diack

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 4:14 PM

I finally managed (2 hours late) to reach their servers at 8pm UK time on 17 June 2008, which now seem to be working. However when I downloaded the final version from spreadfirefox, it turns it out is RC3 (I did a SHA 1 comparison and byte for byte check between final and RC3), so in short, if you've got RC3, don't bother downloading the "FINAL"

Mike

Score: 0

By burningangelbreath

edited Jun 18, 2008 - 4:59 AM

RC stands for Release Candidate. Meaning it is the final as long as they don't find anything wrong with declaring it the final. So yes RC3 is firefox 3.0.

Score: 0