I tested Firefox 3 as Gran Paradiso (59.7 MB) for months on end now and still have it on my computer. I tried the new Firefox 3. Beta 1 and had to uninstall it for it would not run various add-ons that I cannot understand why they were declined from installing (updates not secure enough etc). I could not install Add N Edit Cookies, Stealther, Console2 etc etc.
It is too restrictive to my liking. I have all the latest code from burning edge incorporated, latest bug patches applied in my own Gran Paradiso version, and I also added a special security folder full of Mozilla code. So as the situation is now I would not like to begin to change my personal 3a.01 version with my personal adaptations against the new FF 3.Beta 1…
I did not try the night testing tools with it, but alas less versatility for me in this Beta. I like to be able to command my browser for security in every aspect possible. FF 3.Beta 1 - overall personal verdict small, secure, but too minimal tweaking possibilities for my tastes.
Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect their add-ons to work properly with this beta.
Please note that installing Firefox 3 Beta 1 will overwrite your existing installation of Firefox. You won't lose any of your bookmarks or browsing history, but some of your extensions and other add-ons might not work until updates for them are made available.
Use portable firefox not to let this happen. Here are scripts for it. If you like to do it yourself, however, just replace the content of firefox folder with a compiled nightybuild. Here is an instruction for it. I use portable firefox to test some addons/extensions, too. Using the portable function of apps as some kind of sandbox seems to have become a kind of trend today.
PS Indeed, the lack of addons definitely reduce the practical value of Firefox 3 but I am quite happy with Firefox 2 and there is no need to hurry.
Hi, this is a rather minor update but you can now download firefox 3 portable beta 1 here. Then again, still not so many addons/extensions are available on it.
Firefox 3 Beta 2 installs alongside Firefox 2, so anybody who wants to try it but has been worried about the beta installing over Firefox 2 (as was the case previously) can now go ahead and try it without any worries.
Not so many regular comers here, I think. Then again, a precaution won’t harm since the net is open to anybody.
[Edit]
Also, I haven’t come across someone complaining of the unavailability of all extensions/add-ons. Most of people complain of that of the popular ones.
Even in the final release there may be extensions that don’t work and you may need to hack them about a bit to get them to work. I dare say I will have to do the same thing for one of my favourite extensions, Translate 0.6.0.8.
The Mozilla Foundation has made some 900 improvements in the Firefox 3 second beta version of this browser. Moreover these are adaptations deal with the user interface, memory use, and other matters to enhance stability, and performance. A lot of these improvements come from feedback by the Firefox community.
Where security is concerned the browser is better hardened against cross-site JSON data-leaks, and the Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service sees to it that cookies and other content from a certain domain is available for that domain only.
Despite of all improvements this is a beta test version, and users are warned that the browser is only meant for developers and testers.
