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Applelinks Reviews Firefox 3 beta 3 for Mac
by , 4:35 PM EST, February 22nd, 2008
On Friday, Charles Moore at Applelinks reviewed Firefox 3, beta 3 for Mac. While Safari has significant mindshare in Apple community, Firefox is the most dominant non-Microsoft browser with about 17 percent of the overall browser market. The latest beta was described as reaching maturity, and unlike beta 2, has a new, more Mac-like, look.
"About three weeks ago, I posted a mini-review of Firefox 3 beta 2, which I've been using for over a month now, and have found much about to like," Mr. Moore wrote. "It's very fast, and has for me been very reliable with minimal beta bugginess noted. Frankly, notwithstanding Mozilla's disclaimers that the version 3 betas are for developer evaluation only, I haven't encountered any reason not to use the version 3 browser for regular, workaday browsing. It works better for me than the latest Firefox 2 final."
Mr. Moore noted that one has to love Mozilla's update method. When the current version detects a new version, it downloads it in the background. When the user checks for a new version, the update is almost instantaneous. Also notable is that fact that Firefox 3 beta 2 has the same look as Firefox 2, and that made Mr. Moore somewhat indifferent to the product. However, the latest version has a new look.
"Consequently, perhaps the most exciting news for me about version 3 beta 3 is that Firefox finally gets a decent-looking user interface. Better than decent actually; it's quite attractive with a more native Mac OS X look, with smaller buttons and more compact tabs," Mr. Moore observed.
Also, Firefox has a new feature, Mr. Moore's new favorite, such that the program asks the user if the tabs should be saved when quitting.
In typical fashion, Mr. Moore puts the new beta through its paces in considerable detail. There is much emphasis on the security improvements as well. The noted reviewer mentioned that Firefox 3 is based on Mozilla's Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, in development for 29 months, and has had 11,000 fixes made.
While a few remaining bugs were found, Mr. Moore's overall evaluation was very positive: "No release date has been announced for the Firefox 3 final, and one more beta is expected before that happens. In the meantime, beta 3 is a pretty decent ride, and I would not think of going back to version 2."
For those who might like to try it, Firefox 3 beta 3 reqires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and is free. Version 2 users should note that version 3 will likely break any plug-ins used with version 2.
Observer Comments
The new look could perhaps be improved (although I think it's an improvement, anyway), but honestly, people talk about the "look" too much. Interface design is not about looks. Mac-ish-ness is not about looks. It's about behavior. Menus in one application should behave the same way menus do in every other application. Text fields should behave the same way as everywhere else, unless there's a DAMNED GOOD reason for custom behavior (hint: there's not here).
The new beta looks more like other Mac apps, but it STILL doesn't act like other Mac apps! Try navigating sub-menus in your bookmarks bar or contextual menu. They look just like normal Mac menus now, but they act exactly like they used to. So what's the point?! Honestly, it was better when they looked different; at least then the appearance reflected the functionality.
Text fields are still non-standard as well.
The new beta looks great, but looks don't matter all that much. It's a sign of progress, though. I hope they take it further in the final release and make it behave like a normal Mac program, too.
Omniweb is a very nice browser. There are lots of useful features. For instance, built in support for ad and animation blocking. Also, I like being able to tell my browser to identify itself for certain sites as other browsers. That really is handy for a few sites I visit every once in a while (Safari can do this, but it is part of the bug menu, not a feature which is automatic). Omniweb also does tabs in a cool way.
With that said, every-time I tried to use Omniweb as my primary browser, I ended up switching back to Safari. My main grievance was the way it handled PDFs. For instance, I hate not being able to view PDFs in the browser itself. With Omniweb you cannot do that. The fault lies with Adobe for not making a plugin for the browser, but nonetheless, it still is too big a pain for me to be able to comfortably use the browser. There were some other more minor bugs as well. For instance, it's auto fill design isn't that good.
I never liked Firefox on the Mac. The new Firefox, however, (the beta version) has a lot of nice things to offer and acts much better. Moreover, contrary to your belief (maybe you mean from browser to browser), you can drag and drop both tabs and bookmarks in Firefox (this version anyway). Firefox, however, does have trouble rendering certain characters that Safari doesn't have problems with (for instance many Greek characters). I actually am using Firefox (the beta) full time because Safari's keychange and autofill performance is substandard compared to Firefox.
UPdate: I have not looked at Omniweb in a year. I stopped by today, and it appears they recently did release a PDF plugin. Maybe I will try it out again.
QuoteGuest wrote:
I've been using OmniWeb as my browser for 4 years now. I even paid for it, and no, I don't work for OmniGroup. I also like the ability to change search engines, and the way it remembers common web sites.
In truth, I have at least temporarily switched to Firefox full time. Safari lately has been suffering some seriously annoying bugs. For instance, its auto fill support is very sporadic in what sites it wants to remember information from. Moreover, it flat out refuses to remember user names and passwords for many sites that Firefox will remember with no problem.
This newest version of Firefox has made progress, but in terms of usability, it's still light years behind OmniWeb, even Safari. Importing bookmarks from OmniWeb was impossible, I had to do it manually. Firefox doesn't support drag and drop bookmark management, a basic feature in any modern browser.
It's a nice effort, but it's usability is still substandard.
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