Firefox 3 Beta 4 review
Downloads
One of the most requested features: downloads can be paused and resumed across sessions, limited only by the server capabilities. Also, on Windows, downloaded files are automatically passed to the installed anti-virus if present and Windows Vista parental controls are honored.
As seen in previous betas, the Download Manager has received a serious face lift as an easier to track download list with search capabilities. Beta 4 introduces the ability to search the file size and download date in addition to the file name.
A status bar notification provides summarized status of current downloads. You can click it to open the Download Manager.
Add-ons
The Add-ons Manager has been integrated with Mozilla Add-ons, Mozilla’s official extensions and themes repository, providing recommendations, search, rating and add-ons install without leaving Firefox.
And a new Plugins page (identified with a neat Lego brick icon) allows easy plugin enabling and disabling, making the Add-ons Manager a powerful control panel for Firefox enhancements.
When installing, updating, disabling or enabling back an add-on, an information bar is displayed to remind a restart is needed for changes to apply, and a restart button.
Plus, just installed themes are automatically selected so Firefox uses it after the next restart.
Among other minor tweaks: FTP and gopher listings get a better styled and functional page where the list can be sorted by name, size and date by clicking the appropriate header, and a warning is displayed when accessing advanced preferences (about:config).
SecurityIn the security front, Firefox will check visited sites with a list of known malware sites -provided by stopbadware.org and served by Google- to prevent spyware, rootkits, viruses, dialers and other kinds of malware from even being offered to you.
A rewritten password manager now unobtrusively prompts to store an entered password in the information bar and after trying a logon so you know if it is the correct one or not and avoid cluttering autocomplete lists.
Identifying authentic sites and avoiding fake ones is now easier with the addition of the site button which provides details about the identity of the current web site. While the largest part of the web has no verified identity, financial institutions and similar usually do and it makes the site button in the location bar to change color and size so you can know with a glimpse.
As great as add-ons are they are also a liability and have proved they can become an attack vector. Firefox 3 requires add-ons updates to happen over an encrypted connection (to block malicious sites purporting the update site) or the add-on developer to sign it with a digital signature so updates can be verified to be from the same source. This will prevent middle-man attacks where bad guys could fake an update site address to serve malicious software.
Invalid or expired web site certificates now get an unfriendly treatment that requires adding the site to a white list. This should encourage web site owners to keep their certificates up to date so they can effectively ensure their visitors a more secure experience.
Under the hood
The list of changes for Gecko is not short either and benefit not only Firefox but all “powered by Mozilla” products including Thunderbird, Flock, SeaMonkey, Joost, Miro, Songbird and more.
Since Alpha 1, Firefox 3 passes the Acid2 test, a popular test of a browser styling standard compatibility. As of this Beta 4, Firefox 3 scores 67/100 in the Acid3 test. Not that bad for a test just released a few weeks ago.
Firefox support color profiles embedded on pictures and images to better replicate the original environment conditions as light and focus, thanks to new color management.
Discontinuous selections of text and images are now possible for better control of what you copy or print from a web page.
A biggie: page zoom magnifies the complete page and not only text. This is a much requested feature and a must for Mozilla plans for a Mobile Firefox. Beta 4 adds an option to choose whether you want to zoom the whole pager just text.
Web developers can mark certain web page components such as images and scripts to be available while offline. In practice you could be able to compose emails or write documents though a web service while disconnected from the Internet.
Some interesting tricks that will please JavaScript developers: the ability to load local files for local use, cross site AJAX (XMLHttpRequest), native JSON support and most notably, FUEL, a library of Firefox programming interfaces that will ease the development of new extensions and ensure better practices (such as memory management) for common Firefox tasks.
Support for editable content, so a user can change portions of a web page marked by the author.
The MySpell spell-checking engine has been replaced with Hunspell which does a better job handling complex languages including Asian, Hungarian, Basque, etc.
For Gecko 1.9, Mozilla switched to open source Cairo rendering engine for better rendering performance. The change also enables easy PDF printing capabilities but it is only possible through an extension right now though.
More beautiful animated images are possible with animated PNGs (APNG): a full 16 million color palette and partial transparency will hopefully sweep GIF images in the future. While APNG was rejected as a standard PNG extension last year, Opera has announced it will support the format in future versions.
Proprietary TalkBack, the tool for reporting crashes to Mozilla included with Firefox and Thunderbird, has been replaced with open source Breakpad (formerly Airbag).
Socorro, is a server crash reporting tool that will help developers track the most recurring crashes and identify stability and performance bugs. Users can see their submitted crashes entering about:crashes in the location bar.
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March 10th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I love it.
I don’t get why you still are in “beta” after 4 releases. Could you use another name? Gamma? Delta?
Because if you do 5 betas you might as well go all the way and make 10 alfas, what’s the difference at this point?
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March 10th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
“Betas” are generally pre-release but still not final builds. There were eight alphas of Firefox 3 before the betas started and they were much rougher, really only for the truly dedicated or developers. This is near final quality but with still significant bug fixes occurring.
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March 10th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Yes, I know that, I’m not new here.
What I meant was why are we calling something beta, beta, beta, beta? There should be ONE alfa, ONE beta and ONE of every greek letter.
We should be passing lambda at this point.
PD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet
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March 11th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Leo wrote:
“Yes, I know that, I’m not new here.”
Apparently you don’t know. The terms “alpha” and “beta” have specific meanings in software development:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_version
There is no such thing as a “gamma version”.
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March 11th, 2008 at 8:30 am
This is great news but do you know of a targeted Production date for Firefox 3?
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Yes, I know that.
What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t look logical to have several alphas and betas.
If beta is better than alfa then it should be something better than beta. And that could be called with the next greek letter.
I don’t find logical that we are enumerating things in a crappy order.
It’s like I tell you “count to 5″, and you say “1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4.. 2, 3, 4, 4.1, 4.2, oh, and 5″
No, it should be “1, 2, 3, 4, and 5″. No middle crap.
So by that logic we should be counting alpha (ONLY ONE TIME), beta (ONLY ONE TIME) and so on and so forth with every greek letter.
That’s what I’m saying.
I already know what’s happening with alphas and betas and people say, that’s exactly why I’m complaining. It’s wrong.
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Question:
The last time I used this browser, Microsoft downloads would not download. For example, updates.
Do you know if this is a local issue or can I expect that I have to use Explorer to update?
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:26 am
@docbiz, it’s just the way Microsoft implemented Windows Update which requires ActiveX controls that are not supported by Firefox. By the way, it’s a feature. ActiveX controls are regarded as one of the most common ways to get malware into your computer.
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:30 am
@Leo, the thing is alpha and beta are not “counting” development releases but describing them. You could say Firefox 3 Bomb 1, Bomb 2 etc. and you know it may kill you. Then Firefox 3 Sharp 1, Sharp 2, etc. and you know it could just give you a cut.
Because software development is not that fun they just agreed with alpha and beta.
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Question 2.
If FFx becomes my default browser, how would it effect MS Updats?
Sidney
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:46 am
@docbiz, it won’t affect it. The Windows Update link in the All Programs Menu actually launches Internet Explorer and connects to http://www.update.microsoft.com/. You can also launch Internet Explorer and select Windows Update from the Tools menu in either IE 6 or 7.
You can even install the Windows Update extension for Firefox and it will add a Windows Update item to Firefox’s Tools menu that launches IE. It is not compatible with Firefox 3 Beta 4 yet though.
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March 11th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Firefox Alpha, Beta, 1.0, 2.1, etc., whatever it is… so far this new release just seems to blow everything else away. Found no bugs yet, but have only been exercising it for the last hour or so. It seems to render our own WEB site faster and more accurately than Betas 3 did. I’m impressed!
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March 11th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
The Vista theme is absolutely awful! Really! I am using Firefox especially because it is one of the only application on Vista that still has professional credibility.
The new XP theme also doesn’t look good. Especially the icons.
Anyone considers these icons are somewhat better than Firefox 2?
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March 11th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Right now i’m running :
AMD Athlon(TM) 4 1300+ (960mhz)
192MB SDRAM
will it be sufficient to run Firefox 3 beta 4? The ver. 2 makes my computer hangs everytime i opens more than 3 tabs :(
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March 11th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Is it just me or do some bits of this not read coherently? E.g.
“Beta 4 also brings support for multiword search so firefox downloads filters address, titles and tags containing both words though not necessarily in that order.”
That makes no sense to me.
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March 11th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
@bob, firefox downloads is in italics and an example of what you would enter in the location bar. I’ve added double quotes and changed “though” for “but” so hopefully it is clearer now.
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March 11th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
No, it makes perfect sense to me.
So, BetaIV. I haven’t noticed too many differences yet, but I prefer the more uniform Vista theme. It’s a pity that the buttons haven’t been smothed out before this beta’s release. I’m pretty sure that was done for the XP lolgreen icons, so it just makes the Vista icons look like an afterthought, really.
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March 11th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Oh yeah, one more GUI thing, pertaining to the consideration of an option to split the buttons: I like the small icons, so I’d like to see either those, only done larger; or I suppose rounded squares, or even just line arrows.
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March 11th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Question!
Did they fix the crashing of this review in Beta 4? Beta 3 doesn’t like it.
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March 11th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
@Alec Munro:
My Firefox 3 Beta 4 is crashing. But only when Firebug is enabled. :-S
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March 12th, 2008 at 5:19 am
THE GOGGLES! THEY DO NOTHING! Still has that ass-backward substitute for bookmarking, and now a cheap and nasty looking interface on Windows? What are they smoking? plugged memory leaks and a slightly more up to date rendering engine are not enough to make up for that. I’m waiting for the plugin to fix bookmarking and the custom skins, thank you. Until then, Opera here I come!
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March 16th, 2008 at 5:17 am
I’m really impressed with performance of FF3 b4.
Thanks for great work. And zoom is also great feature (I know, Opera had it before).
I don’t care that much about look, but now Firefox looks really nice in GNOME.
I see there’s even more features to discover yet.
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March 16th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
You can always just get the ‘IE tab’ extension for Firefox that allows you to load pages using IE’s engine but through Firefox. It also comes preset to automatically load the Windows Update page with IE’s engine. This way you can update using Firefox and Windows thinks your using IE. Best extension ever
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March 17th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
well I have been using beta4 since it came out…man I love it. I used it extensively on both on my Win XP and Ubuntu systems and works great. I am really liking they direction Mozilla took with FF3 especially in the themes department.
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March 17th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
duplicate tab does duplicate history!
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March 19th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Since Firefox is able to do so many nifty tricks- has anyone ever contemplated changing the scrollbar from the right side to the left?
On a laptop, it’d be sweet to have the scrollbar on the left side, where most of the action of the cursor takes place.
I’m actually surprised no one’s done a plug in or a hack to do that yet. Just a thought.
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March 20th, 2008 at 6:15 am
As a software developer, I can tell you that it would be GUI suicide to change the placement of the scrollbar - as a default anyway.
Usability is all about uniformity, and if you start moving around standard elements of the GUI, you absolutely ruin the overall usability.
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March 20th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I wasn’t talking about changing the scrollbar from right to left for everyone, I was curious if it could be done via a hack or plugin, for those few weirdos like me that might prefer it on that side. Since the file/back/forward/ and other browser commands are typically assigned to the left side, it just would make things easier and faster for me to have the scrollbar on the left side, since that’s where most of my mouse work takes place.
Just a plug in or a hack is all I want, not to change the way the world works.
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March 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
@Steve March
Sorry … misunderstood you. My bad :-)
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March 24th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I’ve been using Firefox since version 1.5.0.4, it is my everyday browser. I’ve used IE7,opera 9 but like FF because of it’s simple design, easier to use and as of ff3 beta 4 there are lot of improvements… but certain things that i wish could be better is that 1.the location bar in xp (as of beta 4) does not look good, the Go button is always not available, so i have to click the reload button, this makes confusion, it would be better if the Go button like of ff 2 would always be available on the location bar. 2. It would be better if the drop down menu bar on the location bar would look more visible. 3. the stop button does not look good, the previous one as of ff 2 was nice. 4. the home button with red roof looks distracting. 5. it would be better if i do not loose my cache due to browser crash or sudden power failure which happens in ff 2 6. why can’t we view the cache in firefox like of IE or opera (where we could view the jpeg or videos etc clearly from Temporary Internet Files in IE and cache in opera) 7. the most useful addon that i use is the real player browser record plugin but it is not compatible with ff 3 beta 4… I hope it will work with ff 3. 8. In ff 2 when i used to open new tab, it opens smoothly but in beta 4, i experienced blinking while opening new tab. 9. the save page as feature from right click within the browser window does not work on beta4, i had to save pages using ctrl+s and the download completed notification slide always pop up after i save pages.
when i had 10 tabs open and using DTA downloading a file, the task manager showed beta 4 using 61,504k memory - Is this normal?
Hope someone will reply here…
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March 30th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Hello I had expected someone would reply…
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April 13th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I can’t access Project Web Access webpage can you please include the use of active x controls until then I will never be able to utilize firefox as my main browser of choice.
I hope that Firefox 3.0 will have active x installation capabilities.
thanks.
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PaulJune 20th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Just add the add-on IE Tab. It will permit you to use active X features.
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April 13th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
There will never be any Active X support within Firefox. Active X is proprietary to Microsoft and it is a Windows only technology. Mozilla supports open standards and is cross-platform (Mac, Linux, Windows).
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April 22nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
When moving the “HOME” button to the Navigation bar (or any other button for that matter), then the whole of Navigation bar
goes INactive, meaning that No “File”, “Edit”, or any other navigation button is clickable after the move.
please advise…
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May 29th, 2008 at 11:40 am
real player download video plugin not working
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June 21st, 2008 at 11:19 am
I tried using firefox 3 but it still has bugs and i dont like being a tester for these companys so i still use firefox 2 which is great!
http://firefoxfreebie.blogspot.com
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