Checking out Firefox 3 beta RC3

In an effort to at least post something in about a week, I thought I would make a quick mention of some initial thoughts I had when I downloaded Firefox 3 beta 3. Now to get that in normal people speak, that would be version 3.0 of Firefox, but it’s still in the beta phase of development, meaning that it’s not ready for official, widespread release and/or use. The second 3 means that it’s third in a series of release candidates for the big day when Firefox 3 is finally here.

You still with me?

The first thing I noticed, on my Powerbook G4 with a 1GHz processor circa 2003, is the speed that this browser works. It’s fast. The current release of Firefox, 2.0.0.12, is rough on my laptop. I can only achieve half the speed of the latest beta by plugging in a hard wire connection, and that only makes me even more sad to the reality that this beautiful laptop is ending its life cycle, but that’s a whole other story.

Rebecca has been using it a bit more than I after I told her about how well it operated, but it starts and stops with the speed. There are some minor bugs that still need to be worked out. There are key commands for WordPress that don’t work in the beta release, but that’s less important than the numerous plugins that I rely on daily which need to be updated and ported into this new version. That will come in time, but certainly makes me hesitate to make the upgrade before I get all my tools lined up and readily available.

Phillip sent me a Twitter the other night when I mentioned this, asking if he should download it. I would say that it wouldn’t hurt if you are a multi-browser user. Firefox is my main workhorse, but I also bounce in and out of Safari and Camino. I expect to do the same with this beta release as well, so if you think you are along those lines, then go for it. Otherwise, hold off. This beta release (beta being the very important word here) isn’t quite ready for the big time.