Since Apple came out with the Safari 3 Beta in August 2007, I was sure I would never need to use Firefox again. Previous versions of Safari had many features missing (dragging tabs, for example), and was slow in general. So was Firefox. All previous versions of Firefox have also had problems on the mac – it too was slow, and it just didn’t look as smooth as Safari. A few weeks ago I downloaded Firefox 3 Beta 3, and I am now using Beta 4. I am impressed. Mozilla really got their team together to create an amazing browser.
Design
The browser looks a lot better – it actually looks good in OS X. In previous versions, as soon as the browser was opened, it just didn’t feel right.
The Mozilla team also made the “back” button significantly larger than the “forward” button. This doesn’t affect me so much since I either use a button on my mouse or keyboard, but for the average user, it’s easier use and understand – the back button is used much more than the forward button in my experience.
Bookmarks
Mozilla has also changed the way we use bookmarks. Firefox 3 now supports SQLite for offline storage. To my knowledge, bookmarks are no longer stored in an .html file – they now have their own little directory system, called “Places.” This will make bookmarks a lot faster, and hopefully allow us to do more with our bookmarks, I mean places. Also, you can now add tags to
Conclusion
Overall, I’m impressed with Firefox 3 Beta. I’ve always supported Firefox, but especially on the mac, Firefox has historically been clunky, ugly, and not as good as Safari 3. FF 3 Beta still has some minor bugs, but for me, it has been stable. You can download the beta here.
Kabren Levinson is fist-year student at Bard College. Throughout high school, Kabren has worked in various technological, political, and artistic positions. He has worked as an intern at the MIT Media Lab Computing Culture Group and during his senior year of high school, he developed an Academic Technology program at the Cambridge School of Weston. He has been podcasting for over three years and has been blogging for two. Kabren is a philosopher, technologist, and artist.