Brightrev

After the great success of Firefox 2, both Microsoft and Mozilla are adding innovative features to new versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox. I took a first look at Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 last week. Keep reading for an early look at Firefox 3 Beta 4, where I point out new features and a few problems I saw with the beta.

Setup

Firefox 3 Beta 4 is easy to setup, even with Firefox 2 already installed. On Windows, Firefox 3 B4 will automatically install into its own Program Files\Firefox 3 Beta 4 directory, separate from the existing Firefox 2 install. Click the following image to view the Firefox 3.0 B4 setup gallery:

Firefox 3 shares your old Firefox 2 profile by default. This can cause problems in the older version of Firefox, so you should create a new profile after installing Firefox 3. Using either Windows XP’s Run command or Windows’s Vista’s Start Menu search bar, type the following command to open the Firefox Profile Manager:
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 4\firefox.exe" /p

Click the Create Profile… button and follow the wizard. I called my profile Carl 3.0 b4.

Once you click the Start Firefox button, each version of Firefox will use its own profile, eliminating any conflicts.

Although you can install both Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 B4 on the same PC, you can’t run both versions at the same time. If you want to run Firefox 3, be sure to close Firefox 2 first.

New Features

Firefox 3’s best new feature is that Bookmarks and History are searched automatically from the address bar. One of the biggest problems with browsing is trying to get back to a site that you’ve seen in the past. For example, if you’re looking for a new notebook and you go to HP, Dell, Lenovo and Gateway sites, Firefox makes those page titles searchable from the address bar. When you go back later and search for notebook, you’ll get a quick list of all pages you’ve visited or bookmarked with the word notebook in the title.

You can also use multiple keywords in the search bar, so if you want to find a Dell notebook you saw a week earlier, you just type the words dell notebook into the address bar, like this:

This is an outstanding feature that I can see using every day.

After innumerable complaints about Firefox’s memory usage, the folks at Mozilla worked to improve Firefox’s performance and fix its memory management issues. I found that closing and reopening the browser a few times a day resolved any memory usage problems for me. However, some people like to leave their browser window open for hours or days at a time, which causes Firefox 2 to use increasingly large amounts of memory.

To test Firefox 3’s memory improvements, I setup Firefox on two identical virtual machines, both running Windows XP SP2 with 512 MB of RAM and the newest Flash plugin. I picked a variety of technology, news, corporate and entertainment sites, and then loaded the exact same sites in both browsers. The following are my test results:

These tests aren’t conclusive, but it does appear that Firefox memory usage is improved somewhat in version 3. Note that I tried minimizing Firefox, but in no instance did this have an effect on memory usage. I understand that other memory tweaks are possible, but I wanted to test default functionality, since that’s what most people will use. I expected bigger improvements in memory usage, and noted that CPU usage seemed to be higher on Firefox 3. Still, Firefox 3 uses less memory in every instance than does version 2.

Firefox 3’s address bar now has one click Bookmark functionality, which is a good idea, but is poorly implemented.

When you click the star in your address bar, the bookmark doesn’t appear in the Bookmarks menu until you file it, which you can do by double-clicking the star. An unfiled bookmark does appear in the Smart Bookmarks-->Recently Bookmarked section. In its current state, users will click the star and then wonder why the new bookmark is missing from the Bookmarks menu. This is confusing and unnecessary. The default action should be for a single-click to launch the File Bookmark dialog.

Mozilla developers have also implemented several minor new features in Firefox 3.

• Bookmarks and browser history are stored in SQLite databases, which should make them more reliable. The separate history and bookmarks interfaces have been replaced by an integrated utility that supports both.

• The Download Manager has been improved. It keeps a log of downloaded files and allows pausing and resuming of downloads. On Windows Vista, it stores download files in the %userprofile%\downloads folder rather than on the Desktop.
• You can now zoom into and out of pages with small text by using the View menu or CTRL+ and CTRL- keyboard shortcuts.

Extensions and Compatibility

Most of the extensions I use aren’t listed as compatible with Firefox 3, though I expect this will be remedied as the product nears full release. SmartSearch, Tab Mix Plus, Firebug, Tiny Menu, Viamatic Foxpose are listed as incompatible with Firefox 3, while AdBlock Plus and Tab Preview work with the new version.

I don’t care for Firefox 3’s new theme and I hope they replace it before the official release. The interface for Internet Explorer 7 and 8 is terrible, with browser buttons moved around for no good reason, but that’s no excuse for Mozilla to slap an unattractive theme on Firefox.

One thing that particularly irks me is that Firefox 3 moves the Home button to the Bookmarks toolbar. To put the Home button back on the Navigation toolbar where it belongs, right click the toolbar and click Customize, then drag the Home button from the Bookmarks toolbar (wrong!) to the Navigation bar (right!). Even if we’re stuck with th default Firefox 3 theme, I’m sure we’ll see a Firefox 2-style theme when version 3 is released.

I’ve had several problems with the Firefox.exe process not closing down properly. In each instance I had to open Task Manager to kill the process before reopening the browser. This is beta software, so I expect minor stability issues like this will be fixed by the product’s final release.

Printing has been a problem on Firefox, specifically where text is cut off on the right side of the page. From what I can tell, Firefox 3 uses the same printing engine as Firefox 2, so I’d like to see some improvement in this area, especially given how well Internet Explorer 7 prints.

Conclusion

Firefox 3 is an evolutionary upgrade. Being able to search Bookmarks and History via the address bar is absolutely great. Memory management appears to be incrementally better, though I don’t claim that my test is all encompassing. The other new features are minor, and probably not ones I would use. Right now, Internet Explorer 8’s WebSlices and Activities are more interesting than the new features in Firefox 3. I depend on too many Firefox extensions to switch, I use Firefox on the Mac and on Linux and all other things being equal, I’ll pick the Open Source product. The battle isn’t over, but victory in this round goes to Microsoft.

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