Mozilla Releases Firefox 3 Web Browser

[MagnusVonMagnum]

FF3 is a CPU hog.
After a few minutes the 1.33ghz G4 is running at 100%, close FF and it settles down to something more reasonable.

Interesting observation. I've had it running for a couple of hours now and I just checked my CPU monitor on my 1.8GHz 7448 G4 with 1.5GB of ram and it's using between 22 and 29% of my available CPU power (well Safari and iTunes are also running in the background). When I exit Firefox3, it drops to 98-99% of CPU cycles FREE, so I'd say you are definitely onto something there. The browser was just sitting there too, not loading a page or anything. That's the first REAL negative thing I've seen with FF3 so far.

OTOH, I wonder if an add-on (like Forecast Fox Plus) is causing it because when I restart Firefox, it goes right back up to the same CPU use area at idle. In actual use, though, I haven't noticed any system slow-down running Firefox in normal day-to-day activity and I've been running the beta since beta 2. It's been remarkably stable all along in the PPC build too, unlike some of the reports I've heard about the Mac Intel build.

 

[Digitalclips]

I think there is a problem with picture galleries created with iweb. Firefox 3 does not show them.

Any idea?

Same here. Seems unable to deal with the Javascript Apple generates.

 

[Shasterball]

Its over for FireFox. Safari has already won. And the next version of Safari will make this even more useless, desperate.

In two or three years, it won't even exist.

Safari has won what? This post makes zero sense.

 

[shen]

lets see

iweb pages broke, slower than safari on my machine, CPU hog (currently 30% for 2 tabs) the great font rendering! </sarcasm> and even with the add-ons to make it look like safari, it still ugly as hell.

what did i waste bandwidth downloading this for?

 

[slackpacker]

I hate Safari for Windows. It's just so dark and hard to read, so is iTunes for Windows.

Safari windows still needs some work, the way windows handles pop-up menus in the user bar if you have folders of links is different than Safari. I think FF3 handles this better.

 

[LastZion]

screen issue

Not sure if this is related but after installing FF3 last night then putting my new MBP to sleep i woke up this morning and this is what my screen looked like:

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=120434&stc=1&d=1213797371

I was able to, I think, close programs and start up a video that was playing, and stop it again... but the screen just kept showing this, or slight variations of this until I did a cold reboot.

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=120436&stc=1&d=1213797449

This probably unrelated?

 

[hagjohn]

Oh no, just installed Windows version. Reminds me of IE 7. How do I downgrade?

http://www.takebacktheweb.org/

 

[BoyBach]

HA! MS sent Mozilla a cake.....

That's a lovely thing to do.

 

[chameleon81]

Same here. Seems unable to deal with the Javascript Apple generates.

Sadness ... I hope they fixed it very quick. ( I dont whom to blame, apple or mozilla - 80% mozilla because it works with rest of the browsers very well )


I ' m big fan Firefox because of the add ons. If there wasnt addons I would go for Opera.

For me the killer add-on was Google's Browser sync which syncs all of your bookmarks ( cookies pass history if you choose to ) btw your computers. It also doesn' t work for FF3.

So now I m going back to FF2

 

[Burton8219]

Guys this is gonna sound really stupid, so please have some mercy on me lol. I just installed Firefox 3 and now when I click anywhere on the screen and even slightly move my finger on the trackpad the whole window moves. Like if I want to highlight a part of a URL I can't because the whole window moves around the screen. If anyone knows how to fix this please tell me.

 

[Wicker]

I hate to turn people away from a brilliant Apple product, but here are some extensions that will make Firefox more like Safari:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1951 (Loading thingy in awesome (address/location) bar)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6704 (Safari theme)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1245 (SnapBack - isn't exactly the same)

Thanks for these

I like the look of the Safari skin, however, is there any way to make it so that the close tab buttons are back on the right?

Thanks!

 

[xenotaku]

Camino owns Firefox and Safari.

 

[EgbertAttrick]

Safari works with multi-touch gestures. Best reason to stick with it. And web-clips. Too many Mac-awesome-O features to use any of that other jazz.

 

[brodie]

The single most important feature that keeps me using FireFox is the auto-suggest in the URL field. IE (yuck) used to have the same feature where you could type a word from the URL or meta description and it gives you a list of suggestions containing that word. You don't have to rely on knowing the beginning/complete URL.

That's the one feature i use time and time again and i wish Apple would integrate into Safari.

 

[HockeyGuy]

I'm sticking with Safari.

2-finger scrolling is SO much smoother and FF3 doesn't have native support for 3-finger back, which I use all the time now that I have a new MBP! I also perceive Safari to be much faster than FF3.

I agree. I did go to preferences and turn on "smooth scrolling", that does help a little but it is still a little awkward. Firefox is a great back up but won't be taking the place of my Safari.

 

[Tosser]

Not sure if this is related but after installing FF3 last night then putting my new MBP to sleep i woke up this morning and this is what my screen looked like:
[picture removed]

I was able to, I think, close programs and start up a video that was playing, and stop it again... but the screen just kept showing this, or slight variations of this until I did a cold reboot.

[picture removed]

This probably unrelated?

I'd guess. I think you have this problem:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=5613696#post5613696

 

[Macmanus]

Absolutely no difference of speed between the two. Now it's a question of ideology, not performance.

Next version of Safari will be even better ? I don't see how.

 

[cassio598]

I know a few people have mentioned it already, but both FF2 & 3, as well as Camino, take FOREVER to load on my MBP. In all cases, the icon bounces in the dock a couple of times, and then nothing happens while the processor works over time for 20-60 seconds before I even get a window, never mind my home page. You guys have any idea why this happens or how to fix it?

 

[SPUY767]

We forgot the subtitle, "Digg.com users erup in simultaneous, groupthink orgasm." Seriously tho, as an Opera user, with every FF release, I get to see more of my favorite features hijacked.

 

[shawnce]

Um, is Safari available as a 64-bit native application?

Not yet but expect that to change...

MacPro:~ shawnce$ file /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari (for architecture i386): Mach-O executable i386
/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari (for architecture ppc7400): Mach-O executable ppc

I feel more exciting with firefox 3 than the WWDC 2008, what a shame on Apple.

Did you actually attendee WWDC 08? If not you really only saw very little of what Apple is working on.

 

[Alkiera]

For those missing multi-touch features:

Get MultiClutch. Lets you map gestures to menu items in any application, even if they don't normally support multitouch. I set up firefox to use the swipe back thing, as well as rotating left/right switching between tabs, and a squeeze-release gesture to close a tab. Lets you have even more gestures than Safari supports. It's an excellant OSX addon for any MBP/MBA owner.

And I don't use the default FF skin either, both it and Safari's UI is too bulky. littlefox UI is where it's at.

 

[johnmcboston]

So any report on plug=ins that do/don't work?? I love a lot of my add-ins, but not sure if they're all updated yet. Any major problems seen yet?

 

[mashkina]

Absolutely no difference of speed between the two. Now it's a question of ideology, not performance.

Next version of Safari will be even better ? I don't see how.

Well, I havee to disagree on that. On my iMac 24" and on my MBP 15" Firefox runs much faster than Safari. With that I mean that the websites are downloaded and displayed in shorter time. I cannot quantify how much, but the subjective feeling is on twice as fast. On the other hand Firefox 2 showed nearly such a speed. Nevertheless I stick to Safari. This time I am giving FF3 a chance.

 

[mrrory]

Well it certainly is faster, but I'm used to Safari and don't find that noticeably slow so I'll keep a copy of it for cross browser testing, but I'm still a Safari user.

 

[snakedoctor]

Hi,

I just downloaded the latest firefox, and indeed it's much speedier than the previous flavor. Still a big drawback, to me at least, it seems that web sites generated with iPhoto won't work anymore..

in the error console i see something like that:

Error: widgetDiv.getElementsByClassName("paginated_only").invoke is not a function
Source File: http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/researchgroups/immunology/HLA/Scripts/Widgets/HeaderControls/HeaderControls.js
Line: 100


Is it only me?
here's a test web site:
http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/researchgroups/immunology/HLA/A.html


Of course, Safari, FF2 and EVEN IE (!) work fine...

any ideas?

Here is the fix. It worked for me. Its Apple's problem to fix. iWeb 08 uses some older Java Scripts, 1.7 vs 1.8 in FF3, and FF3 wont fall back.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1563823&tstart=0