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Firefox 3 Beta 1 review

November 22nd, 2007

This week Mozilla released the first beta of Firefox 3. Originally scheduled for mid July, the delay responds to the very long list of features this new version brings. Eight alphas and an estimated 14 months under development are both firsts for a Firefox upgrade but again are necessary for the amount of improvements and new features Firefox 3 will bring.

For users who have been following Firefox 3 development, this beta brings not many changes compared to Alpha 8, released a couple of months ago.

Pulled out at the last moment from alpha 8, the new site button provides site identity information based on a site’s certificate. The screenshot below shows the dialog that pops up when pressing the site button while in a site (Mozilla Links) with no SSL certificate.

And this one an SSL enabled site. Clicking on the Tell me more about this web site… link displays the Security page from the redesigned Page Info window. Both dialogs feature a policeman shaped icon internally nicknamed as Larry.

Download resume across sessions is finally in after several months of being available in development builds (nightlies) and was also pulled out at the very last moment from Alpha 8.

It does what it says in the can: download a large file, pause it, close Firefox. Start Firefox, continue the download where it was left if the server supports download resume (a large majority does these days).

The new Places organizer now features integrated bookmarks details view including tag addition and a preview of the bookmarked site. The preview pane is not ready yet and I feel it shaky in general with unexpected scrollbars and resize results, tags not been automatically refreshed and no option to resize the preview area yet.

Once these stuff gets ironed we will all have a much more modern and useful bookmarks and history system that includes options for quickly saving a site (starring), tagging, backing up and restoring, special bookmarks folders based on saved searches, all of it powered by SQLite, a tiny relational database embedded in Firefox.

The resizer object added in Alpha 8 has seen a minor cosmetic improvement but it’s very little relevant considering the themes across all platforms are under revision right now. Whether the resizer will be visible by default or just while in the customize window is also under review. Personally, since the main reason for it is to provide the ability of setting an appropriate width to the search bar and so, most likely a one time feature, I hope it won’t show up on the default toolbar layout.

It also seems, Mozilla developers have opted to merge text and full page zoom and now Ctrl + mousewheel or Ctrl + +/- zoom the full page and not only text. I am pretty sure there will be plenty of users asking for the previous way.

If you are new to Firefox 3 features, you have a real lot to catch up with. Here’s a quick list with links to details as they’ve been covered here in Mozilla Links:

* Color management support: Firefox 3 uses color profiles embedded on pictures and images some cameras and other devices include for better replication of environment conditions as light and focus.
* The Page Info dialog has been revamped for clearer details of the current web page
* Web protocol/content handling allow Firefox to open certain protocols and document types directly with web services like Yahoo Mail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and may others.
* Offline web applications support. 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.
* You can makediscontinuous selections for better control on what you copy or print from a web page.
* The search engine manager allows to set and change keywords for search engines. With keywords you could enter w hawaii in the locationbar and search Wikipedia for Hawaii if the w keyword has been associated for the Wikipedia search engine.
* The location bar is more powerful than ever: start entering some text in it and Firefox will not only look for matching web addresses but also page titles and tags providing much more accurate results. Suggested addresses feature the site’s icon and a star lets you know if the site has been starred or not.
* Added support for Camellia encryption.
* Some interesting tricks for JavaScript: ability to load local files for local use, cross site AJAX (XMLHttpRequest) 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.
* Among minor tweaks: Firefox will always prompt if you want to save the currently open tab set, tabs scroll smoothly, better styling for local file, FTP and gopher listings and a warning when accessing advanced preferences (about:config).
* A new plugin manager has been added to the add-ons manager. Now it is easy to disable specific plugins for troubleshooting or for enhancing performance.
* Firefox can save site specific preferences. For example you could allow just some pages to use AJAX, set a specific spell checker language, images, etc. Firefox 3 will remember the zoom level you have applied for a certain site and will zoom automatically the next time you visit it.
* A much needed memory cycle collector is now in place and it should take care of freeing memory no longer used by modules that requested them and didn’t released it properly.
* Firefox 3 passes the Acid2 test, a popular test of a browser styling standard compatibility.
* Support for editable content. Web page contents marked as editable can be customized by the user.
* Switch to open source Cairo rendering engine for better performance. The change also enables easy PDF printing capabilities. So far it is only possible through an extension 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.
* Sites known for serving spyware, rootkits, viruses, dialers and other kinds of malware will trigger an antimalware alert. The list of known malware sites is provided by stopbadware.org and served by Google.
* Better OS integration. For Mac users: native Cocoa widgets and Growl (the popular integrated notification app). For Vista users, native Vista menus.
* Proprietary TalkBack, the tool for reporting crashes to Mozilla, has been replaced with open source Breakpad.
* The password manager now prompts to store an entered password so you can decide after knowing the password is correct or not and avoid cluttering autocomplete lists.
* The Download Manager has been revamped with an easier to track download list, support for Windows Vista parental controls. Downloaded files are passed to the installed antivirus if present.
* The spell checker is now based on Hunspell which delivers better suggestions and support for more complex grammars.

Firefox users beware: very few extensions work with Firefox 3 Beta 1. Particularly if your extension is bookmarks related (like Sage) it’s very likely it won’t work. Ensure to backup your bookmarks before running Firefox 3 as it will move them to the new SQLite platform and there’s no easy way back.

You’ve been warned. Now… enjoy your ride! Get Firefox 3 Beta 1.

Via Mozillalinks.org