Comments on: What’s Your Take on Firefox 3?

By: dmac

dmac — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:24:51 +0000

The update to Firefox 3 for OS X destroyed all my users profiles . I re-installed last version of 2 and all is well.

By: brad

brad — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:25:11 +0000

I can’t stand the scrolling differences between firefox and safari. Firefox is so choppy and rough, while safari is as smooth as can be. I can’t bring myself to use ff3 over safari.

By: Don Parr

Don Parr — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:03:37 +0000

There has to be something else going on with these reports of crashes, beach balls, etc.? I’m running FF3 on both my Macs, iBook G4 (PPC) and Intel Core 2 Duo iMac, as my daily default browser, and it has been working flawlessly. No crashes, no beach balls and no problems. Both Macs are running 10.5.4, but FF3 ran just as well, for me, under 10.5.3.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:54:16 +0000

I’m still using it every day, it’s my primary browser. But I am crashing. A lot. Still. Since the beta versions. More since the RC versions. Starting with a fresh profile didn’t help. I have tried running a “bare” profile for a while — no extensions, no baggage from my old profiles. Hasn’t helped. So I went back to my standard profile + extensions. I get crashes between 2-6 times a day. Always when opening or closing tabs.

Crash signature is always the same:

objc_msgSend

Crash reason is always the same:

EXC_BAD_ACCESS / KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE

It’s evidently pretty common; it’s the #1 reason for crashes on the Mac platform. I learned a new command last week to help troubleshoot… Type “about:crashes” in the address bar to see your crash info and get it analyzed. Interesting if not terribly useful.

I keep hoping the crashing will get better soon as I really prefer Firefox to Safari, but I may be heading back to Safari soon.

By: bala chandar

bala chandar — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:39:31 +0000

Its still buggy, i get beach balled every time i load the browser – the keyboard shortcuts at times don’t work! I’m sticking with safari.

By: Alex Miller

Alex Miller — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:48:26 +0000

I was similarly turned off by the UI till I found the Aronnax themes which rock:

http://www.takebacktheweb.org/

Highly recommended!

By: Adrian

Adrian — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:35:29 +0000

I installed FF3 and initially liked it, but then found that my bookmarks were destroyed. Every time I tried to repair them they got worse, to the point that the entries in my list of bookmarks were getting random URLs from my surfing history. I tried to lodge a bug report but you have to have an account, at which point I thought, “enough” and now I use Safari exclusively. I know other people who went back to FF2, but that was always crashing on me, so Safari it is from now on.

By: Paulius

Paulius — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:18:42 +0000

I think with each new version there is more bugs that coming out. Submitting feedback for Firefox team while it was in beta did not made anything better.

Scrooling is one of the most annoying problems that I have and its not fixed after beta 1 came out. Scrolling is freezing when opening in tabs a lot of web sites. I don’t understand how come new version can be tested if on all my three machines its having same problem.

There is Some visual elements like creating New Folder which always gets created inside selected folder in Bookmarks is really bad visual design. Find “Ctrl + F” has buttons Next and Previews is in opposite directions.

If Safari would have Side Bar for Bookmarks like Firefox dose I would be more than happy to switch. But since Apple is still has no idea how to implements this than I will stick with Firefox.

By: raj

raj — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:10:01 +0000

I really like Firefox 3! Now, if it would stop hanging my entire machine (Leopard, latest updates), such that I have to hold down the power button to reboot and then check the drive when rebooting, I’d like it even more and actually use it! Until they fix the hanging problem, I’ve gone back to Camino. :(

By: pandaslist

pandaslist — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:18:42 +0000

FF3 is the best I’ve ever handled and honestly I don’t see explorer coming back from this (like it was gonna come back before!!)
But honestly Microsoft has a lot to worry about, and for the most powerful company in the world new competition has come with Flock as they mention in this website:
http://www.themostpowerfulcompany.com

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:46:13 +0000

I think FF3 is really fast, incredibly fast! (Mac Mini G4 1.25Ghz, 1GB ram) However, there was this one time it sort of crashed, but didn’t fully die. I tried Force Quit several times, but it still remained in the dock as “Application not responding”. Had to reboot to get it working again. Slightly disappointed with that. Might give it another run soon, but so far back to Safari which is abit slower, but keeps on ticking well…

By: louis

louis — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:34:36 +0000

I’m digging just about everything in FF3. Love the Proto theme too.

This is one I’d pay for.

By: Don Parr

Don Parr — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:33:02 +0000

I honestly didn’t think there was any browser that could get me away from Camino as my default browser – FF3 has done what I didn’t think was possible! FF3 is my default browser on both my Macs, 14-inch iBook G4 (2005) and 24-inch Intel iMac (2006), both running Leopard 10.5.3. I’ve had absolutely no crashing issues on either. Something else different (for me anyway), I’ve actually begun to use extensions / plugins and what not for the first time – not extensively but it’s a start. I’ve added Quartz PDF Plugin (0.9.8) and ColorfulTabs (3.1).

My matrix, or benchmark, for choosing apps, since I don’t operate in the nanosecond timescale, is what appeals to me. Prior to FF3 it was Camino – now, and for the time being, it’s Firefox 3.

By: jrobcet

jrobcet — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:58:20 +0000

There is a lot to like about Firefox 3, but to my eye, the fonts just don’t look nearly as good as in Safari. Perhaps I’m somewhat anal about fonts, okay maybe very anal; but if I am, Safari made me that way. In my opinion, Safari does a much better job rendering fonts.

By: Brad

Brad — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:41:28 +0000

@ Ryan:

That is definitely not normal behavior. Try deleting the Firefox folder under

/Users//Library/Application Support

and launching it again. Note: This will delete any firefox bookmarks or extensions, but if you haven’t been able to use it for more than 5 minutes, I’m willing to presume you don’t have many.

Not to discredit Camino, but obviously something is preventing you from actually giving FF3 a chance.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:13:46 +0000

I’ve booted it about 7 times since I downloaded it. It has crashed all 7 times within seconds of boot. I tried the RC releases and all of them crashed within minutes of usage. I have not gone any longer than 5 minutes without a crash. Needless to say I went back to Camino which crashes once a month maybe.