Firefox 3 to battle Opera, Safari, IE7 on Tuesday
By Jonathan Schlaffer
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 had better be circled in red on your calendar , and you’d better have reminders set on your smartphone or PDA because that is the day Mozilla will release the finalized version of Firefox 3. It wasn’t too long ago that we spoke of Firefox 3 RC1, and before the words “release candidate” could be uttered, RC2 and RC3 came along.
Those who have been using Firefox 3 since the RC versions are probably already familiar with a few of its new features, but here are some worth noting.
The first thing worth noting is that the browser is superior in speed to its predecessor and makes IE7 and even IE8 look like the outdated dinosaurs they are. It has improved phishing and malware detection, which will prevent you from visiting harmful websites.
Then there is the “Smart Location Bar” which most folks seem to absolutely love, but a small minority of you don’t seem to like it. Why? The Smart Bar is smart and learns how you browse, so you will be able to find recently-read articles or websites quickly with just a few letters. It will also learn which sites you associate with those letters, so the next time you type them in, that site will be first on the list.
It also has improved overall performance and uses less memory than competing browsers. Now adding plugins has the possibility of changing, that so keep that in mind.
Opera just released version 9.5 of its browser, which appears to be pretty fast, but doesn’t come close to the customization that Firefox has, and lacks a decent ad-blocker. Either way you look at it, the browser battle will be between Firefox 3, Safari 3, IE7/IE8 and Opera 9.5
For most people, Firefox 3 is the way to go. Word is that Apple has sent developers an early version of Safari 4, which has a completely-redesigned engine, which may well trump all current offerings in speed. only time will tell.
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June 14th, 2008
Opera is a much richer browser than Firefox. More functionality, faster speed, better looking. The new 9.5 is fantastic!
You should have a look. The new Quick Find is fantastic! It searches in all the content in web pages, not just the titles. Fit-to-window is a very useful function and the cache handling is a lot better.
Opera is in a different league. Try it!
June 15th, 2008
Woot! I like competition. I love Firefox 3 but I might have to try out Opera 9.5 to see how it is. Not that I’d switch, but I’d like to try it. Good post!
June 15th, 2008
Opera, a neglected browser with less than 1% share
of users. It has more success on mobiles but no future on PC’s.
June 17th, 2008
I use Firefox and Opera (and IE64 or IE very rarely). I like Firefox and Opera quite a bit. I doubt Firefox3 will be so wondrous that I’ll stop using Opera 9.5 fairly often. As fewer and fewer sites are IE specific, I’m eager to dump IE altogether.
August 20th, 2008
I haven’t used Opera in a while. I liked it but found some of the features foreign/strange. I appreciate the fact that it’s free (as in beer) now, but as far as market penetration I think they screwed themselves by charging for it until version (6?, 7?). It’s not a judgment on my part, just an observation. I may have to peek at 9.5 though.