Time stands still for no one--neither does Web browser development, at least not around Mozilla headquarters. No sooner did we publish our review of Firefox 2, then Mozilla cranked out another beta of the next version of Firefox, Firefox 3 Beta 4.
It's Macworld's policy not to mouse-rate products that are still in beta, hence the inclusion of Firefox 2 in our recent round-up of browsers. But that doesn't mean we have to wait until the final version of Firefox 3 appears later this year to assess some of the changes to the popular browser. I've spent some time with Firefox 3, beta 4, and I can tell you what's changed from version 2 of the Web browser as well as some of the more interesting features introduced in the beta.
What's changed
Our Firefox 2 review noted that the browser had a "clean and appealing" interface, with the ability to download themes for customizing its look-and-feel. That's certainly a strong point for Firefox, but the other side of the coin is that, for some people, the browser has never felt like a Mac application. It doesn't use native OS X widgets for things like buttons, checkboxes, and radio buttons. That changes with Firefox 3.
The browser now uses native OS X controls, and no longer feels like a poor Windows port. (Somewhat ironically, Firefox on Windows Vista didn't look right, either--its menus weren't displayed in the native Vista theme. This has also been fixed in Firefox 3.)
Along with the new native widgets, Firefox 3 sports greatly improved font and graphics rendering. Fonts are clear and much easier to read, and graphics can have embedded color profiles (with some work from Web developers). The difference in reading text is simply amazing--I previously found the fonts in Firefox to not quite look right, and my eyes tired when reading long pages. The snippet at right, snapped on the Macintouch page, visibly demonstrates this difference. The top image is from Firefox 3--notice how much more well defined the text is when compared to the text in the lower clip from Firefox 2.
While praising Firefox's amazing assortment of add-ons, version 2 reviewer Nathan Alderman remarked that "...enabling new add-ons requires you to restart the browser. That can be a pain, since Firefox isn't exactly speedy to load." The good news is that Firefox 3 seems to have cured that issue, at least according to my informal tests.
The Firefox 3 beta loaded nearly as quickly as Safari on my 2.66GHz Mac Pro--anywhere from one to two seconds, give or take. So while Firefox 3 still requires a restart to activate new add-ons, it's not nearly as painful as it was before. Even better, Firefox 3 will automatically save and reopen your windows and tabs when it restarts, so you can pick up right where you left off.
Another issue in Firefox 2--and one of the reasons I actually stopped using it regularly--was its slow speed when loading multiple tabs. Again, quoting the review:
Firefox 3 greatly improves tab loading. I did some simple tests with a collection of 10 popular sites (eBay, Amazon, Flickr, Expedia, Orbitz, Facebook, Monster Jobs, Career Builder, Disney, and Craig's List). Opening all 10 in Firefox 3 took around six seconds, without any apparent stalling. Safari 3 required about 10 seconds. Once all those tabs are open, Firefox 3's new tab quickmenu makes it simple to pick any of the opened tabs:
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