I'd rather wait for Firefox 3

Story: Is Linux Ready for Firefox 3?Total Replies: 19
Author Content
Steven_Rosenber

Jun 17, 2008
9:56 AM EDT
I don't need Firefox 3 today ... or tomorrow.

I'd rather that the maintainters for the various distros that I use (primarily Debian and Ubuntu) put the packages through the normal process and release them as updates when ready. I expect that Debian Testing will get FF3 soon enough, and Ubuntu 8.04 already has an RC, so it's not like anybody's going to be deprived ...
vainrveenr

Jun 17, 2008
12:15 PM EDT
Quoting:I expect that Debian Testing will get FF3 soon enough, and Ubuntu 8.04 already has an RC, so it's not like anybody's going to be deprived ...
FYI, Iceweasel still remains Debian's primary name-fork of Firefox. For anyone still unaware of this, please refer to these two pieces, among others : - 'IceWeasel - Why proprietary software will always win out' found at http://internetducttape.com/2006/10/12/iceweasel-why-proprie... - 'Mozilla software rebranding' found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_conflict_between_Debian_...

TxtEdMacs

Jun 17, 2008
1:19 PM EDT
Regarding version 3, I agree. However, when I was using Ubuntu's 6.06 desktop they supported 1.5. I had moved to 2.0 when it was still in beta, hence, I always pulled my copy directly from Mozilla. My only problem was sometimes I was late doing security updates.
Steven_Rosenber

Jun 17, 2008
3:20 PM EDT
I decided to boot my 6.06 partition today, and FF1.5 just isn't all that slow. I happen to have Ubuntus 6.06 and 8.04 on this same drive, and I really don't notice anything quicker when I'm running FF3 vs. FF1.5.
techiem2

Jun 17, 2008
3:44 PM EDT
The major difference I've noticed with FF3 is that I can leave it open for lots longer with bunches of tabs open before it eats up all my ram and I have to restart it.
Scott_Ruecker

Jun 17, 2008
3:47 PM EDT
I have yet to see anything in FF3 that makes me really want to upgrade to it. There is nothing that has just blown me away and made me say to myself, I gotta have that.

I have in the last year finally gotten FF2 just the way I like it, and I can now get it that way quickly on any machine I use regularly. I love that I can do that.

I guess I am used to the way I like it and I don't really want to change, sorry.
TxtEdMacs

Jun 17, 2008
4:50 PM EDT
Scott,

What kind of machine are you running? I have been doing a minimal tests on 3 since the first alpha and it is decidedly faster than 2.0.x. Moreover, I always crash my 2.0. to get all my tabs back (running about 200 or so), while on 3.0. the configuration brings the previous state up without the necessity of crashing the browser every night. It also uses a database to store bookmarks. I lost some of mine for reasons unknown several times, hence, my nutty system of retaining links in active tabs.

Regarding 1.5, I could not drop it fast enough. Whereas 1.5 would chock of excess cpu usage and memory hogging, 2.0 while not lacking an appetite rarely goes down. In contrast 1.5 would crash routinely. Finally my reason for moving to 8.04 is that I could not get any beta to run on 6.06 after the second. Got beta to run once in safe mode, but then quickly failed again. Beta four requires a more recent library.

Reading this thread, it makes the saying "different strokes for different folks" really take on new meaning. Until now I always thought of it implying different sexual proclivities.

Txt.
rijelkentaurus

Jun 17, 2008
5:51 PM EDT
Quoting: (running about 200 or so)


Oy!!! "Why does Firefox use so much memory?" LOL, I thought I was rough when I had 20 tabs open...I bow to the master!! ;)
DiBosco

Jun 18, 2008
12:14 AM EDT
FWIW, I downlaoded FF3 last night and am running it now. It seems a fair deal faster than FF2.
Scott_Ruecker

Jun 18, 2008
2:20 AM EDT
I am running the latest PCLinuxOS on a HP laptop and a Compaq desktop, and Debian unstable on another desktop. Now I have never had 200+ tabs open but I regularly upwards of twenty or so open several times a day and have never had an issue outside of a particular website crashing the whole browser but FF remembers any tabs that I may have had open either in the restore session function or recently closed tabs in the history.

Memory usage is relative if you have to use IE at all. No matter how bad any version of FF is, its better than IE. I have a pretty fast Internet connection so I wonder just how much faster can a web page be opened; yes I have seen how much faster it opens web pages but that just doesn't "wow" me. When it comes down the pipe in an update, I will upgrade. There is no reason for me to go out and get it just to say I have it.
jdixon

Jun 18, 2008
7:45 AM EDT
> There is no reason for me to go out and get it just to say I have it.

Meredith reports that AdBlock doesn't work with FF3. I haven't had time to verify that myself. If so, that's a big negative.
herzeleid

Jun 18, 2008
9:32 AM EDT
> Meredith reports that AdBlock doesn't work with FF3. I haven't had time to verify that myself. If so, that's a big negative.

Adblock plus is working fine here with FF3 - if you install the nightly tester tools addon, it will be quite helpful in cases where the plugin has not been updated to work with a current version of FF.
techiem2

Jun 18, 2008
10:13 AM EDT
I've been using Adblock Plus with FF3 since I started using it...and the extension page says it was updated yesterday as well.
jdixon

Jun 18, 2008
10:19 AM EDT
> ...and the extension page says it was updated yesterday as well.

I'll pass that on.
hkwint

Jun 18, 2008
11:44 AM EDT
Until now I couldn't start Firefox 3 rc 2 / 3, and therefore my distro labeled it as 'experimental' (hard masked, that is). I see they now 'promoted' it to 'not enough user reports to label stable yet', so I'm giving it a try. I heard something about a better bookmark manager; and my current bookmarks are a mess. Indeed, no AdBlock available is a showstopper for me as well. If it's not present, I might as well use IE!
techiem2

Jun 18, 2008
11:54 AM EDT
Yeah, I'd probably still be using 2 if adblock plus and noscript didn't work in 3, but they do. I never tried to install it from portage, I just downloaded the archive, extracted it, and made a run script for it. hehe.
rijelkentaurus

Jun 18, 2008
3:42 PM EDT
I keep getting a GTK error on Mandriva, I haven't given it a lot of thought because FF 2 still works fine. I might fool with it later.
Steven_Rosenber

Jun 18, 2008
4:44 PM EDT
Google Gears now works with FF 3 in Ubuntu 8.04. The long, national nightmare is over.
rijelkentaurus

Jun 19, 2008
4:23 AM EDT
My GTK errors appear related to either a bad download or improper extraction, I downloaded a fresh copy and it's working fine. I've been using FF3 on my work 'Dows lappy for a while, I am used to it and prefer to download the newest version as opposed to waiting on my distro to pick it up.
jdixon

Jun 19, 2008
5:18 AM EDT
> Adblock plus is working fine here with FF3...

OK, miscommunication. Adblock plus works fine with FF3. The orginal Adblock does not. Meredith has been using Adblock since before Adblock plus split off.

Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]

Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!