Firefox 3 RC 1 Initial Thoughts

Firefox 3 RC 1 to me, shows a much improved browser, one that will be the browser to beat in the coming months.  There are a number of improvements that extend to almost every aspect of the browser itself – from password management to a more intuitive user interface.

Let’s break down some of the most major changes in the new Firefox browser (they are in no particular order).

1. Password management – no more popup dialog box where you have to guess if your password is right, the new password manager will stay on the top of the browser (seamlessly integrated) allowing you to login successfully before taking the password and storing it.

2. Smart Bookmarks and Tagging – awesome features to really improve your bookmarks.  They also incorporated a star in the address bar to allow for easy bookmarking.  I love how you can tag similar bookmarks to make for easy management as well.

3. Improved Addon’s Manager – the new addon’s manager is sleek.  Not only does it allow you to keep your current addon’s up to date, but you can now search for new ones within the manager itself as well as look through a list of recommended ones.

4. More functional download manager – now with the new download manager you can search through recent downloads, resume downloads after a crash or restart of the browser.

5. More intuitive user interface – the new Firefox 3 interface is much sleeker and customized for multiple operating systems.  This is definitely an important touch for newer users and even more advanced users because it makes the browser seem like an extended part of the operating system.

6. Heightened security – since I have been part of the anti-malware community for many years this is a major plus in my eyes.  Keeping the users secure is what it is all about – stopping the malware before it can be a problem.  This proactive approach is definitely going to be worth while.  Firefox is now using Google’s phising blacklist to keep up to date with the latest malware/phishing sites on the web.

7. Smart Browsing – I love how they incorporated this feature.  However, at first, I must admit I thought I would not like it, but it is definitely growing on me.  It will take time, but it actually is picking up certain browsing techniques when I type something in the address bar which usually isn’t often (I usually just Google), but may become more frequent with this new feature.

8. Much improved memory management – I must give the Mozilla developers some credit here.  Memory management in Firefox has been an major issue which I would rant and rave about all the time.  The developers definitely took into account fixing this major problem.  I have yet to break 150MB with Firefox 3 and all my tabs.

9. Loads pages faster – Firefox 3 definitely has improved page rendering.  It is loading pages much faster than Firefox 2 ever did.

10. Addon support – the addon’s support has been pretty decent.  Most addon’s that I use are currently functional with Firefox 3 RC 1.  In fact, only one of my addon’s doesn’t work and it’s not the most important of them so I’m not too bothered.

Have you tried Firefox 3 RC 1?  What do you think?  Leave a comment!