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Firefox 3 Beta 2 Reviewed & Firefox 3 Beta 2 Portable

on December 20, 2007 in Tech for Life

I have been long waiting for Firefox 3 Beta 2. If you are a regular reader, you might have wondered why I haven’t delved much into Firefox 3 besides showing you how to run Firefox 3 simultaneously with Firefox 2.

Personally, I feel that until Firefox get to Beta 2 it just isn’t worth it for me to try it as they are still working out the bugs. By beta 2 stage, it is still now perfect but it is stable enough for me to run it for my regular usage. I would like to point out though that the final release for Firefox 3 is slated for late March or April and the beta isn’t really suitable for a common user.

Firefox 3 Beta 2 Review

My wait is finally over and Firefox 3 Beta 2 is out for download. I have installed it and working on duplicating my Firefox 2 profile in it so I can start using it. I was about to do a full review but just noticed this morning that Mozilla Links has done an awesome review and I couldn’t do justice to it.

Mozilla Links has covered a lot on Firefox 3′s new features and have linked to previous posts about new features in a nice to read list. If you are about to download Firefox 3, I would recommend spending a few minutes reading this review to get yourself familiarized with some of the awesome features introduced and what is about to come in the final release.

If you don’t want to click over right now, here are a few new features that I am excited about:

  • A new add-ons manager (includes plugin management)
  • An awesome address completion bar
  • Places – a totally revamped bookmarking tool with tag support
  • A new download manager (stop and resume after reboots, antivirus support, etc.)
  • A new Page Info dialog with better information about a webpage
  • Make discontinuous selections in a web page to copy or print
  • Search engine manager to set keywords for search engines
  • Save site specific preferences like zoom level
  • A memory cycle collector to free up unused memory
  • Support for editable webpages
  • Password manager prompts after using a correct password
  • A site button shows you info about a site security and certificates

I have only listed a few and there are many more little improvements.

Firefox 3 Beta 2 Portable

Yes, this awesome beta version is available already in portable format as well from PortableApps.com. I use Firefox 3 from my usb flash drive as a portable application.

PortableApps.com has excellent support link that explains how to install and use Firefox Portable. Running Firefox from a USB drive isn’t very fast but you can find how you can get better performance with some little tweaks.

You can find all the relevant links here:

> Download Firefox 3 Beta 2

> Download Firefox 3 Beta 2 Portable

> Portable Firefox Support

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  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    Great stuff!

    I’m the same in that I wait until Beta 2 before trying something.

    Though I think the jump from 1.5 to 2.0 was much more important, I am excited about the update.

    I’ve pretty much converted everyone I know to Firefox now, family and friends, so I will be spreading the word over the next week as I see people.

  • http://www.shankrila.com K

    Kyle, crazy people think alike too? huh! :razz: I am the same way when it comes to converting my friends and family to Firefox. I cringe when I see them use IE and then ask me to clean their computer for them.

    I have the ‘Firefox with Google Toolbar’ show up only for IE users in my sidebar. I think you might have that this with IE. (I know you have to use it at work.. it sucks!)

  • http://www.whoismadhur.com Madhur Kapoor

    I think i will wait for the final version. But the recent talk about IE 8 has made me excited.

  • http://feeds.feedburner.com/NiggybuzzBlog IngaOz

    I don’t know about that beta yet, but i do have automated updates for Firefox allowed and after previous update something went wrong. And – they didn’t fix it in latest update as I can see. The problem is – time to time pages in Firefox becomes un-scrollable (Mouse’s wheel don’t works), it never happens in other browsers. Sooo weird…..

  • http://www.shankrila.com K

    Madhur, I just heard about that too. IE 8 has passed the Acid 2 test? Wow. Someone is working hard for compliance which is a great thing!

    IngaOz, this is one of the few downsides of using a powerful bropwser and all the great extensions. There are too many things that could go wrong. Most often than not, it is one of the extensions that make Firefox go awry. There’s a couple of things you could try.

    I would try disabling extensions you use (if you use any) and see if the problem happens. Another thing to try would be try creating a new profile and see if the problem occurs there. Your current profile could be corrupt too.

    Also, I highly recommend using an extension like FEBE to backup your Firefox profiles so you can always go back when something like this happens.