*This is only valid for visitors able to correctly use their brains.

Thanks,

Antonio

The web browser is becoming the new desktop. You hear of things like Web 2.0, Google Apps, and Salesforce.com as the next step in business management and marketing. All of these things depend on an interface between your computer and the Internet. This…

The reason I use Firefox isn’t because it’s prettier or uglier than Safari. I use it because it has better functionality, especially from the thousands of available free plugins. By the way, how do you know you “don’t need” any of the plugins if you don’t even know what they are? For that matter, you don’t need a computer at all… just food and water.

smaller/larger text buttons …i really wish FF had these
history …i prefer safari’s approach, though i like the sidebar in FF
bookmark management …just easier in safari
make a tab into a window just click on a tab and drag it into the desktop….love it
resize text windows …this is cool, espec when a website gives you a small box to write in
find bar …. both are good

http://www.happyapps.com/blog/2008/06/applescript-is-broken-in-firefox-3/

The way the location bar is selected can be changed pretty easily by changing the browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll setting in the about:config to false.

First, the “recent use & favourites” drop-down menu in my opinion is horrrible and is among the top three reasons I can’t use FF3. The mix of colors, font sizes, and favicons adds a _lot_ of confusion. Moreover, I personally remember URLS, and not Titles. As a result, I have to squint at the small low-contrast URLs to see the page I want.

Another gripe is the progress bar (yes, I know about Fission)..it’s way in the lower right corner, on the total opposite side of the browser than the location bar (an inconvenient separation).

Another gripe I have is how the location bar is selected (An issue brought up by Gruber).

While I agree the site-specific preferences are a great tool, they aren’t that obvious, and Mozilla’s explanation of the feature certainly doesn’t help.

Thank you for mentioning Nightly Tester Tools. I wasn’t aware of it, as I’ve never been big into Firefox plug-ins, and didn’t follow all the information available once the Firefox 3 public beta came out.

As an ending note, do not forget I took the point of view of a Safari user. If you want a Firefox-user’s review, I’m sure you can find plenty of such reviews. The point of this review is to give a “first user’s” look. This isn’t for hardcore Firefox users.

PS: this article was pro-bono.

Thank you for your insightful, and interesting comment Jim!!!

One of your complaints is the GUI’s toolbar buttons, yet you don’t mention you can easily change them with a theme. I got rid of the large Back button with gRApple – see my article on Firefox Extensions here – I have a screenshot in case you aren’t familiar with it.

You bring up the Favicon, mention the Who-Is feature, but don’t even mention that you can also set site-specific preferences in that very same box that comes up. That’s kind of a HUGE feature to leave out, no?

You mention plug-in compatibility before upgrading to FF3, but don’t mention Nightly Tester Tools which will make most all plug-ins compatible with any version of FF. That’s something someone considering upgrading might want to know, perhaps?

Did someone force you to write this “review” (I use that term lightly), or is this the typical review here? Uninformed, uninspired. I realize that the payment per article is really, really low – but if you’re going to do something, at least put some effort into it. And MacApper, you need to seriously start editing your writers. Of course, choosing better ones would be even better.

I used to use Firefox but was tired of it hogging memory, so I’ve been using Camino and Safari for a year now. Now I’m back to Firefox and loving it. The interface is elegant and features like the smart history and the add-ons make it wonderful to use.