Image via Wikipedia
After playing with the latest version of the Firefox web browser, it seems a bit more impressive than it’s earlier versions. Some things that struck me after using it for a few hours were:
- I’m probably most impressed that I used Google Webmaster tools and Gmail about 4 times and the browser didn’t crash….which already makes it 50% better than Firefox version 2.
- The new address bar is a nice addition. When typing an address the browser shows you both address suggestions (as usual), but also the site’s favicon and the the title of the corresponding page. It’s just a small addition, but it makes the browser more usable for those who frequently type addresses into the browser rather than relying on search engines.
- The quick bookmarking function is also a nice addition. To bookmark a page it’s just a matter of clicking a star in the address bar. It’s a similar idea to “starring” emails in Gmail or Thunderbird, or RSS stories in Google Reader.
On the downside, there are a number of addons that I haven’t been able to install. While this is (hopefully) because of the amount of people trying to upgrade their browsers at the same time, it’s still a problem. In particular, not having the FireBug Web Development extension is slowing things down as I’m in the middle of working on an AJAX based web application.
There also seems to be a problem with the inline spellchecker that I’ve been using doesn’t seem to be working (so apologies for any typos). Again, I don’t know if this is because of the Addon service being overloaded.
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