The Firefox 3 memory footprint is smaller than that of either Internet Explorer, Safari, or Opera 9.5 B2. ( cite ) One cite I found gives Opera 9.27 a very slight edge over Firefox 3 RC 2. ( cite ) I can’t find straight up comparisons of the final release versions; it probably won’t be long until someone does a comparison.
But FF3 is definitely among the lightest of all full-featured modern browsers. You aren’t going to find anything much lighter unless it’s a custom build or has parts stripped out or it’s LYNKS or something.
FF has never quite “clicked” for me on my Mac at home, so I’ve stuck with Safari. I DLed FF3 and have been using it longer than I’ve used any of its predecessors. It’s still a bit clunky, and scrolling with the arrows keys is wonky, so I don’t know if I’ll stick with it, but I’m digging it so far.
Really, 3.0 is 90% the same to me as 2.x. The buttons at the top are different, and I keep clicking on the Printer button instead of the Home button, so I had to remove the Printer button (right-click on buttons and pick Customize, drag Printer button down with rest of buttons.)
I’m guessing you aren’t a heavy user. The speedups alone are well worth the upgrade, but Firefox 2 doesn’t begin to bog until you have a large number of tabs open.
I downloaded FF 3.0 just now on seeing this thread. So far, there’s not enough that’s different that’d be a problem (only lost one add-on, but it wasn’t a major one), and the look is cool.
I’m a very heavy user, usually have 4 or 5 tabs open and I’m using Firefox all day at work and quite often for several hours at home.
I’m not sure I like the address bar upgrade yet, I haven’t quite gleamed what it’s doing exactly. I can type faster than I can click something off a list.
So type, and then tap down and enter. With ‘f6’ popping you directly to the address bar (it works in every browser), you don’t even have to touch the mouse or navigate three levels of bookmark folders.
I also use the Bookmarks Toolbar to keep all my commonly visited sites a click away. Usually the Bookmarks themselves are reserved for sites I don’t visit often.
I downloaded it this morning after reading this thread and haven’t used it enough to notice a big difference. Looks like all the extensions I use are available. Buttons have round edges instead of square ones (I’m using it on an iBook with OS X 10.4.11.
Haven’t used the tag or address bar functionality yet. Like control-z, I use the bookmarks toolbar for anything I go to frequently (I have one labeled Daily that contains the 6 or 7 sites I visit every day.) I have most of my bookmarks and RSS feeds organized on a Protopage.
That Awesome Bar does a search through recent emails in the gmail account (if you use gmail, of course) as well, as part of the keyword search. It’s not something I’d use all the time – but it’s handy it’s there.
I have a similar problem with the Mac version. When I get an e-mail informing me of a new post to a subscribed SDMB thread (or other forum thread - this might be a FF/vBulletin bug), I click the provided link and FF3 opens a window and takes me to the desired post … and then scrolls up one full screen.
The same basic thing happens when I post a reply to a thread - I click “Submit Reply” and it takes me to my new post, and then scrolls the page up one screen.
Easy once you’ve got the link. Otherwise it’s a matter of working out what the hell to search for, and if it’s a browser for everybody then that includes the vast majority who don’t know it’s called the ‘address bar’ in the first place.
I’m one who doesn’t take to universal search gadgets like that. If I want a previous address, I’ll type it there. If I want a bookmark, I’ll go to ‘bookmarks’, for goodness sake!
I don’t subscribe to threads generally, but when I click on “view first unread” it takes me to my last post (if that was the last thing I did in the thread) or to the last post I read. Haven’t noticed what it does when I submit reply. ETA: now I’ve noticed. It takes me to the post before mine. Hope they fix that soon.
The other change I’ve noticed (other than the new address bar functionality) is that the preview you see when you hover over a thread title now shows you the entire first sentence. I like that!
I downloaded it a few weeks ago prior to my PC crashing completely, so I waited for a while before trying it again. It seems to be alright, a bit slicker than the previous version.
I’m torn. The new address bar functionality is kinda nice (I like the one-click bookmarks), but it seems to cache more in memory before it draws – so new pages stay blank for a while, then “snap in” all at once as opposed to drawing incrementally like before. The actual speed might be faster, but it feels slower to me, staring at that empty white screen all the time.
Several sites that use Google-maps-derived widgets (like www.themlsonline.com) don’t work with FF3, even though they did with 2. I’ve bumped into several sites in the last couple days that don’t draw onscreen correctly (but did in FF2). These are just new-version jitters, I’m sure, and should work themselves out in a bit.
Hope they fix that soon.