A few weeks ago, Mozilla announced their plan to set a Guinness World Record for most software downloads in a single day. The software is none other than Mozilla's excellent web browser, Firefox 3. The date of Download Day (as Mozilla is calling it) has finally been set as June 17th, this coming Tuesday.
Along with the announcement came a new version of Firefox 3, Release Candidate 3, which fixed a bug for Macs. I've been checking out Firefox 3 since the Gran Paradiso alpha, though I haven't really started using it too much since beta 3. When beta 4 and 5 launched, I had switched from my native Safari over to Firefox 3. I never really liked Firefox on a Mac before, but I just can't resist it now, though it will take a bit more getting used to.
Firefox 3, aside from the obvious number increase, holds a lot of new stuff that should make everyone at least consider using it if they hadn't already. For me, one huge difference is the new look. The back button is not larger than the forward button, making it much easier to click, as well as making navigation toolbar look less bland. The look of Firefox 3 has also been upgraded. Whether you use XP, Vista, Linux, or Mac OS X, Firefox will look more unified with the rest of your OS.
Aside from the graphical differences, Firefox 3 also has a better URL bar, that learns as you use it. In Safari, I could start typing a URL into the URL bar, and it would complete it for me. In Firefox 3, I could type anything from the URL, or the page's name, and it will detect that. For example, I could type in "du" and the drop-down box will first recommend DuelingAnalogs.com, or the second option will be the D&D website. It's almost like using Quicksilver or Launchy to surf the web.
The URL bar also features a little star on the right-most end of it. This is used to easy bookmarks. Find a site you wanna read, but don't have time? Just star the page, and be done with it until you want to check it later. If you want to get really fancy, you can use the star button to bring up a small window that allows you to sort the bookmark, and even apply tags to it. Though I have yet to use it, bookmarks can be sorted or searched for by the tags you give them, adding more use for the smart URL bar. Also, say you deleted a bookmark that you wanted to visit again, but forgot the address. Firefox 3 automatically backs up your bookmarks, so you can restore them to a previous state, so you can find that page again.
Other features that should help you decide to download Firefox 3 include: improved malware/phishing detection, a smart folder that tells you what sites you visit most, better performance (less taxing on computer's resources), improved downloads manager, less intrusive "remember password" handling (shows in small toolbar at top of page, as in Safari), and it already works with most extensions, while rendering some other obsolete.
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