Didn't know the beta was out. I don't know how much better they can make it. I really like the simplistic look they have going on, and definitely don't want to be weighed down by options. Let's see how they pull it out
I don't like the design of the new one. i downloaded it, then downgraded, and after closing ff2, i open it again, and surprise! ff3...
Not only is FF3 much faster than FF2, it uses memory much more efficiently. There are a fair number of front end changes, but the most important changes are "under the hood". As has been pointed out, many themes and extensions still don't support FF3 because things are in a state of flux that makes it harder to keep add-ons updated. By the way, Firefox 3.0 beta 5 is expected to land on or around March 28th.
I do have one piece of advice, unless you are masochistic I would recommend avoiding Firefox's daily (aka Minefield) updates and stick with major beta releases instead. Also be aware that some key stuff (like the default theme) are changing radically from beta to beta. The changes from beta to beta are a big reason add-on developers have had trouble keeping their add-ons up to date for the latest betas. Keeping themes up to date has been particularly challenging. I've been releasing updates to my theme every week or so just try and stay on top of changes in Firefox 3.0 beta.
Firefox 3.0 is in beta; bugs are to be expected. The whole purpose of a beta process is to find and work out the bugs. FF3.0b3 was better than FF3.0b2, and FF3.0b4 was better than FF3.0b3. Right now I'm posting this reply using a Firefox 3.0b5pre nightly from Friday (2008032106), it is much faster than Firefox 2.0 and uses much less memory. This coming week, Firefox 3.0b5 is supposed to be released and by summer Firefox 3.0 is supposed to reach full release status. If you have no tolerance for bugs, don't use beta software and wait for the general release of a program before making a declaration that it sucks because of some bug.
curious on how can a browser be faster. Is is faster loading or faster for browsing web? It seems most of it will depend on the speed of the internet connection and your hardware
I have found that firefox3 is so much faster than IE7 if you have the ram (and for even faster use swiftfox ). Anyway 200+ tabs FTW, think about doing that in FF2, couldnt do it. FF3 easy.
I just downloaded Firefox 3. It seems to load up faster, pages load faster, and it seems to move through tabs better. Firefox 2 seemed crappy on ram and it seemed not as smooth as even ie7. Now it is better than IE7.