Firefox 3 arrives!

It's finally here: Firefox 3, the open-source browser that I overwhelmingly recommend for all users from novice to expert, arrives on Tuesday. Here it is.

I've been using the final beta for a few days now, and it's really an impressive upgrade. Some thoughts. ...

Most importantly: The browser is fast, renders accurately, and (so far in my testing) doesn't crash. Multiple tabs or windows, complex pages, lots of embedded content ... Firefox 3 can handle it all with no fuss.

In fact, it actually renders some pages better than Firefox 2, specifically some pop-up forms that I regularly use in our Yahoo! publishing tool, which didn't display with the right width under Firefox 2. With Firefox 3 they execute perfectly.

I'm still getting used to the new URL history and search system. As mentioned previously, when you start typing into the address bar, you no longer just see the beginnings of URLs in your history file. Now Firefox searches your history and your bookmarks for any text that matches what you're typing, not just the URLs but the descriptions, too.

When I type "tech" into the URL bar, for example, I not only get popups for tech.yahoo.com and techmeme.com, but also Wired and Valleywag, because they have the word "Tech" in their site descriptions.

On one hand this is very useful, but it also clutters up the drop-down box. Having two lines for each entry instead of one also adds to the overwhelming nature of the display. Like I said, it's got pros and cons, but I'm getting used to it slowly.

Most plug-ins work well so far. I had one lingering problem with one, not-critical, add-on that I ultimately had to disable. I'm hoping the developer patches it soon.

The interface is freshened up but is largely the same as before. Unlike IE7's changes, you won't have trouble finding things in the menu system or the toolbars. There are some small changes to the way text selection works (which I won't go into here); very minor bugs that will likely be addressed in upcoming versions.

The malware prevention system really seems to work well. It took me some searching, but I finally managed to find an infected site. Rather than load the page, Firefox 3 threw up a huge, red warning page urging me not to visit. No one's going to miss this alert.

Overall: No matter what browser you're using, there's really no reason not to upgrade.