Is it worth switching to Firefox 3.0 beta yet?

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Is it worth switching to Firefox 3.0 beta yet? I use beta software if it's superior to the current version that's out.

If your using a lot of addons, then I wouldn't recommend it yet. If not than all I can say is that I havn't had too many problems yet.

I switched to the beta already and it's very stable. A lot of your addons, if they're not popular ones, will stop working though, which is probably best because with firefox 3 most of your slowdowns and memory leaks will come from addons. They've seriously optimized it and the core browser is much faster and leaner and uses much less memory than firefox 2.

So I say go ahead and give it a try. You can install both firefox 2 and firefox 3 beta at the same time, just remember to back up your bookmarks and such before.

I'm using Version 3 Beta 5. It's very stable and is much better performance wise over version 2. This is most noticeable in long sessions, as they've fixed the memory leak problems that were present in version 2.

I'm waiting till it's out of beta. Hopefully it'll be worth it to do so.

Switching to Opera 9.27 and forgetting Firesucks is my best advice.

Or use what's best for you and not be a raging fanboy.

I used to use Opera, it's definitely way better than Internet Explorer but against Firefox it's sorta neck and neck. Opera is small and minimalist, and very good performance wise, whereas Firefox has tons of additional functionality with extensions.

That said, my absolute favourite aspect of Firefox is that you can work without any toolbars at all with no loss in functionality, as you can stuff the address bar and search bar up in the menu bar. Makes for the most viewing space in any of the three major browsers.

Firefox is better than IE or Opera because IE and Opera are proprietary closed software. It is unethical to use anything but software that is free and open, IMHO.

You can use most of your addons by doing this:

1. Go to about:config
2. Right-click and choose New:Boolean
3. Name it extensions.checkCompatibility and set it to false.

I actually haven't used the Firefox 3 Beta much yet, beyond the initial "download it, look at it, drag it to the trash" thing that I always do. But in my experience, Mozilla apps are very stable by the time they get to the later beta stages--I used the Firefox 2 Beta for months before it was officially released.

On the other hand, a lot of add-on authors don't update their extensions to the latest version until the final release. They apparently miss the fact that, as developers, it's them who are supposed to be testing their add-ons against the beta versions. But, I digress. Anyway, I don't use many addons (mainly the User Agent Switcher and ForecastFox), so this isn't too big of a trade-off for me.

In other words, if you want it, go for it.

Maybe this is an autistic issue or me, but the worst up to now is to get over the new design of the 3.0b5.

Yeah the design has been overhauled quite a bit, so that could take quite a bit of adjusting for some. They took steps to make it look/feel more native on each OS. On Linux it reminds me of Epiphany, on the Mac of course Safari, and on Window$ it looks like IE.

I can't say I'm a fan of the move but oh well. 99% of my web browsing each day is done on Firefox 3 beta 5, I run it on all my computers and it has been fantastic. Amazing stability and much less of a memory hog.

I started using it yesterday. I think the tab browsing has improved, but otherwise I don't see much difference. Most of my major plugins still work.