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Firefox 3 - First 24 Hours

June 19, 2008 Along with about 11 million others, I took the plunge and downloaded the just released Firefox 3.0. As you might have guessed, this geek tends to download the new stuff right as it comes out. But is Firefox 3.0 an upgrade you should be eyeing with anticipation? Or perhaps a bit of dread?

After a couple days of use, I am quite impressed with the new additions to Firefox 3. Most immediately noticeable after installation is that the included theme (the way the software looks) is OS specific. Firefox 3 looks and feels like a Mac application on my iMac, while also managing to look and feel just like a Windows application when run on XP or Vista. In a very nice touch, the firefox website has also been tricked out to know what OS you are using so all the screenshots match.

While this might create more difficulty for cross-platform training, any presenter or teacher who uses the Internet will be so thrilled about the new ability to zoom into a website that they will overlook many flaws. Instead of just increasing the font size of text and leaving everything else behind, the new Firefox will zoom in on the entire site. Fast keyboard shortcuts let you highlight one part of a page, or get in close to a form while demonstrating how to use a site.

There are also many other new features focusing on  security, ease of use, and the creation of a more seamless web experience. A great example of this is the updated bookmark manager. With a pop-over window and the use of tags, bookmarking in Firefox is now very similar to using an online service like Del.icio.us.

Put all of this together, and Firefox 3 gets a huge endorsement. Given the additional management tools and security capabilities provided by add-on extensions, I would highly recommend Firefox 3 for all schools and libraries.

Posted by Chris Harris on June 19, 2008 | Comments (0)