Okay — first and foremost, if you are not using Firefox yet, please evolve from your neanderthal tendencies and claim your modern heritage. There simply is no excuse to use the god-awful Internet Explorer anymore. None. None at all. The only exception to using Firefox should be Safari if you’re a Mac user.
The fact that Firefox is lightyears ahead of Explorer in security, it’s also the only browser that allows so much customization. In the form of extensions, Firefox can do almost anything online. There’re so many time-saving and useful add-ons that there is no substitute.
So, now that the rant is out of the way…
It’s been big blog news that today the new version of Firefox was released. In fact, Guiness (not the beer) was called to verify that Mozilla would be trying to set a world record for the most downloads in one day. They sort of stepped on their own foot on that one, though — the site was down for more than a couple of hours this morning as the surge of traffic resulted in a self-requested DDOS attack.
Lately I’ve been ever more irritated with sites that use Ajax extensively: for example, the new Gmail interface, Facebook, and others. With Gmail and Facebook in open tabs, the constant demand for my CPU from the self-running Ajax Java kept it pinged at nearly 100%. I could almost fry eggs on my laptop! Now since the upgrade from Firefox 2 to Firefox 3, that problem has disappeared. :) Other things are noticeably faster as well, such as jpeg loading. :) :)
The only downside is now I have to wait for a few of the many extensions I use to become compatible with the new version. :( But, most developers have been aware of the release date for months and are fervently spending all-nighters to get upgraded scripts for download. And best yet — for a just released alpha version, no bugs that I’ve seen. Yet…
I never got the whole Firefox thing. I put it on my computer but it did weird things, like not allowing me to use certain puncutation when writing blog posts. It drove me nuts.
Maybe you just need a little hand-holding. ;) Firefox truly is far superior, once you’ve got it set up the way that works for you, I’ve no doubt you’ll agree.