Firefox 3 – The Wait Is Finally Over!
The official release date of Firefox 3 has been finally announced by the Mozilla team. The wait for the Download Day 2008, and the final gold release of Firefox 3 will be over soon. According to Mozilla Developer’s blog, Firefox 3 is announced to hit the web on Tuesday, June 17th! Everyone get yourselves ready to download Firefox 3 on that day and help Firefox 3 make a world record.
After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3  the best web browser, period.
Firefox 3 Release Candidate 3 – Available Now
Just when we thought that now we are going to get an email anytime for Download Day 2008 and for the release of Firefox 3, Mozilla has again surprised us with another RC release. Yes, Firefox 3 RC3 has been available for download on the Mozilla FTP. Mozilla’s next-generation browser is just an inch away from the final release. Firefox 3 download page will be updated shortly, currently it is showing 3.0rc2. But you can always get the latest release first from the FTP.
Greasemonkey For Firefox 3 Now Available
Greasemonkey is an all-time popular extension of our favourite browser, Firefox. Since, Firefox 3 alphas and betas started releasing, one thing users missed was this extension, because it was not being updated for Firefox 3. Everyone was looking for updates, but for some reason there was none available on the official Firefox add-ons site.
Greasemonkey has been finally updated for Firefox 3. Greasemonkey 0.8, a pre-release version, and can be downloaded directly from here. This version was first seen in this thread of Greasemonkey users group. The new version is compatible with all Firefox 3.0.x releases, so it doesn’t matter if you are on a Release Candidate or on the final version.
Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2 Available Now
Mozilla released Firefox 3 RC2 yesterday, and since they were right on schedule, we might still get to see the final Firefox 3 being released by the end of this month. Mozilla FTP already had a file named Firefox 3 RC2, but who knows they might make some last minute changes and tweaks, so it’s always better to wait till they don’t announce on the official site.
There is nothing new in RC2 to talk about. No new features have been added. They are only focusing on fixing the bugs from RC1 and improving its performance. Read the release notes to see what bugs they have fixed.
Firefox Wants To Make Guinness World Record
Mozilla is all set to release the final version of Firefox 3, and with that, it will also try to set up a world record. Sounds good, eh? They are trying to set a world record for most number of downloads in 24 hours for its upcoming release of Firefox.
The date of this “Download Day 2008” and the release date for Firefox 3 will be announced soon. If you would like to participate, head over to Spread Firefox and offer your pledge there to download Firefox 3 on the first day of its release. Once your email gets rolled in, you will be one the first ones to get your hands on the latest Firefox.
Firefox 3 RC1 Portable Now Available
Last week, I installed Firefox 3 RC1 to give it a try. After trying it, when I uninstalled it, unfortunately, it wiped out all of my Firefox profile. Mozilla said FF3 RC1 won’t disrupt my current installation, but it did! All my history, bookmarks, settings, saved-passwords etc. were gone. Luckily, I had an up-to-date backup, so I recovered everything back. If anyone of you also had similar problems, but still want to use Firefox 3 RC1, along with Firefox 2, I found the perfect solution for that.
Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 Released
I was just discussing this yesterday, about the Firefox 3 RC1 given on the Mozilla FTP. And look, here we have the RC1 announced by Mozilla team today. Wondering what’s new? Check out the release notes for this.
Many fixes and improvements have been made to improve security, and performance. Including fixes for stability and web-compatibility. One major change that you will all notice is the change in the user-interface. Looks like Mozilla heard my shout! “I want a better default theme!” :P
Is Firefox 3 RC1 Ready?
I’ve been keeping an eye on the main Firefox releases FTP site. When I checked it yesterday, I noticed a new folder 3.0rc1 there. And guess what, when I checked it for any new releases, I found Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1, which is expected to release by the end of May.
(Screenshot taken from Firefox 3 RC1)ÂÂ
As Mozilla has said before, if they don’t find any ground-breaking bugs in RC1, then this can be considered as the final release. So what do you think, is this actually Firefox 3 RC1, or a beta version of Firefox RC1? :P
Firefox 3 Almost Completed
Finally, the development on the Firefox 3 browser is starting to wrap up. By the end of May, Firefox 3 will enter into the Release Candidate stage. And it’s expected that the long-awaited browser will hit the market in June. It was on their forums that Firefox 3 is targeted towards June.
Firefox 3 is expected to be one top-notch browser, because the pre-release versions have been tested out by about 1.2 million users! I’ve tried out all the Firefox 3 pre-releases, even before it got into Alpha stage, and have seen the remarkable performance improvements in it.
You won’t find any extraordinary or notable new features, but the performance enhancements are awesome! The memory usage Firefox 3 beats out most of the main steam browsers, including Firefox 2! I’m glad Mozilla didn’t compromise on performance just for the sake of a few new features.
We’ll start getting the Release Candidate versions from late May. According to the Mozilla Developer blog:
If no new showstopper issues are found in RC1 it will become Firefox 3 final. If we find any critical issues we will continue to release new Release Candidates until we are ready for final ship.
I still have a feeling that hey won’t be able to do it in one Release Candidate release. I mean, if we look at the release history of Firefox 2 and 3 (below), I’m sure Firefox 3 will have at least 2 Release Candidate releases before the final product.
Firefox 2
- Alphas: 3
- Betas: 2
- Release Candidates: 3
Firefox 3
- Alphas: 8
- Betas: 5
Well, that’s it from the Mozilla team. This time they’ve focused more on performance enhancements than adding new features. I was hoping to see a new theme. But.. Nevermind. Better luck next time! ;)
