Firefox 3 and Firebug

I've been using Firefox 3 for a few days now and so far it's worked very well. To be honest, I never knew why folks thought FF2 on the Mac was ugly. I didn't get it. But now that I've been running FF3, I see that it is a bit nicer in form fields. That by itself is not enough reason to get FF3, at least not in my opinion, but other aspects are nice as well.

Here is a great change: In FF2, you enter a username and password, and FF prompts you with an ugly alert asking you if you want to save it. While saving authentication info is real handy - the alert can be a real pain in the rear. In FF3, this is done with a prompt on top of the web page. It doesn't stop your form submission.

In general - FF3 also just seems to behave better. My FF2 had improved quite a bit since disabling Firebug, but FF3 seems to have made it near perfect.

Speaking of Firebug - most extensions I had did not work in FF3, including Firebug. I found a modified version here though:

http://fireclipse.xucia.com/#Downloads

I've been running it for 10 minutes and so far, so good, but I don't think it is an "official" update. The only other extension I really miss is the Web Developer toolbar.

Archived Comments

Comment 1 by Jim Priest posted on 11/28/2007 at 9:46 PM

Can you install 3 side-by-side with 2? I'd like to try it but don't want to trash my current install. Got too much invested with all the plugins, modified chrome, etc... :)

Comment 2 by Raymond Camden posted on 11/28/2007 at 9:54 PM

Google. I think you can if you use 2 profiles. I copied mine into a new folder. I can't run both at the same time, but I have both here and can switch when I need to.

Comment 3 by Mark W. Breneman posted on 11/28/2007 at 9:59 PM

@Jim
I installed FF3 on my Mac along side FF2. I just renamed FF to Firefox3 before dropping it into the Applications folder. So far (3 days) all seems to work well. I can open only one copy of FF at a time, but both still seem to work.

FF3 is better on the Mac. I too never thought FF2 looked bad like some people complained. The one major improvement is the bookmark tool bar finally works correctly on the Mac. You can make a folder and drag and drop a link into it. Though really annoying that I can no longer click on the fav icon in the URL line and select the whole URL.

Comment 4 by Gareth posted on 11/28/2007 at 10:34 PM

Ray,
Have you tried using the nightly tester tools?
http://www.oxymoronical.com...
It updates all firefox extensions to be approved no matter which version of FF you're running. The extension may not *work* correctly, but it will at least allow you to try it (and you can disable it again if it's not working correctly)

Comment 5 by Nathan Mische posted on 11/28/2007 at 10:59 PM

You don't miss ColdFire? :)

Comment 6 by James Moberg posted on 11/28/2007 at 11:43 PM

Does using MR Tech's Local Install help? It allows extension version overrides.
http://www.mrtech.com/exten...

Please let me know... I'd like to know if the problem is the extension itself or just the compatibility settings.

Comment 7 by Steve Sequenzia posted on 11/29/2007 at 2:01 AM

Thanks for the good information. I had not started using FF3 because I did not think there was a update for Firebug yet but now I will check it out.

Thanks for the heads up.

Comment 8 by Ryan posted on 11/29/2007 at 11:37 AM

The Firebug 1.1 update (linked above) is in beta but is a legit upgrade to 1.05. I believe the author is the same but has moved on to work for Mozilla.

The Web Developer 1.14 extension has NOT been updated yet and I don't believe the developer of it intends to do so until the full FF3 release. It does NOT appear to work for me, even with the nightly tester tools.

Comment 9 by toplumvesanat posted on 11/29/2007 at 6:45 PM

How can we find "official" update? Or is this unofficial update legal and no problem for security?

Comment 10 by Stephen Moretti posted on 11/29/2007 at 7:28 PM

If you want to run FF2 and FF3 side by side all you need to do is add -no-remote to the command line : http://kb.mozillazine.org/C...

(Posting from Minefield (FF3b2pre ;))

Comment 11 by Kazade posted on 11/29/2007 at 7:30 PM

Just so you guys know, if you ever want to force a plugin to install on a version Firefox version that isn't supported. Then download the plugin (i.e. go to Save as...) it will be a .xpi file.

A .xpi file is a .zip file just renamed, so you can open it and inside there is an xml document that stores the min and max FF versions, just change the max version to the version you are running (e.g 3) then save the .xpi and drag it onto a Firefox window, the plugin will install as normal.

Comment 12 by Raymond Selzer posted on 12/4/2007 at 7:39 PM

You can run two versions side by side and simultaneously, there's some mozilla dev posts about it here

http://forums.mozillazine.o...

I can run 1.5 and 2.0.0.11 at the same time. I don't see why the same method wouldnt work for 2 and 3.

As for firebug, I've just gotten in the habit of disabling it for a site the first time I go to one. On occasion I still have to end task ff when it starts to use 300mb of ram and 50% cpu.

Comment 13 by T.J. posted on 12/20/2007 at 8:19 PM

Wanna run to side by side? No matter what OS you are using, right click (or the OS equivilent) on the launcher, click properties, and you'll see the "target" or "action" property (it will be a path to the application). Enter this:

"c:\path\to\firefox\firefox.exe" -p something -no-remote
/path/to/firefox/firefox -p testprofile2 -no-remote

You can use different profiles (after the -p flag) to load up the browser with its default settings, (or settings for that profile). The -no-remote make it ignore whether there is already a firefox version running or not (doesn't work on FF 1.5 and below). So you can run FF 1.5, 2, another 2, and 3 all simultaneously.

Comment 14 by Ryan posted on 12/24/2007 at 10:40 PM

I was just able to get Webdeveloper 1.14 working on the newest nightly build of FF 3.0b3pre. To do it I followed Kazade's (11/19) comment. I downloaded the toolbar. Unzip the .xpi file. Open the install.rdf file (it is XML). Edit the 2 lines that refer to maxVersion to say 3.0.0. Save the file. Add the updated file back into the .xpi that you downloaded. Drag the .xpi onto your browser. Restart Firefox after installation.

Comment 15 by Caco_Patane posted on 2/13/2008 at 5:04 PM

I've noticed a MAJOR SPEED BOOST in all things related to JavaScript between FF2 and FF3. On a Pentium III 800ghz the difference is quite identificable.

Comment 16 by Nate posted on 3/18/2008 at 12:10 AM

do you have an updated link to a firebug version that works with firefox 3?

Comment 17 by Raymond Camden posted on 3/18/2008 at 12:15 AM

Check out http://www.getfirebug.com/. You can see a link to the 1.1 version which will run in FF3.

Comment 18 by Kalle Henriksson posted on 3/26/2008 at 1:26 PM

Want to try it out? No problem. Just visit portableapps.com and download their portable version of FF3B4. Works like a charm ;o)

Comment 19 by Eric D. Burdo posted on 6/20/2008 at 2:53 PM

Just an FYI - Since FF 3 was released as "live", most of the extensions mentioned here have now been updated to work properly.

Comment 20 by msn nickleri posted on 6/20/2008 at 7:51 PM

Who i can download it???