Skeptomania - Paranormal / UFOs, etc.

asmodee

Well, Firefox 3 was officially released today, but the download site is down for the count. You would think they would have better sense than to hype it all up and then not be able to carry the traffic. I've downloaded it from mirrors, but I think it might be RC3 I have rather than the official final release. If I get an authentic copy for sure (and anybody's interested) I'll put it on my own (admittedly ugly) site for download. I plan to as soon as I'm sure I have the real deal anyway. I have lots of downloads for my customers there and it's really not easily locatable unless you know where to go. One of the advantages of being small enough that you don't want business from Nigeria.

UPDATE: I finally got to spreadfirefox.com, but still can't download. I see the problem. They were hoping for about 5 million downloads. The current number listed is 578,345,066. I think they got the Guinness record in the bag.

2ND UPDATE: Finally managed to get the official download and it was the same as the two other I had downloaded. PM me if you need it, but can't find it. My web site is small and can't take a lot of traffic.

Yet another update: Now their website claims only 1,707,620 downloads, if anybody cares.

Yaish · Intel Chief

I'm browsing with it right now. So far, it seems pretty much just like my previous version which is a GOOD THING! Too often companies make radical changes between versions that turn me off to their product. If I'm using it in the first place that means I like it, so stop fucking with it. Just fix the problems and make it better without making it harder.

asmodee

I know what you mean. I used to be a Netscape fan, but then they started to get fancy and they broke the hell out of it, so I reluctantly switched back to IE, which I used for better than a decade. The ONLY reason I switched to Firefox is because the new version of IE was going to be a radical change and if I was going to get a radical change anyway, I was going to go with the more secure, more configurable browser. I can't stand a base install, but with a few tweaks and a couple of addons I can't live without it. I am very pleased that all the updates were "under the hood", so to speak.

Yaish · Intel Chief

What extensions do you like?

I keep mine relatively simple. I don't go for themes or custom buttons usually, or even live feeds in most cases.

I'll download Forecastfox to get live weather down in the corner of the screen, Imagezoom to get a better look at some small images without having to save them then manipulate them, and of course the Google toolbar.

Easygestures, a way of click/moving your mouse to get to prearranged shortcuts is something I'll download sometimes, but not always.

asmodee

I go for all functionality. No eye candy.

I have Zotero, but don't use it. It is to help you quote sources when you are researching something online. My wife is taking online college courses.

I have IE View, which lets me set certain pages (microsoft.com, live.com, etc) to open directly in IE.

New Tab Homepage makes a new tab come up with my homepage instead of blank.

NoScript so that I have to give permissions for all scripts to run.

Text Link is a nice little addon that allows me to double click on a URL that isn't hyperlinked and open it anyway without cutting and pasting.

AdBlockPlus, obvious.

Customize Google lets me filter out results from web sites which I know to simply reflect search terms back on me, such as other search engines. I got sick of following links in Google results only to find that the link led to search results in some crappy search engine I'd never heard of.

FireFTP, PDFDownload, US English Dictionary and FoxyTunes round it out. No toolbars or eye candy whatsoever. It looks almost like a base install except I've added the "New Tab" button to the toolbar and plugins have added a couple others. I've also tweaked the downloader to remove things from the list once they're downloaded and go away automatically when the last thing is done.