First Post with Firefox 3

Firefox 3 launched yesterday, with a large marketing campaign to set the record for most downloads of a program in a day.  Funny enough, it looks like they bit off more than they could chew.  I tried downloading on 4 separate occassions throughout the day, and the servers were down each time.  I was finally able to get the download both on my PC and Mac in the evening.

First impressions?  It’s definitely feels a bit speedier, I like the crispness of the UI, and the smart location bar is very cool.  My only gripe is that my deli.cio.us plugin didn’t support firefox 3, so I’ll have to find a different one or wait for an upgrade.

It’s interesting to see a piece of software evolve that is supposedly so simple.  The browser is function is very basic – it is an enabler of content.  Unlike a product that is the focus of your use and allows you to create or edit content (e.g., Powerpoint), the browser plays more of a background role.  However, it’s facinating to see where the innovation is happnening in browsers:

1. Making the user experience faster and more secure.  This is pretty self explainatory – faster load times and improved security features
2. Organizing information – there are lots of ways of organizing links (my new favorite is google notebook), but the browser is still the primary domain for that.  This is illustrated by the smart location bar.  I think this is where the browser may eventually start bumping heads with someone like google.  Previously, if I wanted to find a link that I went to a few days before, I would search on google.  Now, I can use my smart location bar, and find the link faster.  This will surely take hits away from google.
3. Improving the user experience as a whole – the biggest jump here was the introduction of tabbed browsing, which really changed the way I browse the web.  I think additional things include a crisper layout and auto fill of forms.

It’s great to see Mozilla continue innovating, and it’s particularly interesting seeing a non-profit consistently staying one step ahead of the Microsoft behemouth.