Firefox 3.0RC, Firebug and other addons

For the last 2+ weeks I have converted from Firefox 2.0 to 3.0RC on most of my computers/laptops and I am loving it. Most of the addons I use daily have been ported to 3.0 and I didn't have too many problems (still waiting for some smaller ones to get up to speed though). Overall for me Firefox 3.0RC feels quicker, stable and seems to use less resources. Kudos to the Mozilla developers on making Firefox better and snappier. I'll have more details once I do some more testing. So far though I am not going back to 2.0 unless I need to test something.

There have also been some updates to some of the addons that I use:
1. Firebug (http://www.getfirebug.com/) - this great addon is getting better and better. I took a quick look and was impressed. One biggest problem though is finding the right download link. The website is getting more confusing and lots of links making the download harder to find. Let me elaborate on this before I get flamed. I just installed 1.2Beta build of Firebug. If you go to http://www.getfirebug.com/ and look at the homepage can you tell me how I can download 1.2Beta release or if that release is even available? There's downloads for 1.0 and 1.1Beta (I guess this one never gone final). Here is a tip: go to releases page. Personally I think that 1.0 and 1.1 downloads and release notes links are confusing.
2. HTMLValidator (http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/) - this one you have to watch manually since it's not available from addons mozilla site. Anybody know why? Anyway after my 3.0RC transition I went to the homepage and found that I had a much older version installed.
3. YSlow (http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/) - this one is not updated yet, but I am keeping a close eye on this one. I know that Yahoo developers are working on an update and I am sure once it comes out the release should be exciting. From reading and following the Yahoo blog it seems that they are expanding the number of checks that could help web developers get their web pages into the top shape they can be.
4. AdBlock Plus (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865) - this one is in my arsenal and I tend to use it to remove those annoying ads that take up 60%+ of content on some websites.
5. NoScript (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722) - I consider this a must have. This one is also updated often. But be warned, sites will break and act unexpectedly because of this addon. The reason for me on jumping on the NoScript train was a presentation by Rasmus Lerdorf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmus_Lerdorf) showing the fact that lots of websites are vulnerable to security exploits and XSS attacks. This is the only addon I know that tries to protect you from such things.
6. Download Statusbar (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/26) - this one is also a favorite of mine. Get your downloads going in the status bar.
7. IE View Lite (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1429) - if you are doing anything with Web Development and need to test a page in IE then this is a great addon. It adds a menu item to open either this page or a link in IE window (actually launches IE). Nice and simple.

Signing off for now... go forth and upgrade to 3.0!

Gena01

	Author	Topic: Firefox 3.0RC, Firebug and other addons (Read 50521 times)
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