Why I downgraded from Firefox 3 ?
With the excitement surrounding Firefox 3 launch, I gave in to the temptation and upgraded to Firefox 3.
To my shock, I realized how much I depended on firefox and how it has become a virtual OS for my daily needs when none of the plugins worked. I use the following plugins daily
- Grease Monkey
- Google Tool Bar
- S3 Organizer for Amazon S3
- FireBug
- FireFTP
These plugins are absolutely essential for my work. I have got so used to not installing software , instead installing plugins for Firefox, that Firefox is the new OS and upgrading firefox is like upgrading the OS.
So make sure your plugins are supported before upgrading Firefox.
Now about the downgrading process. Un-install Firefox 3, then download the previous version of Firefox from Mozilla releases website.
When I just installed the release 2 over the existing Firefox 3 release, the browser just wouldn’t open up. It kept on crashing. So make sure you un-install the existing Firefox 3 installation and then install firefox 2. The only saving grace is, all the plugins are intact, inspite of the un-installation process.
Update : One of the readers pointed out that FireBug works in Firefox 3, but it the automatic update doesn’t do the job.
firebug does work in FF3 you just have to go to the Firefox add-ons page and get it from there. For some reason the updater doesn’t do it.
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June 18th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Greasemonkey and google toolbar were working from RC3 onwards, even before today’s launch. Not sure about the other ones you listed.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:28 am
All this plugins work on FF3.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Not all plugins worked for me. I would wait for some time before i upgrade.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Yeah, AJAX seems to be broken in this firefox 3 release as well. I spent a few months designing a powerful food/exercise log editing system using AJAX , worked like a charm in the last release, doesnt work at ALL in this one, only like 2 of my 10 DIVs load up anything.
Firebug doesnt work in 3, and i use that all day long so im downgrading!
June 19th, 2008 at 7:34 am
firebug does work in FF3 you just have to go to the Firefox add-ons page and get it from there. For some reason the updater doesn’t do it.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Firebug 1.2b3 is available for Firefox 3 on the Add-ons page. However there are many issues with it including the fact that the ability to enable and disable CSS doesn’t work. It also causes issues if you have both 2 and 3 installed.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Seriously, the reason I’m considering downgrading is due to the fact that FF3 takes longer to launch, and then sits there for a few seconds apparently ready, but if you click on anything nothing happens. Stuck. Oh well. And, slower jerkier scrolling. That blows too. Oh, and yeah, you can’t turn off the so-called “Awesome Bar” by default. Rad. Way to innovate.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
The unified forward/back button did it for me. If there were an option to turn it off, I would be happy, but there’s not, and all my extensions work fine in FF2. I’ll pass for now.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
After seeing all the comments I am going to pass on the upgrade for another few months. Let the extensions be ported to FF3 and then start using it.
FF is an OS, its not just a browser anymore.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:24 am
I’m unable to manually install firebug 1.2 via the addon page - I’m running v3.
I like FF too but come on - it isn’t an OS.
September 16th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Firebug works but it is brutally slow