Firefox Upgrade Roars Out of the Gate

Firefox 3.0 appears to be off to a roaring start. The new version already accounts for 3 to 5 percent of active browsers, according to a counter run by Net Applications. That means that perhaps a quarter of Firefox users have upgraded, calculates Josh Catone at the ReadWriteWeb blog, despite early problems at the download site.

The new Firefox has been working great for me. I love the bigger "back" button. It's a simple change that makes so much sense. Is there any button that we use more on a browser?

I'm always surprised how many people still rely on Internet Explorer just because it's pre-installed on Windows. Everyone depends too much on a browser to not consider alternatives.

I dabble with IE, as well as Apple's Safari and Opera. They're fine browsers. But I'm a committed Firefox fan, partly because of its versatility. It seems to have the most useful add-ons that are free, such as Tab Mix Plus for managing tabs within a window.

Oddly, Firefox says that particular add-on isn't supported in the browser's new version. But it's important enough to me that I sought out the author's site, where I found assurances it would work. That's just one of the bumps in trying software that's brand new. But despite my posting of yesterday, I'm happy with the upgrade—and happy that it hasn't locked up yet.