Firefox 3 Alpha 4 has been released

[Osiris]

Early adopters take note. The Firefox 3 development team has released a new alpha version of the upcoming Firefox 3 web browser codename Gran Paradiso. The new version of Firefox 3 can be downloaded right from the webpage where the developers made the announcement. Versions for Windows, Macintosh and Linux are available. It should be noted that this version is for testing purposes only and mainly intended for web developers and the testers who test the alpha version for bugs.
Although I decided to install the new version of Firefox in a separate directory it was using the same profile folder that I was using for Firefox 2. Gran Paradiso performed a check for every extension installed and non was reported to be working. It is still possible to use the nightly tester tools for instance to get those extensions working with Firefox 3.
You should take a look at the release notes to find information about installation, bugs and read the frequently asked questions. I was not able to spot odd behavior so far but I did not activate my extensions for now. Everything looks identical to Firefox 2 at this point and I would suggest to wait with the installation unless you really need to test a website for compatibility.

[eyeCpc]

Beta versions of anything always seem to be a risk when going to try those out first before waiting for a full version. The beta release of IE 7 by MS also had it's initial bugs to be worked out. That was removed fast until the finished version was finally tested here. I'll be wiating for FF 3.0 however.

[jonny_uk]

as above

[Trotter]

I downloaded a version of Grand Paradiso a while back. It worked fine, and , yes, Nightly Tester Tools made my extensions work. but when I would go back to 2.0, I had to re-use NTT to re-do my extensions for 2.0 (many extensions have since updated, but I want all of my extensions ).

If GP will try to install in my FF directory, I'll wait a bit for it. I've been throught that headache. I could install it on the other partition, though... Maybe later, i'm feeling lazy right now...

[macdude425]

If GP will try to install in my FF directory, I'll wait a bit for it.

It will. It will also screw up usage of FF in OS X, for any of you who want to try it there. If you want to use it and keep FF operability, you'll have to go with Linux.

That aside, I downloaded it yesterday - it's a lot better than GPa2 and a3, and much smoother and faster than a3, but it still has quirks.