Firefox 3.1 third beta released into wild

Does is actually fix the UI issues?

So, does it correct any of the UI regressions since FF2? Like that arrogantly-named "awesomebar" that can't be turned off without delving beyond the UI that users are supposed to see? Like being able to resize the bookmarks dialog? Like going back to a proper, civilized plaintext format for storing bookmarks? Or is this just more of the usual shiny stuff being pooed out by the Cascade Of Attention Deficit Teenagers development model that the Mozilla foundation seems to have devolved into?

@AC

I can resize the bookmarks 'organiser' window here.

If you want to dump the bookmarks DB into plain text, there are many addons to do it, but a (mini)database is more 'civilized' considering it's intended use.

@Tom Chiverton

I wasn't talking about the organizer window. Firefox version 3.07 on a machine at work doesn't let me change the size of the Add Bookmark (or, "Page Bookmarked" that it's mutated into) dialog. I understand there's a plugin to fix that, which I tried when I tested FF3 on my own box, but it made things unstable. So, that's been fixed? That's good to know.

As far as the bookmarks file format, I want to... store bookmarks. I don't want a frickin' record of every site I've visited. That's nice, I guess, for some people. But plain text is more "civilized" if you are at all interested in performing operations on that data outside of the browser program itself. Yeah, there's an export function, but exporting, modifying, and reimporting is an added annoyance that seems pointless. I've heard there is some mystical "performance" benefit, which I presume means there are people running Firefox on actual 80386 boxes, and this is an actual target demographic for the Mozilla foundation?

And seriously, anything that pops up at you should be able to be turned off without fiddling around. I know a lot of people like it, but that doesn't strike me as a good reason to inflict it on everyone without an easy way to Turn That Stuff Off.

@AC 20:45 GMT

I guess you're the guy who keeps popping up whenever a new FF release is mentioned.

1. Have you raised any request with the developers for your requirements?

2. Have you considered doing it yerself? Being open code & all that? You could roll your suggsted releases back into the wild

3. The perennial db bookmarks question. How about you add a mere command line arg that exports and imports bookmarks as text (or ask the developers). All the machinery for it is there.

4. FF is fine for me.

from FF 2.0.0.8 to 3.0.7

I've not long upgraded from FF 2xx to FF3xx (never be an early adopter!) and there is a noticeable slowdown in rendering. Yes, I know it's the same engine. and, no, I haven't measured performance with benchmark tests. It just *is* slower. So I hope 3.1 (or 3.5 or whatever they call it) renders pages as swiftly as before.

That said, FF remains streets ahead of IE7 and on a par with Opera 9xx. So Microsoft can stop crowing about IE8 being the fastest thing since Lewis Hamilton (see story on El Reg dated 12 March) - even if it was proven the fastest app on offer I wouldn't trust MS to produce a secure browser.

All IMHO, of course.