The whole "beta software is for developers only" bullshit is generally just them protecting themselves from having to deal with problems, which is fine.
FF3 Beta is great, and I'm glad to see their becoming a competitor again. I've been using it on my linux over the Kazehakase browser, and it seems fine.
Most of my software is compiled weekly from SVN, basically I'm getting to use features that were only coded the previous day, and tbh, most of it is still stable.
Javascript is handled far better by FF3. Yes, Java support was fucking terrible in FF2, but FF3 blows that out of the water.
Safari is quite terrible. It's a bugged up hack to run on windows, and a large percentage of those that have Mac's choose to use Camino or such instead of Safari.
I would guess that Java performance is pretty much the same (if you use the same Java VM), but it's true that FF3 Beta 4 does really good in JavaScript benchmarks.
Personally I despise firefox, it feels bloated and is too slow at rendering webpages. It lacks the simplicity and performance of opera, which contains a sheer amount of features out of the box, while remaining very lightweight and requiring few resources; also you don't need to install extensions for features such as mouse gestures etc, ; the layout is fully customizable, you have the ability to create a search box out of everything, etc etc etc
FF3 Beta is great, and I'm glad to see their becoming a competitor again. I've been using it on my linux over the Kazehakase browser, and it seems fine.
Most of my software is compiled weekly from SVN, basically I'm getting to use features that were only coded the previous day, and tbh, most of it is still stable.
If you use java daily then you should really try it , its way faster than IE and also faster than firefox
Javascript is handled far better by FF3. Yes, Java support was fucking terrible in FF2, but FF3 blows that out of the water.
Safari is quite terrible. It's a bugged up hack to run on windows, and a large percentage of those that have Mac's choose to use Camino or such instead of Safari.
I would guess that Java performance is pretty much the same (if you use the same Java VM), but it's true that FF3 Beta 4 does really good in JavaScript benchmarks.
http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2008/02/firefox-3-ultimate-feature-performance/