Firefox versions........
 

I'm about to upgrade to an Acer 5742Z ( Windows 7 Home Premium ) and will use Firefox as the browser. My old laptop has Firefox version 3.6.16 and I'm very comfortable with it. I see there are F'fox Versions 4 and 5 out but there seems to be some varied opinions as to their pluses and minuses. My gut feeling is to go with what I know ( as my IT knowledge is near zero..) as 3.16 is still available.

It also is one less " new " thing to have to deal with in the initial stages of familiarization.

Do any members have any experience or suggestions, re F'fox Versions ? Thanks.

I'm still on 3.6.16 (using it now) and not planning to change despite the popup nagging.

It's just a browser. Firefox 3.anything is an antique.

I concurr with Bushfiva..... "it's just a browser" .... and there's not really any excuse of running FF 3.6 these days !

On a more important note, you should always be running the latest version of any browser (and plug-ins) due to vulnerability exploits against older version.

I'm currently running FF 6.0 beta, and it's fine. Very quick and appears perfectly stable and most of the important add-ons are compatible.

Except the later versions of FF aren't recognised by certain banks for online banking purposes. When I last looked FF 4. whatever didn't work with NatWest. 3.6.16 is fine for me thank you very much.

I've got 3 PCs running FF5 and one on FF6 - no problems.

SD

I've got version 6 and it works with my bank.

After the last update I started getting hangups with the message "a script on this page is busy .." but I updated all my plug-ins and add-ins and no problem now.

Accidentally installed Chrome on a an old laptop whilst I was updating something there and must admit it looks faster then FF, at least on that out-dated specification.

And Iron is faster still than Chrome, without all the excess baggage.

Google Gears (and therefore Gmail offline) does not work on latest versions of Firefox (5 or 6 I think) and there is no intention that it will. (Google decision not Mozilla.)

My G-Mail works fine with FireFox 5 and 6, don't see the point of gears really.

The latest Safari on Lion is quite nippy too..... :cool:

crewmeal - something wrong with your settings? NatWest works fine for me on both FF4 and FF5. I've sort of reluctantly come around to the latest FF versions, I still don't like the lack of status bar (and I don't want to add an add-on for it) and the UI still feels strange even a couple of months later.

Good performance, though, and can't remember if it's ever crashed on me.

Bombay Duck & Saab Dastard Thanks for the tips. I've seen the error of my ways and upgraded. Now using FF 6.0 beta on my Macbook pro. I would use Safari more but it doesn't have a drop down address bar.

Gears
 

Green Granite, Gmail works fine with FF 5 &6. But Gmail offline does not, which is well-documented. A key point of Gears is to provide offline Gmail and Google Reader, which is extremely useful when travelling, especially on aircraft.

Google has ended development of Gears in favour of an html5 "solution" which however does not actually exist yet. This is the sort of thing that means Google and the cloud in general is still far from being a serious alternative for business.

Thanks for that info Algy, I have no need of it so I hadn't researched it. :(

It's typical, produce something useful and then drop the support for newer platforms. I suspect it might be an attempt to get people to migrate to google chrome so they can keep tabs on you.

Many thanks to those who offered their advice and experiences.

Being an IT coward...... I went with the old 3.6.19 version, as I wanted to be able to use the Google Toolbar ( I like the " cut/paste " and " Translate " features ) that I had on the old laptop.

Now I find the current Google Toolbar doesn't support " cut and paste "...:ugh::ugh:

Couldn't you just use ctrl-c and ctrl-v? Or right click on the button bar, customize, drag copy & paste buttons to the bar? I don't do Firefox 3.x but I don't imagine it's missing customizing features its competitors have. The Google toolbar copy & paste buttons aren't a magic Google thing, they're simply using existing features in your browser.

If you're using 6.0 version, remember it's still a beta format and there might be changes before the full version is released. The no doubt we'll have further versions coming out.

"These days"? I moved to 3.6.18 less than six months ago. The thinking of this post highlights all that is wrong with the IT world these days. Poorly developed, bug ridden software got out to market in order to appear the latest, then constant annoying upgrades to correct the resultant issues.

And as for this... I remember when every home computer on the market had a unique OS, and once you were locked in that was it. The world moved on, and now we are in position where the three main OSs can, with some tweaking, run anything. Google however want to move back the the bad old days (for the consumer, not the manufacturer). This has already started to happen in the mobile world (Flash on i-whatever), hence my loathing of "apps" and the thinking behind them.

Sorry for the slightly OT rant ;)