Using Firefox 3 beta 5 now! Why Upgrade? Read...

There are a few ways you can start using Firefox 3 without blowing your browser setup to hell or losing your most important extensions. Here's how.

Why Firefox 3 Now

Firefox 3 is in a late-stage beta, which means bugs are still getting reported and features are still getting finalized. Its next iteration will be a feature-complete release candidate, with the final public release due out in June. You can play it safe and wait till June, of course. However, Firefox 3 is chock full of new features that are reason enough to test-drive it—like a smarter address bar, better bookmarks, more native look for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Significantly improved memory management and much-reduced risk of crashes. Firefox 3 just doesn't hog all your RAM, seize your computer, and flip out with the spectacular regularity of Firefox 2. Plus it's just plain faster dealing with the web pages it opens while it's not crashing. If that's enough to convince you, read on for how to get into the beta without hosing your beloved browser setup.

Go Whole Hog (With a Backup)

If you're feeling really courageous, you can just wipe out Firefox 2 entirely and dive into Firefox 3 full-time, like I did. This means Firefox 3 will take over your existing Firefox profile. While I haven't seen problems with this on Windows or Mac, backups are always good insurance. So just to be safe: back up your Firefox profile, just in case you need to revert to Firefox 2 at some point in the future. (Note: MozBackup is for Windows only. Mac users can back up their profile manually by making a copy of their user profile folder.)

Update: Several commenters point out that the FEBE Firefox extension also backs up your browser profile, and works across platforms. Thanks all!

Download full version of firefox now! (mac/windows/linux)

Heres how to keep your extensions if u are afraid it doesnt work so have a separate firefox 3 and see if u think its worth an upgrade....

Windows: Play It Safe with Self-Contained Portable Firefox 3

If you want to use Firefox 3 without losing Firefox 2 or touching its settings, you want the portable Firefox 3 beta application. This standalone, self-contained version of Firefox isn't just for thumb drives. Save it to any folder on your computer (I prefer one called Firefox 3b5 on my desktop) and it creates a whole new user profile and runs completely separate from Firefox 2. One catch: you can't run Firefox 2 and portable Firefox 3 at the same time.

Download the portable Firefox 3 Beta 5 for Windows

When you run Firefox 3 portable you'll start out with a fresh profile that doesn't have your extensions, bookmarks, and homepage set. Instead of going through all the work of setting those up again, you can copy your Firefox 2 user settings to Firefox 3 portable. Here's how.

1. First, make sure NO versions of Firefox are running at all, but that you've run Firefox 3 portable at least once.
2. Navigate to the Firefox 2 profile folder you want to copy to Firefox 3. (Here's where to find it; most likely it will have the word "default" in the folder name.)
3. Copy that entire folder and paste it into the Your-Firefox3-Folder/Data/ folder.
4. Rename the existing profile folder in Your-Firefox3-Folder/Data/ to something else (like profile.bak).
5. Finally, rename the profile folder that you just copied (something like nsm1chqs.default) to profile.

Now, launch Firefox 3 portable, and you should see all your Firefox 2 customizations there.



Next update will be how to make your firefox extension work in firefox 3 no matter what!
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