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Commentary on the World

Ars Chimes in on Firefox Resource Usage

Apparently, on standardized tests, Firefox 3’s betas consume less memory then IE, Opera and (no surprise) Firefox 2.

Since Firefox 2 is an absolute pig, the progress is pretty impressive, and hopefully bodes well for Firefox 3.

Could this be the first time that a new version of software is less bloaty then its predecessor?

One feature I’m really interested in is that it uses an SQLite database for bookmarks - this lets them do all sorts of neat stuff like tagging and better searching of these files; but I’m also hoping that it’ll make the management of a large number of bookmarks easier and mch snappier. If memory serves, SQLite uses a flat file for storage, which means that backup of your bookmarks is still easy (though probably not as convenient as the human-readable HTML file that’s in use right now - I’d wager that an export function will be available, though).

Since I’m not willing to leave behind those precious extensions of mine, I’m really looking forward to Firefox 3, which is entering Beta 5 code freeze tomorrow. (Yeah… they seem to have a whole wack of betas… it seems like they’re having some real problems nailing down all the bugs).

I’m thinking that, once beta 5 hits the street, I’ll see what existing issues are identified, and then probably start using it for day-to-day surfing. Firefox 2 is starting to really annoy with its quirky behavior…