Like millions of internet craziacs worldwide I greeted the news of a newer and faster version of Firefox with anticipation. What's more, their campaign to be part of a world record for the most downloads in a day was something novel, to say the least. However, after a month of use, I had to uninstall Firefox 3.
Immediately after installing Firefox 3 last month I looked for traces of its promise, that "increased security, blinding speed and cool new features that will change the way we use the Web." I found none. Maybe it takes something more than mere installation, I told myself. Besides, I'm not much of a techie to know these things. I continued to use Firefox 3 and hoped that it would improve as the days passed and I learned more of its features. However, rather that the blinding speed it promised, I noticed that Firefox 3 was getting slower by the day. There were times when the tabs wouldn't work, or the right click stalled. Thinking that it was more of a registry problem (my diagnosis sucks huh?) I then proceeded to clean the registry. After all, who would suspect that the vaunted new software
was the culprit. Still there was no improvement. I then checked if others had similar problems and was surprised that there have been reported bugs in Firefox 3. Many such cases litter the internet. Even so, I didn't want to uninstall hoping that there would soon be a solution to this problem. I then re-installed Firefox 3 hoping that it would help. Wrong ...
I continued to use Firefox 3 until this morning, when the impatient control-freak in me just couldn't stand it anymore. The right click continued to stall and would take minutes to recover, and that blinding speed of a turtle was making me crazy! I decided to get rid of it immediately. However, uninstalling was not simple. Every time I tried to uninstall I got the following message: "Close Firefox before uninstalling." WTF, it IS closed! I was ready to give up until I found a solution online. And that's where I also learned that Mozilla has removed the download links from their site making it harder to go back Firefox 2. Hmm, sneaky. Luckily, oldapps.com has the complete line Firefox 2 download links. Whew, I thought I had no choice but to go back to IE (yuck!).
I am now back to Firefox 2 and loving it. My browsing is much faster and everything works! I'm not closing my door on Firefox 3 though. But I'm only going back to it after all the bugs have been fixed, maybe next year. And if you're having the same problems with Firefox 3, uninstall it and go back to its younger sibling like I did. Here's the procedure if you'll encounter the same uninstall problems like mine:
Moral of the story? Don't install untested newly-released software versions. They're bound to have bugs and you'll end up regretting it in the end.
Update: Firefox has release a new version (Firefox 3.0.1) and users say, some of the bugs in the earlier version have been fixed. Hope it's true. For now, I'll just have to wait and see.
They have also added a link to their older versions (Firefox 2.0.x) on their downlaod page.
Immediately after installing Firefox 3 last month I looked for traces of its promise, that "increased security, blinding speed and cool new features that will change the way we use the Web." I found none. Maybe it takes something more than mere installation, I told myself. Besides, I'm not much of a techie to know these things. I continued to use Firefox 3 and hoped that it would improve as the days passed and I learned more of its features. However, rather that the blinding speed it promised, I noticed that Firefox 3 was getting slower by the day. There were times when the tabs wouldn't work, or the right click stalled. Thinking that it was more of a registry problem (my diagnosis sucks huh?) I then proceeded to clean the registry. After all, who would suspect that the vaunted new software
was the culprit. Still there was no improvement. I then checked if others had similar problems and was surprised that there have been reported bugs in Firefox 3. Many such cases litter the internet. Even so, I didn't want to uninstall hoping that there would soon be a solution to this problem. I then re-installed Firefox 3 hoping that it would help. Wrong ...
I continued to use Firefox 3 until this morning, when the impatient control-freak in me just couldn't stand it anymore. The right click continued to stall and would take minutes to recover, and that blinding speed of a turtle was making me crazy! I decided to get rid of it immediately. However, uninstalling was not simple. Every time I tried to uninstall I got the following message: "Close Firefox before uninstalling." WTF, it IS closed! I was ready to give up until I found a solution online. And that's where I also learned that Mozilla has removed the download links from their site making it harder to go back Firefox 2. Hmm, sneaky. Luckily, oldapps.com has the complete line Firefox 2 download links. Whew, I thought I had no choice but to go back to IE (yuck!).
I am now back to Firefox 2 and loving it. My browsing is much faster and everything works! I'm not closing my door on Firefox 3 though. But I'm only going back to it after all the bugs have been fixed, maybe next year. And if you're having the same problems with Firefox 3, uninstall it and go back to its younger sibling like I did. Here's the procedure if you'll encounter the same uninstall problems like mine:
Restart your computer. Do not open Firefox 3!
Try uninstalling again.
If it still can't uninstall go to your Task Manager (press clt + alt + delete) and press the Processes tab. Then find Firefox.exe on the list. Right click on it and select End Process. Try uninstalling again
Once you get it uninstalled, don't reinstall Firefox 3 again. Instead, go to oldapps.com and click on the Firefox link. Choose from the many versions of Firefox 2 (I chose Firefox 2.0.0.12) and install it.
Moral of the story? Don't install untested newly-released software versions. They're bound to have bugs and you'll end up regretting it in the end.
Update: Firefox has release a new version (Firefox 3.0.1) and users say, some of the bugs in the earlier version have been fixed. Hope it's true. For now, I'll just have to wait and see.
They have also added a link to their older versions (Firefox 2.0.x) on their downlaod page.
