FireFox 3.6 is officially released today. After 3.5's browser freezing problems which caused me to downgrade to 3.0, I was kinda reluctant to upgrade. I did it anyway, and to my surprise, it was as advertised. Pages rendered noticeably faster, and there's no freezing problems. The only problem is my search bar at the top is misaligned. I noticed the same thing with the latest version of Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 too. Maybe they all just upgraded to a new rendering engine. Since most users are probably still using previous versions, I guess I'll have to write another CSS hack to fix the alignment issue.
There's also a lot of talk about FireFox Personas, which allows you to theme your browser with various themes. I find them very distracting - like those crazy, schizophrenic MySpace pages that just drives any adult completely nuts and right into Facebook. The ones that work best tend to have lighter backgrounds because the navigation icons stand out and blend in better. Still, it confuses more than enhance. I like how the themes in iGoogle works much better. If they're gonna allow people to theme the browser, might as well hand over the icons and other navigational elements too. That way, they're guarantee to work well together. As is, it's hit or miss - mostly miss.
Personas and minor CSS issues aside, I like the upgrade. Faster rendering time trounces all minor complaints.
UPDATE 3: Nice. MeasureIt now works with 3.6.
UPDATE 2: Fixed the CSS issue with this new CSS hack. The search button was misaligned because I had used a CSS hack targeting Safari and Chrome browsers. Unfortunately, FireFox 3.6 also supports that hack. Follow the link for a new hack that targets Safari and Chrome, but excludes FireFox.
UPDATE: Two of my favorite Add-ons don't work on FireFox 3.6 - MeasureIt and WiderBug. I installed FireBug temporarily to replace WiderBug, but now I'll have to wait for MeasureIt to release a new version. Upgrades suck.
