Download Mozilla Firefox 3, release date is today: where will this leave Linux users?

Mozilla has finally announced that today is the day for downloading the much anticipated Firefox 3, oh yes June 17th 2008 is a good day for all those that want the new Firefox 3 download. Open source software enthusiasts and developers are planning major parties all over the world to celebrate this brilliant occasion.

Mozilla are trying to get into Guinness World Records, the Firefox team are hoping to set the record for the most software downloads in 24 hours and the total number of unique downloads that take place on release day will be submitted for potential inclusion in the Guinness World Records, it has been said that over one million users have already signed up to pledge their support. So what is the status of Firefox 3 add-on compatibility? Many readers have asked this question, they have also asked that they will not be ready to upgrade their best add-on until the add-ons are supported. Alex Polvi, Mozilla’s Product Manager has written a brief overview that explains the current status of the most popular add-ons. Some of my favorites, like Greasemonkey, Firebug, and Stylish are now all compatible with Firefox 3. Unfortunately, Google Browser Sync is being discontinued and will no longer be supported. Google recommends that users adopt Mozilla Weave or Foxmarks.

Mozilla’s add-on team has been hard at work getting a brand new version of the add-on web site ready in time for the release. The new site now includes a theme browser that displays thumbnails and a new advanced search system, as well as numerous improvements for developers. There are already plans in the works for Firefox 3.1 which has been given the codename of “Shiretoko” (Bless what a nice name), obviously this is in its early stages of development but the schedule indicates that alpha releases could be available as early as July, Prominent user interface features planned for the 3.1 release include tab previews and tag auto-completion. Developers also plan to add several new features to Firefox’s Gecko rendering engine such as the HTML 5 video element and CSS text shadows.

Now we want to know “where will this leave Linux users? Many people know that most users of Linux distributions do not get their Firefox browser directly from Mozilla. Instead, they get Firefox packages through their Linux distributions. The Linux version of Firefox which are sometimes customized by the distribution’s creator, also do not have the “Check for Updates” button enabled in the browser — while the button is enabled on Windows editions. The issue most recently came to the forefront after both Red Hat Fedora and Ubuntu shipped their recent Linux versions with Firefox 3 Beta 5. When the browser’s later Release Candidates 1 (RC1) and Release Candidate 2 (RC2) versions came out, users of the both popular distributions did not immediately get update notifications like their Windows counterparts.

So as said where will this leave Linux users and will they get Firefox at the same time as Windows users?

Visit the Mozilla Firefox 3 download page here