Firefox 3: I want to know ...

[unixronin]

... Why does Firefox 3 have no scroll bars?  Do they just assume that everyone has a wheel mouse by now and scroll bars are obsolete?  Is there some hidden configuration setting somewhere to enable scroll bars, lacking which they're not displayed for the sake of artistic cleanliness or something?

Firefox 3 seems to have several annoying "features" that, as far as I can see so far, cannot be turned off.  Perhaps the most annoying I've found so far is that if you view an image directly with multiple tabs open, FF3 will replicate the entire image in the tab.  Which, if it's a large image, means your tab bar suddenly takes over the entire Firefox window.

I'll grant the improved speed is very nice, and video integration seems much better.  But I think there's major interface functionality issues with Firefox 3 that need to be addressed before it's ready for prime time.

(Seriously ... disabling scrollbars by default?  Whose stupid idea was that?)

Update:

It appears I unjustly blamed Firefox 3 RC2.  Something in my profile — a setting, an add-on, I don't know yet — that works fine in 3.0RC1 is causing problems in 3.0RC2.  Started in safe mode, RC2 works as expected.  I haven't had time to isolate the problem yet, but I'm going to start with add-ons.

Comments

Keep a blank profile handy.

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

I had scads of problems with all the FF3 release candidates until I made a new profile with no add-ons or nothin'. Been adding things back, but slowly.

And there are still pages I have to use for my job (e.g. our time reporting system at work) that don't work at all in FF3. Nothing like filling out a form and clicking "submit" just to see the entire page (not the fields, the whole page itself) go blank and take all the data you've typed in with it.

Re: Keep a blank profile handy.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Where does Firefox hide the profile manager these days?

I tried starting it up in "safe mode", and yeah, like that, scrollbars are back. So it's something interfering with them — and oddly, something that wasn't a problem in RC1.

Re: Keep a blank profile handy.

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

Pass -P to firefox to bring the profile manager up. On Windows you might have to make your own copy of the shortcut and edit the command line...