Firefox 3.6x vs Firefox 9?

[Moderator]

I guess the time is coming when I'm going to have to switch from Firefox 3.6 to the latest release. I've tried the newer versions a couple of times and kept going back to 3.6, with which I'm very comfortable. Who here as made the "upgrade" (I hesitate to use that word ) and what do you think? Speed aside, are you happy with the new version? Comfortable with it? Any issues with incompatible add ons?
 
  Thanks.

[Moderator]

Did the same as you so i'll also be interested in the responses...
(.0 lasted 3 days on my Main rig and i reverted to 3.6...been there ever since.

[Moderator]

Yep, exactly. Problem is they are going to cease supporting 3.6 soon so it obviously won't be updated with security patches.

[Web moderator]

Pretty much no difference on the visual side of things, except the new Firefox button in the top left corner where all the options are now located.

I can't answer for addons as I don't use any except WOT and Garmin Communicator.

As regards speed, I haven't noticed any difference in loading times, but then again I'm not one of these speed-freaks where 10 milliseconds makes a massive difference.

Any issues with incompatible add ons?

Don't be surprised if you see a notice, when upgrading with later versions of Firefox, that one or more add-ons may/will not work immediately after you upgraded Firefox because the add-ons haven't been updated yet to be compatible with the latest version of Firefox.  In other words, the add-on developers sometimes lag a bit behind the latest releases of Firefox, but they usually catch up within a short time.

[Moderator]

Yes, I'm aware of that thanks. I have the add-on compatibility reporter installed, which will help with some of them.

[Moderator]

MRTech Toolkit works well on letting all addons work...updated or not...
Works 98% of the time while waiting on updates for addons.

[Moderator]

I have MRTech installed and didn't realize that was one of the options. Thanks.

[Moderator]

Anytime Captain...

Pretty much no difference on the visual side of things, except the new Firefox button in the top left corner where all the options are now located.

The first thing I did when the look changed was install the "Firefox 3 theme for Firefox 4+"

http://ffaddons.game-point.net/ff3ff4/



I have quite a mix of addons

[Moderator]

Cool - I'm going to use that. And I'm glad to see Tab Mix Plus works.

[Malware Removal Specialist]

Been using the latest 9.0/9.1 for a while now. Works fine.

If Tab Mix Plus ever doesn't work there is usually a Dev-Build that does. TMP Builds

Pretty much no difference on the visual side of things, except the new Firefox button in the top left corner where all the options are now located.

You can disable that and have the old menu back.

Right click an empty space next to the orange button and click Menu Bar.

I can't answer for addons as I don't use any except WOT and Garmin Communicator.

I use quite a few and all of them work fine with FF 9.1. The ones that didn't work I replaced with similar ones from different authors and in a few cases are better than what I was using. Extension List Dumper gives compatibility info plus a lot of other info and puts your add-ons into text and other formats for easy list copying/pasting/saving.

Application: Firefox 9.0.1 (20111220165912)
Operating System: WINNT (x86-msvc)

Total number of items: 29

• Adblock Plus 2.0.3
  
  • Conkeror 0.1 - 100.0
  • Fennec 4.0 - 11.0a1
  • Firefox 3.6.13 - 12.0a1
  • SeaMonkey 2.1 - 2.9a1
  • Thunderbird 3.1.7 - 12.0a1
• BBCodeXtra 0.3.2
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 12.0a1
  • SeaMonkey 2.0 - 2.1a1pre
• Bing Search for Firefox 1
  
  • Firefox 4.0 - 10.0a1
• Copy Pure Text 2.0.1
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 10.*
  • SeaMonkey 2.0a - 2.7a1
  • Thunderbird 3.0 - 10.0a1
• Deng Google Bookmarks 1.6
  
  • Firefox 2.0 - 9.*
• Extension List Dumper 1.15.2
  
  • Firefox 1.5 - 10.*
  • Flock 1.0 - 2.*
  • Songbird 0.4 - 1.11.0a
  • Sunbird 0.3 - 0.9
  • Thunderbird 1.5 - 6.*
• Flagfox 4.1.11
  
  • Firefox 3.5 - 11.0a2
  • SeaMonkey 2.0 - 2.8a2
• FoxLingo 2.7.2
  
  • Firefox 1.5 - 10.*
  • Flock 0.4+ - 2.6+
  • Mozilla 1.4 - 1.8
  • SeaMonkey 1.0 - 2.1a1pre
• Ghostery 2.6.2
  
  • Firefox 3.5 - 12.0a1
  • Flock 0.7 - 1.0.*
  • SeaMonkey 2.0a - 2.1b1
• Google Bookmarks for Firefox 0.7
  
  • Firefox 1.5 - 10.*
  • Flock 0.4 - 0.8
• Google Reader Watcher 1.6.3
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 10.*
• Google Shortcuts 2.1.7.1
  
  • Firefox 2.0a1 - 10.*
• IE Tab 2 (FF 3.6+) 4.1.3.1
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 12.0a1
• Imgur Uploader 1.0.3
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 10.*
• Malware Search 0.9.4
  
  • Firefox 1.0 - 10.*
• Open With 5.0.3
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 12.0a1
  • SeaMonkey 2.0 - 2.1b3
• OptimizeGoogle 0.79.1
  
  • (Disabled)
  • eMusic Remote 1.0 - 1.*
  • Firefox 1.0 - 10.*
  • Flock 0.4 - 2.*
  • SeaMonkey 2.0 - 2.7a1
  • Songbird 0.4 - 1.*
• Plus One Button 1.0.3.1
  
  • Firefox 4.0 - 11.0a1
• SimilarWeb 1.4.27
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 9.*
  • Flock 0.4+ - 2.5.*
• Skype Click to Call 5.8.0.8855
  
  • (Disabled)
  • Firefox 3.6 - 9.*
• Smiley Xtra 5.0.7
  
  • Firefox 3.6 - 10.*
• StumbleUpon 3.99
  
  • Firefox 1.0 - 11.0a1
  • Flock 0.4 - 2.*
  • Mozilla 1.5 - 1.8+
  • Netscape Navigator 8.0 - 9.0
  • SeaMonkey 1.0 - 2.1a1pre
• Tab Mix Plus 0.3.8.7
  
  • Firefox 3.5 - 10.*
• TinEye Reverse Image Search 1.1
  
  • Firefox 1.5 - 10.*
• Toolbar Buttons 1.0
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 10.*
  • Flock 2.0 - 2.5.*
  • postbox@postbox-inc.com 1.0.0 - 2.0.*
  • Sunbird 1.0pre - 1.0pre
  • Thunderbird 3.0a1pre - 3.3a2pre
• VTzilla 1.2
  
  • Firefox 1.5 - 10.*
• WebMail Notifier 2.9
  
  • Firefox 1.5 - 12.0a1
  • SeaMonkey 1.0 - 2.9a1
  • Thunderbird 3.0 - 12.0a1
• WOT 20111107
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 12.0a1
  • SeaMonkey 2.0b2 - 2.6a1
• Xmarks 4.0.5
  
  • Firefox 3.0 - 12.0a1
  • Flock 0.7 - 2.6.*
  • SeaMonkey 2.0a1 - 2.9a1

[Moderator]

I also have a bunch, but the three most important ones for me are Tab Mix Plus, Colorful Tabs and Google Toolbar. I now know the first two will work fine, and I've read a workaround for Google. I'll probably give it a go in the next few days. Thanks to everyone who responded

[Malware Removal Specialist]

and I've read a workaround for Google.

Google Toolbar - Requires Firefox 2.0 - 4.0.* http://www.google.com/toolbar/ff/index.html

I use a lot of Google services also but prefer to use the Google Shortcuts and the Google Bookmarks for Firefox add-ons instead of a toolbar.

[Moderator]

Okay, just upgraded my primary system and so far so good. Thanks ST - without your suggestion about the theme I'd still hate it (couldn't stand that blue / gray color of the toolbars).

EF - Google toolbar DOES work - just need to make a couple of changes / tweaks first. See these two links:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compatibility-reporter/
http://www.itsabhik.com/tech/how-to-enable-google-toolbar-in-firefox-5-10.html