I’ve been using the beta version of Firefox 3.0 for about two weeks. The final version 3.0 was released mid-last week. It was a popular download, to put it mildly.

I guess now that it’s in final form, I can take the Safari icon out of my dock. It’s that good.

Of course, I liked the speed of Safari, and it’s quasi-integration into other Mac apps and the iPhone. But all that does not add up to the new Firefox. Unless Safari makes some really big changes in the next version, I see little reason to go back.

The Firefox interface now looks nearly as clean as Safari’s, and with a thrid-party add on, there’s really no difference. Additional add-ons I had been sorely missing, like toolbar-integrated apps like del.icio.us and StumbleUpon are back. I had forgotten how much I actually missed these little jems.

In window PDF viewing used to be a problem with Firefox, but again, with an add-on, it is now more flexible than Safari. One click selects whether to open a pdf in a window or save it in a downloads folder for later.

And the speed of Firefox…. I’ve tried all the browsers: Opera, Camino, Flock, etc. Speed was what kept me with Safari. Flock is a novel idea, but was painfully slow and a memory-bully. It took about two weeks before I jettisoned the idea of having my social networks integrated into my browser.

So great job to the Firefox developers on v3.0. What a giant leap forward. The app is a pleasure to use.