Have you upgraded to Firefox 3 yet?

Yes? Great!

No? Whatcha waiting for?

I admit, I tried a few of the betas and a release candidate of Firefox 3, and I was left feeling like, “This is it?” I wasn’t anxious or even looking forward to the download, but when the final release candidate was released, I felt like maybe, just maybe, I could download it on Tuesday, June 17, and feel okay with whatever came my way.

Needless to say, I was blown away by the performance, new features and overall cool look of the new Firefox! My favorite feature so far is the ability to set web clients as my default email. Despite a relationship with Google, Gmail was not included in the original webmail options, so you have to manually add it.

Here are some instructions on how to set Gmail as your default email in Firefox 3. To be on the safe side, backup your profile before doing anything, just in case it doesn’t work!

• Go to Gmail and sign in.
• While in Gmail, copy and paste the following into your browser’s address bar and hit enter.

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(”mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”Gmail”)

• Google Apps users can use this code (but be sure to replace yourdomain.com with your Google Apps domain name):

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(”mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”Gmail”)

• Click “Add Application” when you are prompted.
• To set Gmail as your default, click on this link and you will be prompted with a dialog box listing available email applications. By selecting Gmail and checking “Remember my choice for mailto links” you won’t have to tell your browser again. (You don’t actually need to send an email after you click that link.)

For more information or additional assistance, visit The Official Gmail Blog

In February, I walked you through how you tweak your Firefox 2 about:config settings and how to condense your toolbar into one row.

Now with the release of Fx3, there are some significant changes in the way the browser handles bookmarks - which we should all be aware of!

Your bookmarks now have some new folders and features, such as “Most Visited”, “Recent Tags” and “Recently Bookmarked.” You also have the ability to drag and drop your bookmarks into the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder. But, there’s a catch!

Firefox 3 does not merge your previous Bookmarks Toolbar Folder into the current one, so you have to manually move your folders and links to the new folder. (Note: You may see bookmarks in the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder for Firefox 3, but they may not be the newest set available.)

It’s a simple drag and drop procedure, but if you have a lot of links or folders, just do a few at a time, surf the web with this sweet new browser then move a few more.

Here’s a quick screenshot of what my bookmarks folder looks like after moving things around a little

Have you downloaded Firefox 3 yet? What do you think?

Updated to Firefox 3 today - loving it so far. But, I have had a major problem!

I lost my saved passwords upon updating to Firefox 3! You can check to see if your passwords imported into Firefox 3 by going to Tools > Options > Security > Saved Passwords.

However, a little tinkering, and I have my saved passwords in Firefox 3!

Here’s how:

1. Go to your Firefox Profile Folder. You can find your profile folder in Windows by navigating to %APPDATA%/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/
2. Now look for the file called signons2
3. Open with any text editor, highlight and copy all of the data, then close the file.
4. Now look for the file called signons3
5. Open with any text editor, highlight and then paste the data from signons2
6. Close the file (Don’t forget to save!)
7. Now restart Firefox … and your passwords are now updated to your Firefox 3 installation!