I’ve just installed Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2 yesterday, unlike beta versions, it was installed over the Firefox 2. Here are some issues I came across during setup process under Windows XP SP2. Firstly, the setup process required me to restart Windows, probably to close some open files Firefox 2 was using in working session, recalling me common behavior of setups under Windows 98. Secondly, the back and forward buttons disappeared at first run and I had to reset the toolbar to get them on.

About add-ons, fortunately, most of them are working after automatically updated. Nevertheless, some of my favorite ones were disabled due to compatibility check and they also did not work properly even after I tried to enable them by hacking into “about:config” entries (adding extensions.checkCompatibility as Boolean entry and set it to false). Hmm, frankly they are what I can’t live without so I tried to find if any progress made by developers to get them compatible with Firefox 3 but not released officially. Great news was I found (almost) all what I needed.

1. Firebug: Not really my problem for I’ve already installed the beta version 1.2 which is compatible with Firefox 3 RC2 (see my post about it here). Please go to this page to get the latest Firebug release.

2. AI RoboForm Toolbar: Siber System, the company behind this great password management tool, has the add-on compatible with Firefox 3 RC2 already. However, you’ll have to go to the company website to get and install it manually.

3. Tab Mix Plus: I somewhat take for granted all luxurious features provided by this add-on and feel very uncomfortable using Firefox without it. I had to dig into developer’s forum to find the version which works in FF3 RC2 . Hope Gary Reyes will release it officially soon.

4. FireFTP: I could find FF3-compatible version of this FTP client from developer’s website only too. I noticed that this new version (v0.99 currently) has a number of improvements like in-line file renaming, better account management etc.

5. Foxmarks: New version of Foxmarks is on Mozilla add-on site and it works well with new bookmark system implemented in FF3. Thank Todd Agulnick and team.

I’m also using other add-ons like Flashgot, Gmail Manager, TwitterFox, PDF Download… and I can find FF3-compatible versions of them from Mozilla official site.

We can expect that there will be no major changes in official Firefox 3 from this candidate release so that these add-ons should work OK in future. Yet Google Gears still has had no update for FF3 (?) and the browser may crash if you try to play music with RealPlayer add-in as my experience.

Well, Firefox 3 RC2 is not perfect but basically I’m quite happy with all above add-ons working.

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