Web In Depth

This post is for all of you who intend in doing some experimenting. As you probably know Mozilla released Firefox 3.0 beta2. I have been anxious to find out how it performs and what are the new features that had been added. I had no intention to upgrade to Firefox 3 beta 2. I just needed to test it while keeping Firefox 2 for other activities. The problem was that when you install a new version of Firefox it upgrades everything including the desktop shortcuts to open that version. I has heard that using two profiles solved the problem, but after creating two profiles, still the problem persisted. Anyway yesterday I came up with the the solution aided by some very good documents in the web. I will outline the process so you can also test Firefox3 beta2 while keeping the more reliable Firefox 2 for normal web surfing.

1. Download Firefox3 beta 2 at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html
2. Now enter firefox -profilemanager -no-remote in the run command box to open the firefox profile mnanager. The –no-remote allows profile manager to open while browser is running.
3. Create a new profile and name it firefox3 or any other name. Unchek the “Don’t ask at startup”and close the profile manager. This step has created the new profile that you will use to run Firefox3.

4. Now go to the desktop shortcut of Firefox 2 and right click and choose properties. In the target box add a space after .exe then add –p default. This step tells that shortcut to launch firefox 2 in the default profile.         

5. Install Firefox3 beta 2 and at the choose custom. This allows you to select the place you want to install. Select a new directory with a name like Firfox 3. (It gives default as Mozilla Firefox 3 beta 2 but better to use name that can be genericaly used because we need to upgrade to higher versions.

6. At the end uncheck the launch now option, if it launches now it may use our default profile and we don’t need that.

7. Now go to the new Firefox 3 icon in your desktop and right click, select properties and add “–no-remote-p firefox3” in the target box. This tells this short cut to launch using new profile firefox3.

That’s it now you can launch both Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 using therer respective shortcuts and both will co-exist peacefully. So what are you waiting for try this out and let me know of what you think of Firefox 3.