If you're eager to jump on the Firefox 3 bandwagon, but are waiting for support for your favorite add-on, head over to Mozilla product manager Alex Polvi's threedom list and scan for the compatibility status of your favorite extension for the browser.
The chart lists the browser's add-ons, sorted by popularity and color-coded to address their readiness for Firefox 3. The good news is that the chart tells us 48.06% of the top 95% of browser add-ons are already claiming Firefox 3.0+ compatibility. Fully compatible add-ons include the Java scripting tool Java Console, Adblock Plus and Flashblock.
The web scripting tool Greasemonkey and the Web Developer extensions aren't quite as ready, claiming compatibility with early Firefox 3 beta versions only. Web development tool Firebug's status bar is purple, which means there is a version available that supports Firefox 3, although it takes a bit of digging to find.
The top distinguishing attraction of the Firefox web browser is its extensible framework which allows users to add popular third-party applications, or add-ons, by download. Mozilla's Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1, released last week, gives third-party developers a stable version of Firefox which allows them to test their add-ons against the browser before final release. While developers toil to get up to speed with Firefox's new features, those of us who are already "testing " the new version get to watch the metaphorical pot boil.
Lifehacker has already noted that Firefox 3 packs several features which threaten to make add-ons like offline browsing tool Google Gears and downloading agent DownThemAll obsolete.
You can browse all Firefox extensions at Mozilla's Firefox Add-Ons site. And if you haven't already, you can download the latest Firefox Release Candidate and give it a whirl.
