Firefox 3 Project

I am going to start researching the deployment of Firefox 3 for both staff and public computers. Right now Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is out. This is a version of the browser that still has bugs in it and they released it for testers and other users to get a look see and to report any bugs. I read on a blog this morning that they will be releasing RC2 soon. I don't know official that blog was so I didn't post the link. But I think they are planning on having the final release of Firefox 3 out by July.

I am going to take the release candidate and start to get familiar with it. I am also going to look at what Add-ons if any we may want to package with the public deployment. So if you know of anything useful four the library patron feel free to let me know. This would include links to other sites about how other libraries plan on using the new Firefox 3.

The public package will be very restricted. Like we have Internet Explorer configured. The staff package will be a straight forward installation. Staff who are familiar with Firefox will have full access to make any configuration changes to the browser as they wish. Like Firefox 1.0.6 is now. I did hear Sean mention that Firefox has tan Internet Explorer viewer Add-on. I may include that with the staff package. As for now it is all in the planning stages.

One thing I want to do with this blog is use it as a diary of my Firefox 3 Project. So feel free to comment on anything you see. Don't forget to let me know of things you feel might be of interest for each package (staff/public). First thing that comes to mind is the skin. Should we use the new one or keep it more of the classical Firefox. I am not sure what options we have. I do know that some add-ons that work on Firefox 2 do not work on Firefox 3. yet. It will be a little slow going at first. I hope to have it all ready for deployment by the end of the third quarter.

This should be fun!!!
:-)


Here are some notable links I have found so far:
http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2008/05/08/using-firefox-on-our-public-computers
http://instructionwiki.org/Firefox
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3
RC Download page