OK. I just installed 3.5b4 (the latest beta version). I imported my Opera bookmarks (from Opera's html file backup). The html file was almost 7 megabytes.
One
MAJOR improvement I noticed right away is that Firefox (with all my many bookmarks) launches immediately on clicking the quick launch button. Before it took up to a minute if bookmarks were installed. Before it launched immediately only if there were no bookmarks installed.
This was one of the main reasons I stopped using Firefox much. This improvement is fantastic.
I tried to delete a copy of the same bookmark folder as in my previous message (my big "Firefox" bookmarks folder). It took around 30 seconds, same as before. But I had to click "continue" in order to finish, after getting this message: "
A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete. Script: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Firefox%203.5%20Beta%204/components/nsPlacesDBFlush.js:192"
Copying and pasting the same big bookmarks folder to a new location took around 2 minutes. Got the same script message. I had to click "continue" every 20-25 seconds until it finished. I could hear the hard drive working the whole time. Since I rarely delete or copy big folders, that slowness is not a big problem for me.
"Sort by Name" though of that folder was instant! Woo hoo! One only has to remember to right-click the
PARENT folder in the sidebar bookmarks (Click Ctrl-b to get to the sidebar bookmarks, or click the bookmarks icon if you have dragged it to the top of the browser). I can see both individual bookmarks and folders in the sidebar, and both are sorted alphabetically.
Copying, pasting, and deleting of a small folder with only one item in it was instant.
Naming, renaming, and dragging folders around is instant! Folders of any size.
Firefox is back for me!!!!
It would be nice if Firefox could get Opera's method of opening the bookmarks sidebar. In Opera one just clicks the mouse anywhere against the left side of the screen. It is addictive and faster than any other method I have seen. I will miss it. But I need Firefox's better spell checker, and I prefer how the results from site searches with the Google toolbar in Firefox can be set to open in a new tab.
I installed SortPlaces (see:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9275) in order not to have to sort by name manually. It works great on this beta Firefox browser. It sorts all folders at all levels with one click, and it does it in a few seconds.