I’ll put my geek hat on for a while.

I hate it when sites like microsoft.com use buttons, instead of links, for their download services. Here in the Philippines, when you download a 300+ megabyte file, you will need a download tool like Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) because, chances are, you will get disconnected from the Net from time to time and your download gets broken.

DAP, of course, can resume broken downloads. DAP can catch your download clicks and make the request itself. However, when a particular site’s download link is not a link but a button, DAP doesn’t quite catch it. I don’t know if this is possible but I tinkered DAP for about 5 minutes and I couldn’t quite figure it out.

My thinking with software configuration is this – if I can’t figure it out in 5 minutes, then it’s probably not possible. Or course, I could be wrong because I’m an idiot but whatever.

Anyways, I remember reading that Firefox 3 can resume downloads so I downloaded it (Release Candidate 3), and so far, I’m impressed. I know all about Spread Firefox but, hey, I can’t wait.

Here are my observations:

• Navigation buttons are Vista-looking, and I hate the Vista theme.
• Downloads are indeed resume-able.
• There already are available themes for Firefox 3.
• When you apply a new theme to Firefox 3, there is now a “restart” button in the add-on manager and here’s the best – Firefox 3 remembers all the open tabs when you restart it.
• One feature that can be either nice or annoying is when you type in the address bar, Firefox 3 will automatically search your favorites folder and suggest URLs.

To know about all the other improvements, read this.

Here are some screenshots:

Navigation Buttons

Download Window

Download Status Bar