Not very newsworthy, but I figured I’d continue the series. Back in May I pointed out that Firefox 3 had a different image (and broken image) placeholder for the first time since the 0.1 BETA (which was copied from Netscape/Mozilla). It looks like 3.0.1 has changed it again.

I definitely liked the old-new one better:

But it’s still better than the original:

This seems like a very trivial thing to be blogging about, but I can’t find anybody else even mentioning it. I’d like to think that I’m just not using the right search terms, but who knows?

Anyway, the latest test version (RC1) of the soon-to-be-officially-released Firefox 3 has been available for a few days now. Under the hood it’s even faster and less buggy than the last test release (beta 5), and cosmetically the default theme, images, and indicators are all looking much more polished and professional. Unfortunately, the home button still has a yellow roof on Windows XP though.

But one of my favorite little visual tweaks that’s new in RC1 is the new image placeholder icon.

When you’re on a slow internet connection, visiting a site that’s particularly slow, or waiting for images to load on a page FULL of large images, you’re likely to see a nearly empty box representing the spot where a yet to be loaded image will eventually be. These empty boxes have a little icon in the top left corner to indicate that they’re for an image.

But Firefox has used the same image placeholder icon from its first days as version 0.1, and its ancestors (Netscape and Mozilla) used the same one before it. So it’s nice to finally see it refreshed with Firefox 3.

Here are the old and new icons side by side. See if you can guess which is which (and hover over either for the answer).

The new Windows theme for Firefox 3 is growing on me as it takes shape through the different beta versions. But what’s with the yellow roof on the home icon?

It’s really bothering me for some reason, so I think I’ll remove it and just use “Home” on the History menu. At least on Windows Vista (what I have at home) the Home icon is the same color as the back/forward buttons and the refresh arrow.

While installing a fresh copy of Firefox on my work computer, I noticed the beauty of this scene on my task bar and had to take a screen shot. It’s a good thing Internet Explorer can’t think for itself, otherwise I doubt it would be throwing its own execution switch for me like this.