Firefox 3 has now officially been released. It is still in Beta1 state but that has not stopped several thousand downloads and great reviews. The Firefox browser comes with a slew of attractive features which makes it an excellent candidate to Internet Explorer. The beta release came yesterday and was announced on Mozilla Blog.

What’s new in Firefox3?
The new release of Firefox includes various updates from improved security features to ease of use and new graphics and font rendering engine. All the new features come on top of the fast performance and reliability that most users have associated with Firefox. For more details about what security changes were implemented and how the new version will provide an improved platform for developers check out the release notes. From the Mozilla website …

• Improved security features such as: better presentation of website identity and security, malware protection, stricter SSL error pages, anti-virus integration in the download manager, and version checking for insecure plugins.
• Improved ease of use through: better password management, easier add-on installation, new download manager with resumable downloading, full page zoom, animated tab strip, and better integration with Windows Vista and Mac OS X.
• Richer personalization through: one-click bookmarking, smart search bookmark folders, direct typing in location bar searches your history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles, ability to register web applications as protocol handlers, and better customization of download actions for file types.
• Improved platform features such as: new graphics and font rendering architecture, native web page form controls, colour profile management, and offline application support.
• Performance improvements such as: better data reliability for user profiles, architectural improvements to speed up page rendering, over 300 memory leak fixes, and a new XPCOM cycle collector to reduce entire classes of leaks.

Is Firefox3 for everyone?
Quite simply the answer is no. Keep in mind Firefox3 is still in beta1 state and has quite a few bugs. Most notably Non-administrator Vista users are unable to launch Firefox if Vista Parental controls are enabled. I came across this bug during testing and was quite difficult to troubleshoot.

Overall Firefox3 offers a lot more features and when built upon the surprisingly fast performance and low use of system resources it is a definite winner. Being open-source also helps the community to build more on the existing framework. I will end this post with a Firefox video from firefoxFlicks.com Enjoy!

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