Firefox 3 Beta 1 Has Been Released

After over two years of development and over one million lines of changed code, Firefox 3 Beta 1 has finally been released.

Firefox 3 is based on the new Gecko 1.9 web rendering platform, which includes some major improvements in performance, stability, accuracy, and code simplification. The file download has also been improved allowing for pause and resume and it makes it easier to find files.

Some other good features I’ve came accross after testing Firefox 3 for an hour or so:

• Clicking on the site favicon displays information about who owns the site that you’re visiting.
• Better malware warnings for sites which are known to install viruses, spyware or trojans. And for pages suspected as web forgeries.
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• The zoom has also been improved allowing scalling of entire pages including layout, images and text.
• The Tabs quickmenu is now much easier to use and navigate.
• Firefox prompts users to save tabs on exit and the same tabs will be open next time it starts.
• You can now make multiple text selection by clicking Ctrl (Cmd for Mac), double-click and drag selects text in “word-by-word” mode. Triple-clicking selects the entire paragraph.
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The major problem I found was the incompatibility with most of the existing Firefox addons, which is something you can expect right at the first beta release. Since I feel ‘blind’ when browsing without my lil’ plugins I’m going back to the good old Firefox 2 and watch this space for any future releases.

Tino
SEO Programmer