The IE Killer – Version 3

It’s here. Yes, it’s finally here. It was long overdue, and I’m thankful its out. So what if it’s still in Beta, sp what if a Google Search doesn’t give you a proper download link.

It’s finally here – Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 1

You might be wondering what makes it so significant a release for me. Well, you’ll find out soon enough. Let me get down to details.

The Look

 

Firstly, let me tell you that none of my add-ons are working. Suits me just fine…the browser’s looking pretty clean. Other than that, it’s just the same. There are a few changes that add to the functionality and accessibility of certain tasks. There’s a ‘star’ button on the right end of the address bad used for instant bookmarking. And clicking on the logo/favicon of the website, gives you information about the website, if the connection is secured.

Looks like we’re going Places

The new version of the Bookmarks system in Firefox now includes a feature known as ‘Places’, which is used to navigate through frequently visited websites. You  can also tag websites, so that you can easily navigate through long lists of ‘Starred’ websites.

You may not experience an instant advantage of using ‘Places’, but if you do not empty your History, this can be a great tool in the future, when you’ll go like … “Damn it! What was the name of that website about <insert topic of choice>.”

Downloads

The download window has been changed as well. An icon is now used for pause and resume, and going by what Mozilla says, there is increased compatibility with resumable downloads, which sometimes got corrupted upon downloading. There is also a search bar for downloads, assuming you don’t clear them either. This is especially useful for people who litter their downloads all over their hard drives (I prefer My Documents –> Setups, with subcategories, depending on download type).

Performance

 

This is what has pleased me the most. I “fired” up Firefox, loaded a dozen pages, and then monitored its memory usage. It just touched 100MB, and most importantly, stayed stable. The earlier versions of Firefox were known to cause memory leaks, and just keep gobbling more and more RAM. This version remains stable after I leave it alone for some time, and thus, passes the test.

The Backend

It’s Gecko 1.9, the revamped version of the Gecko page layout rendering library set. This also makes Firefox the first Windows/Linux browser to pass the Acid Test.

UPDATE – Compliments to my friend Arjun, for correcting me that Opera was the first Windows/Linux browser to pass the Acid Test.

Previously, Safari for Max OS had passed this HTML and CSS rendering test. Earlier, a graphics subsystem known as Cairo was used for SVG (read Scalable Vector Graphics) rendering. In Gecko 1.9, Cairo has taken over page rendering as well. Although it was originally designed for the X Server, it is now OS and API independent, and is used across multiple platforms.

To conclude, the focus of the Mozilla Development Team has shifted from add-ons, themes and so on, and has come back to the basics – speed and security, which was what Firefox originally stood for. I’m sure that Firefox 3 will be carry along the legacy of IE killers. Amen.

You can download Firefox 3 Beta 1 at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html. However, I can’t finish this article without a disclaimer. Please use this software at your own risk. It’s still going through ‘Beta’ Testing. This means that if you DO NOT know how to handle stuff going haywire, and are not prepared to bear the consequences in the highly unlikely event of your security being compromised…please DO NOT USE the ‘Beta Version’. Instead, you can use Firefox 2.