Firefox, Addons and Themes

[bhj 24]

Firefox 3.0 Beta 4

 

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 31 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 12,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

 

 

Download

 

Firefox 3 Beta 4 Release Notes

[stubbie 21]

I don't have any Addons.. just got no Idea of that Stuff.

The most important Thing is my Side Bar

I read this a little while ago which reminded me of Opera. Opera has a wonderful sidebar option. Well... So does Firefox!

Iiiiiiii love it! There's a lot of tools on my firefox and I hate the fact that there are horizontal bars taking up precious browser window space at the top. Well I just installed the "All-in-one sidebar" addon and I'm in heaven. Woot!

 

All-in-one sidebar

You're a genius Timo, haha! Oh and prefetching Firefox is goooooood.

 

I have just downloaded and installed All in one sidebar.

Very nice indeed......more real-estate is always welcome.

 

Thanks muchly to you both

 

stubbs

[bhj 24]

Firefox 3.0 will by the sound of things be out in June

 

 

 

if you want to test out Firefox 3.03 Beta without risking to mess up your"finely tuned" Firefox 2.0 you can now do this by downloading a portable edition (no installation)

 

[gogoblender 3,069]

Excellent!

not many new software releases these days get me excited...but anything to do with Firefox...I'm there

 

 

gogo

[bhj 24]

Firefox 3.0 Beta 5

 

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 31 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 12,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

 

Firefox 3 Beta 5 includes more than 750 changes from the previous beta, improving stability and web compatibility, providing platform and user interface enhancements, and resulting in the fastest Firefox ever. Many of these improvements were based on community feedback from the previous beta.

 

Download

 

Firefox 3 Beta 5 Release Notes

[Mini-G 0]

Firefox 3.0 Beta 5

 

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 31 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 12,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

 

Firefox 3 Beta 5 includes more than 750 changes from the previous beta, improving stability and web compatibility, providing platform and user interface enhancements, and resulting in the fastest Firefox ever. Many of these improvements were based on community feedback from the previous beta.

 

Download

 

Firefox 3 Beta 5 Release Notes

 

ok, just had a look at this new beta, and I have to say, its converted me back from IE7.

 

although I have shamelessly distorted it to look a heck of a lot like IE7, it is nice having the search in the addy bar feature, as well as the thing that asks to save a password after you connect to the site, rather than before you know if that is the right pass.

 

Lets just hope it doesnt randomly delete all my favourites and settings once a week now like the last version of firefox I used did.

[bhj 24]

Lets just hope it doesnt randomly delete all my favourites and settings once a week now like the last version of firefox I used did.

this has not happend to me for a few versions now 3 I think so lets hope they have fix it

[bhj 24]

Portable edition is updated to Firefox 3 beta 5

 

 

if you want to test out Firefox 3.05 Beta without risking to mess up your"finely tuned" Firefox 2.0 you can now do this by downloading a portable edition (no installation)

[Silearth 6]

The 3.5 beta is kind of choppy on sites with lots of pictures--at least on my box.

[bhj 24]

didnt notice anything like that on this end

[bhj 24]

Firefox 3.0 (Release Candidate) (FF 3.0 is almost done now)

 

Download

 

 

Firefox 3 (Release Candidate) Release Notes

 

Released: May 16, 2008

 

This Firefox 3 Release Candidate is a preview release of Mozilla's next generation Firefox browser and is being made available for testing purposes only.

 

Preview releases are published to collect feedback from Web developers and our testing community before advancing to the next stage in the release process. The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users. Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect all of their add-ons to work properly with this preview release.

 

Please see below for an extensive list of features and enhancements found in Firefox 3, as well as known issues and frequently asked questions. As always, we appreciate your feedback either through this feedback form or by filing a bug in Bugzilla.

What's New in Firefox 3

 

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 33 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 14,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

 

More Secure

 

* One-click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to. (Try it here!)

* Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. (Try it here!)

* New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. (Try it here!)

* New SSL error pages: clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. (Try it here!)

* Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.

* Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.

* Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.

* Vista Parental Controls: Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

* Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.

* Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

 

Easier to Use

 

* Easier password management: an information bar replaces the old password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login.

* Simplified add-on installation: the add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.

* New Download Manager: the revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.

* Resumable downloading: users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.

* Full page zoom: from the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.

* Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools.

* Tab scrolling and quickmenu: tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu.

* Save what you were doing: Firefox will prompt users to save tabs on exit.

* Optimized Open in Tabs behavior: opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.

* Location and Search bar size can now be customized with a simple resizer item.

* Text selection improvements: multiple text selections can be made with Ctrl/Cmd; double-click drag selects in "word-by-word" mode; triple-clicking selects a paragraph.

* Find toolbar: the Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.

* Plugin management: users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager.

* Integration with Windows: Firefox now has improved Windows icons, and uses native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.

* Integration with the Mac: the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application. Firefox also uses OS X widgets and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. A combined back and forward control make it even easier to move between web pages.

* Integration with Linux: Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme.

 

More Personal

 

* Star button: quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.

* Tags: associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by topic.

* Location bar & auto-complete: type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you're looking for. Results are returned according to their frecency (a combination of frequency and recency of visits to that page) ensuring that you're seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!

* Smart Bookmarks Folder: quickly access your recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as your more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on your bookmark toolbar.

* Places Organizer: view, organize and search through all of your bookmarks, tags, and browsing history with multiple views and smart folders to store your frequent searches. Create and restore full backups whenever you want.

* Web-based protocol handlers: web applications, such as your favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).

* Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.

* Easy to use Download Actions: a new Applications preferences pane provides a better UI for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.

 

Improved Platform for Developers

 

* New graphics and font handling: new graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.

* Color management: (set gfx.color_management.enabled on in about:config and restart the browser to enable.) Firefox can now adjust images with embedded color profiles.

* Offline support: enables web applications to provide offline functionality (website authors must add support for offline browsing to their site for this feature to be available to users).

* A more complete overview of Firefox 3 for developers is available for website and add-on developers.

 

Improved Performance

 

* Speed: improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.

* Memory usage: Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.

* Reliability: A user's bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences are now stored in a transactionally secure database format which will prevent data loss even if their system crashes.

[Timotheus 416]

Getting closer and closer.

[bhj 24]

Firefox 3 is postponed a bit after some security and stability issues in RC1 they decided to make a RC2 and its expected sometime after June 5

 

on a sidenote Firefox 3.1 will come this year aswell (thats the rumor anyway)

[Spock 271]

Firefox 3 is postponed a bit after some security and stability issues in RC1 they decided to make a RC2 and its expected sometime after June 5

 

on a side note Firefox 3.1 will come this year as well (thats the rumor anyway)

 

Then why does the Help\About Mozilla Firefox on mine say, "version 3.0"?

Edited May 29, 2008 by Spock

[bhj 24]

well if it say 3.0 you have installed the RC1 or a earlier beta

 

the latest full firefox out there is 2.0.0.14 (it can be downloaded here )

 

for more info plz have a look at www.mozilla.com

[Spock 271]

well if it say 3.0 you have installed the RC1 or a earlier beta ...

 

I beg to differ with your opinion. I have been working with the Firefox Beta program and my last update was v3 Beta 5. Recently they updated to what I thought was a full release. I may be wrong but why would they go backwards?

 

[Added]

Hmm, it seems that the current v3 sneak peek page only offers v3rc1 now.

Edited May 29, 2008 by Spock

[bhj 24]

well for some time they where not sure if there was going to be a RC2 or if they should release whats now RC1 as final and then do a quick security and stability update for it So they might have set it up as final before they decided

 

anyway 2.0.0.14 is the latest full version Firefox atm

[Spock 271]

... anyway 2.0.0.14 is the latest full version Firefox atm

 

True, and has been for some time. I prefer v3 though, even though some of the Add-ons don't work.

[bhj 24]

You can get most pre 3.0 addons to work in 3.0 by editing firefoxs config (this is of course done at your own risk)

 

 

Type about:config into Firefoxs address bar, Right click anywhere and choose New > Boolean Call it (name it) extensions.checkCompatibility and set it to false

 

Make another new boolean called extensions.checkUpdateSecurity and set the value to false

 

Restart Firefox

[Spock 271]

You can get most pre-3.0 add-ons to work in 3.0 by editing Firefox's config ...

 

Thanks but I think I will leave it as is. I don't need or use half the add-ons I've installed. I can wait until they are properly updated.

[bhj 24]

Firefox 3.0 (Release Candidate 2)

 

Download

 

 

Firefox 3 (Release Candidate 2) Release Notes

 

Released: June 4, 2008

 

This second Firefox 3 Release Candidate is a preview release of Mozilla's next generation Firefox browser and is being made available for testing purposes only.

 

Preview releases are published to collect feedback from Web developers and our testing community before advancing to the next stage in the release process. The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users. Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect all of their add-ons to work properly with this preview release.

 

Please see below for an extensive list of features and enhancements found in Firefox 3, as well as known issues and frequently asked questions. As always, we appreciate your feedback either through this feedback form or by filing a bug in Bugzilla.

What's New in Firefox 3

 

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 34 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 14,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

 

More Secure

 

* One-click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to. (Try it here!)

* Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. (Try it here!)

* New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. (Try it here!)

* New SSL error pages: clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. (Try it here!)

* Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.

* Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.

* Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.

* Vista Parental Controls: Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

* Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.

* Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

 

Easier to Use

 

* Easier password management: an information bar replaces the old password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login.

* Simplified add-on installation: the add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.

* New Download Manager: the revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.

* Resumable downloading: users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.

* Full page zoom: from the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.

* Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools.

* Tab scrolling and quickmenu: tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu.

* Save what you were doing: Firefox will prompt users to save tabs on exit.

* Optimized Open in Tabs behavior: opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.

* Location and Search bar size can now be customized with a simple resizer item.

* Text selection improvements: multiple text selections can be made with Ctrl/Cmd; double-click drag selects in "word-by-word" mode; triple-clicking selects a paragraph.

* Find toolbar: the Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.

* Plugin management: users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager.

* Integration with Windows: Firefox now has improved Windows icons, and uses native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.

* Integration with the Mac: the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application. Firefox also uses OS X widgets and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. A combined back and forward control make it even easier to move between web pages.

* Integration with Linux: Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme.

 

More Personal

 

* Star button: quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.

* Tags: associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by topic.

* Location bar & auto-complete: type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you're looking for. Results are returned according to their frecency (a combination of frequency and recency of visits to that page) ensuring that you're seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!

* Smart Bookmarks Folder: quickly access your recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as your more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on your bookmark toolbar.

* Places Organizer: view, organize and search through all of your bookmarks, tags, and browsing history with multiple views and smart folders to store your frequent searches. Create and restore full backups whenever you want.

* Web-based protocol handlers: web applications, such as your favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).

* Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.

* Easy to use Download Actions: a new Applications preferences pane provides a better UI for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.

 

Improved Platform for Developers

 

* New graphics and font handling: new graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.

* Color management: (set gfx.color_management.enabled on in about:config and restart the browser to enable.) Firefox can now adjust images with embedded color profiles.

* Offline support: enables web applications to provide offline functionality (website authors must add support for offline browsing to their site for this feature to be available to users).

* A more complete overview of Firefox 3 for developers is available for website and add-on developers.

 

Improved Performance

 

* Speed: improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.

* Memory usage: Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.

* Reliability: A user's bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences are now stored in a transactionally secure database format which will prevent data loss even if their system crashes.

[OMGSTUFF 2]

They're trying to set a World Record for downloads in a day. Sign Up!

[Timotheus 416]

Coming Tuesday, June 17th: Firefox 3

 

Whenever we’re asked “when is Firefox going to be released” we endeavor to answer to the best of our abilities, but the truth of the matter is that we’ll only ever ship “when it’s ready”. We have a lot of indicators that help us understand when the product is ready for release: feedback from our pre-release milestones, excitement in the community and the press, availability of compatible Add-Ons, and a large active beta community helping us ensure that the release is compatible with all the various sites on the Internet.

 

After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3 — the best web browser, period.

[gogoblender 3,069]

*checks date*

 

Dang, five more days...

 

Great news Timo!

 

gogo

[bhj 24]

Firefox 3.0 (Release Candidate 3) (the final is due in 4 days)

 

Download

 

 

Firefox 3 (Release Candidate 3) Release Notes

 

Released: June 11, 2008

 

This third Firefox 3 Release Candidate is a preview release of Mozilla's next generation Firefox browser and is being made available for testing purposes only.

 

Preview releases are published to collect feedback from Web developers and our testing community before advancing to the next stage in the release process. The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users. Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect all of their add-ons to work properly with this preview release.

 

Please see below for an extensive list of features and enhancements found in Firefox 3, as well as known issues and frequently asked questions. As always, we appreciate your feedback either through this feedback form or by filing a bug in Bugzilla.

What's New in Firefox 3

 

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 34 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 15,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

 

More Secure

 

* One-click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to. (Try it here!)

* Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. (Try it here!)

* New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. (Try it here!)

* New SSL error pages: clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. (Try it here!)

* Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.

* Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.

* Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.

* Vista Parental Controls: Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

* Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.

* Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

 

Easier to Use

 

* Easier password management: an information bar replaces the old password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login.

* Simplified add-on installation: the add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.

* New Download Manager: the revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.

* Resumable downloading: users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.

* Full page zoom: from the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.

* Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools.

* Tab scrolling and quickmenu: tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu.

* Save what you were doing: Firefox will prompt users to save tabs on exit.

* Optimized Open in Tabs behavior: opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.

* Location and Search bar size can now be customized with a simple resizer item.

* Text selection improvements: multiple text selections can be made with Ctrl/Cmd; double-click drag selects in "word-by-word" mode; triple-clicking selects a paragraph.

* Find toolbar: the Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.

* Plugin management: users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager.

* Integration with Windows: Firefox now has improved Windows icons, and uses native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.

* Integration with the Mac: the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application. Firefox also uses OS X widgets and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. A combined back and forward control make it even easier to move between web pages.

* Integration with Linux: Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme.

 

More Personal

 

* Star button: quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.

* Tags: associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by topic.

* Location bar & auto-complete: type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you're looking for. Results are returned according to their frecency (a combination of frequency and recency of visits to that page) ensuring that you're seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!

* Smart Bookmarks Folder: quickly access your recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as your more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on your bookmark toolbar.

* Places Organizer: view, organize and search through all of your bookmarks, tags, and browsing history with multiple views and smart folders to store your frequent searches. Create and restore full backups whenever you want.

* Web-based protocol handlers: web applications, such as your favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).

* Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.

* Easy to use Download Actions: a new Applications preferences pane provides a better UI for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.

 

Improved Platform for Developers

 

* New graphics and font handling: new graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.

* Color management: (set gfx.color_management.enabled on in about:config and restart the browser to enable.) Firefox can now adjust images with embedded color profiles.

* Offline support: enables web applications to provide offline functionality (website authors must add support for offline browsing to their site for this feature to be available to users).

* A more complete overview of Firefox 3 for developers is available for website and add-on developers.

 

Improved Performance

 

* Speed: improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.

* Memory usage: Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.

* Reliability: A user's bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences are now stored in a transactionally secure database format which will prevent data loss even if their system crashes.