Mozilla Releases First Beta of Firefox 3

[Sunite]

Mozilla Releases First Beta of Firefox 3
By Jennifer LeClaire
November 21, 2007 7:53AM

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Mozilla's Firefox 3 Beta 1 is based on the new Gecko 1.9 platform, which includes nearly two million lines of code changes designed to fix some 11,000 issues and offer Firefox 3 add-on developers a lot to work with. "No doubt, once Firefox 3 gets released it will pick up some mainstream usage," said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg.

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   Mozilla launched a new beta of Firefox this week, essentially a developer preview of the features and functions promised in the third major point release of the popular open-source browser. Firefox 3 Beta 1 is available for testing so Mozilla can gain feedback before the software advances to the next stage in the release process.

"Much of the work leading up to this first beta has been around developing the infrastructure Relevant Products/Services to support a bunch of exciting new features," Mozilla noted. "With this first beta, you'll get a taste of what's coming in Firefox 3, but there's still more to come, and much of what you'll see is still a bit rough around the edges."

Rough edges include the fact that Firefox add-ons don't work properly with the beta version. Those add-ons include applications such as ad blockers, search engines, and dictionaries in other languages. Mozilla did not offer a final release date, noting only that the final version will be launched "when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users."

What's New in Firefox 3?

Firefox 3 Beta 1 is based on the new Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform. The platform includes nearly two million lines of code changes designed to fix some 11,000 issues. Gecko 1.9 includes some major changes to enhance performance, stability, and code simplification and sustainability.

Mozilla said Gecko 1.9 makes for a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot under the hood to offer Web site and Firefox add-on developers.

New security Relevant Products/Services features include malware Relevant Products/Services protection, more informative SSL information, and a one-click function to identify who owns a site. In addition, Firefox 3 automatically checks add-ons and will disable older, insecure versions. The browser even will inform antivirus software when downloading executables, and it respects the Windows Vista parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

The User Interface

In terms of the user interface, Firefox 3 offers a slew of updates. The new browser is designed to make it easier to manage passwords with an information bar that replaces the old password dialog. That means you can now save passwords after a successful login. What's more, the add-ons whitelist has been removed so you can install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.

Mozilla also set out to make the browser more personal, with a star button that lets you add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click. A "smart places" folder lets you access recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as more frequently visited pages.

Performance-wise, Mozilla is promising greater reliability with bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences now stored in a secure database Relevant Products/Services format designed to prevent data loss even if the system crashes. The new version also plugs more than 300 individual memory leaks.

Evolutionary Steps

At this stage in browser development, most of what the market sees will be evolutionary, according to Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research. Although there still is plenty of room for improvement, he explained, most of the improvements won't be as dramatic as in past years.

"No doubt, once Firefox 3 gets released it will pick up some mainstream usage," Gartenberg said. "There's a lot of nice features in there. But in terms of browsing, it's probably not going to blow people away the way the first releases did."