Firefox 3 Beta 1 now available for download
Mike Beltzner
Please note: We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and
testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone release. It is
intended for testing purposes only.
Firefox 3 Beta 1 is now available for download at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html
. This is the ninth developer milestone focused on testing the core
functionality provided by many new features and changes to the
platform scheduled for Firefox 3. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can
be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center at http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3
, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in
#granparadiso.
New features and changes in this milestone that require feedback
include:
* 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.
You can find out more about all of these features in the “What’s New”
section of the release notes at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0b1/releasenotes/#whatsnew
Testers can download Firefox 3 Beta 1 builds for Windows, Mac OS X and
Linux in over 20 different languages. Please be sure to read the full
release notes at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0b1/releasenotes/
before using this preview release.
Developers should look at the Firefox 3 for Developers article
available at http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Firefox_3_for_developers
.
Note: Please do not link directly to the download site. Instead we
strongly encourage you to link to this Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone
announcement so that everyone will know what this milestone is, what
they should expect, and who should be downloading to participate in
testing at this stage of development.
This announcement is also available online at
http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2007/11/19/firefox-3-beta-1-now-available-for-download/