Mozilla has released Firefox 3 beta 4, which includes over 900 additional improvements related to the previous beta release. Most of the work on Firefox is heavily focused on polishing the user interface, refining performance, and reducing the memory overhead.
Efforts to improve Firefox performance have continued steadily, and developers say that the latest beta is twice as fast as Firefox 2 when running popular web applications like Zoho Office and GMail. Aggressive memory reduction has been a high priority during the Firefox 3 development cycle, and it clearly shows in this beta release.
Firefox 3 offers a variety of other impressive features, security enhancements, and infrastructural improvements, including support for JavaScript 1.8, SQLite-based storage for bookmarks and history, web-based protocol handlers, a Cairo-based rendering engine, one-click access to site identification and SSL certificate information, improved password retention management, and better tab management.
The new beta includes improvements to performance and memory usage, fixes for stability, and platform-specific enhancements. Some of the enhancements include a new download manager to make locating downloads easier; a full page zoom feature that allows you to zoom in and out of pages more easily; and integration for Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux that features platform-specific icons, buttons, and other user interface elements.
The current beta of Firefox 3.0, is expected to get its final release later this year.
Firefox, which has been slowly chipping away at the lead held by Microsoft's Internet Explorer, recently announced that it had passed the 500 million download milestone.
Firefox accounted for more than 17 percent of all browsers used last month, while IE accounted for nearly 75 percent, according to research conducted by Net Applications, a Web measurement company. However, IE's share stood at more than 79 percent a year ago, and use has been dropping steadily over the past eight months, the company said.
To download: Click here
Firefox 3 offers a variety of other impressive features, security enhancements, and infrastructural improvements, including support for JavaScript 1.8, SQLite-based storage for bookmarks and history, web-based protocol handlers, a Cairo-based rendering engine, one-click access to site identification and SSL certificate information, improved password retention management, and better tab management.
The new beta includes improvements to performance and memory usage, fixes for stability, and platform-specific enhancements. Some of the enhancements include a new download manager to make locating downloads easier; a full page zoom feature that allows you to zoom in and out of pages more easily; and integration for Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux that features platform-specific icons, buttons, and other user interface elements.
The current beta of Firefox 3.0, is expected to get its final release later this year.
Firefox, which has been slowly chipping away at the lead held by Microsoft's Internet Explorer, recently announced that it had passed the 500 million download milestone.
Firefox accounted for more than 17 percent of all browsers used last month, while IE accounted for nearly 75 percent, according to research conducted by Net Applications, a Web measurement company. However, IE's share stood at more than 79 percent a year ago, and use has been dropping steadily over the past eight months, the company said.
To download: Click here
