Firefox 3 Beta 1 (It's officially out now!)

[r00t]

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozi...eleases/3.0b1/

Release notes will be available soon.

Even with nightly tester tools Firefox will disable addons that 'do not provide secure updates' - but you can make a new boolean value in about:config called extensions.checkUpdateSecurity set to false to disable this.

[LSainsbury]

Any photos / screen grabs of it running??

[r00t]

Very little has changed GUI side, still waiting for the change log.

Installed on XP, I'll not be installing it on *nix. I'll stick with Opera & SwiftFox.

[southwell]

Loving the download rate

[punky]

Review: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=958

[r00t]

Nice one Gavin

Can't say I have noticed that much of a GUI change, for the most part it does seem sharper.

Southwell

[Damien]

I am glad to see the improvements are in performance. What's the interface like on the mac. I heard they made it more mac like.

[Knobbly]

Tip: don't download from the "UK" directory as it appears to mean "Ukraine" or something, it's certainly not English.

[r00t]

Added different URL. Should be easier to pick your language type now.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Release notes:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox.../releasenotes/

What's new:

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, major changes to the HTML rendering engine to provide better CSS, float-, and table layout support, 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.

And much more, see link for more info.

[cimt]

I used it not long ago, I never noticed any differences in it apart from the design had changed abit.

[Mal]

Originally Posted by r00t

Even with nightly tester tools Firefox will disable addons that 'do not provide secure updates' - but you can make a new boolean value in about:config called extensions.checkUpdateSecurity set to false to disable this.

That config value worked

Originally Posted by r00t

Nice one Gavin

Can't say I have noticed that much of a GUI change, for the most part it does seem sharper.

Southwell

Can't say that I noticed much of a change with the UI either.

The memory problem seems worse though...I might go back and wait for the next release.

[r00t]

A little update.
Memory test - Firefox 2.0.0.9 vs Firefox 3.0 b 1
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=960

From the review it would seem the memory issues of old have not been cured.

[keithwalton]

Indeed my main gripe with this build is that its a hughe memory hog my laptop with 2gb of ram ran out yesterday because of firefox eating up some 700megs of it

[darthlinux]

it fine memory foot print very low all good

[bmxbandit]

The memory leak issue is mostly with javascript, from what I've read...and that rings true, my work 'puter usually has ff running from one patch tuesday to the next, memory usage mostly stays around 50-100 MB. Noscript FTW!