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For those who just cannot wait for Firefox 3 to be available, Mozilla has just released Firefox 3 Beta 1 for download. Overall the look and feel is the same as current versions of Firefox with some improvements on overall performance, usability and security.

Of course with all beta downloads, there may be some issues so be warned. I have been using beta 1 for a few hours today and (so far) have not had any issues or crashes, other than one expected issue; my themes and extensions do not work. The one disappointment is that the browser seems to still use just as much memory as previous versions, at least on my Mac. Hopefully the final version of Firefox 3 will be available soon and include some help for memory use issues.

The new version of Firefox features:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Read [Mozilla]