 First Impressions of Mozilla's Foxy New Browser Firefox 3 beta 1 for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux Images and original article: jstuf.com This is beta software, so you can't expect everything to be perfect. However, during JSTUF tests, Firefox 3 beta 1 performed perfectly with no crashes, hangs or bugs apparent. Overall, this is the Firefox we have come to know- but simply better! The user interface is comfortably familiar. If you've used Firefox before, it's nice to see that most of the design of the interface has been kept. Those people upgrading from Firefox 2, will be happy with the painless upgrade. This is what Firefox is all about: a straightforward, safe browser for the masses.
Many improvements have been made to this latest, test version. Here are a few of the best new features in Firefox 3 beta 1:
Better Security
Users of online banking and e-commerce websites often feel anxiety about the identity of the website they are using. To alleviate this situation, Firefox 3 has a new feature which allows anyone to easily check the identity of the site they are browsing. You can now click the site icon (the small icon to the left of the website address) to see who owns the site. This is a very good feature, but how is an inexperienced user supposed to know about it? Perhaps it would have been better to show the site's identity in the status bar, at the bottom of the screen, near to the SSL padlock symbol. Since many users already look at the padlock icon, it would have been the natural place to summarise, or offer a link to, other security information. 
Some of the most common types of viruses found on Windows XP, come from maliciously programmed websites. Firefox 3, has built-in malware protection; it checks a blacklist for sites which are known to install viruses and other malware, and informs the user if they are visiting a known bad site. This is a very useful and much needed feature. The browser will also check the content of pages for forgeries (eg. fake banking sites) and will block the suspected forged page. 
There is much better management of add-ons and plug-ins in Firefox 3; it automatically checks for outdated plug-ins and will disable any insecure plug-in versions. There is also a feature which will update your plug-ins automatically. 
One of the best new features is that the browser now informs your anti-virus software, when it is downloading an executable file. This gives the anti-virus software a better chance of trapping viruses, by detecting them at the first possible opportunity.
General Improvements
The new download manager has a button to pause and resume downloads. This is a very useful feature if you don't have a permanent internet connection or if you want to free up some bandwidth to do something else. 
To make those illegibly small web pages and tiny pictures easier to see and read, there is now a Full Page Zoom feature. Just press CRTL and then the + or - keys to zoom the display in or out. The feature works by resizing the page graphically: ie. like taking a digital photo of the page and zooming in with software. Generally the zoom works very well, but in this beta version, there is sometimes a bit of display clutter, as can be seen from the screenshot:
When you have lots of tabs open, the tabs can be scrolled to locate the one you want. Firefox 3 will now ask if you want to save your tabs when you exit. At last, you can now pick up exactly where you left off on your last browsing session. This is a welcome and much needed feature.
You can now select text: word-by-word, or in paragraphs (triple-click!), or select multiple blocks of text at once. It is also easier now, to do a 'Find' on the currently selected text.
For Windows Vista
On Vista, you can set a system-wide parental control to disable Firefox file downloads. This should stop those sticky little fingers from messing up Mummy and Daddy's hard drive, or at least provide a little peace of mind for worried parents!  Firefox 3 menus will display using Windows Vista's native desktop theme. ie. The browser will integrate visually with Vista.
Mac OS X Integration
For Mac OS X users, Firefox 3 will use the Mac's integrated spell-checker.
Growl, which notifies you of completed downloads and any updates that are available, is now supported.
Changes Behind the Scenes
Firefox 3 utilises the much updated, Gecko 1.9 browser engine to provide better CSS and HTML rendering.
In terms of improved program design: page rendering is now faster, and memory usage is less than in Firefox 2. The issue of memory de-allocation has now been addressed; many memory leaks have been fixed.
Conclusion
All in all, Firefox 3 is a good, big step in the right direction from the Mozilla Firefox development team. Let's look forward to an equally good, stable major release. Go on! Get Firefox.
|
