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Mozilla released yesterday the
first beta version of its Firefox 3.0, after about 75,000 developers had been
testing the early alpha versions of the browser code for several months. According
to Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla’s vice president of engineering, the beta version
that was released on Tuesday is expected to be tested by an even larger group
of developers and testers.
The current version of Mozilla’s
popular open source Internet browser targets only the developers, while the
common users are officially asked to stick with Firefox 2.0. "We do not
recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3
Beta 1 milestone release," Mozilla Corp.’s interface designer, Mike
Beltzner said, adding that Firefox 3.0 Beta “is intended for testing purposes
only.”
However, the official warning
didn’t stop Beltzner from releasing a personal recommendation through his blog:
"It's a preview release, so use with caution and don't expect your add-ons
to work without some magic; but between you and me, I've been running on this
'developer preview' for at least three months, and have never looked back.”
Firefox 3.0 Beta represents the
first “step up in terms of getting closer toward the final release,” according
to Mike Schroepfer; a second beta version is expected to be released by the
year’s end, while the third and final beta version will follow in early 2008.
However, by the time the new browser is released for general use, Mozilla
hopes to have about 500,000 users testing its product.
Firefox 3.0 will bring several
improvements, which include new security features and tools, several back-end
platform enhancements and a redesign of the bookmarking and browser history.
However, the most important improvement that the new browser will feature is
probably the malware check, which is a phishing filter-like tool that will warn
users attempting to access a URL blacklisted for suspected malicious code
hosting. Phishing has become a real problem among Internet users, and thus
Mozilla’s initiative is welcomed, although the effectiveness of the method is
still doubted, if one takes into account that the new malware web sites appear
and disappear on a daily basis specifically to avoid being blacklisted.
Firefox 3.0 relies on the new
Gecko 1.9 Web rendering engine, which is designed to enhance stability and
performance, among other things.
By September 2007, according to data made available by U.S. firm
NetApplications, Firefox's market share had grown to 14.88% globally
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