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.