6. Pimp your bookmark manager. The Places Organizer has replaced the old Bookmark Manager in Firefox 2. You can organize your bookmarks more efficiently, since the revamped interface has a crisp interface and offers multiple view and sorting options. You can search your bookmarks using Boolean rule searches and multi-column results. Frequent Google searches can be saved for later quick access through the address bar. You can create and restore full backups containing all your bookmarks, tags and your browsing history. Bookmarking is now done by clicking on a star icon in the address bar: Click once to bookmark, click again to bring a convenient drop-down menu to name the bookmark, file it under a folder and add one or more tags. And yes, you can attach one or more tags to your bookmarks to associate a user-defined keyword with bookmarks. Tags enable you to sort bookmarks by topic, which isn't possible with the old-school bookmark categories limited to only one per bookmark. New to Firefox 3 are also smart bookmarks that are automatically filled according to a certain criteria, much like iTunes' Smart Playlists. The three default smart bookmarks offer one-click access to your recently bookmarked and tagged pages and most visited sites (you can create your own as well).

7. Updated Download Manager. The basic download manager from Firefox 2 is finally revised and has become much more useful. Its reorganized user interface makes it easier to locate downloaded files and see the name of the website where a file came from. The browser status bar now always shows the total and remaining download time. Finally, you can resume canceled downloads after a crash or restart. Yes, there were add-ons for Firefox 2 with these capabilities, but it's nice to see these features becoming default built-in browser capabilities.

8. Unified looks on every platform. The new Firefox 3 brings a fresh design and an updated look for all platforms. At first sight, browser may seem to be very similar to the preceding Firefox 2. However, a closer look reveals subtle differences, such as more attractive blue-back and forward buttons. Within days of usage, you will discover many thoughtful design tweaks that improve your experience and amount to a big overall boost in usability. Overall it appears that GUI design was taken much more seriously than in previous Firefox generations: For example, the back button is bigger and easier to click. But it is only highlighted next to the address bar if there is a page to go back to. Previous Firefox versions were wrapped in Mozilla's own look and feel that didn't follow operating system guidelines. This has been particularly annoying in OS X where Firefox oddly stood out with its noticeably different design. In Firefox 3, the GUI designers followed operating system guidelines to make the browser a part of the general application environment.

9. More powerful add-ons manager. A great extensibility is one of the most important contributors to the Firefox success story as users can add new functionality by installing third-party extensions, add-ons, plug-ins and themes. Firefox 3 has a tweaked add-ons window that is more intuitive and user-friendly. You can now disable third-party helpers (Flash, QuickTime, etc.) in the new plug-in manager. The updated adds-on manager makes it possible to search and install extensions and themes from within the interface itself - no browsing required. You should be warned that there is a high probability that your set of extensions will not work with Firefox 3 since updated versions are not available yet. Luckily, whenever you fire up Firefox 3, it checks installed extensions to detect possible incompatibility problems, turns off incompatible ones and checks for an updated versions in regular intervals.

10. True zoom. There is a lot of space on these new HD displays with enormous resolution capabilities – why not take advantage of it?  The new zoom function in Firefox 3 means a world of difference as it increases the size of all the elements that make up a webpage, not just text. Text, surrounding graphics, CSS elements, interface elements, it all grows bigger as you zoom in, with images smoothed as they're rescaled.

More: You can read our Firefox 3 preview here.

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