Feature – Firefox 3 is scheduled to be released at 10 am PST today and if the organization’s Download Day website is any indication, then you may have to wait in line until you get the installation file: 1.6 million people have signed up to download their browser today. Here are our top 10 reasons why we like the new browser why we believe you should upgrade to Firefox 3 soon.
Most of the browser’s 15,000 changes are evolutionary modifications and when you launch it for the first time you will, despite a few visual changes, immediately feel at home if you have used Firefox before. But there are some dramatic changes, tweaks and refreshed features that we believe will improve the overall browsing experience and productivity. Expect to see improvements in many key components of the browser, including the bookmark manager, the download manager, the address bar and back button, add-ons, passwords and, most importantly, in security, reliability and performance.
Here are our top 10 reasons why you should upgrade to Firefox 3:
1. Overall speed. Much more performance across the board is the key reason for an upgrade. The overhauled Gecko 1.9 rendering engine and significant code tweaks and optimizations contribute to significant speed gains. The browser launches and runs faster and feels much more responsive, especially with multiple tabs open at once. Web pages load substantially faster than in Firefox 3 and in early beta version of Firefox 3. We are also promised less crashes.
2. A tuned JavaScript engine. Optimizations to the JavaScript interpreter is currently the main battlefield in the browser speed race. The JavaScript scripting language is widely used on many web 2.0 sites and web applications, acting like glue between the user interface and the main program logic on a server. Mozilla worked on its SpiderMonkey technology powering the JavaScript interpreter, revealing speed gains almost immediately. Web 2.0 sites load faster and web applications many of us use every day (such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc) are much more responsive. Mozilla claims that Firefox 3 is 2.7 times faster in JavaScript than Firefox 2 and 9.3 times faster than IE7.
3. Improved memory handling. Firefox 2 was plagued with memory leak problems that led to system memory fragmentation when shutting down the browser: The issue was that the browser failed to return allocated chunks of memory. Firefox 3 finally solves this problem, delivering more efficient memory handling that results in far less memory leaks and optimized memory use, especially when multiple tabs are open.
4. Stronger phishing/malware protection. Firefox 3 comes with improved filters and optimized protection against phishing sites, malware, cookies and other techniques that compromise your privacy and security. Phishing is an elaborate technique designed to deceive user into pixel-perfect clones of established sites such as Paypal in order to obtain login credentials or other critical user data. Firefox 3 checks each site you visit against Google's large, continuously updated blacklist of known phishing sites. It will show a more prominent warning when you encounter a known site that is known to install malicious software and is configured to hide the content of a known phishing site by default. If you download an executable file, the browser will send a note your anti-virus software. New to Firefox 3 is Extended Validation SSL (EV) certificate support, which guarantees the identity of the individuals running a website. When you visit sites like PayPal, look for a green logo in the address bar to check the owner of the site and see if the connection between your browser and the site is protected from eavesdropping.
5. An address bar with brains. The Address bar is not just the place to type URL anymore. Firefox 3's address bar, now dubbed the Smart Location Bar, makes it easier to find the sites you recently visited, take you to stored bookmarks and bring up a certain tag or a page from your browsing history. All you need to do is start typing first few letters of the content, not just the site's URL. The bar learns through repetition, so the next time you start typing "fi," it will remember you're looking for Firefox, not Finland. When you start typing, the results appear immediately, formatted more prominently in two lines.
Read on the next page: Upgrade reasons 6 -10