Second Firefox 3.1 beta brings significant changes

Usually not much happens to a software product from one point release to the next, much less one beta version to the next. But Mozilla has made quite a few changes with the second beta of Firefox 3.1, released Monday.

In the new version are support for video and audio built into Web pages, a built-in service for telling Web sites a user's location if users permit it, private browsing, Web worker support for more powerful Web-based programs, and my favorite feature, the TraceMonkey engine for running the JavaScript programs used to build sophisticated Web sites. TraceMonkey was released before, but now it's switched on by default.

The official announcement has more details for users, and programmers can check the developer site. CNET's Download.com site has the Windows and Mac OS X versions available.

The finished 3.1 version, code-named Shiretoko, is expected to arrive in early 2009 after a third beta, Mozilla has said. It arrives during a period of hot activity for browsers.

Apple is promoting its Safari browser for Windows as well as Mac OS X. Microsoft, the leader of the market, plans to release Internet Explorer 8 in 2009. And of course the biggest change is the arrival of Google Chrome, an open-source project that, like Safari, uses uses a project called WebKit for interpreting and displaying the basic HTML code used to describe Web pages. (Updated 10:05 p.m. PST to clarify that Chrome, not Firefox, uses WebKit.)

Mozilla Chairman Mitchell Baker is unfazed by the competition, though. Largely because of search-ad-related revenue from Google, the organization behind Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation, pulled in $75 million in 2007.

[melvis02]

Good article, thanks for the update! Just a quick comment though, Firefox uses the Gecko rendering engine, as opposed to WebKit as you said at the end of your article.

[SeizeCTRL]

3.1 will be using WebKit...

[Shankland]

Sorry, that was right but badly worded initially, then an editor tidied it up but misunderstood. Thanks for letting us know so we could fix it.

[nirvan5a]

nice, keep it up Mozilla.

[TxTom21]

Yep...sentence is misleading. While Firefox and Safari are both open source, they use different rendering engines: Gecko for the former and WebKit for the latter.

[dhavleak]

Unless the article was updated you guys aren't parsing it correctly.. it says that Google's Chrome uses WebKit (which it does), not Firefox..

[Heebee Jeebies]

Of course Mozilla's chairman is unfazed by the competition, Firefox has no competition. The others are just wana-be's with the exception of IE which has only one thing going for it and that is comes already installed and for the mindless masses that is enough.

Chrome = Google = Evil Walmart of the Internet
Opera = Dieing Slowly
IE = Microsoft = Second Most Evil Corporation of the World (god help up is Microsoft bought Walmart)

[Captain Bebops]

Right now Firefox 3.0x on my Ubuntu 8.04 installation takes at least 1 minute from clicking on the icon until it is usable. Will 3.1 fix that? Seems that the old 2.x version worked much better. And I'm not the only Linux user who is having problems with Firefox 3.0x. The forums are filled with similar reports. I've tried all kinds of things but unfortunately the design changes between 2 and 3 were ill advised. Sometimes I'm just better off to use a lighter browser such as Epiphany.

How many extensions / addons for FireFox have you installed? I am running WinXP Pro (all up to date) on a 1.6 Ghz Core Duo with 2 Gb RAM and both FF3.0 and the 3.1 beta 2 which I installed this morning start within 3 to 7 seconds of being launched. The more add-ons you have though, the longer it will take to start.

[Captain Bebops]

I've been through turning off and on extensions, etc. Didn't help. Tell us a few weeks from now how well that 3.1 beta is doing. Most browsers run well when you first install them. There was a discussion on that here recently on how well Chrome runs but suspicions because there isn't much too it yet.

[mdo210]

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