Mozilla releases Firefox 3.0 beta 4
The fourth beta of the Firefox 3.0 browser (download Firefox 3 beta 4 for Windows or Mac, (English-US) from Download.com) was released Monday and includes more than 900 enhancements over the previous beta, Mozilla announced.
The creator of the open-source browser said the new beta includes improvements to performance and memory usage, fixes for stability, and platform-specific enhancements. Some of the enhancements include a new download manager to make locating downloads easier; a full page zoom feature that allows you to zoom in and out of pages more easily; and integration for Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux that features platform-specific icons, buttons, and other user interface elements.
The current beta of Firefox 3.0, which is expected to get its final release later this year, is available for download now at Mozilla.com.
Firefox, which has been slowly chipping away at the lead held by Microsoft's Internet Explorer, recently announced that it had passed the 500 million download milestone.
Firefox accounted for more than 17 percent of all browsers used last month, while IE accounted for nearly 75 percent, according to research conducted by Net Applications, a Web measurement company. However, IE's share stood at more than 79 percent a year ago, and use has been dropping steadily over the past eight months, the company said.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
Aren't these two changes platform-agnostic?
By the way, does anyone else find the new interface kinda ugly? I'm definitely going to put a new theme on it as soon as they release the final build.
Anyone out there play with this thing yet? If so, does it look like heavy bloat, or does it feel snappier and smoother. Do the new features make anyone feel more productive?
I think I?ll just try it out. I just don?t like using betas. I?m looking forward to release.
Smart Bookmarks is kind of annoying to me right now. It shows you what sites you visit most and what things you've most recently bookmarked.
Pages seem to render a bit faster, but I mostly play with moded versions of Firefox.
While you're typing an address in the bar, the suggestions from history are a lot more meaningful and give you the URL, pagename, and favicon as well as point out the bookmarked ones with stars.
The download manager got a lot more stylish but removes the buttons and add a search feature. I don't really notice too many differences other than that though.
Page rendering was one of the 1st things I noticed. Very snappy and fast. I've been so impressed with it that I had been downloading nightly builds just to see what else is new every day!!!
The new bookmarking feature is brilliant. Click on the star once to bookmark it (default is saved to "uncategorized" folder. Double click on the start to pull up the categorization, keywording and other neat features. You can look for your bookmarks simply by typing the keywords you assigned to it before (even in other non-ASCII languages!). This is not a new feature per se (was available to it via other addons), but it sure looks great as a built-in feature without the memory bloat.
I love it... I even prefer it over Safari 3 now.
- Update my log-in info
- by robinaire March 11, 2008 11:32 AM PDT
- I have been trying to log in, including the new 3.0 beta, and it keeps coming up with the server I LEFT 4 months ago!! How do I correct this? Lee Robinson West Palm Beach, FL
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