Yesterday morning marked the first official release of Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Beta 1.  Owning over 14 percent of the total browser market, Mozilla's changes to the Firefox browser can significantly impact many users' daily browsing.  Firefox 3.0 also represents Mozilla's latest attempt at nipping at the heels of Microsoft. The Internet Explorer browser is gradually losing market share, but still unquestionably the leading browser in terms of market share.

DailyTech recently reported on claims that only one in five of the current bugs will be fixed before the final Firefox 3.0 release.  Firefox has had trouble pushing the new iteration of its browser out on time and missed a July deadline for the Beta release by over four months. 

Mozilla did change its roadmap after the July miss to include multiple alpha release candidates to provide limited testing until the Beta could be finished.  These alphas did not have to meet Mozilla's standards for a beta release -- a stable software product with all planned features fully implemented, a useable browsing interface and acceptable performance on the majority of webpages. 

ZDNet and Ars Technica each took the browser out for a spin and gave their impressions.

ZDNet came into the test obviously biased against Firefox due to past experiences.  As the reviewer mentions, Firefox often consumed over 500 MB of RAM during operation, due to memory leaks and inefficiencies, something the reviewer saw as untenable.   Internet Explorer and Opera, it was pointed consume far less memory.

However, the reviewer warmed up to Firefox 3.0, which is apparently quite good.  The first highlight is the small download package, which downloads fast and installs equally fast.  Opening tabs, opening pages, and shutting down the browser all occur visibly quicker.  The application even comes with a polite and easy to use uninstaller, which works quickly and painlessly, in case Firefox 3.0 isn't for you.

The interface is crisper and many of the functional tools have been streamlined to make finding words, saving passwords, and bookmarking pages feel more natural.  Two key features are the option to resume paused downloads and the ability to zoom in on webpages, an ability long touted by Opera and Safari.

ZDNet also feels that Firefox 3.0 is shaping up nicely to be more secure.  The SSL error pages have been redesigned while malware protection and forgery protection have been added.

Ars Technica was equally wowed by the new Firefox.  They got into a bit more detail, pointing to what’s under the hood.  Firefox 3.0 is powered by a new html rendering engine, Gecko 1.9, which delivers significant performance improvements.  In addition, Gecko 1.9 leverages open-source vector graphics library Cairo to deliver hardware accelerated rendering.  This allows for more fancy effects such as the new full page feature.  The browser now also supports animated .png images.

Another key feature detailed is the new Places system which uses SQL to unify the user's browsing history and their bookmarks to simplify the process of browsing and bookmarking.  In the url auto completion box, stars are shown next to sites that are bookmarked.  The system also features new user interfaces to help users sort and make sense of their history and bookmarks.  The system includes a new querying language that allows you to say, find sites you'd bookmarked but only been to five or less times.  The scripting API has also been overhauled, which should allow for some exciting new Firefox scripts.

As previously mentioned, the download system has added the ability to pause and resume downloads.  Another fun feature of the system is the ability to filter downloads.  The new download system also interfaces with antivirus software to beef up security.

Firefox 3.0 does away with the sometimes obnoxious password saving dialog pop ups of Firefox 2.0 and replaces them with a thin bar with button options at the top of the screen.

Ars Technica came away from the experience with very positive things to say about the new Beta candidate.

For Firefox 3.0, Mozilla fixed a total of 11,000 bugs and has plugged over 300 memory leaks.  It has also added the XPCOM cycle collector component to minimize memory waste.

For a full list of changes, refer here, and for Firefox's unofficial trunk changelog, aimed more at developers and software aficionados, refer here.

The result appears to be a leaner, meaner, faster Mozilla, which at the same time delivers eye-catching new features and a much more elegant and refined interface.  New features allow Firefox 3.0 to flex its graphics muscle, allowing for attractive graphical effects.  It may be a bit behind schedule, but it looks like the wait is worth it as Firefox moves along towards what’s shaping up to be a great final release.