With the official release of very much anticipated Firefox 3 coming soon, I checked out its Release Candidate 1 version to see what improvements and new features can we expect from FF3.

With more than 14,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than before.

One-click Site Information
Just by clicking onto the favicon, you have access to site information such as site cookie, saved passwords (on this site), permissions, and even a list of images that were loaded (with the option to save them).

Saving Passwords
The pop-up dialog that asks if you would like to save your passwords has been replaced with an information bar at the top of the page.

Improved Download Manager
With a newly-added search function, you can find your downloaded files faster than in FF2. You can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from.

Zooming
You can choose to zoom on the entire page or the text only. Firefox 3 will remember the settings for each site. Also, resetting the zoom level can be easily done with Ctrl+0 (for Windows).

Disable Add-ons
Add-ons can be enabled and disabled through the revised Add-on Manager.

Adding Bookmarks
Bookmarks can be added simply by clicking on the Star button on the location bar. Clicking the button twice allows you to manage this bookmark (such as naming, categorizing, and even tagging it!)

Speed Improvements
The developers have claimed that improvements to the JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimisations have resulted in continued improvements in performance (some web applications can load twice as fast in FF3 compared to FF2).

I've tested this with Gmail, Windows Live Mail, Wordpress, Friendster, Facebook. I would say, the difference is *noticeable*.

A full list of features can be found on Firefox's site.

As a release candidate, there's bound to have bugs lying around. There are 10 high-priority bugs yet to be fixed. The developers are deciding whether to release a new version of release candidate, or make RC 1 the Firefox 3, and release the bug fixes as a patch (Firefox 3.0.1).

Personally, I would prefer they fix these bugs first. What's the rush? Look what happened to Microsoft Vista!

Firefox 3 is slated to be release in June 2008. To build up the anticipation of the official release of Firefox 3, Spread Firefox has set an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in 24 hours and will occur on Firefox 3 launch day. Over 403,000 people have pledged to download FF3 on the big day. I've joined in, so should you! Visit the site here.

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