The Belgian Trotter

Mozilla is inching closer to delivering the next major refresh of Firefox.

The open-source group shipped Firefox 3 Beta 3, an update that features approximately 1,300 individual changes from the previous beta, including fixes for stability, performance, memory usage, platform enhancements and user interface improvements. 

1. Improved security

   The latest beta is heavy on security improvements, including an enhancement to the Google-powered Malware Protection feature that puts up a warning sign when users visit sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, Trojans or other malware.

   Here’s a picture of what the malware protection warning looks like:

   

   It also comes with improvements to the security-themed One-click site info feature that lets Firefox users click on the favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if the connection is protected from eavesdropping.

   The feature prominently displays identity verification that makes it easier for the non-technical user to understand. For example, when a site uses Extended Validation SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company the browser is connected to.

    

   Also new in Firefox 3 Beta 3:

   Web Forgery Protection page: The content of pages suspected as Web forgeries is no longer shown. See this demo.

   SSL error pages: Clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate.

   Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.

   

   Secure add-on updates: To improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.

   Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software on the desktop when executables are being downloaded.

   Windows Vista Parental Controls: Firefox will respect the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

   Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service: Better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.

   Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

   Here’s a complete list of the Firefox 3 Beta 3 changes.

2. Fresh GUI ? 

   One of the drawbacks of Firefox 2 was the GUI. Was it fresh? was it new ? No it was plain UGLY! (compared to Internet Explorer 7 & the new Opera)
   Although contextual improvements have been implemented I really doubt firefox will have a fresh new GUI. Do we need it? Well tastes differ, I like good looking applications!

3. Alternatives? 
   
   We all know the alternatives. Internet Explorer 7, Opera (to mention just the 2 most important ones). Some even say Microsoft had to patch much less security leaks in 2007 than Firefox! So IE7 really looks like a good alternative. 
   But I still find IE7 painfully slow! And a new threat is emerging for IE7: ActiveX controls. This article warns about the dangers involved in using too much ActiveX controls.

 

As an ending note, I guess I’ll probably end up using Firefox3 as my default browser simply because I’ve got some add-ons’ that improve my browsing experience. I also find IE7 too slow although I’ve had more memory leaks with Firefox2 as I did with Firefox 1. CSS rendering in IE7 is still not as I wanted it to be… (but that’s another discussion)
I’ll guess we’ll have to watch out for IE8 which just recently passed the ACID2 test!!