Grab it while it's hot

Jun 17, 2008 08:41 GMT  ·  By

This is it! The wait is now over! Firefox 3.0 Final is available for download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Mozilla announced since last week, following the release of the Release Candidate 3 Build, that the gold bits for Firefox 3.0 would be made available on June 17, 2008, and managed to meet the deadline. Although the official release of Firefox 3.0 is still a few hours away, the downloads for the next iteration of the Firefox open source browser are live. So, make sure that you grab your copy; the links for the English binaries of Firefox 3.0 Final for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are also at the bottom of this article.

The Gecko 1.9 web rendering platform is the foundation for Firefox 3.0. Mozilla spent the last 34 months hammering away at Gecko 1.9. With the next version of Firefox, Mozilla will in fact move onward with the evolution of Gecko. But for now, Firefox 3.0 users will be able to enjoy the benefits of in excess of 15,000 updates introduced to the rendering engine. In this context, Firefox 3.0 delivers "improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability," according to Mozilla.

Placing a strong emphasis on performance, Mozilla also revealed that Firefox 3.0 is synonymous with a comprehensive evolution in terms of security, usability, customization, as well as from the perspective of developers, who benefit now from an enhanced platform. Firefox 3.0 marks the first time when Mozilla released versions of the open source browser tailored for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux when it comes down to the default theme. But Firefox 3.0 brings so much more, including a plethora of features highlighted by Mozilla's Deb Richardson:

- Add-on manager - Bookmarks - Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) - Color profile support - Download manager - Font and text rendering - Full page zoom - History - HTML Canvas - Location bar UTF-8 support - Malware protection - Microformats API - Offline web application support - Password manager - Performance improvements - Phishing protection - Plugins - Site Identification button - Smart Location Bar - Tabs - Themes - Video and audio feeds - Vista parental controls support - Web application protocol handlers.

Update: For Windows and Linux, Mozilla implemented absolutely no changes between Firefox 3.0 RC2, RC3 and Firefox 3.0 Final. For Mac OS X, a single bug was fixed between RC2 and RC3. In this regard, the RC3 and Final releases of Firefox 3.0 are identical code-wise for all three operating systems, while differences exist only in terms of labeling and not in the actual binaries. But make no mistake about it, Mozilla has already gone live with the final bits for Firefox 3.0 on its FTP servers, with a release that is different from the RC2 and RC3 builds.

Firefox 3.0 Final for Windows is available for download here. Firefox 3.0 Final for Linux is available for download here. Firefox 3.0 Final for Mac OS X is available for download here.