14 DAY TRIAL // If you were waiting for Firefox 3.0, be glad, as the wait is now over! The final release is available for download, and you probably want to help Mozilla set that world record, so start downloading!
Before doing this, you will have to pledge that you will download Firefox today. This way, Mozilla will keep track of all the downloads, and eventually set the Guinness world record for the most downloaded software in 24 hours.
You probably already know this, but this release won't fix the fsync() bug that brings the browser to an unresponsive state until fsync finishes the changes synchronization for a certain file. This problem will get a patch in Firefox 3.0.1 and Mozilla will make sure that the Linux distributors take said patch and use it.
Let's "browse" through Firefox, shall we? After you download the application, you will be "greeted" by a License Agreement, which is probably not one of the most interesting things in Firefox. So we'll skip this one and move on to the more interesting aspects of Firefox from a user's point of view. One of the features of Firefox 3.0 is the new location bar, dubbed the "Awesome Bar". So what's actually so awesome about it? Let's have a look, starting from the left and going to the right. You will notice the favicon of the current site, on which you can click to find some security information about the site you're visiting. Moreover, this button will tell you how many times you've visited a site and if it's storing cookies on your computer. Probably the most interesting thing that the Awesome Bar does is the fact that it really simplifies the way you browse the web. For example, you've visited a site yesterday but you've forgot its URL and the only thing you remember is a word that was in title of that site or page. You type that word in the location bar and a drop-down list appears, from which you can select the desired website.
The next thing in the location bar is a button that allows you to subscribe to the feed of a site. You click on it and choose the feed service you would like to use, or a local feed reading application, like Liferea or RSSOwl (you'll have to browse for them on your system). Next up is a star button that has the function of bookmarking the site you're browsing. Speaking of bookmarks, the bookmarking system is using tags now, making Firefox much more powerful and easy to use. I almost forgot to tell you that Opera 9.50 has the same feature, but it lacks the easy way to install plugins that Firefox has. The developers from both camps should try to learn more one from the other since, this way. they will surely have their browsers adopted on a larger scale.
You can easily add new search engines in the search bar by purely visiting the page of a popular search engine, going to the search bar, clicking on the search bar and selecting "Add insert_search_engine_here".
Firefox has really evolved when it comes to customization, security, usability and performance. It really fits in your operating system, looks natively and the Gecko 1.9 web page rendering engine does a good job, loading pages faster than Firefox's previous version.
Download Firefox 3.0 right now from Softpedia.