While Microsoft is currently gathering input from Tech Beta testers on the direction it will gear the development of Internet Explorer 8.0, Mozilla has advanced yet another step toward Firefox 3.0. Mozilla has revealed that, as its predecessor alpha version, Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 is meant exclusively for testing purposes.

"Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 is an early developer milestone for the next major version of Firefox that is being built on top of the next generation of Mozilla's layout engine, Gecko 1.9. Gran Paradiso Alpha 2," reads a message posted in the alpha 2 release notes.

Although it's available for download to all users, Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 is only addressed to developers and to Mozilla's testing community. Mozilla revealed that the new alpha introduces a set of new features and improvements over the past release.

"Core layout code affecting the calculation of widths in tables, floats, and absolutely positioned elements has been rewritten. The code for handling incremental layout of pages (as data arrives over the network, as images load, or as dynamic changes are made) has also been changed extensively," stated Mozilla.

Additionally, Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 has provided a fix for the ACID2 test compliance, has added support for the Web Apps 1.0 API for changing style sheets. Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 will also render XML documents during download, and the alpha 2 version also features enhanced Mac widgets support and a touched up Cairo graphics layer.

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Alpha 2 Gran Paradiso was tested by Softpedia as being 100% Free and is available for download here.