14 DAY TRIAL // While Firefox 3.0 is so close you can actually taste it, the wait is not yet over. Sure enough, the pre-release versions of the next iteration of the open source browser are up for grabs, and, especially as of Release Candidate 2 will provide a product almost identical to the final version. Still, in order to sweeten the wait, Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's User Experience Lead, put together a screencast of Firefox 3.0, parading some of new features that Firefox 2.0's successor brings to the table. As Firefox 3.0 has already passed the RC2 stage, Mozilla will no longer add any features to the browser, and will attempt to keep any modifications down to a minimum.
The video put together by Beltzner debuts with a presentation of the Awesome Bar. The Smart Location Bar is a feature specific for Firefox 3.0 and it involves a mechanism which enables users to search for a URL from the address bar in accordance to the keywords of the websites visited. In the past, Beltzner was little shy about boasting how the new feature would revolutionize Internet navigation, and that it would rival tabbed browsing in popularity.
The video demonstration of Firefox 3.0 also includes examples of how to use one-click bookmarking, along with the new bookmarking infrastructure of the open source browser, complete with the ability to add tags. The site identity button is also a new addition, users having to click the favicon in order to access information on websites, in the eventuality that the website owner does specify such data. On top of this, Firefox 3.0 features built-in malware protection which will prevent users from navigating to malicious websites. An overhauled download manager now with pause functionality, along with the add-on browser, completes the features demo.
Firefox 3.0 RC2 is already available for download, with the final version expected to drop by mid-June 2008. Microsoft is also hard at work on the next version of its Internet Explorer browser, whose Beta 2 Build is planned for release in August, this year. IE8 Beta 1 delivered a sneak peek at what Beta 2 would offer with features such as WebSlices and Activities and a new address bar which isolates the domain of the websites visited.