Yesterday around 1pm Eastern Standard Time, Mozilla officially released version three of their popular Firefox web browser. I’m a long-time Firefox user, and I’ve been using a beta version of Firefox 3 for a little while now, since it was installed by default when I upgraded to the newest version of Ubuntu Linux. It didn’t take long at all for me to begin to appreciate the many improvements in the latest iteration of Firefox.
Back in the early days of Firefox it held many clear advantages over its primary competitor, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. These days, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Firefox have all come a long way, and each has some very compelling merits. I’ve used all three and in my experience this newest version of Firefox is on top of the heap.
Apparently I’m not the only one who is excited about Firefox. As I am writing this, about 6,287,283 downloads have been registered on Mozilla’s official counter on the Spread Firefox site. Mozilla is hoping to establish a world record for most downloads in a 24 hour period, and on the site said they hoped to reach 5 million. Obviously they’ve easily surpassed this, and they still have another 4 hours to go.
There are tons of articles floating around outlining the many improvements made in this new version of Firefox including faster page loading, less memory usage, a nearly-psychic “smart” address bar, and increased security features. Here are just a couple of the articles I’ve read about it:
- Top 10 Firefox 3 Features (Lifehacker)
- Top 10 reasons you should upgrade to Firefox 3 (TG Daily)
- Igniting an open revolution: Firefox 3 officially released (Ars Technica)
- Technology Today: Firefox 3 Download Day (I Never Promised You an Organic Garden)
So what are you waiting for? Download it and take it for a test drive!