Download Day is Finally Here

Amid much fanfare, the public release of Firefox 3 hit the virtual shelves today. Since the first beta version was made available back in November, fans of the popular browser have been clamoring to get their hands on what is to be the next major milestone in Firefox's somewhat short but storied history.

Based on the Gecko 1.9 engine, Firefox 3 has a lot to offer in the way of security, stability, ease of use, and speed. From a safety standpoint several new features such as malware and web forgery protection, one-click site information, secure add-on updates, and integration with your existing anti-virus software help you remain vigilant against ill-willed hackers. A revamped bookmarks system lets you associate tags with each bookmark, giving you the ability to not only sort them by topic but also organize and search through them as well as through your browsing history using the Places Organizer. A new Download Manager provides much more useful information than previous versions, and resumable downloading is now supported. From an interface perspective additions such as full page zoom, tab scrolling, and the "awesome bar" do their fair share to improve upon the overall browsing experience. Firefox 3 also includes an impressive platform intended to support both Web developers as well as what many consider the heart and soul of the browser's emergence over the past several years, the add-on community. Speaking of which, many well-known add-ons have been or are being updated for Firefox 3 compatibility.

Mozilla's highly anticipated browser jumps onto the scene at a time where many of the major players appear poised to grab a piece of the pie with new offerings of their own. 2008 is shaping up to be a banner year for the Web browser, with such notable entries thus far as Apple's Safari 3.1 and the recently released Opera 9.5. In addition, Microsoft is currently working on Internet Explorer 8.

Firefox 3 is available as a free download in over 45 languages for the Windows, Macintosh, and Linux platforms.