Firefox 3.1 Beta Released

Heightened competition within the browser industry is really starting to pay off for Web surfers. Rapid technology growth has given websites the ability to achieve things never before thought possible, and browser developers have been doing their best to keep up in an effort to provide users with the best experience. Exciting new alternatives such as Google Chrome continue to surface, while existing favorites are steadily improving.

In keeping with this trend, Mozilla released the first beta version of Firefox 3.1 on Tuesday. This latest entry in the long-running series features notable advances in both compatibility and performance. Based on the Gecko 1.9.1 engine, Firefox 3.1 supports several new Web technologies including the W3C Geolocation API, CSS 2.1 and 3 properties, as well as HTML 5 audio and video elements. This should definitely please Web developers. TraceMonkey, the browser's new JavaScript rendering engine, stands to make significant improvements to page load times. Disabled by default, TraceMonkey can be activated in just a few easy steps.

From a usability standpoint, a new keyboard shortcut has been added which lets you switch from tab to tab with the benefit of a thumbnail preview for each one. The Smart Location Bar, better known as the "Awesome Bar", has also been greatly enhanced. Unfortunately, the highly anticipated Private Browsing feature was not ready for this beta version but is expected in a future build.

Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is intended for developers and individuals that wish to be involved in the testing process. It should not be used as your everyday browser at this stage. It is available for download in over 35 languages for the Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms.