Firefox To Launch New Web Browser

A new version of the Firefox Web browser is scheduled for release Tuesday with improvements in security, speed and design.

Many of the enhancements in Firefox 3 involve bookmarks. The new version lets Web surfers add keywords, or tags, to sort bookmarks by topic. A new "Places" feature lets users quickly access sites they recently bookmarked or tagged and pages they visit frequently but haven't bookmarked.

There's also a new star button for easily adding sites to your bookmark list - similar to what's already available on Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 7 browser.

Other new features include the ability to resume downloads midway if the connection is interrupted and an updated password manager that doesn't disrupt the log-in process.

In a nod to the growing use of Web-based e-mail, the browser can be set to launch Yahoo Inc.'s service when clicking a "mailto" link in a Web page, the ones you might come across clicking on a name or a "contact us" link. Previously such links could only open a standalone, desktop e-mail program.

Yahoo is the only Web service initially supported. To use rivals like Google Inc.'s Gmail and Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail, developers of those services will have to enable that capability first.

Firefox also will start blocking rather than simply warning about sites known to engage in "phishing" scams that try to trick users into revealing passwords and other sensitive information. The new version adds protection from sites known to distribute viruses and other malicious software.

The list of suspicious sites come from Google Inc. and StopBadware.org, a project headed by legal scholars at Harvard and Oxford universities.

Security researchers who need access to problem sites can manually turn the feature off.

Firefox 3 also offers speed and design improvements - the back button is now larger than the forward button, for instance, because people tend to return to a previous page more often, said Mike Schroepfer, the project's vice president of engineering.

Firefox is the No. 2 Web browser behind Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer. It comes from Mozilla, an open-source community in which thousands of people, mostly volunteers, collectively develop free products.

Mozilla has been developing Firefox 3 for nearly three years and has been publicly testing it since November for Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

Its supporters are organizing launch parties around the world next week, and Mozilla is trying to set a world record for most software downloads in a 24-hour period.

Microsoft is currently testing Internet Explorer 8, while Opera Software ASA released Opera 9.5 on Thursday.

[Election2008]

Opera 9.50 ownz in speed, security, interface and performance

[gheemaster38]

OH GREAT!!! NOW Microsoft is gonna offer 300 gazillion dollars to buy Mozilla and turn them into a useless IE Clone.

[talkingham]

XP is by far the best OS MS has ever produced but they will force the bloated Vista_peace Corps OS down the throats of every PC owner they can trick into buying or upgrading.

I still have one Win 98 OS system that works just fine after nearly 10 years, in fact, software runs as fast or faster (except rendering) on a plain old AMD Athlon 1000 than on processors 5 times it''s speed.

My 7-year old XP system runs fine no need to upgrade to Vista bloat and "content management" that can turn your HDMI ports off if Media Player 11 doesn''t like the content digital certificate.

Lousy.

And don''t dare bother to put Office 2007 on an XP machine. They ahve specifically crippled such features as speech to text in Word Office 2007 when it runs in XP, just another way to get you to "downgrade" to Vista.

I also have 2 old Amiga computers running 12mb ram, Amiga is the OS both Mac and PC ripped off to assume the look of their current interfaces. The Amiga was too good for consumers and the company was killed.

[williamfold]

PCs crash, Macs crash, Linux or Unix requires a PhD in Engineering to configure. Computers were created by man. Man is not perfect. Therefore, no computer (or OS or software) is perfect. Don''t let anyone tell you differently. Make the choice based on the need.

[p-syrus]

Mozilla is leaving behind any Mac users who don''''t have the hardware to run OS 10.4 or later. This is the same nonsense that major vendors pull; isn''''t this antithetical to the original idea of open source initiatives?

Posted by overt_look

Not at all.

With proprietary vendors the user has no choice; neither the ability to modify code, nor alternate paths of upgrade. Users are stuck with what the company provides. Typically, users can not remove or replace vendor supplied software without significant operational penalties.

Firefox is Free Open Source Software.

A. Functional versions of Firefox remain available for obsolete systems. Vendors do not provide code or support for obsoleted software.

B. Source code is freely available. Ergo, users are free to extend function & support. Vendors do not make source available nor do they permit user upgrades, patches, or bug fixes.

C. It is likely that versions of the 3.x browser MAY be extended to cover obsolete systems. FOSS developer communities commonly add features & extend systems for existing user bases. Vendors only supply code for target markets based on profit potential. Obsolete systems lose.

The Mac group focus on modern versions of Mac OS is most likely due to code similarities with *nix type systems. It makes much more sense to release 3.0 for the predominant systems, than to wait to release until all variations of all systems are covered.

If it''s still a problem, switch to LINUX, the SUPERIOR SOLUTION. :-)

[heero2020]

Naturally, Microsoft will be coming out with a Firefox 3 clone soon afterwards. Then 2 days later, you will need to download the first wave of ''upgrades'' to patch the security flaws.

[flagship-usa]

I let mozilla ''auto upgrade'' my versions, I''m sure most of us do. I wonder if this will upgrade, since it is a whole new version?

[nathanealy]

I''m still waiting for my version of FireFox to finish loading.

[flagship-usa]

CBS news left out the ''spell checker'' embedded in the browser. One great feature...priceless.

[sistatee-2009]

If I had to use IE, I''d quit computing. Thanks Mozilla.