We have decided to test this Beta version. After installing and loading first information appears in the browser:

«Thank you for helping test Firefox 3 Beta 5! This release is being made available for testing purposes only. You should read the release notes before getting started.

We want to hear all of your thoughts about this beta, especially if you encounter broken sites or other web weirdness. Drag this feedback button onto your bookmarks toolbar and click on it when you have something to tell us. We’ll be waiting to hear from you! (Or, if you’d prefer, you can file a bug.)»

But interface of this version is more elegant and Web 2.0 — oriented. I think Firefox users will appreciate at its true value.

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 32 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 12,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

More Safety

You can click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you’re connected to.

Malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware.

The content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown.

Clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate.

Firefox 3 automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.

To improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.

Firefox 3 will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.

Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.

Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

Easier to Use

An information bar replaces the old password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login. The add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks. The revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.

Users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection. From the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.

Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools. Tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu.

Firefox 3 will prompt users to save tabs on exit.

Opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.

More and more other functions.

More Personal

But Firefox 3 gives the possibility of more personalization.

Quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.

Associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by topic.

Type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you’re looking for. Results are returned according to their frecency (a combination of frequency and recency of visits to that page) ensuring that you’re seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!

Quickly access your recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as your more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on your bookmark toolbar.

View, organize and search through all of your bookmarks, tags, and browsing history with multiple views and smart folders to store your frequent searches. Create and restore full backups whenever you want.

Web applications, such as your favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).

Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.

Easy to use Download Actions: a new Applications preferences pane provides a better UI for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.

You can download Firefox 3 Beta 5 from the Firefox beta page or download stable version 2.0.0.13:

Windows Vista SP1 will arrive one of three ways. Most users will automatically receive the update via Windows Update. Users with limited or no Internet connectivity, or who need to update more than one PC, will be able to download a complete image of Windows Vista SP1 via DVD. Volume license customers (enterprises) will receive an integrated DVD media package for installation on new PCs.

Before installing SP1, all users running Windows Vista RTM (that is, if you bought your computer with Vista preinstalled) will need to install three updates from Microsoft. Microsoft’s Windows Update will automatically detect and install these updates prior to the release of Windows Vista SP1. Two of these updates increase the success rate for installing Windows Vista SP1; one is necessary only if you have Windows Vista Enterprise or Windows Vista Ultimate installed.

While all this sounds complicated, Microsoft says it has learned from Windows XP SP2, an upgrade that sometimes stranded users with long, overnight downloads. Windows Vista is modular, thus the upgrade will download only the bites of code necessary for your specific system. If you have enabled Automatic Updates, in theory, you should have a much shorter download and installation of the upgrade than someone who hasn’t kept up with the numerous updates since Windows Vista’s release. Despite the many changes within the code, Windows Vista SP1 does not change the basic hardware requirements for running the different editions of Windows Vista.

Where Windows XP SP2 introduced the Windows Security Center, and changed the existing Windows Firewall, Windows Vista SP1 introduces almost no visible change to your desktop. There are no new features to view, with almost all of the nearly 300 changes occurring under the hood, and mostly intended for Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions.

Specific reliability improvements include the prevention of data loss while ejecting NT file system file-system-formatted removable media; enhancements to TCP/IP Version 6; improved driver sleep and wake-up times; improved Meeting Space connections; improved Remote Assistance applications; and it includes Encrypting File System in the Windows Vista file-backup set.

For performance, Microsoft says SP1 uses less bandwidth when browsing network shares, and automatically selects between wireless and wired when more than one is offered. There are also many tweaks and improvements in ReadyDrive (requires the use of special hybrid drives) and ReadyBoost (requires special USB drives), and SuperFetch (requires a specific amount of RAM). As a result, users currently running Windows SuperFetch will notice, after installing Windows Vista SP1, their system is slower. Microsoft says that’s because SP1 erases the existing SuperFetch data. As new data is collected, the system will respond “within a few days,” Microsoft says.

There are many new standards introduced with SP1. For example, there’s a new Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, x64 Extensible Firmware Interface network boot, Direct3D 10.1 for 3D gaming, new flash based xFAT, identifies HD-DVD and Blu-ray drives as HD drives, supports SD Advanced Direct Memory Access, second-generation Windows Media Center Extenders, enhances the MPEG-2 decoder, and enhances support for Windows Network Projector.

For security, SP1 improves the Bitlocker encryption in Windows Vista Enterprise and Windows Ultimate by adding multifunction authentication methods; moreover, Microsoft now allows encryption support for volumes other than the bootable volume. SP1 also includes some Smart Card enhancements, and allows for biometric, as opposed to PIN, access to Smart Cards. Within Vista, SP1 creates a more secure PIN channel for authentication.

For most home users, the new features will have little or no effect on the day-to-day use of their systems.

In general, CNET Labs found that Windows Vista SP1 offered a mixed bag of improvements. For example, Microsoft says that reading and writing files will be much faster within Windows Vista SP1.

Do you need Windows Vista SP1? Yes and no. It’s always good to install the latest code for any operating system. But downloading and installing the update will take some users a few hours without any visible or tangible improvements to their systems.

Unfortunately, you can’t free download Windows Vista SP1 even to trial it. But you can buy the software on the Microsoft site for about $200.