Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 Released for Testing

Mozilla has made the free upgrade to Firefox 3 available for public testing, and to grab everyone’s interest, they’ve packed it with a heap of new features that other browser companies will no doubt be paying attention to.

This test version of the latest Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is designed as a public-preview release mainly intended for any developers out there. The browser is based on the new Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform. This incorporates a set of changes that together work to improve ease of use and performance.

For the everyday user the search function of Firefox 3.1 has been enhanced. Search results can now be filtered to only show hits from the user’s history, bookmarks, tagged web pages, or smart keywords. If you want to limit your search to user history, simply type a caret (^) in front of the search term. To restrict to bookmarks, type an asterisk (*) or for tagged pages use a plus sign (+) at the start of your search.

There is also a new tab-switching shortcut which allows for a thumbnail overview display of all the web pages open in the browser’s tabs. This works by holding down the control key and using the Tab key to scroll through and select the page you want to view.

If you fancy yourself a bit of a tester, Firefox 3.1 beta 1 will overwrite existing installations of Firefox, but don’t worry about losing your existing bookmarks and browsing history, as these are carried over to the new version. If after trying out this beta version you decide to return to Firefox 3, don’t fear losing any personalised data, extensions or add-ons. The guys at Mozilla have said all of this information is stored separately with each user’s profile.

To check-out Firefox 3.1 for yourself, just pop over to Mozilla.

Source: Yahoo! News