Firefox 3.0 Preview

Brian Heater passed us a link to a PC World preview of the upcoming Firefox 3.0 release. In addition to the usual smoother UI, bug fixes, and feature updates, Firefox 3.0 will introduce several new components that should expand offline Web application functionality. The inclusion of DOM Storage, an offline execution model, and synchronization should all work together to allow for wider adoption of software like Google Apps at the end-user level. "As the breadth and depth of the competing applications expand, perhaps Microsoft's 90-percent stranglehold on the preinstalled and post-PC-purchase installation suite market will loosen, if only a bit. Then, too, if Windows Vista is any indication of what lies ahead, the company's software will continue to require ever more awe-inspiring hardware--a far cry from the light and nimble Web-based applications Mozilla engineers envision." The piece covers more than just the new functionality, of course, and should be of interest to anyone looking forward to 'Gran Paradiso.'

Comments

Just a Browser, Please

[FrankSchwab]

Is there anyone other than me who wants my browser to just be a browser?

Why do I have to browse the web on something that wants to be an applications platform, an office suite, a local filesystem browser, and a dessert topping? Don't you remember that the original advantage of the Firefox browser was that it was smaller, faster, and more secure than IE (because it didn't include things like ActiveX)?

What happened? /frank

I hope they've fixed the memory hogging.

[Channard]

The biggest problem I had with Firefox was that it would take more and more memory as you opened more pages, and despite trying a few things there seemed to be no limit to how much memory it would take. And it didn't release the memory until you actually closed the program and opened it again. So you could open 12 pages, close all but 1 and it'd still be using the memory equivalent to those eleven closed pages.