A few months later than originally planned, Mozilla has released the first beta version of Firefox 3, the widely used open source Web browser.

Firefox 3 beta 1 includes a number of features that Mozilla says should improve security, ease of use, rendering of Web pages and location of previously visited Web pages. The browser can also run Web-based applications even when the computer is disconnected from a network.

The browser is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux at Mozilla's download site in 20 languages.

According to the release notes, the core Gecko rendering engine -- the component that interprets Web page instructions and draws text and graphics on your screen -- has seen major changes in the upgrade to the new version 1.9 used in Firefox 3: 'Gecko 1.9 includes some major re-architecting for performance, stability, correctness and code simplification and sustainability,' the notes said. Those changes 'put foundations in place for major performance tuning which have resulted in speed increases in beta 1, and will show further gains in future beta releases'.

The Firefox 3 beta was due to arrive in July, but there's no word yet on when the software will come out of beta.

Hands-on with beta 1
A quick test of the new browser revealed that various important sites including eBay, Gmail and Amazon.com, appeared to work fine. However, I got error messages at two sites, both with snazzier 'Web 2.0' user interfaces. Yahoo Mail threw errors and choked, while Adobe's Buzzword online word processor told me the browser wasn't supported. On the other hand, other rich sites were happy, including Picnik and Flickr's Organizr.

Even in just a few minutes' use, I found the location bar's automatic search handy. It popped up lists of previously visited URLs and page titles that contained the words I typed into the location bar, trimming a couple steps out of a few searches.

One of Firefox's chief merits is the large collection of extensions that can be downloaded to bring new abilities to the browser. Alas, all four of the ones I use -- Fotofox, FireFTP, Delicious Bookmarks and Foxmarks -- don't yet work with the new beta. That's no surprise, as the release notes warn that such breakage is likely.

Another feature I've been eagerly awaiting is the support for colour profiles, which lets you see photos correctly even when they're encoded with colour systems besides the long-in-the-tooth sRGB standard. It's not enabled by default, but I switched it on and was delighted to see the test images in a CNET News.com story displayed correctly.

New features
Besides Gecko 1.9, there are a number of areas of change for Firefox 3.

Security
New features include: the ability to integrate antivirus software with downloads; one-click Web site identity verification; automatic testing to make sure plug-ins aren't older versions found to be insecure (and automatic disabling if they are); and support for Windows Vista parental controls.

Ease of use
Improvements include: downloading that can be resumed after the browser has been restarted or network connection reset; the ability to zoom in and out of Web pages in their entirety -- including layout, text and graphics; plug-ins can be managed centrally with the Add-On Manager; and mailto links can now launch Web-based email applications such as Gmail, not just local applications on the PC such as Outlook.

Personalisation
Web pages can be bookmarked with one click and tagged with a double-click (although the interface looked rough to me); you get a list of possible matching Web pages based on what you type in the location bar; and a new Smart Places folder provides access to pages that are frequently visited or that have been recently bookmarked and tagged.