Firefox 3.0 RC2 has just been released. This new release is a further step toward the final version which will be officially launched somewhere this month, hopefully. This version doesn’t have many evident improvements nor new features. As a matter of fact the Mozilla team has tried its best to fix some of the most important and dangerous bugs which affected the previous release. If you want to read the release note of Firefox 3.0 RC2, click here. If you want to download this great freeware browser, just follow this link here.
Before downloading it, take into consideration the usual recommendations:
- This version is not the final one but a release candidate, so no wonder if there is some bug. By the way, if you find a bug, you can report it to the Mozilla team by following this link.
- This version is not intended for the final user. In fact it is a released for testing purposes only. My advise is not to be too greedy. Don’t download it right away because it could not work properly and could disappoint you a little bit.
A new version of iPhone software (named 2.0 beta) has recently been released to a small group of enterprise partners in order to test its new features. The most important ones are the new “Location Services” which let iPhone take advantage of its camera and Internet connection to use GPS-based Google Mapping along with Geotagging…but what the heck does it mean? Basically “geo-tagging is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to media files such as latitude and longitude coordinates — or even names of places — so that those files can later be referenced, searched, and grouped based on their origin.” Furthermore , rumors report that The new iPhone software adds a new function to the general Preferences pane to enable/disable Location Services letting users decide if they want to get advantage of this new function in their camera application and want to send data over the Web. This service is not a novelty among cellphones, since a lot of them have already used it successfully for a lot of years. Anyway as the old saying goes…better late than never! So, well done iPhone!
Source: Appleinsider.com
Finally Firefox has got out of its beta version to start its hopefully shorter Release Candidate process, before becoming a final release. As a matter of fact a couple of days ago Firefox RC1 was released just for developer testing. If you can not wait and you want to download it right away, you can do it by following this link here. As usually, no wonder if you find some bugs because this version is not intended for the final user, anyway if you find something wrong and you want to report it, you can do it by following this link. But what is new with this release? Here is a short list:
- The skin has been changed to meet the look and feel of Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux. This particular change was made thanks to a lot of feedbacks coming from hundrends of users who reported how nice it was to have something which actually could blend with their operative systems.
- A lot of fixes have been applied to this new Firefox version such as: the location bar autocomplete, bookmark backup and restore, full page zoom, and others, based on feedback from the community.
- More fixes to improve security, web compatibility and stability.
- Performance improvements. The Javascript engine has been revised as well as profile guided optimization. It has also been increased the speed of web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office.
If you want to know more about the other features and improvements, follow this link.
After Skype for PSP, Nokia N810 and Sony Mylo, a version of the famous software has been recently released just for Java-enabled cellphones. This beta version is compatible with all the major cellphone brands. So far, around 50 cellphones are supported (for a complete list visit Skype website here). Skype for your mobile lets you use all those features included in the original Skype such as: Skype contacts, instant messenger, group chat, phone calls. The use of this mini Skype version is limited to the following counties: Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Sweden, and the U.K. Its download is for free but not its use. As a matter of fact you still need to pay the normal national or local rate plus an extra fee for Skype-out depending where you are calling to. This makes the use of Skype mobile more convenient for International phone calls. There are anyway certain kinds of limitations as far as international calls are concerned. Reading from Skype’s website: “ We strongly recommend that you use Skype for your mobile beta in your home country only as your mobile operator may charge you very high calling and data fees and roaming charges when using it abroad.” As far as data transfer is concerned: “ There’s a data charge from your operator. A person with 20 contacts, who’s online for 1 hour, IMs for 10 minutes and has a 20 minute call each day will use about 1MB of data per month. The more data you use, the higher your charges may be.” All these limitations and extra fees could make its use far less popular than is computer counterpart. To download it, visit this page.
A few days ago I spoke about the new release of FireFox beta which has reached its 5 version. In this last version the Mozilla team has got some fun by inserting among FireFox’s code a nice Easter egg! In fact if you write: about:robots in the address bar, an hidden page will be displayed in the browser showing you a welcome message coming from robots! The page contains a nice quotation coming from an old famous movie: The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Just in case you are wondering about the forthcoming new Firefox 3, and you are quite curious about it, well, the new beta version (Beta 5) is out, so you have just got your chance to try it out. As usual this new beta is available in all the major languages and it is intended for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Since it is not a very stable version, you should expect some bugs which have to be reported to the Mozilla team by clicking on this link. This new release contains more than 750 enhancements or changes in comparison to the previous relesase and it is said to be better as far as stability, compatibility, interface and speed are concerned. If you want to know what is new with it, read the release note here. Download Firefox 3.0b5 from beta page.
It looks like Microsoft is sharping its knife to fight Mozilla and its browser. As a matter of fact the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 has been released for everybody to download. This version (beta 1) like all the next Internet Explorer 8 versions is compatible with Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2). Here is a comphrensive list of links where you can download and try your free copy of IE 8:
After a few weeks from the release of the beta 3, it is already available for everybody to download Firefox 3 beta 4. This new beta has lots of new things to speak about, but the most important feature is, without any doubt, its speed. This new version is said to be faster than anything else, even faster than Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7. It looks like the guys at Mozilla are giving their best in order to win the browser war that it is raging in the Internet since a long time. Anyway Firefox 3 beta 4 has got other strong arguments to speak about namely:
- A better user interface: the download manager has been improved, ability to zoom the entire page or just the text, better look and feel.
- Better version of the bookmark folder.
- A series of algorithms that learn your habits to adapt the browser to your needs.
- Support for HTML5’s, window.postMessage and window.messageEvent, JavaScript 1.8 improvements, offline data storage for web applications.
- Better performance: the inner javascript engine has been improved, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run much faster, and continued improvements to memory usage drastically reduce the amount of
memory consumed over long web browsing sessions.
If you want to download this new beta Firefox version, please follow this link. As usual, if you find something that is wrong or that doesn’t work as expected you can alert the Mozilla team. To do so follow this link (you need to create an account).
Comments
How to remove Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) plug-in from Firefox: “If any info related to the plugin...
Windows XP SP3 endless reboot boot (Stop c0000139): No found it via google searching for a problem
Windows XP SP3 endless reboot boot (Stop c0000139): I found this to be the most useful info… i...
Delete and clean Internet Explorer 7 Browsing History from the Command Line: Isn’t there any...
iPhone firmware 2.0 available for download: Wow!! Lots of important information on this site! I especially...