by Michael Muchmore
Though it's been less than a month since Firefox 3's blast-off into the Internet and a software download record, Mozilla developers have already distributed a very early preview of the next upgrade to the increasingly popular browser, code-named Shiretoko.
The alpha version will be designated as Firefox 3.1 at final release and at this point is strictly intended for developers and testers. The underlying Gecko page-rendering engine is also being updated to version 1.9.1.
The most noticeable enhancements in the release involve the much lauded Smart Location Bar, often referred to by Mozillaphiles as the "awesome bar." Users will have more control over what links the bar presents when they start typing in it. They'll be able to restrict suggested sites to history (rather than including unvisited bookmarks) and to specify whether to find URLs or page title text. Smart keywords—for example, preceding text in the location bar with "g" to perform a Google search on the term—will now get bookmarks that enable more than one choice for the keyword (or key character).
Also implemented is a new tab switching behavior, called Control-Tab. This lets users view tabs in a filmstrip view, offering tab previews similar to those in Opera. Formerly a Firefox add-on, Control-Tab will be a built-in feature of the browser's next version.
Other enhancements have been implemented affecting improved Web standards support in the Gecko layout engine, and support for CSS border images and JavaScript query selectors. Though none of the changes is massive, it's good to see the folks at Mozilla continually making a good product better.
Versions of Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 are available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. You can read more details about the changes on Mozilla.org.
(http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2326835,00.asp)
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