Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 released with some promising features!

Mozilla has released a new beta version of it’s popular Firefox. Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 has been released and is up for grab here. You can download the version for both Linux and Windows by navigating to the relevant category. I think they have some issues with the “What’s new Page” because it’s a 404 page. Actually, it was the case till yesterday when I downloaded and installed it but today the page seems to be up and is pretty neat.

Let’s see what are the improvements which have been incorporated in the new Firefox

• Added support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties
• Ctrl+Tab 3D interface: A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab you’re switching to. Use CTRL+Tab to check the new tab navigation feature.

• Improved control over the Smart Location Bar using special characters to restrict your search. A complete guide about this feature can be found here.
• Faster JavaScript: It supports faster javascript due to the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. This feature however is not enabled by default. You have to enable it by following the steps below:
  1. Open about:config in your browser and click I’ll be careful I promise button.
  2. Paste javascript.options.jit.content into the filter box.
  3. Double-click and set the boolean to true.
• GeoLocation: In the previous version of firefox you had to install Geode extension to get this feature working. But in the new beta release this feature has been made native. The purpose of this feature is to get information from web sites based on your location.

We are however yet to see the Privacy browsing mode and the much talked about “New Session Restore“. You might want to check out this post for more on the technical features for web developers which come with the new version.