Firefox 3.1 could run web apps almost three times faster than previous version, according to the Mozilla Foundation.

Starting a little later tonight, users with the latest version of Firefox 2 will be getting an offer to update to Firefox 3. If you’re running Firefox 2.0.0.17 you will see the offer in the next couple of days, though if you’re eager you can always “Check for Updates” in the “Help” menu. This is what the offer will look like:

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Mozilla Corp. today announced the winners of its third "Extend Firefox" contest, an annual competition that recognizes the year's best Firefox add-ons.

If it’s not rare for you to have 20, 30 or 40 tabs opened at a time, you know how much of a burden it can be to get back to the one you need: you have to remember where it was in the tab bar and scroll it accordingly, or scan the List All Tabs menu.

Mozilla Corp. today announced the winners of its third “Extend Firefox” contest, an annual competition that recognizes the year’s best Firefox add-ons.

Firefox can be made into so much more than just a browser via its huge extension base.  Yes, this means you can replace some of your instant messenger, chat and microblogging needs by adding just a few extensions. Here are 18 tools that will let you turn your Firefox 3 browser into a communications portal.

Gmail, Google's popular Web mail application, is already full of useful features all on its own. But Firefox users can further customize Gmail with a variety of add-ons. Some only change the appearance, while others add functionality that makes Gmail more like a personal planner than just a plain old email application. Let's take a look at three Firefox add-ons for Gmail.

Firefox Environment Backup Extension, better known in the community as FEBE is a Firefox extension that has served me well for a long time now. It does as its name would suggest, you are given the option to selectivly backup elements of your profile, or the entire thing. Mine has been scheduled to do so every evening, keeping at least a weeks worth.

My top 5 Firefox 3 themes

1. Past Modern - my favourite.

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They did it -- Mozilla now holds the world record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours, according to Jamie Panas, press and marketing assistant at Guinness World Records.

Firefox 3.0 is great, but to make it even better check out these functions and features. Each can be altered or tweaked to make your web-browsing experience near perfect.

You have likely heard it a million times already, Firefox 3 is a very nice improvement over version 2, especially in the performance department. And while many still prefer to stick to their own improved versions of Opera and Safari (sorry IE, you are a disgrace right now), Firefox is by far the most used alternative browser. I believe that comes in part thanks to its flexibility for customization and the myriad of useful add-ons you can get for it.

I recently blogged about installing the Adobe Acrobat Reader on Ubuntu 8.04.  For those that followed that tutorial you may also be interested in adding the Firefox plugins for Adobe Reader as well.  These will also require the Medibuntu repository, which I’ll review quickly here.

Lets take a look at the security features of the newly released Firefox 3.0. Since it's release on Tuesday I have been testing it out to see how the new security enhancements work and help in increase user browsing security. One of the exciting improvements for me was how Firefox handles SSL secured web sites while browsing the Internet. There are also many other security features that this article will look at. For example, improved plugin and addon security.

Flock is what is known as a social browser. It has been around for a while, with a couple of notable upgrades and feature additions. One such feature addition involved going green as FlockEco. This next iteration of Flock brings FireFox 3 capabilities to it while leaving many of the social aspects intact.

Firefox 3 supports color profiles, but you have to turn this setting on manually. There are some great blog posts that describe this in detail, which you should read for more information, but this "feature" greatly improves the accuracy of the colors.

Desktop users, developers, and reviewers all had their download managers aimed at the Firefox Web site Monday to grab Firefox 3 as soon as it launched and also help Mozilla set a world record. World record or not, the latest Firefox release is a world-class Web browser. It looks impressive, renders text and images better than its predecessor, and helps you browse safely. But while it delivers pages faster by cutting down crucial milliseconds, its memory footprint (in unscientific tests) is still as big as a yeti.

Two of the most popular Linux browsers were unveiled this month after years of development -- the open source Firefox 3 and the proprietary Opera 9.5. Opera's launch a week before Firefox was like any other launch, unlike Firefox's much publicized world record attempt. But Opera 9.5 is no less revolutionary than Firefox, matching its open source rival feature for feature, from security-related enhancements to improved multilingual text rendering.

Two of the four major browsers have undergone some big changes in the past two weeks. Firefox 3 is, of course, the big news of the week, pulling down eight million or so downloads in its first 24 hours in the wild. However, the Opera browser updated to its much-awaited version 9.5 last week. Since both of them have got game but for different reasons, let's take a look at how they match up.

While Firefox 3’s location bar is perhaps my personal favorite new feature and the one I missed the most when I have to use Firefox 2 for some testing, there are a lot of people who find it weird, obtrusive and don’t like it including bookmarks and history among its results.