Firefox Download Day 2008: Firefox 3

Yesterday, 17th of June 2008, was the Firefox Download Day 2008. It marked the release of the world’s famous browser, Firefox 3. The Spread Firefox Community website had a unique way to literally “spread” out the words, by having many users pledge to download it at the Download Day, starting from 10AM Eastern Time (that is to say, GMT-8.00) for 24 hours time to achieve a world record for the most downloaded software in 24 hours. At the time this post is written, it has been over 5 million downloads for the new browser. I myself have tried the Firefox 3 Release Candidates for quite some time, and I noticed several new features introduced in the new Firefox 3.

Probably the most notable change in the new version is that the new version has a new default theme, and each differs for every operating system. It is Strata for Windows (XP and Vista got a similar but slightly different theme), and Firelight for Mac OS X.

Firefox 3 also have a built-in download manager, with the ability to search through your previous downloaded files. Firefox 3 also integrates with your antivirus to check your downloaded file. Also the addons manager is being done too. You now can search through the addons that is installed on your Firefox, and they even give the plugins a single section, so you can view all the plugins you got for Firefox.

And the tabs in Firefox 3 also get new features. Now Firefox gives option to save the tabs or just quit the tabs. And if you accidentally close a tab, you can look in the recently open tabs section to reopen them. The bookmarks manager is also different and you can also search on your bookmarks now.

However, the most important change is that Firefox 3 generally loads webpages faster than the previous versions. And not to mention that it also much more “lighter” in the memory and performance.

But if you really wanted to test out the new Firefox features, why don’t use it now? You can download it here. So until nex time, see you next post..!

jovee~

Windows Live Writer Preview

Yesterday a technical preview of Windows Live Writer was released to developers, according to LiveSide.net. In this preview (build 14.0.3913.522), there are several changes, especially in the user interface. Here are some screenshots on the new preview build:

	This is the screenshot of the Live Writer workspace.
	The most notable change is the editing or writing tab. With this tab you can easily switch from the Edit view, to Preview page and Source page. However, if you want to edit by using the theme in your blog, press Ctrl + F11 or click View >> Edit Using Theme
	This is the category page, which I think more preferable than the previous one. It now features the search function within categories and the addition panel is moved below the category list.