Firefox Update Enters Beta

The Mozilla team has just released Firefox 3.1, but I don't recommend you download it just yet as this is just the first of several beta releases.

This version is intended to be used by developers and Web designers to test their plug-ins and Web pages against the new browser. If you do decide to take Firefox 3.1 beta 1 for a spin, be warned: your add-ons may cease to function. Here are some highlights of what's under the hood:

Geolocation: a Java-based set of Web tools that can do things like plot maps, give directions, geotag photos, and give a location for a blog post.

Tab-switching shortcut: lets you preview another tab before switching it.

Better control over the Awesome Bar.

Improved fonts: I know what you're thinking. Who cares? Well, it may not seem like much, but better access to fonts will make your browsing experience much better, especially if you visit non-English-language sites.

Better video and audio: Firefox says it wants to make adding video to a Website as easy as it is to add a photo. Mozilla also says that with this improvement, video can be embedded in the page more smoothly instead of being trapped in "plug-in prison."

XHR Cross-site Access Control: This one is a little complicated. Basically, this means that users viewing something on Firefox will be able to see more mashups between two different sites, if both sites opt in to this feature.

Tracemonkey: Mozilla's touted Java engine, is supposed to be "super fast" but you have to turn it on in the controls because it's off by default. You should expect some bugs when using this engine at the moment.

Mozilla is hard at work on Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 and the team promises more improvements in the next release. No word yet on when Firefox 3.1 will be out of beta, but you can keep track of it here.

Other browser teams are hard at work, too. A new version of Flock, the social networking browser, is now available. Flock 2 highlights include MySpace support in the sidebar, Media RSS support (MRSS) and customized visual themes.

In other browser news, Google's Chrome grabbed an extra 3 percent of marketshare, according to GetClicky Web analytics, but is still limping along after a highly publicized debut.

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