I am a loyal Firefox fan and a loyal user for years and so I have seen how Firefox grew and improved. Mozilla does a great job of developing Firefox to the point where it is even with MS counterpart Internet Explorer, if not better, when it comes to usability, stability and performance.
Last April 2, Mozilla released the fifth and final beta stage of Firefox nearing the stable release schedule in June. Curious as to how Firefox 3 looks in my Kubuntu desktop, I installed it parallel to my Firefox 2 installation just to see how it looks and performs in my Acer 5570 notebook.
Aside from the small line appearing under the tabs, Firefox 3 looks fine and somehow, I notice that it has faster response than Firefox 2. Though it could be a classic case of placebo effect. The welcome screen is so cool stepping a bit on the graphical side compared to the previous version which displays a very basic screen.
The look and feel somehow improved with smoother graphics and again, the menus give slick response. Aside from the look and feel of Firefox 3 beta 5, I checked the memory usage of Firefox 3 comparing it to Firefox 2 and I notice that both has the same memory usage but still it was inconclusive. I was looking for some benchmarking software to use to benchmark the performance of Firefox 3 but I can’t find any that suits my preferences.
Though it may still be early to rate the new Firefox version, the beta version is looking good and the best part is being an Open Source software, a lot of developer minds can help bring the next version to a much stable level. As they say, great minds think alike. 
Can’t wait for the stable release.
Firefox 3 beta 5 release notes are available for viewing here and feedbacks can be sent here.
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