Firefox 3 beta, memory usage, and overlooked extensions

The big news today in the software world is a new beta version for Mozilla Firefox. The world has been sitting on Version 2 for almost a year and a half now, but the open-source foundation is making sure that Version 3 is fully baked before releasing a final version.

The latest beta release promises “more than 900 enhancements from the previous beta,” but a large number of those improvements are back end and mostly invisible. Two significant features in the fourth beta that I appreciate are: an improved password manager toolbar that replaces the old semifunctional dialog; and better performance for system-intensive Web-based software such as Gmail.

As for the promise of improved memory usage, I’m not sure I can call it a rousing success. I personally noticed slight memory improvements with Firefox 3 beta 4 compared with Firefox 2.0.0.12, but no major leaps. By default, Firefox 3 beta is still a fairly big browser that will definitely suck up your system resources once you have a number of tabs open or Web apps running.

Learn what else is new in this latest release from a first-look article by Download.com editor Seth Rosenblatt.

Another big hit in the blogosphere today was the publication of “10 Killer Firefox Extensions That You Don’t Probably Know About” from the community site WebUpon. It’s a hit or miss list, and I wouldn’t call most of those overlooked, but Firefox users sure love finding new extensions.

In response to WebUpon’s list, I’ve got my own three favorite “overlooked” Firefox extensions that have been selected specifically for power downloaders. Even better, all of these extensions–DownThemAll, CustomizeGoogle, and Download PDF–are compatible with the latest Firefox 3 beta release.