Hands on: Firefox 3 beta 5

As Firefox version 3 has inched closer and closer to final product status, the chorus of voices declaring that the betas are ready for prime-time has grown deafening. So this week, I decided that I could wait no longer: I dove right in and made Firefox 3 beta 5 my primary browser on both my Windows XP and Mac OS X Leopard machines. Based on my experiences so far, I can say that the chatter filling the blogosphere is totally on-point: not only is beta 5 (the final beta, mind you) totally stable, fast and reliable--it's actually more stable, faster and more reliable than Firefox 2.0.

While Firefox was once clearly the king of the browser hill, I've recently felt that Safari 3 and Opera 9 have edged out the aging Firefox 2.0 in terms of performance and stability. However, judging by my experiences with beta 5, Firefox is back with a vengance. Not only is it blazing fast, it scrolls smoother than the other browsers, has a more unified look under both Windows and OS X and finally resolves the memory leakage issues that plagued version 2.0. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself. Be sure to note, however, that this still technically is beta software, so back up your Firefox 2.0 extensions and preferences beforehand, okay?

For more on Firefox 3.0:
- download beta 5 at the Mozilla developer center