Firefox 3

Three years in development, over 15,000 bug fixes and feature improvements, a new page rendering engine, remarkable performance gains, multiple OS integration—you could say the several hundred engineers working on Firefox have been busy. And their work has paid off. Speedy performance, thrifty memory usage, and, in particular, the address bar that now predicts where you want to go when you start typing (what Mozilla insiders refer to as the Awesome Bar) firmly plant Firefox at the top of the Web browser hill.

When you install Firefox 3, you don't have to worry about losing anything from Firefox 2—history, bookmarks, start page, search engine preference, and even downloads performed in the earlier browser version—all will be there to greet you like old friends. The installer for Firefox 3 is available in 46 languages, from Afrikaans to Ukrainian. The US English version weighs in at a 7.1MB for Windows, 17 for Mac OS X, and 8.6 for Linux. Installation is as painless as it gets—it took me about 20 seconds on a far-from-new XP system.

Firefox 3 looks barely different than its predecessor, but it's undergone a minor face-lift—in particular, the Forward and Back buttons, in combination, look like a sideways keyhole. The browser buttons and window frames have also been redesigned to conform with the look of whichever OS you're running—Windows XP, Vista, Macintosh, or Linux.