There is a lot of talking going around the Internet about Firefox 3 Beta being ready for mass usage. It's because of an article by Reuters where the creators of Firefox supposedly told them that the Firefox 3 Beta is ready for everyone to use after months of being in development.

Omar tipped me off yesterday to a rather amazing presentation creator currently in private Beta called SlideRocket. It's completely Flash-based, and the interface I would say is one of the best out of all the competing products.

You may have noticed in the Daily Downloads today that I mentioned an application called ESET SysInspector that is currently in the Beta stage. From what I gather it's not an incredibly new application (released late last year), but this was the first that I had heard about it.

One of my favorite Firefox extensions, Locationbar², has finally been updated to work with the recently released Firefox 3 Beta 4. It can be used to make the domain that you're currently viewing stand out more than the rest of the URL, which makes users less susceptible to phishing attacks.

We've always been a huge fan of the Simple Machines Forum (SMF) software that powers our forum, and I've recommended it to a lot of other people. This free forum software is about to get even better as they just made the first public version of SMF 2.0 Beta available, and after 18-months in the making it looks pretty darn nice.

One of our faithful readers, Alex, noticed our underlying plea for an invite to the Dropbox service that we wrote about earlier today. While Dropbox has no formal way to invite a friend they do let you share a folder with others, and if they don't have an account it will let them create one on-the-spot. So Alex shared a folder with us, and we were able to get an account!

With the release of Firefox 3 Beta 4 the other day it is good to see how many extension developers have been providing updates to prepare the launch of the Firefox 3 browser. The extensions that need the most love and care are those that deal with bookmarks, and that's because the backend of the bookmarking system in Firefox 3 has been significantly changed.

Last year I wrote about how to use a service Microsoft acquired back in 2005 called FolderShare. It's purpose is to keep directories/files on multiple computers in sync with each other without needing a remote server to host any of the files. That way the user's computers are really the only limitation as to what can be shared.

It's here! Firefox 3 Beta 4 has been added to Mozilla's FTP's, and the distribution has already begun among download sites. This release was expected by the end of February, but they must have hit a few bumps in the road. And now Firefox 3 Beta 5 is currently scheduled for late March.

Apple just got done wrapping up the iPhone SDK event that they had scheduled for today, and they actually had quite a bit to say. about half of the time was dedicated to enterprise users who have been wishing for Exchange support, and the other half walked the attendees through how the SDK was going to work. And they of course had some applications to demo which we'll cover below.

We've been receiving quite a few requests from our readers wanting to know what we think about Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, and whether it is worth the upgrade. I downloaded and installed it shortly after it was released yesterday, and the total installation time on my Vista machine took around 4 or 5 minutes. There were absolutely no problems upgrading to IE 8 from IE 7.

So far all that we've known about Internet Explorer 8 was that they finally decided to push for web standards, and for that I'm extremely grateful. Microsoft has, however, posted an IE 8 Readiness Toolkit likely in preparation for MIX08 which starts today and runs until March 7th. In the toolkit they have download links (which we've posted at the end of this article) as well as a feature guide.

Now that Firefox 3 is approaching the home stretch it is important that Mozilla starts to throw in performance improvements to really make the browser purr. Over in our forum xpgeek pointed out that a Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) build of Firefox 3 had been created which greatly improved the performance of JavaScript in the browser.

Microsoft has started to send out emails to select individuals indicating that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is right around the corner. The email is targeted to people whom they would like to receive feedback from before they open the doors to the general public, and no specific date for the IE8 Beta release has been given.

Here at CyberNet we're huge fans of the Evernote software (review), which comes in both free and paid versions. They are going one step further by offering an online note-taking service (currently in private Beta) that will inevitably sync with their desktop clients.

TechCrunch wrote an interesting article today regarding how the Google Toolbar 5 Beta for Internet Explorer "hijacks" the browser's 404 error page.

Mozilla just announced that they are planning on having the first Release Candidate build of Firefox 3 Beta 3 coming this Monday, and although no word on a release date was announced it can probably be expected about a week after that.

It's here! Less than two weeks ago we gave you a preview of what was to come in the open source Spicebird application, and I'm happy to say that a public Beta is now available.

AOL is embarking on new ground with their next milestone release of the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Just yesterday they released AIM 6.8 Beta to the public with a new feature that I'm guessing more people will hate rather than love. That's why it's a good thing it's optional!

If you've been brave enough to venture into the realm of Firefox 3 Beta 2 there is no denying that you've seen the newly designed Location/Address Bar (). It's big, prominent, and is likely to irritate some people who prefer the more streamlined Address Bar that we've come to know and love. Give me just 30 seconds of your time and we can bring back the classic look...