Mozilla is hard at work getting ready for the launch of Firefox 3, and another Release Candidate is scheduled to be available tomorrow. They are still planning for a June launch of the next major milestone, and there is a lot of hype and anticipation surrounding the release. One thing you don't want to forget about is the Flock browser that is based upon Firefox!

Windows XP/Vista only As a web designer one of the things that is difficult to do is test a site in multiple versions of Internet Explorer, especially if you're running Vista which doesn't really include an option to run prior versions of IE.

One thing that Google is quite adamant on is making sure that you're using a browser they officially support, and more times than not Opera users are left in the dark. The new Gmail interface is no exception. If you try visiting the email service in Opera you'll be forced to use the old-school version of Gmail that doesn't have color-coded labels, among other things.

Since the release of Firefox 3 is right around the corner it comes as no surprise that Mozilla is trying to rally the troops community. Back in 2006 they celebrated World Firefox Day by getting people to invite their friends to try Firefox, and right about the time Firefox 2 launched Mozilla gave the much deserved acknowledgements.

Last year on May 31st we saw Google push Google Gears out the door, their open source browser extension project. One of their goals with the project was to provide a way for web applications to interact naturally with your desktop. More recently they decided to drop the "Google" part of the name and just go by "Gears" so that people realize that it's for everyone to get involved with.

Keyboard shortcuts step aside! Mouse gestures have been around for quite some time, and are often used as a way to quickly issue commands. One of the places that these are used the most is in the web browser, and that's because a lot of repetitive actions are performed there. Just think about how many times each day you click the back or refresh buttons.

Are you one of those people who like to conserve every square inch of screen space when it's possible? If so we have a treat for you today! We're going to demonstrate how you can become the ultimate Firefox minimalist with the help of some extensions and themes. If you implement everything that we have listed below you'll wonder where half of your browser has gone. You might also go cross-eyed...

Firefox 3 is scheduled to be finished in the next month or two, and with it users will begin seeing a completely redesigned interface that is tailored to the operating system that they are using. This version of Firefox has already made significant advances in terms of performance, and it seems as though the only thing people have been criticizing in Firefox 3 are the new themes.

Did ya miss us? We've been out of town since last Thursday, and since then there were some pretty big announcements that we wanted to be sure to cover. It appears as though the last few days before last weekend was the prime time for acquisitions. ;)

Firefox extensions are often lauded for the additional features and functionality that they bring to the browser. Some of them can save you crazy amounts of time, while others are more about beautifying Firefox.

Win; Mac; Linux Flock 1.2 Beta is now available, and as hard as it is to believe this version is even more social. This Beta makes it possible to keep up with your friends' activity on Digg or Pownce, and get AOL email notifications instantly as new messages come crawling in.

Development on the Firefox 3 browser is finally starting to wrap up. It's been a year and a half since Firefox 2 was released to the public, and by the end of May Firefox 3 will have entered the Release Candidate stages. This is all preparation for what looks to be a June 2008 launch of the long awaited Firefox 3 browser.

Win; Mac; Linux Opera is obviously not content with sitting on the sidelines when it comes to being the fastest browser out there. Back in February Mozilla decided that it was time to optimize it's JavaScript performance, and used a technique called Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) that gave it a nice boost.

Last week we took a look at where the various browsers stood up against each other in terms of market share. I was shocked (to say the least) when Internet Explorer triumphantly came out on top with a 1.22% market share increase. That really hit hard for Firefox who's market share was sent spiraling down to 16.96%, which was nearly a percent lower than the previous month.

I think it's safe to say that a lot of Firefox users associate the browser with security. It may normally keep you out of harms way, but that's not the case if you downloaded the Vietnamese language pack after February 18, 2008.

One of my favorite additions to the Firefox 3 browser (currently in Beta) are Smart Bookmarks. There's a good chance that you've played with things in other applications that are similar to Smart Bookmarks.

Opera Dragonfly is here, and as expected it is a new set of tools to help developers create functional websites. It's obvious that the Opera team wanted to develop something to draw developers to their browser, much like how Firebug has become an irreplaceable tool for the developers that use Firefox. The real question is whether Dragonfly is the tool we've been longing for?

And so April 2008 has come to an end, which means it's time to take a look at how the browsers stack up against each other once again. Who's rising, who's falling, and who can't catch a break? I think some of the stats might surprise you!

One of the most popular extensions for Firefox is Greasemonkey simply because it gives developers and users a chance to customize their browsing experience with very little work. The extension has been downloaded over 165,000 times which is pretty incredible, and new scripts that power the extension are always being created.

If you're using Firefox there is a very good chance that you've heard of the IE Tab extension. For many of us it helped ease the burden of switching to Firefox as the primary browser back when developers didn't see Firefox as a viable alternative. That is not nearly as big of a problem as it once was.