Code-named Shiretoko, the first test version of Mozilla's free upgrade to Firefox 3 is being touted as a public-preview release ostensibly intended for the developer community. However, everyday Web surfers will also find much to like about the improvements over Firefox 3 in Web compatibility, performance and speed.

Under the Hood

Under the hood, Firefox 3.1 beta 1 sports a number of improvements that won't be readily apparent to the casual Internet surfer, but are sure do make a difference in overall performance. The browser is based on the new Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which incorporates a number of changes that collectively act to improve performance and ease of use.

Support is provided for the latest Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) properties for Web pages written in HTML and XHTML. Also on tap is support for a number of esoteric Web technologies of interest to developers , such as JavaScript query selectors, Web worker threads, SVG transforms, and offline applications.

From the user's perspective, one of the more obvious improvements is search. Conducting searches within the browser's smart location bar is even easier and more productive. Results can now be restricted to only show the user's history, bookmarks, tagged Web pages, or smart keywords. Here's how it works:

Searches are restricted to user history by typing a caret (^) in front of the search term. Or searches can be limited to bookmarks by prefacing with an asterisk (*) or to tagged pages with a plus sign (+).

Firefox developers have also added a new tab-switching shortcut that makes it easy to display a thumbnail overview of all the Web pages currently open in the browser's tabs. Hold down the control key and click the Tab key to scroll through and select the page you want to view.

Search Specifics

Firefox 3.1 beta 1 fully supports the W3C Geolocation API behind the experimental Geode add-on that Mozilla unveiled earlier this month. What's cool about Geode is that the technology finally gives Web sites the ability to request -- and surfers to optionally grant -- access to the user's approximate position, so searches can produce results ranked by proximity.

Though Firefox 3.1 beta 1 will overwrite existing installations of Firefox, testers need not worry about losing their existing bookmarks and browsing history, which are ported over to the new version. However, certain Firefox extensions and other add-ons may not work in the latest beta version, though in my case this did not present a problem.

I did not come across any major issues with Firefox 3.1 beta when viewing the many Web sites that I typically visit daily. In this respect, the overall experience was far more satisfying than with early beta releases of Firefox 3.

And should you elect to return to Firefox 3 after taking the new 3.1 beta version for a test drive, don't fret about losing any personalized data , extensions or other add-ons. According to Mozilla, all this information is stored separately with the user's profile.