...and that's better performance. Recently, I've asked you how you feel about Firefox 2's performance, and many of you felt the same way I did: it's just not that good any more. RIAs, AJAX and Flash rich websites are very common today, and Firefox 2 can't cope with it all, stuttering under the load of a thousand scripts and server requests.
Firefox 3 RC2 is out today, and already I see some raving reviews. Walt Mossberg claims it's the best web browser out there, and I agree, although his piece is aimed at the Firefox initiates. Veterans, like me, are noticing some of the same issues from Firefox 2 in certain Firefox 3 betas; and while I'm not worried about a crash here or there, overall performance is a must have in today's web-oriented world. Some, like ZDnet's Dennis Howlett, are downright pessimistic about RC2; for him, the Firefox 3 experience has been a nightmare, which means that there's still work to be done before the final version is out.
Having finally yielded and tried Firefox 3 RC1, and now RC2 for a short while (in Vista, no less; I've installed it as a secondary OS, together with Firefox, just for the thrill of a fresh start), I must say that Firefox 3 is almost there. Memory leaks (Firefox 3 seems to use more memory than Firefox 2 in certain circumstances, but it never goes into all-you-can-eat mode) and freezes seem to be a thing of the past, and I haven't had the latest version crash on me yet. For the first time, I'm feeling glad that the new version took so long; hopefully, all this polishing will result in a very stable product.