As Mozilla just released its Firefox 2.0 in October last year, while I am enjoyed using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1 as the main web browser, Mozilla has announced that they prepared to launch the new version of its browser, i.e. Firefox 3.0. Last month, according to this article from InformationWeek, Mozilla has launched the first preview of Firefox 3.0 Alpha with a code named “Gran Paradiso” that targets web application developers and Mozilla’s testing community. They planned to roll-out this new version when they being fully testing it for a period of as long as eight to nine months. And therefore, the predicted date of release for this enhanced browser would be fall into month of September or October this year. As I looked on the status meetings held at Mozilla, I found the following web page, entitled, “Firefox3/Firefox Requirements“.

On the Mozilla Foundation’s “must-have” priority list for Firefox 3.0:

• Improved interaction with add-ons, particularly in areas of installation, configuration and management

• Provide an extensible bookmarks back-end platform, thus improve search experience, protect against data loss as well

• Support for web services so they can act as content handlers

• Robust plugin support for Flash, Acrobat, WMV, Quicktime, Java

• Better web printing support

• An MSI installer for Windows platform

• A Built-in support for Microsoft’s CardSpace and OpenID as well

• Airbag built-in. Airbag is an open source tool from Google that can be used to identify why a program one developing crashes.

On the “highly desirable” feature list for Firefox 3.0: Improved password security; private browsing mode; web page archiving; blacklisting of malicious Web sites; improve download handling across multiple sessions; microformat detection framework as well as microformat handling capabilities; support for third-party identity management systems and moving help content from the client PC to the web.

The above feature list remind me of one thing: the law of expectation is pervasive in the web community, the consumer expectations shall always outpace the advancement in software technology. I observed Mozilla Foundation for some time now, and no doubt it is a very good company that puts its users in the first place, when a company puts it users first, many beautiful things can happen.