Microsoft researchers are working on a new browser called Gazelle which it promises will have some impressive new features and capabilities.  The firm released a research paper (PDF) late last week, saying that the new browser would offer significant security improvements compared to other browsers, including Internet Explorer. “No existing browsers, including new architectures like Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome and OP, have a multi-principal operating system construction that gives a browser-based operating system the exclusive control to manage the protection of all system resources among web site principals,” Microsoft said in the report.The browser will change this tradition by being built on its own kernel, in effect allowing it to operate as an operating system. This means that Gazelle could intelligently identify traffic, and react to anything malicious.

“Our prototype implementation and evaluation experience indicates that it is realistic to turn an existing browser into a multi-principal operating system that yields significantly stronger security and robustness with acceptable performance and backward compatibility,” the researchers wrote.

The browser is only open for discussion at this stage, and there are no current plans for a release in any form.

“The implementation and evaluation of our IE-based prototype shows promise of a practical multi-principal operating system-based browser in the real world,” the researchers concluded.

1. Conform to better web standards

Internet Explorer (IE) is anything but a fully compliant web standard browser. Every other browser, including Opera and Safari is standards compliant. What this means is that IE users can’t “see” the page exactly how the web designer wanted it to be viewed. But due to the widespread, albeit declining, popularity of IE, more sites are designed for IE users which means that the site appears broken in other browsers. A newer version of IE, with stricter regard to web standards will save viewers, as well as web developers, countless headaches. Nowadays, a website appears broken in Firefox once in a blue moon, ie. never.

Nowadays, more and more websites are being developed within the guidelines of web standards, so IE users risk having a “broken browser” while other users are happily browsing. Microsoft should concentrate on adhering to stricter web guidelines. Their IE 8 Beta is a step in the right direction.

2. Let’s see some innovation in Internet Explorer

Graphical updates aren’t innovative, Microsoft. Let’s be honest. What new features have we seen lately and those that are actually useful? While Microsoft is scratching their heads, Mozilla has come up with the “awesome bar” in Firefox 3. You can search your entire browsing history just by typing a word in the address bar, and Firefox displays the most relevant results. It has saved me the trouble of having to type in common web addresses that I regularly visit.

Then there is the crash recovery feature in Firefox, which automatically restores your previous browsing session in case of a power out or if Windows crashes(which it does often). And the best thing that Microsoft has come up with in IE 8, is Activities and Safari-like Webslices.

3. Build a robust and more secure browser

Face it. If the underlying code is flawed, hackers will continually find ways to exploit holes, no matter how many patches you push out to frustrated customers. Although noting is perfect and even though a security hole surfaced in Firefox 3, but having a robust and reliable base from the ground up will go a long way in terms of security and reliability, and less development time spent on fixing and patches.

But is Microsoft alone to blame? It appears that hackers deliberately target IE because of it’s widespread popularity. That way, if they can successfully exploit a hole, they have greater chances of infecting a wide array of PCs. But that trend is soon to change, with Firefox’s increasing popularity.

4. Open source and a plethora of plug-ins

While IE may never go open source, but Microsoft can at least work to have a wide range of plug-ins for their users. Another reason for Firefox’s growing market share is that is is highly customizable with the tons of plug-ins available. With a simple download, Firefox can be anything you want it to be. A full-fledged and much better RSS feed reader or even a blog editor, which I use . And even the look of Firefox can be changed with themes.

It is impossible for a single company to meet the needs of millions of users and that’s where open source comes in. With the combined resources of hundreds of developers, Microsoft can ensure that its browser will appeal to everyone’s needs.

5. Have a faster and more efficient rendering engine

According to a PCWorld.com test report in May 2008, Firefox took a mere 3.61 seconds to load a page from the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark site. IE 8 (Beta) isn’t much far behind, at 10.2 seconds, compared to the dismal 50 seconds it took IE 7 to complete the benchmark. Even I feel a new sense of speed after switching to Firefox 3. Pages load much faster on my turtle-speed net connection than IE 7. Kudos to Mozilla for building a great and free browser.

I use Firefox 3, do you?

The best thing I did was moving to Firefox 3. To read a complete review of Firefox 3, I recommend heading to the Winsupersite. And if you’ve made up your mind, you can Get Firefox with Google Toolbar. Yes, I get a commission every time someone downloads.

Given that there’s no established Guinness World Record for software downloads, Mozilla is destined for the record book no matter what happens. A Mozilla spokesperson said the company is working with the Guinness Book Of World Records to verify the record attempt and will be furnishing 10% of the company’s download logs for an extrapolated final download count.

Justin Fitzhugh, director of IT for Mozilla, is confident that Mozilla will be able to handle the bandwidth surge, which he said is likely to be a fraction of the load Mozilla bears when it releases automated browser updates to its installed base of users. “We’ve scaled for this already,” he said, noting that in addition to the servers in its own data center, Mozilla relies on donated server capacity around the world.

Mozilla claims that it has 175 million users in more than 230 countries. The United Nations recognizes 192 member states. Presumably, Mozilla is counting perhaps a dozen countries with limited or substantial international recognition (Taiwan), several would-be countries not recognized by other nations (Abkhazia), and a variety of territories (Norfolk Island).

Over at SpreadFirefox.com, there’s an interactive map that lists by country those who have pledged to download Firefox 3.0 on the designated day. At the time this article was filed, the United States had the lead, with almost 38,000 promising to participate in the download event. In Turkmenistan, only six people have committed. Enthusiasm for the download record attempt is clearly higher in neighboring Uzbekistan, where 50 people have pledged to participate.

About two weeks ago, Mozilla released Firefox 3.0 RC1, a version of the new browser deemed stable enough for public testing. Mozilla says the official 3.0 release will occur in June.

Firefox 3.0 RC1 is noticeably faster than version 2.0. It also handles memory better.

As of May 29, Firefox has 17.76% of the global browser market share, according to Net Applications. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer accounts for 74.83%, and Apple’s Safari accounts for 5.81%.

1: Hyperwords – All in the Right Click!

This is undoubtedly one of the best Firefox extensions available and my favourite too. It adds a huge number of options to the mouse right click, thereby saving you a lot of time.

For example you want to look up the meaning of a word, translate it to a different language, check it in Wikipedia, find the Whois or Google links info about a page, you get all that in the right click. You don’t need to open a separate tab and go to another web page. These were just a few examples and once you install this and explore it, you will be amazed to find the number of options there. See screenshots below.

2: Paste Email – No more repetitive typing!

The Paste Email extension helps you to paste repetitive texts in forms or emails with one or two clicks through the context menu / right-click. It is very helpful if you deal with a lot of emails everyday and have to type words like ” See ya ” or ” Thanks buddy ” again and again. This extension will help you to insert these repetitive words easily and save your time there.

3: Read it Later – Just a click to Save!

There may have been times when you are in a hurry and you want to save a webpage for reading later. Now adding it to the Bookmarks could be a little tedious and you just hope if you could have done it with a single click. Thats when Read it Later comes into play. Mark has already described it in great detail here.

4: Shareaholic – The easiest way to share!

If you are active in multiple social networks like Facebook, Stumbleupon etc and you want to share a link with your friends then going to each of the sites separately and submitting the links there could be quite time taking. Here the Shareaholic Firefox add-on comes into the picture. It creates a small button just beside the browser address bar from where you can easily share the link in multiple networks. You can customize it and it also supports Twitter and Friendfeed. It also helps you to email a page if you have a Bzzster email account.

5: Next Tab – Open links in the next tab

If you are a heavy tab user like me, then you will find this extension to be very useful.

Lets say if you have 10 tabs open and you click on a link in the first tab. You will find that the link opens at the end and you need to go to the end of the list to check the page. Next Tab firefox add-on solves this everyday problem and helps you to open the link just beside that tab. Simple and effective solution.

6: TinyUrl Creator – Easy Tiny Url Creation

If we want to shorten a long link to a short one we know we can go to tinyurl.com and do it from there. This add-on creates an option in the tools menu to easily create a tiny url from a web page. Now I know that you can use the tiny url bookmarklet too, but this is better. Thats because it also saves you from the hassle of copying the tiny url. It saves it directly to the clipboard. See screenshots below.

I hope you like these extensions and they help you become more productive with Firefox.

Note: Firefox 3 hasn’t been officially released yet—a public preview release is available and intended for testers only. While it’s a very stable preview, only use it if you’re willing to deal with bugs and instability as the Mozilla teams ready the official release.

That said, our favorite Firefox 3 features include:

10. Souped-up Add-ons manager

A big part of what makes Firefox so special to power users is its extensibility with extensions, add-ons, plug-ins and themes, and Firefox 3′s Add-ons dialog got the attention it deserved. The Fox’s Add-Ons menu is more robust and intuitive on at least two fronts. You can search and install extensions and themes right from the pop-up box, no browsing required. Also, a new plug-in manager lets you enable and disable third-party helpers like Flash, QuickTime, and anything else that makes content work (and causes you grief).

9. More intuitive interface overall

Mozilla tweaked and updated a whole lot of little things here and there throughout Firefox 3, which amounts to a big overall boost in usability. Most noticeably when you first switch, the Back button only appears on the address bar if there is a page to go back to, and when it does, it’s bigger and easier to click. Users who want to make sites with small text more readable permanently are in luck; Firefox 3 can increase the size of images and text, or just the text, on hard-to-read sites. In addition, Firefox 3 applies favicons more consistently to bookmarks, you can click a site’s favicon to get extended site identification information, you can resize the search box to hold more than two words, and the find-on-page search box automatically grabs the currently selected word, just to name a few new UI improvements.
In the long term, once webapps catch up, Firefox 3 will let you do really neat stuff in your browser, like register your favorite webapps to open certain file types, and access your online data even when you’re not connected to the ‘net. To get a taste, see how you can configure Firefox 3 to launch Gmail for mailto links.

8. Stronger phishing and malware protection

Firefox 3 has stronger filters and protection against malware, phishing sites, cookies, and other tools that compromise privacy and security. A malware warning shows up when you visit sites known to install malicious software, Firefox 3 doesn’t show the content of knock-off sites (like PayPal “Update Your Account” phishing scams) by default, and Firefox 3 checks against Google’s ever-growing blacklist of phishing sites. Now you can feel even better switching your less tech-aware relatives over to the open-source browser.

7. Improved download manager

Never wonder where a download came from, or went to, again. Gran Paradiso’s download manager lets you search through recent files, resume big downloads after a crash or restart, and lets you keep an eye on your transfers in the status bar.

6. Native looks for every system

Your browser is a serious part of your computer time, so having it look like nothing else on your system can be seriously annoying. Firefox’s designers made system integration a priority with this release, and it shows—even Windows XP’s and Vista’s button layouts have subtle differences in color and shading. There’s differences at deeper levels, too, with Cover Flow-type styling in the add-ons manager for OS X, transparencies in key places in Vista and OS X, and other tweaks that make your browser feel like a natural extension of your system.

5. Streamlined “Remember password” handling

No more guessing whether you’re saving the right password or clicking “Cancel” on unnecessary pop-up requests. Gran Paradiso only asks you to utilize its password-saving function once you’re already in and sure everything worked, and it won’t block you from seeing the logged-out version of a page if you don’t want to sign in.

4. Smart bookmarks

Much like iTunes’ Smart Playlists, Firefox 3′s new Smart Bookmarks function can analyze your browsing habits and create lists of links based on it. The default bookmark toolbar only comes with three standards, “Most Visited,” “Recently Bookmarked,” and “Recent Tags” (more on that later), but it’s none too hard to make your own.

3. Places Organizer replaces the Bookmark Manager

Previous versions of Firefox’s bookmark organizer have been pretty utilitarian affairs that make you drag and drop your links around nested folders. With Firefox 3′s new Places Organizer, those with reams of URLs can find them using boolean rule searches and multi-column results, as well as keep them better organized with a tagging system. Better still, you can save those smart searches for when you next need them.

2. Smart Location Bar learns how you browse

Like a personal assistant who telepathically knows when you’re going to need just the right phone number (or Starbucks fix), Firefox 3′s address bar, now dubbed the Smart Location Bar, helps you get to your frequently visited, or recently discovered, sites in super-quick fashion. That application you just read about on Lifehacker, but can’t remember the name? Type “li” into your address bar, and Firefox instantly pulls the relevant sites from your history. The bar also learns through repetition, so the next time you start searching with “li,” it knows you’re looking for Lifehacker, not Linux.

1. Insanely improved performance

It’s not flashy, and it doesn’t have any social networking features, but Firefox 3′s actual performance is the best reason anyone should consider upgrading, or making the switch to the ‘fox. Firefox’s engineers claim that their third major release is 9.3 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 in JavaScript performance, and 2.7 times faster than Firefox 2. This means snappier browser performance when you’re using webapps like Gmail, Remember the Milk, and more. Even more important, especially for Mac users, is the improved memory usage and more than 15,000 improvements that make for a less crash-prone browser. I’ve seen noticeable speed-ups in page loading in Linux, XP, and Vista, but the real reason I’ve switched over to using Release Candidate 1 is that I haven’t had to cross my fingers every time a Flash-based video loads. Graphed comparison of memory use amongst browsers in Vista courtesy of John Resig.
As you can tell, we’re completely geeked out about the upcoming Firefox 3 release. For more about the new version of the browser, check out our continuing coverage:

• The Complete Field Guide to Testing Firefox 3
• Make Your Extensions Work with Firefox 3
• Firefox 3 Robots Easter Egg
• Set Firefox 3 to Launch Gmail for mailto Links
• Firefox 3 RC 1 Portable Edition Now Available

What features or changes have made you a true believer in Firefox 3? What upgrades are you still waiting to see added to the mix? Let’s hear your take in the comments.

Barring major bugs, RC 1 could become the final release of the third major iteration of the ‘fox, slated to officially drop in June. Check out our complete field guide to testing Firefox 3 if you want to make your extensions work with the RC. If you’re already using Firefox 3, be sure to type about:robots into the address bar to discover a fun little Easter egg. For a detailed list of what Firefox 3 has to offer, check out its release notes.