Here are the benchmarks thus far:

Be sure to check out Brendan’s Roadmap Updates for more.  Also here are a few handy links from John Resig on the testing:

• SunSpider, 1.83x faster (released by the WebKit team)
• SunSpider ubench, 22.5x faster (released by the WebKit team for testing Squirrelfish)
• Image Manipulation Demo, 6.46x faster (Change the contrast and brightness of images dynamically)
• Matrix Manipulation, 6.26x faster (with the Sylvester JavaScript library)

So the big question is, will Firefox be able to make Firefox 3.1 even faster in the area of JavaScript?  If you have the nightly build of Firefox 3.1 installed, you can turn TraceMonkey on by going to about:config and then toggle the javascript.options.jit.content setting from false to true.  For the rest of us out there though, this is just one more surprise to look forward to once Firefox 3.1 gets rolled out to the public.

For more info, be sure to check out Firefox 3.1 to Get More JavaScript Speed Optimizations – as the CyberNet team had done a good in-depth look into this and has done the best job at making it make sense to everybody.

Along with a fresh design, Mozilla Labs has also release Weave Prototype 0.2.  What is Weave, you say?  It is Mozilla’s answer to the problem of keeping all your bookmarks, history, passwords and more in sync across multiple computers.

So what is new in this 0.2 version of Weave?

• Intelligent scheduler for synchronization to improve performance.
• Expanded set of supported browser settings and metadata, including:  Bookmarks, Browsing History, Cookies, Saved Passwords, Saved Form Data, and Tabs.
• Support for retrying failed network operations.
• New server format performs better when there are frequent changes (e.g., for history sync).
• Significant reworking of the startup experience, including a new Setup Wizard that performs account creation in chrome and allows for customization of settings.
• Improved error detection and handling.
• Notification dialog added to the status bar for displaying error, status and asynchronous events with or without required actions, e.g. authentication errors, notification of shares, etc.

Might be worth mentioning that they are still saying this version is for testing purposes only, so if Firefox later on kicks you in the head, points its browsing finger and laughs while your down, you were warned.

Ready to test it out?  Then download Weave 0.2 here!

Here recently, I just switched from Google Browser Sync to Foxmarks.  Once Weave gets all the kinks out though, I’ll probably be switching again because I really like the idea of having everything accessible no matter which PC I might be at.  Check out the Weave 0.2 Release Notes for more information.

So you woke up early, ran to your PC, wanted to download Firefox 3 and you see there is no buzz about it yet.  Did you mark the right day on your calendar?

Yes, today is Download Day for Firefox 3.

Right now we are just waiting for Mountain View, California, USA at 10:00:00 AM. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) to happen.  At that time the switch will be flipped and Firefox 3 will be ready for the masses!

To help with the time conversions, check out this link.  For the US, it looks like the eastern time zone will get it at 1:00 PM.  The central time zone gets it at noon.  The mountain time zone gets it at 11:00 AM and the west coast will get it at 10:00 AM.

Now I just wonder how many times an hour the Firefox home page will be refreshed during the day looking for changes?

Keep sending in your comments and questions, will be helping you all through out the day!

Update: Watch the Mozilla team’s progress through all of today’s tasks and jobs:  http://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_3.0

Update #2: Once the time has come, most of us can pickup the download here:  http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.0/win32/en-US/ Downloading from here will not be counted towards the world record downloads. So please try to do it via getfirefox.com.

Update #3: Loads of fake Firefox 3 sites are popping up, especially on sites like Digg.com.  Please make sure you go to mozilla.org to download Firefox 3 and no where else.

Update #4: Less than an hour to go, and SpreadFirefox.com is having MySQL connection issues. All you Spread Firefox peeps feel free to join us here. :D

Update #5: It’s time! No wait – getfirefox.com is already dead.

Update #6: Here is the latest from Mozilla:

The outpouring of interest and enthusiasm around Firefox 3 has been overwhelming (literally!). Our servers are currently feeling the burn and should be back to normal shortly. Download day will officially commence once the site goes live. The 24 hours period will be clocked from that moment. Thanks for your continued support.

Update #7: Mozilla’s Firefox web site is coming back up with a new design!
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Update #8: Mozilla’s Firefox web site is now pointing to the Firefox 3 download link. Enjoy! (If you get “connection interrupted” try again… later.)

Update #9: Able to grab Firefox 3 yet? If so, then grab your own certificate as a special gift for helping out:

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/certificate_form

Update #10: Mozilla.com web traffic is pushing well over 2 Gigabits a second of just pure HTTP traffic. That is in addition to the 13 Gigabits a second or so of download traffic. We are still at around 14,000 download/minute and mozilla.com is responding well! Go Mozilla community and IT team!

+ Need a New Theme for Firefox 3? – FirefoxFacts.com has got you covered!

Like what you see? Subscribe for more!

Just wanted to explain my lack of posting since last week.  We had a lot of bad storms down here, and in my neck of the woods – we just got power turned back on last night.  I had to spend 3 days without my favorite browser. *sniffle* All is good now though, so the Firefox Facts should be coming back to you as soon as possible!  Thanks for your understanding!

You can download the Firefox 3 – RC2 at the Mozilla web site if your feeling like you want to do a little testing.  If you have RC1 and you want to move to RC2, just go up to “Help” in the menu bar, then “Check for Updates”.

Check out the release notes for yourself and then download if your ready to take the leap.  Once again, must say this isn’t the final version just yet, so unless your just overly curious like some of us – might want to wait before downloading.

TechWeb – Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 Now Available

Mozilla Links – Firefox 3 RC 1 full review

Lifehacker – Firefox 3 On Track To Be Speediest Browser

Asa Dotzler – Firefox 3 release candidate one

Hardware 2.0 – Firefox 3.0 RC 1 takes the lead on speed

The Tech Lounge – Firefox 3 RC1 Goes Public

Been browsing Google’s Blog Search reading awesome review after awesome review. Big congrats go out the Mozilla team and hears to a successful launch of Firefox 3 after the release candidate stage!

• Specify the max height for the Auto-complete list
• Remove splitter between the URL and Search bars to save space
• Changed from #bookmarks-menu in FF2
• Remove the Bookmark star, I use Ctrl-D instead
• Remove the URL bar Go button
• Style the new auto-complete list
• Make the active tab wider (when you have a few tabs open)

Grab them all on his blog post, and be sure to tell him thanks too. For more Firefox 3 chrome hacking fun, if you have the Stylish extension you might grab a few of these tweaks and changes.

+ Check Out FirefoxFacts.com’s Firefox 3 Section for More!

Over at Ars Technica this is what they are saying:

During intensive browsing with approximately 50 tabs, I have found that Firefox 3 generally consumes less than half of the memory used by Firefox 2.0.0.12. Firefox 3 is also snappier and more responsive when switching between tabs and performing other operations that typically lag in Firefox 2.0.0.12 when the browser is experiencing heavy load.

This is great news for any Firefox fans out there. Over the recent years the memory problems seem to be the big sticking point for a lot of people. Has this mountain of an issue finally been solved?

+ Firefox 3 Goes on a Diet, Eats Less Memory than IE and Opera

My first thoughts were “oh, it’s shinny and blue” but it does the job it sets out to do. It does fit into the Windows Vista look and feel pretty well, don’t you think?

Here is your mostly Firefox 3 Beta 3 link roundup for this week:

• Syncing iPhone Bookmarks with Firefox
• MidnightFox Theme Gets All New Buttons??
• Risk-Free Firefox 3
• Firefox Live Bookmarks in the Sidebar
• A deep look to Firefox 3 Beta 3
• Extend Firefox 2 winners
• First look: Firefox 3 beta 3 polishes rough edges
• Best of: Firefox Greasemonkey Scripts

Firefox Media of the Week

Is Firefox the new “F” word?