In these 12 betas that have been released for Firefox 4, the Mozilla team has squashed more than 7,000 bugs.  I would say that is a pretty successful (but rather long) development cycle. Here is a little more about the process from the Mozilla Blog:

We are working closely with the community of add-on developers to ensure their Firefox Add-ons are ready to customize the features, look and functionality of Firefox 4 Beta. We couldn’t build Firefox 4 Beta without the help of our millions of beta testers and their feedback, which we welcome as we work to deliver an awesome experience to the more than 400 million Firefox users worldwide.

So, when will Firefox 4 finally be released? I’d say sometime in March is most likely.  To lean more about Firefox 4 – Beta 12, be sure to check out the release notes from Mozilla.com.

Overall, it looks like they are going to release new betas (till Firefox 4 is released) every two to three weeks.  The major changes this time around are moving the tabs to the top of Firefox and the introduction of the single Firefox button.  The Firefox button will be the place where you can get to the most used options in a single click.  (Mac and Linux fans will have these changes soon too).

A few more Windows features Beta 1 will deliver includes:

• New Add-Ons Manager: gives you more space to manage your Add-Ons, Themes and Plugins. Customizing your browser has never been easier!
• HD Video: Watch hardware-accelerated, super-smooth, HD-quality HTML5 video on YouTube using the new WebM format.
• Privacy improvements: Mozilla always puts privacy first, and this latest beta fixes flaws in some Web standards that could expose your browser history.
• Crash Protection: Experience uninterrupted browsing (now available on all platforms) – when a plugin crashes or freezes, you can resume browsing by simply refreshing the page.
• Performance: We know that performance is important. In this version, we focused on improving responsiveness at start-up and during page loads. This is just the beginning for performance improvements in Firefox 4.

Check out the rest of the details over at the Mozilla blog.

Also, as you can see pictured above, Firefox 4 Beta 1 includes a new feedback add-on.  Anytime you run across something you like or don’t like, click the feedback button and, well… give them your feedback about it.

• Download the Firefox 4 Beta 1

Are you excited yet? We are closer to having our hands on Firefox 4 than ever before.  If you check it out, be sure to leave your own thoughts and reviews about Firefox 4 Beta 1 in the comments.

Did you know you can tidy Firefox up, with VACUUM? No, I do not mean that thing you use to clean your carpets.  Here is a way to VACUUM your places database from within the browser.

Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Open the Firefox tools menu and click on error console.
2. Paste the following command into the code box as a single line:
Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");
3. Hit the “Enter” key or click the evaluate button.

The user interface will freeze for a moment, but after you are done, your SQLite databases should be less fragmented than before, leading to a leaner and meaner Firefox browsing experience.

Thanks goes to Mozilla developer Jeremy Orem for this fantastic tip!

Bonus – Vacuum Places Improved is an add-on that will do this for you automatically.

Here are the current initial goals:

• Provide better application UI responsiveness
• Improve stability from slow rendering or crashes caused by content
• Improve performance, especially on multi-core machines

Now why do this, and what does it even mean?  Well, both Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 have moved in this direction for increased stability.  For an example, with multi-process support, a single tab crash wouldn’t take down your entire Firefox browsing experience.  It would only effect that one tab, because it would be seen as its own process. 

It might be a year or more before we see this in action via our own Firefox installations, however it is nice to see that Firefox is always looking to expand and check into other areas of stabilization to see if we can all benefit from it.

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.

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

Using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark test for each of the browsers, here are the results from best to worst on who was the fastest around:

1. Firefox 3 Nightly (PGO Optimized): 7263.8ms
2. Firefox 3 Nightly (02/25/2008 build): 8219.4ms
3. Opera 9.5.9807 Beta: 10824.0ms
4. Firefox 3 Beta 3: 16080.6ms
5. Safari 3.0.4 Beta: 18012.6ms
6. Firefox 2.0.0.12: 29376.4ms
7. Internet Explorer 7: 72375.0ms

Now before I get somebody mad because this is only a test of JavaScript, let me explain that this test is very relevant because there are tons of sites (thanks to Web 2.0) that heavily reply on it. To get more information on the research and information you can get from this study be sure to check it out over at CybernetNews.com.

Over on Go Firefox!, an interesting question was posted: Which uses less system resources (memory)?

My theory is using tabs would use less resources then having the same sites opened in separate windows. My reasoning is each window has to load the entire browser interface, not just the page content. So, I did a little experiment. First using Firefox 2.0.0.1 with a clean profile (no extensions, no plug-ins and default theme) and imported my bookmarks from another profile.

+ Want to See the Results? Check Out the Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog!

Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.

Dynamic speed increases can be obtained with the unique prefetching mechanism, which recycles idle bandwidth by silently loading and caching all of the links on the page you are browsing.

+ Learn More About and Download the Fasterfox Extension!

[Get Firefox Up to Speed Again!]