Firefox 3.0 keeps chugging along and while it remains unclear whether or not Mozilla will meet its release target for the browser (by the end of the year), things look to be back on track after the browser hit that performance speedbump in July. As Ars Technica notes, the beta is far more usable than the previous alpha releases (though it’s still not intended for a mainstream audience), due in part to Mozilla’s high standards. “Mozilla’s quality standards for betas dictate that the software must have all planned features fully implemented, must be stable and usable enough for daily browsing for a large number of people, and should display the vast majority of sites without serious regressions relative to the prior version.” New features include an all-new HTML rendering engine, the “Places” framework for bookmarks and browsing history, a redesigned file downloading applet and a number of architectural and scripting improvements. “Unlike Firefox 2, which was a bit light on new features, Firefox 3 is practically overflowing with shiny new goodies,” Ars says.

For more on Firefox 3.0 beta 1:
– see this article from Ars Technica