Yesterday, Mozilla released Firefox 3, a major update to its popular web browser. This open-source project is the culmination of three years of work by thousands of contributing developers and testers. The most dramatic change that users will notice is that it is roughly three times faster than Firefox 2 — but version 3 boasts over 15,000 improvements ranging from aesthetic integration with the operating system to a revolutionary smart bar (that learns from your browsing habits to make frequently used features more accessible) to virus/malware/phishing protection to improved memory management and more.

With the release of Firefox 3, Microsoft has its work cut out for itself as it struggles to improve and refine its Internet Explorer browser (version 7, released last year, is a respectable upgrade from IE6; version 8 is expected next year).

To learn more, go to the Firefox 3 feature page. Ready to upgrade? Download Firefox 3 for free here.