(Computerworld) -- New versions of favorite applications are always a little tricky; you want to keep up with the times without fixing what ain't broke. With that in mind, I took a look at the newly released Firefox 3 Beta 2 to see what we can look forward to when the final version ships in 2008.

Although the basic look of the browser hasn't changed, there are actually quite a few new features coming. (For a complete list, you can check out Mozilla's release notes.)

Some of the new features in Firefox 3 are not immediately obvious -- at least, not to the casual user. Among other things, Mozilla is incorporating new graphics- and text-rendering architectures in its browser layout engine (Gecko 1.9) to offer rendering improvements in CSS and SVG; adding a number of security features, including malware protection and version checks of its add-ons; and offline support for suitably coded Web applications.

Other new features -- some of which are listed here -- are more visible to end users, such as the menu bar that now appears asking if you want to save a just-entered password. Indeed, I've wondered if the browser will become top-heavy with built-in features that were already available as add-ons.

For example, Firefox 3 Beta 2 adds the ability to save your existing tabs when you close the app down, and it has enhanced the browser's ability to magnify Web pages from just affecting text to taking in the entire page -- features that are already available via the Tab Mix Plus and Image Zoom extensions. Right now, it looks like the new version will escape that particular criticism -- its memory footprint is, if anything, smaller than that of Version 2 -- but time alone will tell.

Incidentally, if you'd like to try out the new beta, feel free -- but be aware that this is a beta version in the traditional sense, not the sort of eternal beta you get with, say, Google Docs. As a result, there is as of yet no support for current add-ons. (Correction: There are some extensions, such as Adblock Plus, that will work with Firefox 3 Beta 2 -- but you should still be cautious.) And there are still a few serious glitches -- for example, you're going to get an error message if you try to use Yahoo's newer e-mail format.

All that being said, here are the five new and/or enhanced features in Firefox 3 Beta 2 that most caught my attention: