: “But you can also install a portable application like Firefox 3 beta 5 portable edition to any folder on your hard drive. Why would you want to do that? Because then you can try out the latest test version of Firefox without overwriting any of your Firefox 2 settings.”

(Via Download Squad.)

According to downloadsquad.com:

Firefox 3 beta 5 features tighter integration with the Windows, Mac, and Linux operating system. That means you have native icons and interface widgets. The OS X version supports Growl notifications, and the Linux version uses the native GTK theme.

However, I can still tell you what’s new in Firefox 3 Beta 5. In continuing some of the more notable updates to the overall Firefox 3 release, Beta 5 includes more personalized options. For instance, a Places Organizer lets you better manage your bookmarks, tags and browsing history, with search capabilities, smart folders, multiple views, and saved frequent searches. That should also give you a few more restore settings to save you when your browser crashes because you’re testing Beta 5.

Other updates include integration with Windows and Macs, with improved icons and the use of native interface widgets in the browser and web forms. Linux integration also uses native icons/buttons/menu styles. Lastly, thanks to improvements to the JavaScript engine and profile-guided optimizations, the speed of Firefox 3 Beta 5 has been increased, so your apps will run faster. See here for previous coverage of Firefox 3. Wired’s Compiler blog adds these notes about the newest beta:

• 755 bug fixes, including all Firefox 3 P1 blockers (these are the top priority must-fix bugs).
• Improved performance. Dotzler says Beta 5 is even faster than Beta 4 according to Mozilla’s own testing. We here at Compiler found that Beta 4 is already extremely fast, so that’s good news.
• This release was prepared in a very compressed beta cycle of three weeks.