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A new version of Mozilla's Firefox browser is already ready for download on site the project. According to the foundation, Firefox 3 Beta 4 features improved security and memory usage functions.

The beta version of the software – which in its production phase was named Gran Paradiso – is intended primarily for developers who can make contributions to a new version, but is also available to the general public.

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Mozilla completes trial version of new Firefox; final version should quit in June

In November, shortly after the foundation launched the first version of browser tests, a link in Digg made Firefox 3 it was leaking on the net.

Until now, the foundation discouraged netizens from exchanging version 2 of the program, launched in October 2006, for the new one.

" In many ways Firefox 3 is much more stable than any other," Mozilla's Vice President of Engineering Corp, Mike Schroepfer, said.

Firefox's main rivals are Microsoft's Internet Explorer market leader and Apple's Safari.

Mozilla engineers still finish the latest touches on the product and expect to release a final version of Firefox 3 by the end of June, Schroepfer said.

Among the additions to Firefox are security features and users' ability to view websites when they are not connected. Mozilla also claims that the program uses less memory than Firefox 2.

According to Schroepfer, a fifth round of changes should begin in the coming weeks and will involve "changes in the look" of the program.