The first Firefox 3.1 beta has been made available for download, bringing with it a number of cool new features. However, possibly the coolest of those features, the lightning-fast TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, is disabled by default. Fortunately, it’s a quick fix to turn it on:

“To activate it, type “about:config” into the Smart Bar, then type “javascript.options.jit.content” into the filter. Double-click on the preference listed to change the boolean setting from “false” to “true.” Close the window and you should notice an immediate improvement to the JavaScript rendering speed.”

He used the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark test to demonstrate the improvements in the new engine, which completed the test in 2788 milliseconds, compared to 5447 ms for Firefox 3.0.3. Always the skeptics, we tried the benchmark ourselves, and witnessed an even more dramatic improvement.  For us, speed more than doubled, from 4725 ms to 2227 ms.

So if you’re trying out the 3.1 beta, enable the TraceMonkey engine and see what it can do for you. Share your experiences after the jump.

I use a lot an FTP program for upload and download files to my server, I used CoreFTP Lite that is a free software but I have to start it every time I need it or leaving it open. Well I was surfing the web with Stumble when I see this little program that integrates on Firefox and now I just have to click on a button on my browser and voila! I have a new tab with the FTP integrated.

This program is just 135Kb and its named FireFTP, yo can download it HERE.

Look at the image below (Click on it to see a large image) and you can see inside the red circle the icon of this program and as you can see too I have two tabs opened.

Some Features are:

• It’s free!
• Cross-platform: Works on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
• Secure: SSL/TLS support, same encryption used with online banking and shopping
• Synchronization: Keep directories in sync while navigating
• Directory Comparison: Compare directory content (compares subdirectories too!)
• International: Available in over 20 languages
• Character Set Support:UTF8 and just about any other character encoding supported
• Automatic reconnect and resuming of tranfers
• Search/Filtering
• Integrity Checks of transfers (XMD5, XSHA1)
• Export/Import accounts
• Remote Editing
• File Hashing: Generate hashes of files (MD5, various SHA’s)
• Drag & Drop
• Timestamp Synchronization
• Proxy support
• Advanced properties (CHMOD, recursive CHMOD, thumbnails)
• Tutorials and help files available along with personalized support
• IPv6 support
• Open Source!
• Seamless integration with Mozilla Firefox
• …did I mention it’s free?

Many times you enter on a site and maybe you find that there are a lot of annoying ads all around but it comes worst when you see popups, that little or big screens that comes out and put just in front of the information you want to read.

Well there are so many popup blockers that could help you to avoid this kind of stuff, but I am not going to tell you which one is the best, because all of them are great programs, but some of them maybe do not stop all kind of popups.

So here you have a link where you can test to the extreme your popup blocker software and you will see if it the one for your necessities.

I tried with the one that Firefox has and only 2 popups the blocker can not stop, Drop Down PopUp and Sticky PopUp.

To access to this site just click on the image below.

You know that is better to work with shortcuts than with the mouse? you can be more productive using more the keyboard. So when you are using the best browser, Firefox well use it the right way. So here you have the Firefox Cheat Sheet.

Just click on the image below and you can have the PFD file so you can save it to your hard disk.

Technorati Tags: firefox, cheat-sheet

Here you have a list of Firefox extensions that could help you blogging and navigate more easy. I really could not live without these extensions, so give them a try and leave your comments about them.

StumbleUpon

For finding great sites, videos, photos and many other interestin things. StumbleUpon learns what you like or dislike to make better recomendations for you. And if you have a blog this is a great tool to send visitors to your blog. Also you can meet people with similar interests.

ScribeFire

This is a full blog editor that integrates with Firefox and easily post to your blog.

Adsense Notifier

Displays your Google Adsense on the statusbar. So you can know your earnings, by day, week, month, etc.

Snagit

Is a convenient toolbar for access to one of the most popular screen capture for web page content. You can capture a region, windows, scroll window or just text this is the right tool to do it.

Split Browser

This extension splits the content area of the browser windows as you like, so you can compare multiple webpages for example.

FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension)

This is one of the best extensions for Firefox. This extensions allow you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions, so you can synchronize all your computers.
Febe Let you backup your extensions, themes, bookmarks, preferences, passwords, cookies, etc. Also the backup can be performed on demand or scheduled. this ectension is a must have.

Fasterfox

This extension allows you to tweak many network and settings to increase the speed of your browser

IE Tab

As you know there are many sites that only accepts or works with Internet Explorer browser, so with this extension you can navigate those sites without leave your Firefox browser.

So give a try on these extensions and if you want comment about them or suggest other.

Technorati Tags: firefox extensions, blog utilities