Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 Posted

The first public beta of Firefox 3.1 has been posted for Mac, Windows and Linux. It is intended for developers and community feedback only.

Items that are being tested are as follows:

• Web standards improvements in the Gecko layout engine
• Added support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties
• A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab youire switching to
• Improved control over the Smart Location Bar using special characters to restrict your search
• Support for new web technologies such as the video and audio elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, web worker threads, SVG transforms and offline applications.

As usual, only those with a keen interest in seeing whatis in store or want to contribute feedback, in a beta environment, will want to download, and the beta shouldnit be used for mission critical work.