Firefox 3 getting integrated add-ons directory

After making noise with the reintroduction of its Firefox add-ons directory last year, Mozilla is taking a step closer to integrating it with the upcoming beta of Firefox 3, which is set to go out to beta testers next week. Ryan Wagner over at Cybernet News writes that one of the biggest additions to the public betas of Firefox 3 has been the newly integrated add-on directory, which made its way into the prebeta nightly builds earlier this week. Users can search through add-ons within the settings dialog without visiting Mozilla's site. The feeds are still linked up to the add-on's Web pages, and let you see how each add-on has been scored by the community, and get a screenshots and description to match.

In addition to the integrated add-on directory, Firefox 3 beta 3 could be getting a new coat of paint. The new version comes with updated navigation buttons up top, and a classy new star button in the address bar that lets you quickly file away a site you like, as you would a bookmark. The favoriting feature has been around since early builds of Firefox 3, and has proven to be immensely useful in third party Mozilla-based browsers, such as Flock, which features a favoriting button that's larger than any other one on the browser (screenshot here).

I've had Firefox 3 beta 2 installed on my machine since late December, and it's very stable. However, if you're in love with your extensions, you're bound to run into several that don't yet work on it. I would definitely recommend giving it a spin if you want to patch that pesky memory leak, or improve the sometimes clunky download manager without having to install more extensions.

CNET Download link for Firefox 3 beta 2