It's a good time to be a browser connoisseur. Last week Google unveiled it's beta Chrome browser to the public, and Mozilla has now made available for download Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2. Code named Shiretoko Alpha 2, the new browser is built on a pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.1 platform. New features include:

• Support for the HTML 5 <video> element (makes it possible to natively embed video files in a web page and control playback with Javascript)
• Initial support for web worker threads (a new scripting capability that allows computationally intensive Javascript to be run in the background)
• Drag and drop tabs between browser windows
• New selector to create areas of Aero-style "glass" in XUL
• Support for some CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties
• Improved performance and new preference values for color managment profile support

If any of this sparks your interest, you can read more in the release notes and Firefox 3.1 for Developers article.

Image Credit: Mozilla