The newest version of the ever popular Firefox browser will launch today at 10:00 PDT. While the news is exciting for all users, Mac users should be particularly excited due to the “under the hood” changes. The biggest change took place in the Gecko engine (version 1.9) for OS X , which was largely switched to Cocoa. While Gecko is not entirely Carbon free, the days of Carbon code in the Gecko engine appear to be numbered.

If you’re into the super geeky under the hood change details, you can check out a blog post by Josh Aas, one of the Mozilla Mac developers. Josh has even posted about the development for Gecko 1.9.1 for OS X.

The official Download Day website for Firefox 3 is HERE. It sounds like Firefox 3 will be the best Mac version of Firefox yet!

Less than 12 hours from now, the early giant in web browsers will be given its final resting place. On March 1st, 2008, AOL will end official support for Netscape, thus rendering it pretty much dead to the world. Used by over 90% of web users in the mid 1990′s, the browser has seen a steady drop in usage to less than 1% today. The death blow for Netscape was the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows by Microsoft in the mid 1990′s. The intense struggle between Netscape and Microsoft during the 1990′s for browser market share is known as the Browser War.

Though Netscape itself is headed to its eternal resting place, the Netscape DNA still lives. In the late 1990′s, Netscape open-sourced their next generation layout engine. This new engine eventually became known as the Gecko layout engine. Today Gecko powers a number of browsers, most notably Firefox, Flock, and Camino.

If you’re really curious about the Gecko engine, Netscape, or Camino, check out the below video. The video features Mike Pinkerton, one of the Camino developers who worked at Netscape. He shares a lot of inside information about what went on during the browser war and the open-sourcing of the Gecko layout engine.

I enjoy dabbling in a little web development and have purchased a number of fantastic tools. Despite owning a number of great shareware web development applications, I wanted to focus this article on some applications for those who don’t want to spend the money for shareware applications or just don’t have the money to spend. I’ll breakdown the best freeware applications into various web development categories.

Web Server and Languages
MAMP – MAMP stands for Mac Apache MySQL PHP. MAMP is a stand alone web development environment. Just install MAMP and you’re basically ready to go. MANP includes a desktop widget to easily start and stop Apache and MySQL. If you’re looking for the easiest way to setup your web server, database, and php then MAMP is your application. You can be up and coding in less than a few minutes.

Image Editor
Seashore – Seashore is a Cocoa based open source image editor. Seashore features gradients, textures, multiple layers, and alpha channel editing. Seashore is based around the GIMP‘s technology and uses the same file format. While you could just download the GIMP instead, Seashore does not use the X11 windowing system that some OS X users don’t care for.

Text Editor
Smultron – Smultron is an open source text editor that is both easy to use and powerful. Smultron is a Cocoa applicaiton that features tabs, line numbers (very helpful), support for syntax coloring, snippets, multi-document find, and many more features. Smultron also offers a preview feature powered by Webkit. One feature lacking in Smultron is the ability to edit files remotely.

TextWrangler – TextWrangler is a very powerful general purpose text editor. Though it used to cost $50, Bare Bones Software made it free about three years ago. TextWrangler has so many features that I had a hard time narrowing them down for this article. Features include multi-file search and replace, a document drawer allowing you to edit multiple files in the same window, find differences in two files and merge the differences, spell checker, syntax coloring, plug-in support, AppleScript support, and so much more. And like many of the shareware text editors, TextWrangler allows remote file editing. The ability to remotely edit a file on SFTP/FTP servers is such an enormous time saver.

FTP Clients
Cyberduck – Cyberduck is an easy to use open source FTP/SFTP client. While Cyberduck may not be the two pane ftp client you’re used to, the simple drag and drop from/to the finder is very simple to use. Cyberduck integrates with many OS X technologies such as Spotlight, Bonjour, Keychain, and AppleScript. The ability to bookmark sites, support for external editors, and support for the Growl notification system round out the some of the reasons Cyberduck is such a wonderful FTP client.

Fugu – Fugu is an open source SFTP client. Unlike Cyberduck, Fugu does feature the familiar two pane UI that many ftp users are used to. The features include support for external editors, Keychain access, image previews, and more. One downside of Fugu is that it does not support regular FTP. This means if you only have access to a website via FTP, Fugu will not connect to your file server. The website also fails to mention support for Leopard.

CSS Editor
Firefox + Firebug – The combination of Firefox and the Firebug plugin offers the best free CSS support. While Firebug can do HTML, JavaScript, and so much more, the CSS support in Firebug is what initially drew me toward the plugin. You can view the CSS of any webpage and instantly start to tweak the code and see how those changes affect the page. While you can’t edit a CSS file directly, you can easily copy/paste the edited code into a new CSS file. Add on the Web Developer plugin to get even more CSS functionality.

Simple CSS – Simple CSS is a Cocoa application that makes it easier to update your style sheets. Simple CSS allows you to easily change fonts, borders, margins, and much more. Open a style sheet and Simple CSS displays all the elements in the left pane while the right pane gives you various options to change the currently selected element. You an mange multiple CSS files at the same time and a simple plus and minus button allow you to easily add and remove elements.

So there you have it, the best free programs for Mac web developers. If you find some of the programs useful, consider a donation to those developers that have asked for a donation. Did I miss something? I certainly couldn’t list every program but if you feel I’ve left out a well deserving free program, leave a comment below and a link to the software you’re recommending. Hope you enjoyed this list!