If the Firefox browser were a car, it would be in the garage right now being souped up by an anxious group of gear heads.

When Firefox 3.0 is released later this year, the open-source browser is likely to contain a host of new features, including offline support for Web applications and new bookmark and search features. Mozilla released the

second alpha version of Firefox 3.0 earlier this month.

While the final feature set hasn’t been determined, Firefox 3.0 will also contain elements for its 4.0 release and beyond, said Mike Schroepfer, vice president for engineering for Mozilla Corp., during a stop in London on Tuesday. The browser is due out in the second half of the year. >>>>>