With the recent release of Firefox 3, Safari finally is seeing some serious competition in the browser space. Its reign as the fastest browser on the Mac seems to be over for the time being, and Firefox’s usage share continues to climb both on the Mac and on Windows.

Now, this isn’t to say I don’t like Safari; in fact, I use it as my everyday browser. It’s just that the competition is finally really heating up, and it’s about time Apple made some improvements to set Safari apart once again.

See what I think Safari should to to pull ahead of the competition again after the break.

Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, believes Firefox is the “new champ in the browser wars.” Is Walt right? If so, will this worthy effort from Mozilla be enough to drag the Apple purists away from Safari?

From a Mac user’s perspective especially, Firefox 3 is a very significant upgrade that current users of the browser will surely enjoy. But for those like me who have been using Safari as our primary browser, this new version of Firefox may not be enough to wow us, especially for those of us who have never used the browser before.

See Walt’s video commentary after the break.