The public beta for Steam's new look is available. This rework to the digital distribution platform ditches its Internet Explorer-based roots for the open-source Webkit engine, which head Steam developer John Cook says "gives us a bunch of size, stability and performance benefits." More importantly, the new interface looks like something designed sometime within the past few decades.

Two changes stand out from the overall improved sleekness of the frontend, which tweaks a hundred things for the better when it comes to Steam's social aspects. First, achievements have finally been unearthed from the right-click menu that they had been buried in. It's much easier to see your progress through a game's achievements and to compare yourself with your friends.

Second, a news feed that goes beyond touting this week's releases has been added. General gaming news, taken directly from developers and publishers as well as from enthusiast publications, is available. Channels for each game can be pulled out of the main news stream as well, making it even easier to see how many game-killing bugs the latest Total War patch doesn't fix.

I use Steam extensively, and I love the friends list and matchmaking included in the service. Even though I love it, though, Steam has been in need of a dramatic overhaul for some time. There are some elements of the beta interface that I'm not sold on (the HEY LOOK AT ME giant font along the top, for starters), but this is a huge step in the right direction. Maybe Valve is feeling the push from Blizzard's upcoming Battle.net relaunch...or maybe they're as sick of the clunky old Steam client as we are.