Mozilla has unleashed Firefox 3.6, the next version of the popular open-source browser. The quick turnaround time between Firefox 3.5 and the new 3.6 means that Firefox 3.6 doesn't have quite as many new features as 3.5 offered, but there's still plenty of good stuff in the the new version. The open-source browser is now available for download for Windows, Mac and Linux. Although the turnaround time for Firefox 3.6 was faster than its predecessor, Mozilla was still plauged by delays and released an unprecedented five beta test versions before today's final release. However, while there were more betas than previous releases, according to Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's TK, the overall development time was actually shorter. Beltzner tells us that cranking out more betas at a faster pace made development smoother and allowed for more community feedback. Quote: ---- Mike Beltzner: While this is the first time we've ever had a milestone that's been numbered as "Beta 5," we're doing something very different with betas this time around, and this has been one of the shortest beta periods in terms of calendar time that a Firefox release has ever had. Instead of spending 3-4 weeks making changes and releasing a beta, for Firefox 3.6 we decided to create a beta version that would be updated every 1 or 2 weeks with the latest changes. Last week we shipped the latest one of these "revisions" to the beta version of Firefox 3.6. This has made our beta period far more efficient, as we're able to quickly get feedback from our 600,000 user strong beta evaluation group. ----- Firefox 3.6, released TK, brings significant performance boosts and a number of new features like support for Personas, fullscreen support for native web video and Web Open Font Format support for developers looking to use new fonts on their sites. On the surface, Firefox 3.6 looks like an incremental performance upgrade from the current version, Firefox 3.5, which was released in June 2009. But anyone spending a great deal of time in JavaScript-heavy web apps -- which these days is most of us -- will notice faster page loads thanks to improvements to the browser's rendering engine. Much of the added speed is due to improvements in TraceMonkey, Mozilla's JavaScript rendering engine. The good news is that not only does the tweaked TraceMonkey speed up webpage rendering, it's now available to speed up Firefox UI elements written in JavaScript. That change means the Firefox interface is snappier, and, when combined with the new version of Gecko, Firefox's core rendering engine, there's a noticeable improvement in Firefox 3.6's overall performance. In our testing, JavaScript-heavy sites like FriendFeed, Facebook and Gmail loaded faster, and the browser's initial start-up time was much better than with Firefox 3.5 (especially if you're reopening a large number of tabs). Also new under the hood is the new about:support page which offers a simple place to look up all the [pertinent information about the current Firefox installation][7], including a list off installed extensions, any user-modified preference setting, links to installed plug-ins and other configuration details. ###Personas### Firefox 3.6 brings built-in support for lightweight themes, which Mozilla calls [Personas][1]. Personas has been around for a while ([you can even sync them through Weave][2]), but previously installing Personas required a separate extension to manage them. Now Personas can be installed right out of the box, allowing you to tweak and theme Firefox as you'd like. Although Personas don't offer quite the options of a full fledged theme, they're much easier to create and install. If you'd like to try out some custom themes, head over to the [Persona site][1]. ###Fullscreen HTML5 Video### Firefox 3.6 now supports [fullscreen video playback][6] through native HTML5 video embeds. Just right click a video embedded using the HTML5 video tag and you'll see a new menu item for full screen playback. Currently video on the web is generally embedded using proprietary technologies like Adobe's Flash Player or Microsoft's Silverlight plugin. Native HTML5 video will give users a way to watch movies online without the need of third-party plugins. Firefox previously supported HTML5 native video but lacked the ability to play those videos in fullscreen mode, an oversight that Firefox 3.6 corrects, putting open source video on largely equal footing with proprietary technologies like Flash or Silverlight. ###Security Enhancements### Firefox 3.6 includes the ability to check for out of date plugins and will point you to the offending plugin's website to download the latest version. The primary target here is the Flash Plugin, which previously had no update mechanism in Firefox and could leave Firefox users vulnerable to attack even if the browser itself were up-to-date. Mozilla has also changed the way third-party add-ons integrate with Firefox. The Firefox components directory is now off limits to third-party tools like Firefox add-ons. The move is mainly designed to make Firefox more stable by preventing add-ons from accessing lower level tools that could cause crashes. According to the Mozilla, there are no features to be gained from accessing the components directory, so your favorite add-ons should not be adversely affected by the change. ###More Web Standards Support### Web developers will be happy to hear that quite a few new features in CSS 3 have made their way into Firefox 3.6. Firefox now supports the background-size property as well as some cool tricks for handling background images with CSS. Designers can [specify the size of background images][4] on web pages, stretching them by dictating what percentage of the browser window's width they take up. There are also some new methods for [applying gradients to page backgrounds][5], enabling designers to create more interesting, colorful backgrounds without using images at all, just by defining a few colors in their HTML. Firefox 3.6 also supports the [Web Open Font Format (WOFF)][3] which allows developers to use server-side fonts to build better typography into their designs. ###Conclusion### Firefox 3.6 is not the radical overhaul that Firefox 3.5 offered, but the latest version is a worthy upgrade nonetheless. The welcome speed improvements combined with the UI changes and expanded HTML5 support make Firefox 3.6 a must-have upgrade. We're already looking forward to the next version of Firefox, tentatively listed as Firefox 3.7, which, with any luck will bring isolated tabs for application crashes (ala Google Chrome), integration of the Ubiquity add-on into the Awesome bar and of course, even more enhancements for HTML 5. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/personas/ [2]: http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Weave_Adds_Personas_to_its_Bag_of_Firefox_Syncing_Tricks [3]: http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Mozilla_Throws_Its_Weight_Behind_Improving_Web_Type__Adopts_WOFF_for_Firefox [4]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS/-moz-background-size [5]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS/Gradients [6]: http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Firefox_3DOT6_Aims_to_Bring_Fullscreen__Open_Source_Video_to_the_Web [7]: http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Troubleshooting_Firefox_Gets_Easier_With_New__About:Support__Page See Also: