Mozilla released an update Thursday to its popular Firefox browser. According to the Mozilla Foundation, the new version 3.6 — the latest of what it unabashedly calls “The World’s Best Browser” — offers better performance, better security, and HTML5 support.
This is the first update to the free browser since early summer. Other new features include “browser skins” called Personas, and support for full-screen video and the open-source Web Open Font Format (WOFF).
Windows, Mac, Linux
The new version is available free for Windows, Mac and Linux in more than five dozen languages. In the U.S., Firefox 3.6 can be downloaded from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/.
Version 3.6 was first previewed as an alpha for developers in August, and was originally scheduled to ship in November. The plan had been for Firefox 3.6 to be the first part of a pair of minor upgrades, but this final version includes some of the features that had been scheduled for the second upgrade.
The next version isn’t expected until later this year or early in 2011. After midyear, Mozilla is expected to discontinue offering security patches for Firefox 3.5.
The latest version also includes a new security check to verify that plug-ins are the most recent ones, which are expected to be more secure. Outdated plug-ins are a better target for hackers, since the security updates to them are less frequent. Plug-in checking was included in earlier versions of Firefox 3, and this is an update.
Firefox 3.6 also offers a variety of performance improvements. Browser bootup time is faster, the JavaScript is about 12 percent faster than in version 3.5, and page loading can be up to 20 percent faster. Mike Beltzner, head of the Firefox team, told news media that “users will feel the speed.” He also cited user customization and stability as reasons users should upgrade.
After the…