Mozilla Delivers Firefox 3.6
Just over five months after the browser first entered public
testing with an alpha release, Mozilla released Firefox
3.6. Although we had previously heard about delays
for the latest version of this popular browser, the actual delay was much
shorter than some had expected.
So what will you get with Firefox 3.6? Well, for starters, Mozilla is touting the browser's speed improvements, claiming that Firefox 3.6 is more than 20% faster than Firefox 3.5. This improvement is due to "extensive under the hood work" that is designed to improve performance for everyday tasks such as email, uploading photos, social networking, and more. The browser also features support for a wide variety of Web standards, access to more than 6,000 free add-ons, customizable browser themes called Personas, a Plugin updater, improved JavaScript performance, and more.
What’s new in Firefox 3.6:
What’s New Under the Hood for Developers
So what will you get with Firefox 3.6? Well, for starters, Mozilla is touting the browser's speed improvements, claiming that Firefox 3.6 is more than 20% faster than Firefox 3.5. This improvement is due to "extensive under the hood work" that is designed to improve performance for everyday tasks such as email, uploading photos, social networking, and more. The browser also features support for a wide variety of Web standards, access to more than 6,000 free add-ons, customizable browser themes called Personas, a Plugin updater, improved JavaScript performance, and more.
What’s new in Firefox 3.6:
- Personas: Personalize the look of your Firefox by selecting new themes called Personas in a single click and without a restart
- Plugin Updater: To keep you safe from potential security vulnerabilities, Firefox will now detect out of date plugins
- Stability improvements: Firefox 3.6 significantly decreased crashes caused by third party software – all without sacrificing our extensibility in any way
- Form Complete: When filling out an online form, Firefox suggests information for fields based on your common answers in similar field
- Performance: Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time
- Open Video and Audio: With the world’s best implementation of HTML 5 audio and video support, now video can be displayed full screen and supports poster frames
What’s New Under the Hood for Developers
- Support for the latest HTML5 specification, including the File API for local file handling
- Font Support: In addition to OpenType and TrueType fonts, 3.6 now supports the new Web Open Font Format (WOFF)
- CSS gradients: Supports linear and radial CSS gradients which allow for a smoother transition between colors
- Device orientation: Firefox 3.6 exposes the orientation of the laptop or device to Web pages
