Firefox 3.6 has officially been released by Mozilla for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The latest version of the world’s 2nd most popular browser is expected to hold over power users until the release of Firefox 4.0 (since 3.7 has officially been taken off the roadmap). The release is considered to be more of a major step forward, rather than an incremental change. A lot has been tweaked and added under the hood. Unfortunately, Electrolysis (process separation) will still have to wait until the next update.
Here are some of the new features:
Personas - hover over themes to see what they’d look like and apply them to your browser
Out-of-date plugin notifier - tells you when a plugin, such as Flash, is out of date and directs you to an update source
Full-screen video – if you are using HTML 5 to view embedded Ogg videos, you can now view them in full screen
Web open font format - allows for smaller-sized font formats, allowing sites to load fatster, with the intended fonts
Desktop Orientation Sensors – allows your browser to know when your computer is being moved and can adjust the picture accordingly
Speed – the browser, as a w***** is 20% faster than Firefox 3.5.x, making it the 2nd fastest browser, behind Chrome (source: Lifehacker)
Mozilla Firefox is ready to release their next big update to their browser, version 3.6. The update will drop on Thursday, January 21 at 9:30 PST. The next big version of Firefox is promised to be faster than any previous version available and focus on improving user experience.
Some of the new features in Firefox 3.6 are:
New Personas
Outdated Plugin Detection
Full Screen Open Video support
Web open Font Format
CSS Gradients and Backgrounds for Developers
File API
Drag and Drop
Desktop Orientation Sensors
Improved Speed
Mozilla Firefox currently has over 6,000 add-ons available to help customize your interface and tweak your browser. Mozilla is adding in “Personas”, allowing users to preview how a theme looks before applying it. Mozilla has also updated their plug-in detection, bringing you to a page with all the latest and out of date applications.
Firefox 3.6 will be 20% faster than version 3.5, reducing their overall speed to just under a second. Web designers will receive a CSS gradient and background and an updated file API for web application developers, to work just like desktop apps. Firefox will also add drag and drop support, and even detect your computer orientation.