As we reported last week, Firefox's latest version of 3.6, release candidate 1, has been released to the general public. This time around, however, Mozilla has issued a more general release, as the new version will not only be available for download but also part of an automatic update for those already running Firefox. The release is one more sign that we're getting closer by the day to a full-on sparkly new version of Firefox.
For those of you worried about updating, Mozilla has assured us that "over 75% of the thousands of Firefox Add-ons have now been upgraded by their authors to be compatible with Firefox 3.6," so go ahead and take that leap. But what will you find on the other side?
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Firefox 3.6 RC1 Features
In addition with offering this release as an automatic update, Mozilla has offered a synopsis of what it sees as the most important new features to be found in what the company hopes to be a near final version.
- Users can change the browser's appearance with a single click using Personas.
- Firefox 3.6 alerts users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
- Changes to how third-party software integrates with Firefox to increase stability.
- Improved automatic form fill provides better options from your form history.
- Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
- Support for the WOFF font format.
- Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
- The ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page load times.
- Support for the HTML5 File API
- Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.
While wallpapering Firefox with the latest blockbuster movie may be an attractive addition, we are looking forward to a faster and more stable Firefox. Loading scripts asynchronously should speed up some page load-times dramatically by letting faster scripts run while slower ones continue to do their work in the background - something our computers have been doing for a long time now. And the changes to third-party software integration should offer a huge boost to the browser's stability by keeping the core components of the browser safe from being modified.
For the web developers out there, increased support for CSS, DOM and HTML5 is always a welcome addition, and the addition of the WOFF font format may further help page load-times and give web designers a greater range of choice.
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