Mozilla is really growing and even though it is just up to version 3.5 it has been around for some time, and it’s ever increasing popularity makes it’s presence on the market all the more obvious, but it also raises hopes and expectations for every new version. Firefox 3 was launched on June 17th, 2008 and since then it has gone through a series of smaller updates, but now it is time to see what version 3.5 has to offer in terms of new features and optimizations.
Mozilla claims that the new browser is about twice as fast the last version, much thanks to the new Tracemonkey JavaScript engine that is has spent many hours developing. Yours truly experience faster load times, but it’s a bit a tricky to say if it really is faster or it’s just a placebo effect, either way it feels smooth.
Among the big news is that Firefox now supports the HTML5 audio and video tags, using the open formats Ogg/Theora. This means that videos using this format doesn’t need a plug-in to play. This has many advantages, for example playing video directly on the website without applications or such. Even if this isn’t the most common video format today it is a very positive development with built-in support.
Firefox 3.5 also comes with a function that works the same way as Internet Explorer’s InPrivate Browsing. The biggest difference is that the Firefox mode is called Private Browsing. It simply starts a session that, when closed, doesn’t save any information about the websites you just visited.
If you’re already runnings Firefox all you need to do is search for updates under Help and download version 3.5, or head over to Mozilla’s website.
