Firefox 3.6 released

Robert Hallock 21 Jan, 2010 at 12:18pm ET Article published in Tech

The Mozilla Foundation has today released version 3.6 of their popular Firefox browser, bringing with it better themes, HTML5 canvas video support, and a host of other features.

“Firefox 3.6 is more than 20 percent faster than Firefox 3.5 and includes extensive under the hood work to improve performance for everyday Web tasks such as email, uploading photos, social networking, and more,” the company wrote in a press release.

“It also delivers new features like customizable browser themes called Personas, a ground-breaking Plugin updater, improved JavaScript performance, and enhancements to familiar favorites like the Awesome Bar for a better, more personal Web experience.”

A full list of the major changes include:

Support for a new type of theme called Personas, which allow users to change Firefox’s appearance with a single click.
Protection from out-of-date plugins to keep users safer as they browse.
Open, native video can now be displayed full screen and supports poster frames.
Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time.
The ability for web developers to indicate that scripts should run asynchronously to speed up page load times.
Continued support for downloadable web fonts using the new WOFF font format.
Support for new CSS attributes such as gradients, background sizing, and pointer events.
Support for new DOM and HTML5 specifications including the Drag & Drop API and the File API, which allow for more interactive web pages.
Changes to how third-party software can integrate with Firefox in order to prevent crashes.

It should be noted that the addition of HTML5 canvas video support is limited to the open source OGG Theora codec. Due to licensing concerns surrounding H.264, neither the Mozilla Foundation nor Microsoft have committed to supporting the alternative codec.

Firefox 3.6 is immediately available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in a wide variety of languages.

Comments

21 Jan 2010 ~ 12:21pm Thrax And the H.264 vs. OGG Theora pissing match rolls on. Oh boy.
21 Jan 2010 ~ 1:06pm lmorchard FWIW, You can watch Mozillans babble about the release for most of the day here:

http://air.mozilla.com/
21 Jan 2010 ~ 3:54pm BuddyJ I'm updating now. Hope "Fasterfox" is really faster.
22 Jan 2010 ~ 10:42am mirage I have been using since RC1 and I can notice a slight difference in speed/response. It is running as reliable as 3.5.
22 Jan 2010 ~ 10:57am Kwitko Haven't really put it through its paces enough yet to notice a speed difference. However, two of my favorite add-ons don't work (Fire Gestures and Auto Copy). Yet. I'm sure they'll be updated soon. I did find a suitable replacement (Coral IE) for a third one (IE Tab).
22 Jan 2010 ~ 11:00am Thrax Seth: Download and install the nightly tester tools addon. It'll let you override the compatibility on all your addons from the addons menu, and I reckon most of them will still work just fine.
22 Jan 2010 ~ 11:09am mirage

Kwitko wrote:

Haven't really put it through its paces enough yet to notice a speed difference. However, two of my favorite add-ons don't work (Fire Gestures and Auto Copy). Yet. I'm sure they'll be updated soon. I did find a suitable replacement (Coral IE) for a third one (IE Tab).

FireGestures support up to 3.7. But I modified Autocopy for you to support 3.6, if you want to try (see attachment).

You just need to open the zip file and drag the xpi file on the Firefox window. Firefox handles the rest.
22 Jan 2010 ~ 11:29am Kwitko How the hell did you do that? I mean that in a wow-that-was-fucking-awesome kind of way.
22 Jan 2010 ~ 11:35am mirage Very simple, really. Just edited the install.rdf file in the .xpi archive. That is all.
22 Jan 2010 ~ 11:44am Kwitko You know, you should have told me it was way too complicated to explain.
22 Jan 2010 ~ 11:48am mirage

Kwitko wrote:

You know, you should have told me it was way too complicated to explain.

Next time