Update: Mozilla is showing the real-time downloads of the new Firefox. It should approach a million downloads (worldwide) very soon:
Original Article: Mozilla has unleashed version 3.5 of Firefox, which is being described as a “major update.” The new version is said to significantly boost performance while supporting a wide variety of web standards.
“So much is happening on the Web right now, it’s a great time for browsers. Firefox 3.5 brings together the most innovative Web technologies and delivers them in the most complete and powerful modern browser,” says Mozilla CEO John Lilly.
What’s New
Performance
Firefox 3.5 includes the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which Mozilla says delivers “unprecedented” performance with today’s web apps. It’s over twice as fast as Firefox 3 and ten times faster than version 2.
Open Video and Audio
Video and audio content can be played from within the browser without the need for plug-ins. Firefox 3.5 comes with the first native integration directly into the browser. “Now everyone can easily watch open format Ogg Theora videos,” says the company in the announcement.
You can even right-click on videos and save them to your desktop, just as if it were an image.
Location Aware Browsing
Location Aware Browsing allows websites to ask you where you’re located, and if you choose to share your location, it can use that information to find nearby points of interest and return additional, useful data like maps of your area.
Before you freak out, it’s all optional – Firefox doesn’t share your location without your permission. In fact, this version of Firefox is more focused on privacy than ever.
Privacy Controls
With this version, you can use the new “private browsing” mode (available in the tools menu), and nothing will be stored during your browsing session. There is also a “forget this site” feature, that lets you remove “every trace” of a site from your browser.
If users want to remove all private data or activity from the past several hours, they can “clear recent history.”
To see these new features (and more) in action, watch the following clip:
Firefox 3.5 is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. It’s also available in over 70 languages. It can be downloaded from here.
