Download Firefox 3.6 Beta 5

The fifth Beta Build of Firefox 3.6, codename Namoroka, is now available for download. Mozilla is referring to the development milestone as revision 5 of the first, and only (at least in the company’s perspective) Beta release of Firefox 3.6. Earlier this month, Softpedia informed you that yet another Beta of Firefox 3.6 was cooking, and that the browser would not evolve directly to the next phase toward the final release. Despite the “revision 5” label, fact is that although the next iteration of Mozilla’s open source browser was supposed to graduate in Release Candidate stage by this point in time, the development process continues to be stuck in Beta, jeopardizing the chances that end users will be able to upgrade to the final version of Firefox 3.6 by the end of 2009.

“This morning the Mozilla community released Firefox 3.6 Beta 5, making it available for free download and issuing an automatic update to all Firefox 3.6 beta users. This update contains over 100 fixes from the last Firefox 3.6 beta, containing many improvements for web developers, Add-on developers, and users. Over 70% of the thousands of Firefox Add-ons have now been upgraded by their authors to be compatible with Firefox 3.6 Beta,” explained Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox at Mozilla.

It is important to note that Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 is still pre-release software, as the Beta tag implies. In this context the release is not ready for widespread adoption by the public. However, in excess of half a million early adopters were running the Beta Builds of Firefox 3.6 as of November 2009.

“The Beta of Firefox 3.6 / Gecko 1.9.2 introduces several new features for users to evaluate: support for the HTML5 File API; a change to how third-party software integrates with Firefox to increase stability; the ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page load times; users can now change their browser’s appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas; Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe; 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; and support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies,” Beltzner added.

Testers that are already running Firefox 3.6 Beta 4, or earlier releases of the browser, will be served automatic upgrades to the latest development milestone in the coming days. At the same time, early adopters are free to grab the standalone downloads available below.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 (Beta revision 5) for Windows is available for download here.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 (Beta revision 5) for Mac OS X is available for download here.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 (Beta revision 5) for Linux is available for download here.