Mozilla has released the first ‘rapid release’ Firefox 5.0 beta to the mainstream with performance and stability enhancements, support for the new CSS Animations standard, and a new channel switcher for those actively testing separate builds in parallel.
The software company recently introduced Aurora, a new development channel that supports rapid successions of Firefox releases.
As the developers put it, “The shift to a rapid release development cycle delivers cutting edge Firefox features, performance enhancements, security updates and stability improvements to users faster.”
“After five weeks of testing on the Firefox Aurora channel, the next version of Firefox is ready for the beta channel,” Mozilla confirms.
The first Firefox 5.0 beta release brings users the aforementioned channel switcher, which “lets users move between Firefox Aurora, Beta and Release channels to test features at various levels of development, quality and polish,” performance and stability enhancements and support for the new CSS Animations standard.
The latter addition targets developers who may be eager to “build more amazing Web experiences,” Mozilla said.
Beta testers are regarded as being “a crucial part of refining and preparing the next version of Firefox for more than 400 million users worldwide,” Mozilla also said.
Therefore both Mac and PC users who are fans of the web browser should download the latest beta and continue providing their feedback.
‘Long, technical release notes’ are provided as well, with Mozilla also mentioning improvements across canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance; standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL, and canvas; spell checking for some locales; and desktop environment integration for Linux users.
Firefox requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or 10.6 (Snow Leopard), an Intel processor, 512 MB of ram and around 200 MB of free hard disk space.
Download Mozilla Firefox for Mac OS X (Free)
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