14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla continues to hammer away at the third update for Firefox 3.6. A new nightly build of Firefox 3.6.4 is now available for download, even after the first Release Candidate for the update was offered to early adopters. It appears that Mozilla still has to fine-tune Firefox 3.6.4, which, two and a half months after the previous refresh, is still not ready for the public.
With the delivery of the seventh Firefox 3.6.4 pre-release Build, it is clear that Mozilla will offer at least another RC of the update, but also that the new Out of Process Plugins feature is a lot of trouble. With OOPP, Firefox will be separated from plugins such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight, in a move done to increase the browser’s performance, stability and reliability.
Mozilla is gearing up to skip a version number for the second time since it released Firefox 3.6. Users that have followed the evolution of Mozilla’s latest iteration of Firefox already know that there has never been a 3.6.1 version. Firefox 3.6 went straight to Firefox 3.6.2. In this regard, Firefox 3.6.2 was the first update for the successor of Firefox 3.5, which was followed by v3.6.3.
Once Mozilla will be able to deliver 3.6.4, the next update for the open source browser won’t be 3.6.5, as expected, but rather 3.6.6. Christian Legnitto, engineering project manager at Mozilla, offered an explanation for the decision to skip Firefox 3.6.5 entirely.
“Firefox 3.6.4 has a platform version of 1.9.2.4. The version number 1.9.2.5 is currently being used by Fennec. We’ll be taking fixes above and beyond that version, so the next platform version Firefox will use will be named 1.9.2.6. We will keep the version numbers coherent by naming it Firefox 3.6.6 (essentially skipping over 3.6.5),” he stated.
“I will be moving the blocking flags and status flags as appropriate, so if you see activity in bugs don’t worry. Also, if you have approvals for 1.9.2.5 they are now for 1.9.2.6 (and should still be landed on mozilla-1.9.2 default). This is nothing more than a name change, everything still refers to the same Firefox release. You should still land bugs for the next firefox 3.6.x release on mozilla-1.9.2 default,” Legnitto explained.
Firefox 3.6.4 Release Candidate (RC - Build 6) for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6.4 Release Candidate (RC - Build 6) for Mac is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6.4 Release Candidate (RC - Build 6) for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 4.0 Alpha 1 (Mozilla Developer Preview 3.7 Alpha 5) is available for download here.
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