Firefox 3.6.4 RC1 Is All for Now, Final Release Postponed

The Release Candidate of Firefox 3.6.4 is all that users get for the time being, as the final release of the update has been postponed. Mozilla was slated to offer the third refresh to Firefox 3.6.4 on June 1st, 2010, concomitantly with the launch of Firefox 3.5.10. With June 1 come and gone, neither release of Mozilla’s open source browser made it to the general public. At fault are two bugs still plaguing Firefox 3.6.4, with Mozilla having decided to postpone the final launch of 3.6.4.

Firefox 3.6 users will have to continue to exercise their patience, as Mozilla provided no deadline for the finalization of v3.6.4. In a worst-case scenario, the two bugs that affect Firefox 3.6.4, both related to the browser’s ability to play video on certain websites for Windows 7 users, would turn up to be blockers and necessitate a respin for Firefox 3.4. Mozilla is still considering this scenario, but, in such an eventuality, Firefox 3.5.10 could be released earlier than Firefox 3.6.4.

For the time being, Firefox 3.5.10 and Firefox 3.6.4 remain joined at the hip. Mozilla has planned synchronized releases for the two browser versions. Of course, the fact is that v3.5.10 is just a minor update, while the v3.6.4 refresh is a tad more, designed to introduce Out of Process Plugins, a feature separating plugins such as Silverlight and Flash from Firefox. OOPP is the reason why Firefox 3.6 users have now waited for over two months for the next update.

Users can continue running the Firefox 3.6.4 RC released on Friday last week, and offered to all Beta testers on Saturday. “On May 28, Mozilla announced the release candidate build of the next version of Firefox, which will include the Crash Protection for ‘out of process plugins’ feature to help create a smoother, faster and more secure browsing experience for users. Early testing shows that this feature may protect users from a significant number of the browser crashes that are commonly reported to us,” Mozilla’s Erica Jostedt revealed.

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.