While Mozilla developers and contributors are putting the finishing touches on the Firefox 3.6 beta, the current versions of the popular browser are still getting their share of the attention with the release of Firefox 3.5.4 and Firefox 3.0.15 from the only two currently supported branches. They come with the usual set of security and stability fixes and Firefox 3.5.4 also fixes a couple of functionality bugs.

Because of the common code lineage most of the fixes affect both versions. There are five critical vulnerabilities that have been fixed in the new versions and Firefox 3.5.4 also fixes a critical issue with recursive web-worker calls, an HTML 5 feature introduced in 3.5. The common security fixes include a bug that crashed the browser leading to memory corruption and a couple of heap buffer overflow bugs.

Firefox 3.5.4 also comes with a few small feature changes. Users will now have the possibility to resubmit a pending crash report if it failed to go through on the first attempt for some reason. Also, after using Clear Recent History some sites using SSL failed to properly load all images and styles except after pressing the Reload button. This issue is now fixed.

Firefox 3.5 has been out for several months now and, despite some initial issues, it is gaining users at a steady pace. However, there are plenty still using Firefox 3.0 and Mozilla is encouraging them to move to the newest version, which comes with a bunch of new features plus improved performance. But it's not just for the added benefits; security will be an issue too as Firefox 3.0 won't be supported after January 2010 and there will be no more security patches after that date.

In the meantime, Mozilla is also getting ready for a celebration as Firefox is turning five in a couple of weeks, on November 9. So Mozilla is encouraging users to celebrate Five Years of Firefox in their own ways but is also holding a competition to find the most creative use of the Firefox logo and light. Users need to create a video and upload it to Flickr and the best submissions will be featured on a special site to be launched on November 9 and the users rewarded with all sorts of Firefox swag.


Firefox 3.5.4 and Firefox 3.0.15 are available for download here.