Jun 22, 2011 10:15 GMT  ·  By

Just as tradition calls, Microsoft sent a new cake to Mozilla for the release of their new Firefox 5 browser, which landed in final flavor yesterday.

Over the past few years, Microsoft has been sending cakes to Mozilla as acknowledgment of their hard work for delivering newer, better version of their browser.

Mozilla appreciates it, and a tweet from @Damos, with the photo to the left attached to it, shows it: “Just received the congrats cake. From all at Mozilla, thank you, Microsoft. We love you, too.”

However, unlike some of the previous cakes, the new sweet is only a small IE9 cupcake. Previously, the company sent larger cakes to the development team behind Firefox.

But this does not come too much as a surprise, since the new Firefox 5 does not bring too many enhancements into the mix, at least not when the end-user experience is involved.

Of course, the browser does include improvements, as well as performance optimizations and bug fixes, and packs some of the latest web technologies under the hood.

Support for CSS3 Animations and the 'Do-not-track' feature are some of the main improvements in Firefox 5, but this is not all.

Developers too will benefit from various enhancements that Mozilla packed Firefox 5 with, aimed at HTML5, WebGL, as well as a series of improvements that should make the building of add-ons for the browser an easier task.

“Mozilla has a rich set of resources that make it easier for Web developers to build compelling Firefox Add-ons using HTML, JavaScript and CSS,” Mozilla explains.

“The new Firefox Add-on SDK for Windows, Mac and Linux enables local development of add-ons, while the Firefox Add-on Builder Beta provides a hosted Web-based build environment.

“Developers can build Firefox Add-ons for all platforms that install and update without requiring a browser restart or interrupting the Web browsing experience.”

The new flavor of the browser arrives at the end of a three months development period, and is the first iteration to arrive as part of Mozilla's new rapid-release system (adopted for mobile phones as well).

Starting with Firefox 5, the development team plans on delivering features and enhancements as part of new major releases faster than before. As part of this new approach, Mozilla also made available for download different versions of Firefox in the Aurora and Beta channels as well.

Firefox 5 for Windows is available for download here.

Firefox 5 for Linux is available for download here.

Firefox 5 for Mac is available for download here.