The new release comes one year after the media rejected Firefox 3.0. However, this time, Mozilla promise to please Firefox users with outstanding new,useful features such as Private Browsing mode and vastly improved JavaScript performance. According to analysts, the new web browser is set to be the most revolutionary of its kind.

"it’s a great time for browsers!"

The Firefox site is expected to hit heavy amounts of traffic due to the release and Mozilla CEO John Lilly said this is a good thing,

“So much is happening on the Web right now, it’s a great time for browsers. Firefox 3.5 brings together the most innovative Web technologies and delivers them in the most complete and powerful modern browser.”

What new features are included?

Mozilla promise to deliver new and improved features but just what are they? I will now outline all the features that Mozilla have given since the release today.

Performance – revolutionary browser includes new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine giving better performance times with each application. In addition, Firefox 3.5 is :

10x faster than Firefox 2.0 and 2x faster than Firefox 3.0

Open Video and Audio – no need for annoying plugins to watch videos and listen to audios, which many people simply cannot function without. Firefox 3.5 delivers the first native integration of audio and video directly into the browser allowing many to format Ogg Theora videos.

Privacy Controls - Firefox 3.5 includes features designed to protect your privacy online and provide greater control over your personal data.

While using the new Private Browsing mode in Firefox 3.5, nothing you encounter on the Web will be stored from that moment on during your browsing session. Like Google Chromes’  Incognito window, the new Forget this Site feature can remove every trace of a site from your browser. If you want to remove all private data or activity from the past few hours, Clear Recent History, another Firefox-only feature, gives you full control over what stays and what goes.

Location Aware Browsing – Location Aware Browsing saves you time by allowing websites to ask you where you are located. If you choose to share your location with a website, it can use that information to find nearby points of interest and return additional, useful data like maps of your area. It’s all optional – Firefox doesn’t share your location without your permission.

Want more features?

Here is a video produced by Mike Beltzner, who will display exciting features which the new Firefox 3.5 will provide you with

Have you used Firefox 3.5 already today? Please feel free to comment below on any features that you find useful or alternatively need to be brushed up.

Will Mozilla deliver on time after many times where they were late?

Surprisingly, the Mozilla corporation will actually be in the position to release the highly anticipated, Firefox 3.5 Beta 4. This new update will most likely be the last of its kind until the real big browser comes into play, Firefox 3.5.

This came as a big thrill to me as you all have realised over the last few beta releases, they have been remarkably late! To refresh your memory,they stopped Beta 3 being released, not just once but twice and then moving on to Beta 4. In additon, the fact that they got rid of Firefox 3.0 demonstrating how amazingly different the two versions, 3.0 and 3.5 actually are.

Why were there always delays?

The obvious reason for the delays are the time management issues, that they did not stick to their target plan. However, the most important reason was from TraceMonkey, which is the new Javascript engine established by Firefox. This seems to be vital for Firefox as it is supposedly meant make pages load 2 times quicker and 9 times quicker than Firefox 3.0

Though, do not get too complacent as Beta 4 still has seven high-priority bugs, which needs to be fixed pretty pronto especially as 5 of the issues are concerning the newly installed, highly problematic javascript engine.

What is to be expected from Firefox 3.5? Well it will give a number of new features regarding HTML 5, the widely used grammer of the Web nowadays. It will give lots of security and a better performance giving a good online experience. There are many other features that I shall outline below,

- Audio and video elements that free media from being dependent on plug-ins, and give Web developers greater control over how media will appear on a Web page

- Easy to drag and drop elements when using Websites

- Isolated browsing feature that stops Firefox from recording your Web activities similar to the heavily used, Google Incognito Window.

- One-click deletion for specific Websites: similar to private browsing, right clicking and selecting “forget about this” for any Website in Firefox’s Web history will delete all history records relating to that Website.

- Wi-Fi based geolocation (opt-in feature)

-Awesome fonts you can download to make your experience online even better.

Mozilla, I feel are still working very hard on both Firefox 3.5 and 3.o. We can see they are working extremely hard as firstly, in the last couple of weeks they unveiled Firefox 3.0.9 update containing twelve security problem fixes, apparently four, if not repaired, could ruin Mozilla. This has been the biggest piece of security fixing since 2008 demonstrating the work they have done, bearing in mind this is the second fix in just under a month. Finally, late last month, Mozilla unveiled a solution for ‘zero day’ flaw after a German computer hacker successfully breached the browser and so won the various competitions posed, meaning he won a nice prize of $15000.

In conclusion, I think lately Mozilla have excited users when displaying all these new and improved features, pleasing all the users, including me. Keep going Mozilla and keep up the good work but do not disappoint in the release dates as it can be their biggest downfall.

Reichenstein previews revoultionary style that excites Firefox users

1 million using firefox as we speak

How did you come to know Firefox? For me it came after my best friend said, “have you used that web browser that is meant to be better that Internet Explorer?” I replied in saying, “there is no browser better than Internet Explorer, which I was soon proved wrong and to this day I use Mozilla Firefox as well as the other 100 million of the population that did the same.

Whilst we go on with our lives, head of user experience in Firefox Inc. who are, Oliver Reichenstein and Aza Raskin have been shuffling up some possible ideas that could come in use in the near future, which you can see in the image above showing a glimpse of what the revoultionary Firefox style could show up like.

Reichenstein also states that tabs could not be the web’s next biggest thing as tabbed browsing isn’t such a big deal in many people’s minds.

He wants to make a multimedia file system which basically means the new mozilla may look similar to Apple’s Itunes, incoporating features like bookmarks in a sidebar, making your screen look a lot tidier and more glorious.

Also, Firefox are going to introduce tree-tabs which you can take a quick look at here . This add-on enables you to put tabs on the side and many more customiztions that you can make.

Built-in Ubiquity

Mozilla Firefox are also going to put in Ubiquity in the new web browser. This is a line style interface for normal browser duties. This is to be put in with the new awesome bar idea that could be primarily released in version 3.6!

Demo
Below is the interactive demo video. And you can look at the mock-ups here.

Taskfox Prototype from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Mozilla and Ubiquity add to "awesome bar" that will be released in later updates.

command-line style interface for common browser tasks