Firefox is yet to officially launch its Firefox 9, but it seems the company is interested in giving its users a Christmas gift, before it officially announces it to everyone. One might know that the beta version of the same is already been doing rounds for almost a month now. However, if the enthusiastic techies and users want to get their hands on it before Mozilla makes an official announcement of the same on its website, one can find Firefox 9 final release binaries on Mozilla’s servers.
Mozilla is working on quick switches, to keep its efforts recycled at a quicker pace. The changes are not only for the Firefox browser, but even for some of their other products too.
From the user’s prospective, they can expect an improved Javascript engine that can deliver up to 30 percent more performance than the one used in the last release. Again, the points noted that the interface have even got a few enhancements. This would do good for the Apple’s Mac OS X Lion operating system, while blending the same. An inclusion of gestures would even be noticed.
Apart from the above noted changes, Mozilla would continue its traditional housekeeping – removing bugs and performance glitches with the browser.
Firefox has been in news for a couple of reasons this year, but this seems to be the most satisfying reason for a Firefox lover. Other news related to them, has only attracted negative publicity, which has potentially only harmed the browser’s reputation. A few notable ones are as below.
Firstly, Google’s Chrome having overtaken Firefox, to secure the position of being the second most used browser around. However, only a few noted the same, while others still compiled their thoughts noting that potentially Google Chrome will take over Firefox in 2012. in either case, its bad news for Firefox.
The other degrading news piece noted with a report that stated that Firefox was the least secure of Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Luckily, in this case, they had a savior in the form of another security research firm, NSS Labs, who called the testing and the results to be inaccurate. But it seems damage was already done to the reputation of the company.
Coming back to the latest, its happy times and Firefox 9 would potentially bring in the best for the browser to succeed. The best part of this upgrade is that the users will get improved standard support for such gems as HTML5, MathML, and everyone’s favorite: CSS, amongst a slew of additional features. Moreover, additional support for Apple systems, would help it rake up a number of users as it will make things simpler.
Mozilla enjoys its add-ons over Apple’s Safari browser, which will give it an edge. However, the company needs to still beware of Google Chrome, who with its web store has eaten up every possible chunk available and is still hungry to bite share of Mozilla and Internet Explorer.