San Francisco — Mozilla on Sunday, suddenly posted a second Release Candidate of its forthcoming browser Firefox 3.6, just five days after the non-profit organization put forth the first release candidate, a minor upgrade that embodies Mozilla’s effort to increase the frequency the open-source browser is developed, and a final version of which could land this week.
Mike Beltzner, president of Firefox, announced second Firefox 3.6 release candidate Sunday but did not gave more details. The release notes were equally mum, but the update process called the new software a “security and stability update.”
The open source unit in its release notes said Firefox 3.6 RC2 had refined how the browser will allow third party software to slot into the browser, in a move to prevent crashes.
Such an speedy pace of development indicates that Firefox 3.6 will be ready for prime time soon. This release packs no new features beyond a few under-the-hood tweaks and fixed more than 70 bugs from the last beta to improve performance, stability, security, and features.
Meanwhile, Mozilla’s Beltzner wrote in a blog post on Friday, in which he confirmed that Firefox 3.7 had been ditched. Instead Firefox 3.6 will be the final biggish release before Firefox 4.0 lands, which is not expected until late this year or early 2011.
“An update to the Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate is now available. This second release candidate is available for free download and has been issued as an automatic update to all Firefox 3.6 Beta and Release Candidate users,” Beltzner writes.
Firefox 3.6 features a lightweight theming engine dubbed Personas, a syncing add-on, reinforced plug-in management that alerts you about expired plugins, new APIs enabling developers to write extensions that retrieve your geographical location, and more.
Among other enhancements that is now built into the browser, it also supports the latest HTML5 specification, better support for open video codecs including support for a new open font format and improved JavaScript performance, in addition to the File API for local file handling, which enables web apps to access and manipulate local files without requiring you to upload them to the server first.
If you already have any previous beta of Firefox 3.6 installed on your system, the software should automatically update itself. You can also invoke the update check manually by choosing the “Check for Updates” from the Help menu. Users installing a fresh copy of Firefox 3.6 RC2 should download a standalone installers for Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux.
Firefox 3.6 RC2 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6 RC2 for Mac OS X is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6 RC2 for Linux is available for download here.
Read more in Firefox 3.6 RC2 release notes.