Mozilla has released the fifth, and reportedly last, beta version of the next Firefox browser.
Firefox 3.6 has seen more than 100 bugfixes since beta 4, including improvements in Firefox's performance, stability, and security. If you'd like to take beta 5 for a spin, head over to the Mozilla downloads page or just wait for your current Firefox 3.6 beta to automatically update.
Five betas is an unusually high number for a Firefox release, but the latest package clears most of the remaining blocking bugs. This means the final release of Firefox 3.6 is likely just around the corner.
Given that we're so close to the final release, Firefox 3.6 beta 5 doesn't contain any significant new features. It does, however, bring some very welcome bug fixes, including a couple of annoying scrolling bugs we've had to deal with in previous beta releases.
This release also fixes a bug that would occasionally cause Firefox to crash on the Twitter login page, and worse, would expose passwords in plain text.
The other big of good news for this release is that Add-on developers are getting ready for the final release of Firefox 3.6. Mozilla reports that over 70 percent of Firefox Add-ons have now been upgraded to be compatible with Firefox 3.6 Beta, including the ever-popular Greasemonkey.
Sadly two of our favorite web development add-ons, Yahoo's YSlow and Google's recently released Page Speed tool have yet to update for Firefox 3.6. If you'd like to help out the developers of your favorite add-on, grab the Add-on Compatibility Reporter, which, among other things, allows you to run add-ons that haven't yet been updated.
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