Mozilla Firefox 3.6: download now! Performance, personæ, oh my...

It's fourth dimension to download Firefox three.6. Only released by those e'er-and then-nice people at Mozilla, it improves functioning, checks your addons, boosts stability, and adds a great 'persona' characteristic. In IT Blogwatch , bloggers shovel the bits.

Past Richi Jennings. January 22, 2010.

Your apprehensive blogwatcher selected these bloggy morsels for your enjoyment. Not to mention Starting time-Person Tetris...

Jay Hathaway breathlessly brings browser bumf:

Information technology's finally official! Mere days after it hitting Release Candidate 2, the finished version of Firefox iii.half-dozen comes out tomorrow. ... The timing of this release is perfect, since IE is currently shedding users thank you to its role in Mainland china'southward attack on Google.

...

If Firefox is going to take a seize with teeth out of IE and hold off the WebKit contenders like Chrome and Safari, now'southward the fourth dimension to do information technology. So, along comes Firefox 3.6, marketing itself as the all-time choice for security and stability ... looks like a good sales pitch to me, even if yous're not in love with add-ons.

Paul Taylor agrees:

Dainty timing from the folks over at the Mozilla Foundation. As calls to ditch [IE] in the wake of the Chinese hack assault on Google reverberate around the internet, the open source project has released a new version. ... Its developers likewise merits that Firefox 3.vi is significantly more stable than its predecessor and that it is less prone to crashes caused past third party software.

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Co-ordinate to Net Applications, Firefox continued to take marketshare from IE last year, catastrophe December with 24.61 per cent of the browser market compared to IE's 62.69 per cent. While Apple's Safari has also been gaining, Google's Chrome browser is growing fastest and accounted for 4.63 per cent of the market in December compared to 4.46 per cent for Safari..

Harry McCracken notes the passing, for many, of the 'alternative browser' moniker:

The concept of "alternative browser" is dried–for 1 thing, on many sites, ... Firefox is the most pop browser.

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Mozilla is claiming a xx pct speed increase (including faster startup and JavaScript improvements) and more than stability. ... There's also stuff that–for now–is by and large of involvement to developers and those who love bleeding-edge Web technologies. ... Should you get Firefox 3.six? Yes, if you're a Firefox fan–once you've verified that your favorite plug-ins are bachelor for it. And if you're an ex-Firefox user who'due south drifted off to another browser over speed or stability issues, it's too worth a look.

Mozilla'south Melissa Shapiro shelebrates :

Firefox iii.6 is more than 20 percentage faster than Firefox 3.5 and includes extensive under the hood work to improve operation for everyday Web tasks. ... [It] was congenital by Mozilla's global customs of passionate contributors, including thousands of experienced developers, security experts, localization and support communities, and hundreds of thousands of active testers.

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Firefox 3.vi is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in more than 70 languages – more than platforms and languages than any other browser! You can download Firefox iii.6 at www.firefox.com.

And Ryan Naraine talks security:

Building on the browser'southward ability to check for updates to Adobe Flash Player, Mozilla has now fitted a plug-in checker that scans the machine for insecure plug-ins that are installed. If an outdated plug-in is found, the browser will now prompt the user to utilize the patch via a i-click interface. ... Plug-ins are different from add together-ons or extensions. Many software products add plug-ins to Firefox without the user's knowledge or consent and these are rarely patched past the end-user.

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The second major security improvement in Firefox three.half dozen is a behind-the-scenes tweak to lock out rogue Firefox add together-ons.  The feature is called Component Directory Lockdown, blocks browser add together-ons from loading in the browser'south application components directory, a move that effectivly stops developers and software vendors from silently installing Firefox add-ons.

Meanwhile, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is predictably fanboi-ish :

Yes, Linux is safer by far than Windows, but shifting operating systems is a big deal. It's not for anybody, and for a company, it requires both planning and grooming. Merely changing Web browsers is equally like shooting fish in a barrel as changing your pants. ... You can download Firefox 3.6, install it, transfer all your IE bookmarks and settings, and be back on the Web in less than v minutes.

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What do you lot have to lose? Nothing simply a lot of security headaches. ... Dump IE and replace it with Firefox.

Only Preston Gralla hits the 'grumpy' button :

Looking to upgrade to Firefox 3.6? On Windows and the Mac, you don't demand to exercise much more than download a file, perform a few clicks, and you're done. Just for the moment, if you desire to upgrade it on Linux, y'all'll be in a world of pain unless you're a very experienced Linux user. It's one more piece of evidence that Linux needs plenty of aid if it wants to crevice the mass market.

And so what's your have?

Get involved: get out a comment .

And finally...

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, he is also an analyst at Ferris Enquiry. Yous can follow him as @richi on Twitter, or richij on FriendFeed, pretend to be richij 's friend on Facebook, or merely use practiced sometime electronic mail: itblogwatch@richij.com .
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