Firefox 6.0 Available for Download Starting Tomorrow

Tweet

Mozilla’s Firefox browser is the second most used browser in the world, after Internet Explorer and ahead of Chrome, Safari and everyone else’s Internet surfing alternative. And while Firefox 4.0 took its time to arrive we’re now seeing Mozilla in a real hurry to launch new version after version.

Back in June the company launched Firefox 5, three months after the arrival of Firefox 4, and now we’re ready to download Firefox 6. The new browser version is expected to be ready for public download tomorrow, August 16, not today, as some rumors suggested.

Starting tomorrow, Firefox 7 beta will also be available to download, which is just a little too much for my taste, and I expect Firefox 6 to be soon forgotten in favor of Firefox 7. Moreover, there’s even talk about the future Firefox 8 floating around, so one can only wonder about Mozilla’s intentions. Why is the company launching so many updates all of a sudden? Is it feeling the heat coming from competitors, with Google’s Chrome being the most important rival out there right now?

While we wait for Mozilla to further elaborate on its browser developing intentions we have a list of changes you can expect from Firefox 6.0 once you download and install this new update:

• The address bar now highlights the domain of the website you’re visiting
• Streamlined the look of the site identity block
• Added support for the latest draft version of WebSockets with a prefixed API
• Added support for EventSource / server-sent events
• Added support for window.matchMedia
• Added Scratchpad, an interactive JavaScript prototyping environment
• Added a new Web Developer menu item and moved development-related items into it
• Improved usability of the Web Console
• Improved the discoverability of Firefox Sync
• Reduced browser startup time when using Panorama

What is your default desktop Internet browser?