Firefox 3.6 released – First impressions.

Today Mozilla has released a major update to the most popular browser around here – Firefox 3.6. This release does not contain any major features that makes the users WOW! But, still it is worth mentioning the few features that this release brings with it. Btw, if you have not downloaded the latest release here’s the link for you: Download Firefox 3.6

• Personas for easy browser skins.
• Open Video support with the ability to maximize the video to full screen.
• Web Open Font Format support that enables the web developers to use any font as they wish without worrying about the availability of the font in user’s system.
• Performance as every Firefox release claims – Javascript performance improved, startup time is reduced and browser become more responsive.
• CSS Gradients and File Upload that takes out some pain out of web developer’s life. There’s cool demo for the File upload – Do try it out.

That’s very much about the important features of Firefox 3.6. But, you can always look at Firefox 3.6 release notes to get a glimpse of what’s new in Firefox 3.6.

First impression of Firefox 3.6:

• Loads quickly - release after release Mozilla makes one thing clear – to load the Firefox as quickly as possible. With Firefox 3.6 I could see a considerable improvement on this. Anyway, I tried without much of Add-ons. If add-ons are included, I guess, again the startup time might degrade.
• Improved performance - yes! I can see a lots of difference in the page render time. It almost comes close to the Chrome’s performance.
• Cool Gradients - yes, I should say that. No more GIMPing or Photoshopping. Just specify the colors in CSS and you are good to go with colorful buttons. Have a look at this page for sample gradient buttons. Before clicking, make sure that you are running a Firefox 3.6.

It is still not possible to close that one single last tab in Firefox 3.6. If you are wondering how to fix this, have a look at this one: Closing the last tab in Firefox 3.5 (works for 3.6 also)