Latest Firefox version goes alpha: It's all about the speed

Mozilla has released the first alpha version of Firefox 3.6, a browser with speed improvements and new features the organisation hopes to finalise faster than its predecessor.

"Unlike the year that passed between Firefox 3 and Firefox 3.5, we expect that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months," Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post Friday.

Firefox 3.6, codenamed Namoroka, has a variety of changes, but it's not as dramatic a departure as 3.5 was from 3.0.

Among the 3.6 features are faster JavaScript, the web programming language Firefox executes with its TraceMonkey engine; faster page-rendering speed; some new features for CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) technology for controlling some of the look of a website; and a feature called the compositor that handles complicated layout circumstances better.

Performance is a big issue with browsers these days as people spend more time using them and programmers create more sophisticated sites and applications that live on the web. All major browser makers are emphasising performance improvements in their newest versions.

Download links for the first Firefox 3.6 alpha are at the Mozilla Developer Center.

Original article: Mozilla issues first Firefox 3.6 alpha version from CNET News.com