Firefox 9 Live Now: Firefox 11 and 12 Will Count

Mozilla has released the final Firefox version today. Officially, it’s not Firefox 9, it’s just a new version of Firefox that delivers major JavaScript enhancements, But it is really Firefox 11 and 12 we are waiting for.

Mozilla has released six new Firefox versions this year, beginning with Firefox 4 on March 22 and Firefox 9 almost nine months later. It seems to be a huge improvement over 2010, when Mozilla needed well over a year to get Firefox 4 ready for a release. In some way, the rapid release cycle has worked very well and Mozilla appears to be on a roll: New releases get pushed out much faster. What is missing, however, are a similar flow of new features as well as the positive impact of user recognition that was supposed to go along with the rapid release cycle.

Mozilla says that Firefox (9) is about 30% faster in JavaScript applications and first benchmark runs indicate that this is about right. “The latest update to Firefox includes Type Inference which boosts JavaScript performance and allow rich websites and Web apps with lots of pictures, videos, games and 3D graphics to load and run much faster,” Mozilla said. “Type Inference is a feature of the SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine that integrates with the JaegerMonkey JIT compiler to provide analysis and help generate more efficient code. Firefox with Type Inference is up to 30% speedier on JavaScript benchmarks like Kraken and V8.”

In Mac OS X Lion, Firefox “supports two-finger swipe gestures so you can easily navigate between websites. Firefox for Mac has an enhanced look and feel that matches the Mac OS X Lion icon and application toolbar styles and makes it easier to browse the Web using multiple monitors.” All remaining additions are mainly targeted at the tablet version of Firefox. Among all Firefox releases, Firefox 9 is certainly the most significant just behind the Firefox 7 release, which came with memory improvements.

Firefox 10, which is now in the beta channel, appears to become a patch and maintenance update, while version 11 could be more significant with the introduction of (incomplete) silent updates. Version 11 will also get a new New Tab page and a Chrome migration data toolset. Version 12 is expected to complete the silent update feature, finally integrate web apps in the desktop and deliver a panel-based download manager. That is the good news – the not so good news is that Firefox 11 will not be released until March 13 and Firefox 12 not until April 24.

You can download the new Firefox version here.

Daniel Bailey in Products on December 20