The bug fixes released Tuesday include a mechanism to prevent incompatible software from crashing the browser, noted Firefox Director Mike Beltzner. However, Firefox 3.6 remains prerelease software, which means testers may encounter compatibility problems with some web sites and add-ons.
"Most add-ons have not yet been upgraded by their authors to be compatible with Firefox 3.6 Beta," Beltzner cautioned.
Looking for a Boost
The release of a second beta of Firefox 3.6 in less than two weeks is a good indication that Mozilla is keen to bring its browser upgrades to market as quickly as possible. One possible reason why is that Google has recently been seeing accelerated use of its Chrome browser, which may pose the biggest threat to Firefox's long-term prospects for growth.
StatCounter reports Firefox continued to maintain its number-two position globally in October with a 31.8 percent share of the browser market -- an improvement of 6.5 percentage points over the past 12 months. Though Microsoft's Internet Explorer continues to lead with a 58 percent market share, its slice of the global browser market has fallen 10 percentage points in the past year, data from the Dublin web-metrics firm shows.
By contrast, StatCounter's data indicates that Chrome's market share has risen by more than 3.2 percentage points to a 4.17 percent share during the past 12 months. By contrast, the use of Opera's browser is declining and the market share for Apple's Safari browser has fallen slightly behind Chrome for the past two months.
Mozilla hopes the final release of Firefox 3.6 will give it a boost similar to the one it enjoyed when Firefox 3.5 was unleashed in July. The launch of the last browser upgrade helped Mozilla capture more than two percent of the U.S. browser market in short order, according to StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen.
Under-the-Hood Improvements
Net Applications attributes Firefox's five-year success story in part to its frequent release of updates featuring innovations. However, the U.S.-based web-metrics firm thinks Microsoft's release of Windows 7 gives all Firefox's rivals an opportunity to win back some browser market share.
One place where Google's Chrome may have an edge has to do with the steady movement of browsers onto smartphones and other mobile devices. Though Google's Android platform is only expected to account for 2.4 percent of the total smartphone market this year, iSuppli predicts Android will grow at a compound annual rate of 118 percent through 2013.
Firefox 3.6 beta introduces several new features for beta users to evaluate, Beltzner observed, including the ability to change the browser's appearance with a single click, and built-in support for the user-selected art themes or skins that Mozilla calls Personas.
Even better, videos can now be viewed in full screen mode, with support for poster frames -- the image placeholders that display in the browser window until the video begins to play. Other improvements include the ability for developers to use color gradients when implementing web-page designs based on Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) technology.
In Firefox 3.6 beta 2, one of the latest improvements involves the implementation of a less-awkward and more logical CSS gradient syntax than the beta 1 release offered. "It's unfortunate to land something new like this after the last beta," said Mozilla developer Robert O'Callahan. "But in this case, it seems like the right thing to do instead of shipping a CSS gradient syntax that we know nobody wants." (Choi)
Sumber : Yahoo.com
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