Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 launched

More than 750 changes from previous beta promised

3 April 2008 12:05 GMT / By Katie Scott

Less than a month after the launch of Firefox 3.0 Beta 5, Mozilla has announced the availability of the next beta.

Firefox 3 Beta 5 is claimed to include more than 750 changes from the previous beta, including improved stability and web compatibility.

And Mozilla also says it is the fastest Firefox ever.

Mozilla is now calling on testers to download and install the Beta 5 release to test it against the websites they normally visit.

Improvements include better Windows icons, and inclusion of native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.

For Macs, the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application.

And better integration with Linux is also promised with Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now using the native GTK theme.

And last up - Mozilla has promised improvements to the JavaScript engine.

It says: "Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3 Beta 5, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases".