Mozilla has pushed the fifth beta version of Firefox 3 into the open waters of the internet. Grab it here. The release notes have also been posted.

I asked Mozilla director of community development Asa Dotzler for an update, and here’s what he says about Firefox 3 beta 5:

755 bug fixes, including all Firefox 3 P1 blockers (these are the top priority must-fix bugs). Improved performance. Dotzler says Beta 5 is even faster than Beta 4 according to Mozilla’s own testing. We here at Compiler found that Beta 4 is already extremely fast, so that’s good news. This release was prepared in a very compressed beta cycle of three weeks.

There are still a few small bugs to be worked out, but at this point, they appear to be minor. Wednesday’s release should be the final beta release for the open-source browser — it comes six days before the code freeze date (April 8th) for the first release candidate.

Once Firefox 3 reaches the RC1 stage later this month, we should expect to see all of the major add-on creators update their code to run in the new browser. The RC1 stage is considered stable and feature complete, so independent developers often wait until that point to work on their updates.

The final version of Firefox 3 is expected in June.

See Also:

Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler on Firefox, Fighting Bloat and the Problem with Democracy Mozilla: Final Version of Firefox 3 Will Ship in June Firefox 3 Trounces IE, Opera and Safari in Memory Tests Extend Firefox Contest Highlights the Catch-22 of Browser Add-ons New Beta 4 Puts the Fire Back in Firefox 3

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