Firefox 3.5 may be the world's most popular web browser now, but that won't stop Mozilla from pushing ahead to release 3.6 and eventually 4.0. Of course, maybe the lead in web share now has Mozilla a little bit more comfortable in taking time to make things just perfect.
Mozilla originally slated Firefox 3.6 to be released at the end of 2009, but that goal has now been moved to sometime in the first quarter of 2010, CNet reported. (Those adventurous and frothing at the mouth for 3.6 can run the public beta, which I've been doing solely for the Windows 7 Aero peek enhancements.)
The browser wars are now deeper than just Mozilla trying to wrestle market share away from Microsoft (though that is still the main goal). Now Firefox has to deal with speedy alternative Chrome from Google, which has just recently reached to Linux and Mac OS.
The competition from Google is helping to fuel innovation for Firefox 4, such as moving each tab into its own separate process and cleaning up the interface to maximize browser content area.
Here is one proposed interface change for Firefox 4 as compared to the current layout for 3.5:
