December 20th is the official Firefox 9 final release date. The browser has been uploaded to Mozilla’s ftp server prior to release. It is currently distributed to Mozilla’s first and third party distribution network to ensure a fast and uninterrupted distribution to Firefox 8 users.
I have covered all Firefox 9 changes back when the Aurora version of the browser was released. Aurora versions on the other hand are not always what final users can expect from the browser.
The biggest new feature that Mozilla introduces in Firefox 9 is Type Inference which improves JavaScript performance significantly by using inferred type information. Mozilla noted that the new feature can speed up the browser’s JavaScript performance by up to 30%. Users will usually see less than that percentage though in their day activities.
The developers furthermore have added support for font-stretch, improved support for text-overflow and improved overall standards support for HTML5, MathML and CSS.
Mac OS X Lion users benefit from the new two finger swipe navigation and improved theme integration.
The release notes list several stability enhancements and bug fixes that have made their way into the browser (check the complete list of changes for details, linked on the release notes page).
Most Firefox users can probably wait the day until the browser is officially released by Mozilla. Users can then update Firefox with the browsers automatic update feature, or by downloading the new version from the official website.
Firefox users who experience issues with the current stable version, for instance crashes, may want to install the new version as soon as possible to resolve the issues.
Those users can download Firefox 9.0 Final from third party websites such as Softpedia. Please note that Softpedia only hosts the English version of the browser.
Have you tried Firefox 9 yet? If so, what’s your impression of the new version?
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