Complete with optimized Java and HTML5 video and audio support, the latest version of the Firefox browser is now available for server-download.

Version 3.5 had an unusual birth. Originally intended to be the 3.1, Shiretoko, the codename of the new release, had far too many changes and innovations on board to be a simple successor to 3.0. Now, after several beta and release candidates, the 3.5 browser is ready and available for download from various servers. An official announcement is expected to follow soon.

Among the most prominent features so far is native support for audio and video tags from HTML5 which (like Opera) enables the viewing of Ogg media files without any plug-ins. Which explains why some major video platforms have converted to Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora.

In an age of cloud computing, an increasing amount of applications are certain to wind up on the web and subsequently in the browser. To meet this challenge, Firefox has optimized its Javascript support by adding a new Tracemonkey engine which dramatically improves browser performance. Native JSON support increases browser speed and scans the DOM Tree much quicker.

The new release also comes with a geolocation function which enables webservers to pinpoint positions of users via the Firefox browser, either through the IP address or by means of a radio network bearing- provided explicit permission is given by the user. Thanks to an object-saving cache, some tasks can be carried out offline. This should prove useful for a multitude of web applications. Firefox brings a number of further features, but not yet support for multi-threading, which will probably come with version 3.6.

Firefox 3.5 can be downloaded from Mozilla's own server, or from a number of mirrors, like here or here.

Complete with optimized Java and HTML5 video and audio support, the latest version of the Firefox browser is now available for server-download.