Firefox 5.0 Features to Be Announced

Earlier this year when it announced the intention to ship Firefox 5.0, Firefox 6.0 and Firefox 7.0 by the end of 2011, Mozilla also unveiled some of the features it had planned for introduction this year.

The open source browser maker did warn that the Firefox Roadmap for 2011 was not finalized, and it appears that changes have already been made.
Mozilla removed all the mentions of new features for Firefox 5.0 and later, slapping the “To Be Announced” status on all.Users that want to see what the company had planned initially can read my initial article on the upcoming features.At the same time, there is a collection of details under the “So, what are we building?” section of the Roadmap.Future versions of Firefox will continue to be customizable, will synchronize across devices and put users in control of their information. Of course, the browser will also not diverge from its open source path and allow contributions from the community.

Details around the evolution of the JavaScript engine are also to be announced at a later date, however, information has already been posted on add-ons, plugins, customizations, developer tools, and distribution.

Here is a list with additional modifications:

“Firefox Front End

• Simple Sharing
• Animations in the user interface
• 50 high priority polish issues for common taskflows
• Asynchronous Places
• Account Manager
• Remove Smart Search functionality from Bookmark Manager
• Electrolysis
• Web Application Install/Uninstall Support
• Process-per-tab to mitigate effects of crashes

Web Platform

• Hardware Accelerate <canvas>
• CSS 3D Transforms
• Seamless switch to fullscreen video
• Websockets
• input type=camera, video
• Low Power mode
• IndexedDB

Gecko Platform Development

• Gather performance metrics from users
• Support Windows 64-bit builds
• Document how to design a common platform to be used for interchangably running desktop, mobile or chromeless web apps
• Integrate with new OSX 10.7 user interface
• Integrate with new Android 3.0 user interface
• Ensure JIT performs well on modern ARM CPU families”

Firefox 4.0 Final for Windows is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Final for Linux is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Final for Mac is available for download here.