Tech Update: Firefox 9 with faster Javascript released

Firefox 9, the newest iteration of Mozilla's popular browser, has been released. 

Along with the usual bug fixes, the biggest new feature this cycle is the inclusion of something called Type Inference, which Mozilla says improves benchmark performances in Javascript by 30 percent and can give "a large speed boost to many JS heavy websites."

The other big features include better integration into Mac OS X Lion and a Do Not Track status via Javascript. Click here for the full release notes, or head to the download page for the newest version of Firefox.

Mozilla releases "new, faster" Firefox Beta 9

Less than a week after Firefox 8 went live, Mozilla has released Firefox Beta 9 to the Beta channel for testing. The main aim of this version of Firefox is to increase the overall speed of the browser through increasing the efficiency of JavaScript and by enabling chucking for XHR requests.

In addition to the speed increase, Firefox Beta 9 adds support for Mac OS X Lion and increased privacy settings. The additions to Mac OS X Lion support include application toolbar and icon styles, 2-finger swipe navigation and easier detection of multiple monitors. As for the privacy settings, a new option called Do Not Track has been included to instruct JavaScript that the user wishes to opt-out of behavioral tracking features.

Head over to the main Firefox Beta 9 site for the download link, available in Windows, OS X and Linux flavors.