More news has surfaced about multi-process support for Firefox, with a prototype now completed.

Multi-process support gives each tabs, window, and plugins its own process. Browsers such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 already support this feature.

Benjamin Smedberg has blogged about the benefits of multi-processes:

• Increased stability: if a plugin or webpage tries to use all the processor, memory, or even crashes, a process can isolate that bad behavior from the rest of the browser.
• Performance: By splitting work up among multiple processes, the browser can make use of multiple processor cores available on modern desktop computers and the next generation of mobile processors. The user interface can also be more responsive because it doesn’t need to block on long-running web page activities.
• Security: If the operating system can run a process with lower privileges, the browser can isolate web pages from the rest of the computer, making it harder for attackers to infect a computer.

Firefox developer Chris Jones has posted a screencast demoing the new technology.

No word on a final release date yet, but we may see this technology in production version some time in late 2010. Currently the team are focusing on Windows and Linux versions.

Firefox 3.5 was downloaded more than 5 million times in 24 hours, but this is still 3 million less than the 8 million downloads when Firefox 3 was released.

With the release of Firefox 3.5, Mozilla have provided real time Firefox download information. Current downloads totals for 3.5 are nearing 9 million in just 2 days.

Overall Firefox downloads are estimated to be over 900 million.

Mozilla has finally released Firefox 3.5 final, the next installment in the Firefox series.

Firefox 3.5 is more than twice as fast as Firefox 3, and 12 times faster than Firefox 2.

New features includes support for HTML5 audio and video tags, private browsing, faster JavaScript engine and of course better stability and security.

A full list of changes can be found in the release notes, while the new browser can be downloaded from Firefox.

Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate 2 (RC2). With minimal changes since RC1 last week, the end is near for Firefox 3.5.

Firefox 3.5 final is still scheduled before the end of June.

A full list of changes can be found in the release notes. The new browser will be automatically downloaded for RC1 users, or can be downloaded directly from the Mozilla Beta website.

Included in Release Candidate 1 builds of Firefox, Mozilla has released the final iteration of the new Firefox 3.5 logo.

The icon was created by Anthony Piraino from the Iconfactory, and went through a total of 14 iterations over several weeks.

The new icon has a stronger 3D feel to it, with much more detail in the foxes tail.

The new logo is available in several sizes and formats and can be downloaded from the Mozilla Wiki.

Mozilla has just released Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate (RC) to the web.

Other than better stability, there doesn’t seem to be much new under the hood. A full list of changes since Beta 4 can be found in the release notes.

The browser is available on all major platforms from the Firefox Beta website. Existing Beta 4 users will have the update pushed out to them automatically.

Mozilla has pushed out another update to Firefox, taking it to version 3.0.11. The latest release fixes 9 security vulnerabilities, 4 of which as rated as critical, along with a large list of other bugs.

The update will be automatically downloaded for existing Firefox 3 users, or can be downloaded directly from the Firefox website.

It appears Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate 1 is now expected at some stage this week. Nightly builds of the browser now include the RC1 tag, suggesting that we will see a release some time this week.

Current early Windows builds weigh in at 7.6MB and run on Windows 2000 all the way up to Windows 7.

On the outside, the browser doesn’t appear too different from Beta 4, but there are plenty of bug fixes that have gone in under the hood. “Even before shipping the RC, we’ve managed to find a number of issues that needed fixing,” said Mike Beltzner, the director of Firefox.

The final 3.5 release is still expected before the end of the month, and we will let you know as soon as the release candidate is released.

Browser market share results have been released for May 2009 thanks to Market Share by Net Applications, and no surprises as Microsoft Internet Explorer loose another 0.5% of it’s market share, dropping back to 65%.

Firefox had a steady month, still with its 22.5% share. Apple’s Safari has jumped from 8.2% to 8.4% this month, while Google Chrome has seen a jump from 1.4% to 1.8%.

Opera has also stayed steady, with 0.7% of the pie. Microsoft should be concerning, with the recent release of Internet Explorer 8 hoping to patch the trickle of users flocking to other browsers.

The full detailed statistics for May’s results are available online.

With Firefox 3.5 nearing completion, it has been revealed that many of the icons is Firefox 3.5 are being refreshed and updated.

Across all 4 platforms, around 25 icons are being tweaked or are entirely new, such as the geolocation icons.

The new icons are available now in the latest nightly builds, but will be included in any Release Candidates and the final release of 3.5