Mozilla has made the fifth beta version of its upcoming Firefox 3 browser available for download today, and is freezing code for release candidate 1 in only six days.

Trailblazers can get Beta 5 here and the release notes over yonder.

Beta 5 includes more than 750 changes from the previous beta release, including "improved stability and web compatibility". It also promises a speed boost over Beta 4, which by all accounts was already appreciatively fast.

The updated beta offers better integration with Windows, Mac and Linux, with improved OS X and Vista interface and support for widgets. Linux gets a default icon and menus conforming to the native GTK theme.

In personalization, Mozilla has added the Places Organizer, a function that lets users organize and search through bookmarks, tags and browsing history. Users can also create and restore full backups to get back from an application crash a bit faster.

As usual, here's your obligatory warning that the release is beta, meaning it could crash, burn, mess up your computer, break your heart, leak arcane energy through a rift and space in time, and nobody would feel very sorry for you.

The remaining bugs should be relatively minor, however, given Mozilla intends to freeze the code on April 8 for the first release candidate. The final version of Firefox 3 is expected to arrive in June. ®

More comments…

Related stories

Mozilla plugs 10 security holes in Firefox (27 March 2008)
Mozilla CEO blasts Apple for putting security of the internet at risk (24 March 2008)
Mozilla reaches stage 4 of Firefox 3 beta endurance test (11 March 2008)
Microsoft plays IE 8 interoperability pick and mix (6 March 2008)
IE8 to follow web standards by default (4 March 2008)
Mozilla opens the doors on Messaging subsidiary (20 February 2008)