Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

The first beta of Firefox 3.6 - codenamed Namoroka and based on Gecko 1.9.2 - is expected to be released by Mozilla on October, 13.

Firefox 3.6 won't bring in any major changes, so the users will have to wait until version 4.0 to get the Chrome-like tabs and so on (built-in, I mean, because you can already do that in Firefox 3.5 with some tweaks).

Firefox 3.6 will come with lightweight themes, improvements to the org's TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, an optimised session restore, better page-rendering speed and a few new additions for the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) technology used in the browser.

The beta release date is only an estimate, and Mozilla’s Mike Beltzner told the Firefox team that there was “no shame” if they don’t hit the suggested deadline.

Ubuntu users: read about installing Firefox 3.6 beta 1 pre.