Mozilla has this morning released the major 3.5 update to its popular browser Firefox. With it comes HTML5 elements, including support for the open Ogg Theora and Vorbis video and audio formats, Private Browsing mode, better web app performance courtesy of the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine (twice as fast as Firefox 3, and ten times Firefox 2), Location Aware Browsing (an optional feature that lets websites know where you're coming from so content can be tailored accordingly), and of course, lots of under the hood improvements, fixes, and the like.

Simply click the 'Help' tab in Firefox and 'Check for Updates' to grab the new version, of if you're particularly careful, use the Tweakguides method. If you're new to Firefox and keen to try, download it here.

There are known issues, naturally -- check the release notes linked below if you're curious.

Enjoy.

What’s New in Firefox 3.5

Firefox 3.5  is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under development for the past year. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use. Some of the notable features are:

• Available in more than 70 languages.
• Support for the HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio.
• Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
• Better web application performance using the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
• The ability to share your location with websites using Location Aware Browsing.
• Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
• Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
• Support for new web technologies such as: downloadable fonts, CSS media queries, new transformations and properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 local storage and offline application storage, <canvas> text, ICC profiles, and SVG transforms.