Mozilla ramps up Firefox schedule

With the release of Firefox 6 today, just ten weeks after the release of Firefox 5, Mozilla is making its plan to match Google Chrome's aggressive update schedule clear.

Firefox 6 is currently available on a Mozilla FTP site, and is expected to be added to the main Mozilla site later today when the publishers sign off their QA testing. The new version is reportedly up to 20% faster than its predecessor, and features a new permissions tool that controls how much access each site has to the user's browsing data.

Meanwhile, Firefox 7 has moved into the beta channel, and Firefox 8 from the Nightly channel to the Aurora channel.

The decision to offer smaller updates more frequently is reportedly an attempt to match the busy update schedule on which Google runs Chrome.

However, commentators have questioned the strategy, saying Mozilla may be alienating enterprise users, who prefer less frequent updates because of the work required to install them on so many computers.

Firefox 6 should be available for download before the end of the day.