Firefox 6 Released; Introduces ‘Permissions Manager’ & Improved Dev Tools

As it’s been almost a full two months since the release of Firefox 5, it can be assumed that most users are beginning to become a little bit bored. But don’t fret; Firefox 6 is here! While officially set to launch tomorrow, Firefox 6 has been moved to the /releases/ folder, stating that it is in fact the shipping version.

Firefox 6 marks the second version released in Mozilla’s ‘rapid-release’ cycle, which will see a new version of the browser launch every six weeks. This means that if the schedule is adhered to, and there’s no reason to believe why it wouldn’t be, we’re likely to see Firefox 9 by year’s end. This would beat out original expectations that Firefox 7 would be the final release in 2011.

Mozilla overhauled the add-ons manager in Firefox 6, and has continued its improvements with 7, by automatically checking a plugin to see if it’s compatible with the latest version of the browser (an issue that in my opinion shouldn’t even exist).

Perhaps the best (and best hidden) feature of Firefox 6 is its ‘Permissions Manager’, which allows users to adjust security settings on a site-by-site basis, forgoing the need for an extension to accomplish the same. In it, you can disallow cookies from being stored, passwords, location and also control pop-up windows. It’s a simple tool, but looks to be effective. It’s worth noting that Mozilla considers this to be an experimental feature, so to access it, you will need to type ‘about:permissions’ in the address bar.

For developers, a couple of new tools are introduced, including ‘Scratchpad’, allowing quick execution of JavaScript snippets inside of the browser, ‘Web Console’, now offering the ability to be moved – even outside of the browser, and ‘Web Developer Menu’, a sub-menu found inside the main Firefox menu that gives developers quicker access to these tools and more.

This latest release is also said to improve load times under Linux, although this is something I was unable to test or quantify. In addition, other enhancements have been made under the hood, making Firefox 6 a no-brainer upgrade for most – as long as your extensions are going to remain usable.