Just three months after Mozilla pushed out what was its final big beast of a browser release in the form of the long-awaited Firefox 4, the next iteration of its popular surfing tool is now available online.

Firefox 5, as it has been sensibly named, can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android platforms.

Few major tweaks have been slotted into this release, which is hardly surprising given the fast, splatter-gun style of updating Mozilla code.

The iterate-big-or-die cultural shift inside the open source browser outfit's Towers comes in clear acknowledgement of Google's Chrome schedule.

It may be mirroring Google's developer roadmap these days, but Mozilla wants the world to be aware that it is the first browser maker to debut the so-called Do Not Track privacy feature across platforms, including on Google's own Android.

Apart from that, Mozilla boasts "more than 1,000 improvements and updates" to its browser, including support for more modern web technologies to aid developers who build Firefox add-ons, web apps and websites.

Now the race is on in this brave new code-frenzy world for Mozilla to ping out Firefox 6 on 21 September.

Meanwhile, some browser fans might be crying into their beer about relatively small software releases being given major version names without a committee of openistas first poring over the philosophical consequences of such a dynamic, corporate-like move.

The code is this way. ®

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• W3C announces web-tracking privacy protection group (9 September 2011)

  https://www.theregister.com/2011/09/09/do_not_track_w3c_working_group/

• Firefox 6 silently released ahead of official unwrap date (15 August 2011)

  https://www.theregister.com/2011/08/15/firefox_6_code_lands/

• Mozilla pushes out final Firefox 5 test build (16 June 2011)

  https://www.theregister.com/2011/06/16/firefox_5_release_candidate/

• Firefox 5 beta slapped on Mozilla conveyer belt (23 May 2011)

  https://www.theregister.com/2011/05/23/firefox_5_beta/

• Mozilla to shift 12m surfers off 2-year-old Firefox 3.5 (16 May 2011)

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• Mozilla rejigs Firefox release schedule in nod to Google's Chrome (14 April 2011)

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• Mozilla delivers first Firefox 4 release candidate (10 March 2011)

  https://www.theregister.com/2011/03/10/mozilla_announces_firefox_4_release_candidate/

• Mozilla plans four Firefoxes in 2011 (7 February 2011)

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• Mozilla makes rough notes on Firefox 3.6 (30 July 2009)

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