Mozilla has released the fifth and reportedly final beta of Firefox 3.6 today as it moves closer to ship the final code by the end of the year. The latest package clears most of the remaining blocking bugs, totaling more than 120 new fixes since November's beta 4 release, among which is a couple that deal with an annoying scrolling bug and one that would expose passwords in plain text.

Although Mozilla claims to have made several improvements in Firefox's performance, stability, and security, beta 5 doesn't contain any significant new features over the last one. For those not following the beta releases, changes and new features in the upcoming browser include support for the HTML 5 file API, a feature called Personas for customizing the browser's appearance, improved JavaScript performance and more.

If you are already running the Firefox 3.6 beta then the new version should be automatically downloaded and updated shortly. Meanwhile, those sticking to the current stable release are also getting a security update. Firefox 3.5.6 patches three critical holes, one rated as high risk, two moderate and one low.