Although it was released early on the weekend, Mozilla has now officially released version 5 of its browser in over 70 languages. The update brings more than 1,000 improvements and performance enhancements that have been available on the Beta and Aurora channels to users interested in using Firefox's latest builds. The full release for desktop operating systems and Android are available at Firefox Release Notes and Firefox for Android Release Notes, respectively.

The new Firefox version adds support for CSS animations to enable developers to build more intuitive Web applications and websites. The HTTP idle connection logic has been tuned, as has canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance. Other improvements include standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL, and canvas, as well as spell checking for some locales.

The latest stable 5.0 build (released after seven betas) is available now for Windows, Mac OS, Linux 32/64-bit, and Android. Those who currently have Firefox installed can use the built-in update function by clicking on Help, selecting the About Firefox menu, and then choosing Check for Updates. Users with Firefox for Android installed should soon receive a notification to update to the latest version.

The release is light on new features because Mozilla has switched to a rapid release development cycle that means new versions come more frequently. The non-profit organization has promised to push out a new stable build every six weeks. Firefox 6 is thus slated for an August release. It remains to be seen if this new system can help Firefox regain its lost market share.