For those that may not have heard, the world’s most popular alternative browser, Firefox, was upgraded to version 3.5 yesterday after a relatively long (but not unusual) beta testing period.  If you’re already using FF 3.0 then the update will look very familiar to you.  Minor aesthetic changes include the tab bar remaining visible even with only one tab open and the addition of a “plus” button to add a new tab without needing to use the menu or “Alt+tab” keyboard shortcuts.

As with all new browser releases these days the focus is on Javascript speed and with their new TraceMonkey JS engine, mozilla has brought FF 3.5 up to par with the likes of Chrome and Safari 4.

Firefox 3.5 is also one of the first browsers to support some new tag elements from the yet to be ratified HTML 5, namely the video tag.  This will allow developers to embed video directly into a page without the need for plug-ins like quicktime or flash.

Head on over to Mozilla’s Website to scoop up the download.  As of this writing there have been over 5.4 million so far.

UPDATE: It’s 20 days later and the download count is just over 30 million.