Mozilla released Firefox 4 Beta 9, another step toward the open source browser’s expected official debut next month. The newest beta includes fewer major changes. Mozilla’s Kraken performance benchmark shows it to be more than three times faster than the current Firefox 3.6.13 build.

With the official launch expected for February, the latest Firefox 4 beta launch comes a few months after Mozilla launched its Firefox 4 beta 1 for Android and Nokia’s Maemo OS, and several months after releasing the initial Firefox 4 beta.

The latest Firefox 4 beta includes Panorama technology, which allows open tabs to be grouped for easier Web surfing like in the chrome. Users may move Websites they always keep open to their tab bar with App Tabs. Firefox Beta 4 also includes Firefox Sync, allowing users to port their Awesome Bar history, bookmarks, open tabs and passwords across multiple computers and smartphones. It’s faster to start up and better at handling animations, through the implementation of compartmentalized garbage collection.

Although Firefox Beta 10 remains on a still-current schedule that shows on Mozilla’s Web site, Damon Sicore, who leads the company’s engineering group, hinted that Beta 9 might be the last. Firefox currently accounts for 22.8% of all browsers used worldwide, a drop of two percentage points since its peak in November 2009. Internet Explorer’s 57.1% share during December 2010 was 5.6 percentage points lower than the same time the year before. So, it’s unclear if Mozilla will do a 10th beta.

While Mozilla’s biggest rival Microsoft is also nearing release candidate on its next browser. According to several online sources, Microsoft will deliver the release candidate of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) later this month, perhaps on Jan. 28. Microsoft has said it will ship the final edition of IE9 before the end of March. But according to Net Applications report, Mozilla’s market share, along with IE, has stopped growing. Firefox commands just shy of 23 percent of the worldwide market, where once it held nearly 25 percent.

However, you can download Firefox 4 Beta 9 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from Mozilla’s site. So, hope our readers will be back with comments about this new member in Mozilla’s family.

Via Computerworld