Mozilla’s rapid release schedule for Firefox continues with the arrival of Firefox 7 for Mac, Windows and Linux.

Within 40 days of releasing the final version of Firefox 6, Mozilla has made available the final version of Firefox 7 with host of improvements and hardly any new features. Firefox 7 comes less than six weeks after the release of Firefox 6.

Memory Improvements: Your Mileage May Vary

The Firefox 7 team says that the latest version of the browser uses less memory, a reduction of anywhere between 20% and 50%. In a blog post at Mozilla Hacks, Firefox developer Nicholas Nethercote details the memory improvements. He says the benefits will be most noticeable for users that:

• Keep Firefox open for a long time
• Have many tabs open at once
• Use Firefox for Windows
• View pages with lots of text
• Use Firefox while also using other memory-intensive programs

Mozilla’s tests indicate that peak memory usage for Firefox 7 is lower than its predecessors and that sustained usage is more consistent. We haven’t had enough time to test whether memory usage continues to increase the more time a tab or window is left open, but we’ll assume this is true.

For Mac users, Firefox 7 is still no match for Google Chrome, at least when it comes to memory usage. To be fair, Apple’s own browser, Safari, has memory performance issues with OS X Lion, and Firefox 7 could perform better in Mac OS X 10.6 or earlier. Firefox has historically had better Windows performance, especially when it comes to memory usage, and we expect those are the users that will really see the benefits.

Download Firefox 7

Download: Firefox 7.0 for Windows | 13.8 MB (Freeware)
Download: TFirefox 7.0 for Linux | 15.5 MB
Download: Firefox 7.0 for MacOS | 31.5 MB