On Friday, Mozilla unveiled Firefox 4 Beta 9 that can be regarded as another step towards the open source. It is expected that the browser will be debuted next month.

No doubts that Firfox 4 Beta 9 is faster compared to its previous version, i.e. Firefox 3.6. According to Kraken benchmark test of Mozilla, it is 2.5x faster. Apart from being faster, it is better at handling animations that can be made through the implementation of compartmentalized garbage collection.

It features a Chrome-like viewing area used for tables, known as Panorama. Firefox Panorama shows the tabs that are currently open. Moreover, it lets those tabs be grouped. This way it can offer better access to a range of sets of tabs when multiple tabs are open.

The latest version offers a bookmarking code as well as history that leads to better performance. Moreover, Beta 9 offers bug fixes.

Having noticed that that its rival Chrome browser is gaining popularity, Mozilla concentrated on giving the position to Firefox 4 as the preferred choice for Web development. The latest version will offer CSS capabilities, new DOM functionalities as well as security tools. It is hoped that new features will appeal to Web application developers.

It was also mentioned that Firefox 4 offers support for WebM. Earlier this week Google made waves by declaring its intention to stop supporting H.264 videos.

The Google’s announcement was praised by VP of engineering at Mozilla, Mike Shaver. He showed that despite the competition between Chrome and Firefox, still there are some common interests in organization of open source.

Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta 9 is available for Mac Os X, Windows as well as Linux, you can download it from the official site of Mozilla.