So what’s exactly happening after the Firefox 4 release on March 22? The devs have plans to ship a security and stability update soon thereafter. Firefox 4.01 will fix some recently discovered bugs that they have decided to ignore for the sake of releasing Firefox 4 to the public. Expect an update shortly after the release of Firefox 4 that will fix those bugs and probably a handful of additional issues that users will report once the browser’s distribution starts to pick up pace.

Mozilla’s Robert Sayre proposed a new Firefox release cycle that will be at full speed 16 weeks after the release of Firefox 4. From then, it is theoretically possible to publish a new Firefox release every six weeks.

The Firefox release cycle moves through four stages. It all begins on mozilla-central, commonly referred to as nightly, moves over to firefox experimental releases, then betas and finally the public release.

Mozilla needs the first 15 weeks after Firefox 4 to push releases from Mozilla-Central to the release stage. And while that initial release is pushed through the channels, the nightly builds could very well work on the next iterations of the browser.

Under this system, there is a choice to ship a general Firefox release at week 16 and every six weeks thereafter. That doesn’t mean a release will happen every six weeks, but the option will be available.

Mozilla plans to begin work on Firefox 5 shortly after Firefox 4 has been released to the public. The final release is projected to be 12 to 16 weeks after Firefox 4. Please note that the developers could release Firefox 6 six weeks after Firefox 5, but they do not have to. Bugs and blockers can always delay the release of a new browser version.

The developers are still planning to release Firefox 5, Firefox 6 and Firefox 7 this year, and likely at least another four versions in the coming. This would bring Firefox to Firefox 11 at the end of next year.

The development process has been posted as a draft which means that it is still possible that it will be altered. Regardless of that, it is unlikely that Mozilla will go back to the old release cycle, as the accelerated development process seems to be favored by the majority of its developers and decision makers.

I make use of core add-ons that are installed all the time and temporary add-ons that I only install when I need them. Two examples for temporary add-ons are the excellent web development add-on Firebug and the multi-site video downloader Video Download Helper.

I also have to say that I’m running the latest version of Firefox 3.6 and not the latest stable version of Firefox 3.5x. Many of the add-ons had to be forced to be compatible with the Nightly Tester Tools add-on. They do work perfectly though afterwards.

• App Tabs – I reviewed the add-on yesterday and really like it. Tabs can be pinned and minimized on the left side of the Firefox tabbar. This is great for websites and services that are open all the time.
• Bug489729 – This prevents Firefox from opening a new window if a tab gets dragged accidentally in the web browser. Some users do not have a problem with this at all while others have to cope with this behavior regularly.
• Greasemonkey – Userscripts can be very useful in many occasions. There are some great ones out there that really improve the web surfing experience.
• Last Pass – I switched to Last Pass after using the build in Firefox password manager for a long time. Last Pass offers a lot of additional features including a secure password generator, form profile manager to automatically fill web forms, automatically log into websites, web access to all passwords.
• Multi Links – If you regularly work on websites where lots of links are posted that you all need or want to open then Multi Links is for you. You can draw a rectangle around an area on the website. Every link in that rectangle will be opened once the user lets go of the right mouse button. Excellent for forums, link lists or blog posts.
• Nightly Tester Tools – Most add-ons have not been updated by their developers yet to be compatible with the Firefox 3.6x branch. This tool makes them compatible with this version. It will be uninstalled once all developers have updated their add-ons.
• No Redirect – If you hate being redirected by your ISP to a search page whenever you mistype an url then this is for your.
• NoScript – One of the two Firefox add-ons that I consider most important (the other is Last Pass). No Script will block all scripts from being executed on a website on the first visit. This increases the security of the web browser and computer system as most exploits and attacks make use of scripts to do so.
• SeoQuake – Useful for webmasters. SeoQuake can display various SEO related information about websites including their Pagerank, links, Alexa rank and more.
• Tiny Menu – I like the Firefox header to be as small as possible so that the actual website makes use of most of the screen estate in the web browser. Tiny Men compresses the menu into one menu entry which can then be merged with the address bar so that only one bar is shown at the top of the web browser.
• Operetta Theme – I ran the default Firefox theme for most of the time. But then I discovered the Operetta theme which brings the design of Opera 10 to Firefox. It looks fabulous but only works with Firefox 3.6x versions.

And that’s it. Not a lot of add-ons if you consider that some Ghacks readers use 70+ add-ons.

The permanent tabs are loaded automatically when starting Firefox with the difference that their contents are loaded when the user first accesses the tabs in the tabbar. Permanent tabs can be displayed in a different color to make their identification easier for the user. New permanent tabs can be added by right-clicking a tab and selecting the Permatab option from the menu. This is also the way to undo the action so that the tab once again behaves like any other tab in Firefox.

The PermaTabs Mod is a great way to add indestructible tabs to the Firefox browser which should be interesting for users who work with the same basic set of websites all the time. It could for example be used to protect services like Gmail, Google Search or an individual website from being closed accidentally. The Tab Mix Plus add-on can protect tabs as well but some users might prefer a solution that is not coming with such a huge feature set.