Mozilla will release the next major version of Firefox on Tuesday, June 30, Webmonkey has learned. Mozilla confirmed the news Friday afternoon.

The company previously made a promise that it would make the browser available for download "by the end of June” this year. Since next Tuesday falls on the last day of the month, Mozilla is sticking to its word — just barely.

Firefox 3.5 is the first major revision of the popular open-source browser since version 3 landed a little over a year ago, in June of 2008. It features a faster rendering engine, stability enhancements and a new JavaScript engine that boosts the performance of most web-based applications. Firefox 3.5 will also include support for the most widely-used elements of HTML 5, the set of next-generation web standards that allows for offline data access, enhanced web graphics and multimedia playback without plug-ins.

Firefox 3.5 is currently in the post-beta release candidate stage. You can grab a preview release from Mozilla's website if you can't wait to download the final code on Tuesday.

Firefox is the browser of choice of between 20 and 25 percent of web surfers. It is second only to Microsoft Internet Explorer, which commands about 65 or 70 percent of the browser market. Browser share data is much disputed, based on who is doing the compiling.

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