Mozilla is wasting no time to roll out its next major version of Firefox: Version 4.0 will bring a major interface update that will borrow the design idea from Google’s Chrome browser to create the perception of a much more nimble and faster browser. Firefox 3.6.4, dubbed the “Lorentz” browser, will arrive on June 1 with out-of-process plug-ins and hardware acceleration.

Mozilla has updated its browser release roadmap that now includes the upcoming version 4.0. Recently detailed, Firefox 4.0 will be released as beta on June 1, while the RC1 is planned for an October release – in time for a November launch for the final version.

Firefox 4.0 will focus mainly on increased speed, some of which will be achieved through updates that create a subjective impression of a faster browser, such as a stripped GUI that will look much more like Google Chrome than Firefox 3.6. Mozilla also said that it will integrate new tools to help users manage their relationships with websites.

Firefox 4 will follow close on the heels of Firefox 3.6.4, which will be released on June 1 and is currently only available as a Minefield alpha version (3.7a5) of Firefox. The current version shows almost daily improvements in performance and is (on our test system) currently about 5% ahead of Microsoft’s IE9 PP2 in Google’s V8 and Webkit’s Sunspider benchmarks. While it trails Chrome, Safari and Opera in Javascript tests, it is the only browser besides IE9 that includes hardware acceleration and can closely match IE9’s performance in Microsoft’s HTML5 animation demos.

When released, Firefox 3.6.4 will include out-of process plug-ins which increase the stability of the browser and limit a crash to one tab and not the entire browser.  Full-screen video on Windows is now rendered using hardware acceleration when available and HTML form controls can be resized by the user.

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