Firefox 3.5 is out, offering Safari-like private browsing, support for Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora audio and video, and claims to be twice as fast as Firefox 3.0.

The Mozilla Corporation has released Firefox 3.5, the latest version of its free open source Web browser. And although Firefox 3.5's new features and capabilities won't be any surprise to anyone who's been participating in the beta process, for the general Web-using public the put Firefox right back in the thick of things with the likes of Apple's Safari and Google Chrome…and, of course, with the explicit intent of leaving Internet Explorer in the dust.

"So much is happening on the Web right now, it's a great time for browsers," said Mozilla CEO John Lilly, in a statement. "Firefox 3.5 brings together the most innovative Web technologies and delivers them in the most complete and powerful modern browser."

A top Microsoft executive today denied reports that European users will pay more for Windows 7 because of the company's wrangling with antitrust regulators.

In a statement first posted as a letter to the Financial Times Web site, Bill Veghte, the senior vice president for the Windows business group, said "nothing about this [case] will mean higher prices for Windows 7 in Europe."

Today, Microsoft's public relations firm forwarded the same Veghte statement to Computerworld.

Veghte was countering a Financial Times story last Friday that noted that because Microsoft has unilaterally decided to strip Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) from Windows 7, users would need "a fuller version of the new software when they upgrade." The newspaper, however, also made it clear that Microsoft was selling that software, dubbed "Full" or "Full Packaged Product" (FPP) to differentiate it from editions labeled "Upgrade," at the lower prices of the latter.

Gartner analyst Michael Silver, who publicized the restriction in a research note Friday, said businesses should demand a Windows upgrade option for all Windows-based PCs they buy between now and when PCs loaded with Windows 7 begin shipping.

Computerworld - Mozilla will ship Firefox 3.5 on Tuesday, bringing the long-awaited upgrade in under its own deadline wire, the company announced last Friday.

According to a Mozilla spokeswoman, the final version of Firefox 3.5 will be posted for download tomorrow morning, Pacific time.

The news was not a surprise. Last Thursday, Mike Beltzner, the director of Firefox strongly hinted that Firefox 3.5 would meet the ship deadline of the first half of the year. "Everyone's pretty happy with the release, and while we haven't picked a date yet, we're still tracking to our latest schedule," Beltzner said in an e-mail.

Microsoft is extending the public download period for the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) from the end of June to mid-August. News of the extension was first reported on the SuperSite Blog yesterday, then later confirmed by Microsoft.

"The Windows RC download program closes August 15," Windows OS Senior Community Manager Stephen Rose wrote in a blog posting. "After that, you won't be able to get the download, but you can still install the RC and get a [product] key if you need one."

Move over YouTube—the folks behind The Pirate Bay are working on their own video streaming site with no restrictions. The site will be called The Video Bay and it is now on the Web as a "Beta Extreme," though currently there is no functionality as everything is still under development. There is no indication of when it will be ready for public consumption, either, though when it goes live, it will supposedly host videos without any kind of censorship or copyright restrictions.

The Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde spoke via videoconference to the Open Video Conference in New York this week, discussing the details behind The Video Bay. He noted that the site would use a number of HTML 5 features, including tags using the ogg/theora video and audio formats. There are demos for both of these tags on The Video Bay already (one for video and one for audio).