Firefox 3.5, which is due out in final release at the end of the month, will allow people to edit digital images from within the browser without need for a third-party application. The software will also include the ability to run videos directly in the browser without the need for a third-party viewer or player, and will allow other elements of a Web page to interact with that video content.

As an open-source company, Mozilla aims to give people technologies based on open standards that help them leverage the Web as both a content-delivery engine and platform for developing applications.

The new JavaScript engine, called TraceMonkey, is twice as fast as the one in Firefox 3.0, and allows for image editing from within the browser without need for software such as Adobe Photoshop. JavaScript is a standard scripting language for Web applications.

We can do this just as well with an online Web application as well as you could on a local application.

Firefox 3.5 also allows developers to build applications for other parts of a Web page that can interact with the video playing, which has potential for enhancing next-generation Web-based applications such as advertising campaigns as well as enterprise applications.

A preview of Firefox 3.5 is available now, but Mozilla delayed the first release candidate that was scheduled for this week until next week to iron out some last-minute bugs. The final release of the browser is still expected at the end of the month.