Get ready, Firefox fans, because Firefox 4 is on the way.PCWorld writes that the next version of the second most popular browser worldwide is “nearly ready for release” and should be available starting next month.

Mozilla’s senior director Damon Sicore wrote on a developer mailing list that “Firefox 4 is gonna kick ass,” but that, until the launch “we need *everyone* to help in testing.”

Mozillahad planned to ship the latest version of its popular browser by November, 2010, but too many bugs remained to release a final candidate. According to Sicore, Flash, Silverlight and “other major plug-ins” were continuing to cause problems, with users “affected by hardware acceleration causing crashes or other issues.” According to PCWorld, Sicore said that “about 160 ‘hard blockers’–or significant bugs–remain in the project.”

Hardware acceleration is one of the key features boasted by Microsoft to boost Internet Explorer 9 ahead of other browsers. Currently, Firefox is second in popularity worldwide only to Internet Explorer, with Chrome and Safari following behind.

For a full look at what to expect in the latest version of Firefox, take a look at Frederic Lardinois’in-depth review from earlier this year. The long and short of it is that the next version will be faster, sleeker, with “do not track” capabilities to enhance user privacy.

DownloadSquad points out that, if you want to help Firefox along, you can take part in beta testing the product bydownloading the latest version and reporting any bugs you come across.

What do you think? Will you try out Firefox 4? Is that your browser of choice or will Chrome keep your attention? Or has IE9 brought you back to the Microsoft side?

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February search results show that Bing continues to grow as Yahoo sags.

Comscore reported that usage of Bing went up from 11.3% in January to 11.5% in February, while Yahoos stats during the same period dropped to 16.8% from 17%. Googles stats remained essentially unchanged.

The most impressive figures for Bing, however, come from a report written by Morgan Stanley analyst Imran Khan. Khan stated that Microsofts year on year search growth for the month of February was 55.4%, up from Januarys similarly impressive 49% year on year search growth. In the same period, Yahoos seen year on year search volume shrink 9.8% in February and 8.9% in January.

So what does this mean for the search market? It means that Bing has continued to grow, and more importantly, that Bings growth appears to be accelerating.

This appears to be due to a combination of factors. First, Bing is apparently luring considerable numbers of users away from Yahoo. This suggests that Bings extensive marketing efforts have succeeded to some extent.

Second, Googles growth appears to be slowing down a little bit. Year on Year total searches for January and February increased by 12.4% and 10.4% respectively. Googles Year on Year search growth for these months barely outpaced total search growth, coming in at 16.7% and 14.3% respectively.

It appears that the search market is consolidating somewhat. Bings market share is inching upwards, at the expense of everyone else except Google. When Yahoo essentially concedes their search engine to Bing, it will be interesting to see if Bing is able to take a bite out of Google

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