Mozilla delays second Firefox 4 beta
Originally scheduled for release late last week, Mozilla has confirmed that the second beta for version 4.0 of its open source Firefox web browser has been delayed by one week. Firefox 4 Beta 2 is now expected to arrive on Thursday, July 29th. The third beta is still on schedule for an August 6th release.
The first beta for Firefox 4, based on version 2.0 of the Gecko rendering platform, was released on the 6th of July and featured a new Add-ons Manager and extension management API, and several Windows only user interface changes. The next Firefox 4 beta will reportedly add the new default 'tabs on top' layout – similar to the tabs position in the Chrome and Opera web browsers – for Mac OS X systems. Additionally, the second beta is expected to include support for CSS transitions, a new Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) technology feature that provides a way to animate changes, as opposed to having the changes take effect instantly.
According to Firefox development director Mike Beltzner, the developers plan to release a new beta version "every two to three weeks". A first release candidate (RC) for Firefox 4 is currently scheduled to arrive in October of this year. A final release date, however, has yet to be confirmed. The latest stable release of Firefox is version 3.6.8 from last Friday.
See also:
- Mozilla: Tabs on top for Mac in Firefox 4 beta 2, a report from The H.
(crve)