Mozilla announces Firefox 5 Beta

OPEN SOURCE DEVELOPER Mozilla has announced its first Firefox 5 Beta under its rapid release programme.

The Mozzarella team is on a roll at the moment with 400 million global punters opting to use its web browser, many more than use Microsoft's Internet Exploder. It has also begun initiatives to get users to upgrade from the well patched Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 to Firefox 4.0.

Now Mozilla is sticking to its release schedule to get Firefox 5 Beta out the gates from its Firefox Aurora development channel. The Aurora channel is part of Mozilla's rapid release programme, designed to push out smaller incremental updates to Firefox rather than rely on slower releases of larger upgrades.

Mozilla has put out the Firefox 5 Beta after only five weeks of internal testing in the Aurora channel. Updates include performance and security enhancements. More specifically, Firefox 5 Beta includes the new Firefox channel switcher and support for a new CSS Animations standard. The team reckoned that these features will help developers build better web experiences for users.

Mozilla initially said last month that the Firefox 5 Beta would be rolled out on 17 May, so it was only an impressive three working days later than that when it was made available last Friday. If Mozilla does manage to stick to its roadmap, the final version of Firefox 5 will be available to download on 21 June. µ