Mozilla Begins Alpha Testing of Firefox 3.0

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7:00 am on December 12, 2006 | Category: Web Services, Software

The Mozilla Corporation has just released the alpha version of its next-generation open-source web browser, Firefox 3.0, developers revealed today.

Code named Gran Paradiso, the Firefox 3.0 alpha isn’t yet ready for testing by regular users, according to Mozilla’s vice president of engineering, Mike Schroepfer. Even open-source aficionados who enjoy tinkering with new software products will need to wait until the beta launch he said.

As far as new features go, Firefox 3.0 is expected to provide better support for several newer graphics standards, including Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), and the Canvas specification. Schroepfer noted that “these are fairly major architectural changes to enable us to improve performance.”

In addition to this, the next Firefox browser is expected to support the Cairo graphics library, in an attempt to make webpages look the same on the user end, regardless of operating system or device type. This will be especially important as mobile browsing gains popularity.

Mozilla also plans to integrate a number of browsing, bookmarking, and privacy enhancements with the new browser, but Schroepfer notes that “it’s a bit early to be talking about the user-facing features.” The first fully-functional commercial release of Firefox 3.0 isn’t expected until sometime in late 2007.