Mozilla have revealed plans to put the Firefox development schedule on steroids. For 2011, they intend, will see the browser bunny-hop from version 3.6 all the way to version 7.0.
Well, that’s the plan, anyway. ;)
Wait, where’s Firefox 4?
Version 4 of the browser originally sported an intended release date of late 2010. This soon slipped as issues compounded development. A new beta of Firefox 4 is due for later this months, bringing the total number of beta build released so far to 12.
Whenever version 4 does sees release (I’m pinning money on "eventually") it’s unlikely to sit pretty for long if this expedited schedule is to be paced.
Requiring ‘a large shift in the way we think about the size of a "major" release’, ‘Firefox 5’ plans to ship with, Firefox 5 will boast, at a minimum: –
- Account Manager
- Simple Sharing UI
- UI Animation
- 64 Bit on Windows
‘Firefox 6’ should come a few months later bearing: –
- Web Apps
- Faster Cache
- Support for OSX 10.7
- JS Optimizations
And finally vehicle 7 will likely arrive toward the latter of the year (pure supposition on my part, mind) sporting, as yet, not much.
The enhanced release schedule could be seen as a reaction to rival browsers Chrome, Safari and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, all of which are gaining traction against the once-innovative browser in market share, features, speed and version numbers.
Read more details on the plans @ wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Roadmap
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