Mozilla Reschedules Firefox 3 Release

Although the first official Firefox 3 beta release was tentatively scheduled for late July, the timeline has been pushed back as a result of performance regressions and the need for additional front-end development time.

"We are driven by quality, not time. We want Firefox 3 to be something that we are all proud of," said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering. "The Firefox front-end has had significantly less development time than the platform and has yet to have the opportunity to innovate on top of infrastructure built for places, password manager, and others. So we'd like to give them until M8 to continue to develop user-visible features on top of the core infrastructure." (Source: arstechnica.com)

On its wiki, Mozilla detailed a new roadmap for Firefox 3 milestones. Although a release is expected at the end of July, it will be referred to as Alpha 7. This release does not meet Mozilla's requirements for beta designation. The next release after Alpha 7, known as milestone 8, is set for a September 18th release. It is unknown whether or not this will be a beta version of Firefox 3. (Source: mozilla.org)

"We'll switch from Alphas to Betas as soon as we believe Firefox is stable and usable enough for daily browsing for a large number of people," said Schroepfer.

Firefox 3's final launch date still remains a mystery. When asked via email whether the new roadmap would push the final release into 2008, Mozilla declined to answer. (Source: pcworld.in)

This is not the first time that Firefox 3 has been delayed. However, since it will be a significant release, the delays are said to be no cause for concern.

So breathe a sigh of relief, Firefox fans: the new roadmap is said to be a realistic timeline for the development of Firefox 3. Phew!