Although an early beta version of Firefox 2.0 showed up on several Web sites Monday morning, Mozilla says it is postponing its official release, originally scheduled for Tuesday, until later in the week.
Tech Industry Paper - Finding Strength Through Customer Service
Poised to capitalize on an upturn in the economy, technology companies are focused on retention & service. This paper, from Convergys, provides the latest research on customer experience for B2B & B2C technology customers. Learn more.
Anxious Firefox users may have to wait a few more days for the official early beta release of Firefox 2.0, Alex Guerra, a spokesperson for the Mozilla Foundation, told LinuxInsider, but the public already is getting a taste of what's to come.
The browser's debut was scheduled for release on Tuesday but is being postponed until later this week.
"All releases that Mozilla issues have 'working dates,' meaning Mozilla does not release any product until it is ready," the company stated.
However, the version was made available through several Web sites Monday morning, and a preliminary version was placed on the Mozilla Foundation's ftp sites in March.
The company also held a community test day on June 23 and will conduct a feature testing day for "Bon Echo" -- the codename for Firefox 2.0 -- on July 28th. Final release is expected in August.
Published reports and commentaries note Firefox 2.0's phishing filter and integrated spell checker as two of the browser's top new features.
Firefox is not alone in pushing browser security, of course. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) released the third beta version of Internet Explorer 7.0 on June 29, which also provides a phishing filter, along with a security status bar, address protection bar, URL handling security and parental controls.
IE 7.0's phishing filter, "proactively warns and helps protect ... against potential or known fraudulent sites and blocks the site if appropriate.
The opt-in filter is updated several times per hour using the latest security information from Microsoft and several industry partners," according to the company.
Although many of the changes to Firefox are behind the scenes, tabs are a large focus of this release, requiring significant changes to the user interface, says Mozilla.
Changes include improved tab opening, closing and grouping, as well as shading tabs to denote how much time has passed since opening.
Firefox 2.0 aims to address issues related to the problem of managing the vast amounts of information available on the Internet, according to the company.
"Bon Echo" literally translates to "good echo," and reflects the company's goal to echo Firefox 1 with Firefox 2.0, "once again focusing on improving the browsing experience for our users, making it simple, effective, fast and useful," according to a statement on its Web site.
"Our goal is to provide a browser that helps users manage and organize their online information channels."
The company declined to provide further details until the official release later this week.
Print Version
E-Mail Article
Reprints
More by Alexandra DeFelice
Next Article in Applications
|
Microsoft Shows Support for ODF July 06, 2006 
Microsoft is touting the advantages of Open XML in terms of its compatibility and fidelity within the company's Office software suite. Microsoft plans to release its Open XML translator tools as open source software in an effort to accelerate interoperability and expand customer choice.
|
Related Stories
|
Google Puts Firefox in Sync June 09, 2006 
"Google wants as much presence as possible and the presence that matters to them most is on the Web browser. This gives Google another way to stay in front of the customers using the browsers," said JupiterResearch analyst Joe Wilcox.
|
Mozilla Fixes 12 Flaws in Firefox Browser June 05, 2006 
Regardless of antivirus and other security features, an infinite number of exploits will continue to threaten browser users. Until the patches are deployed, those users are left facing identity theft and other risks. That's when users need to exercise some common sense and not click on links from unknown senders, said IronPort CTO Patrick Peterson.
|
Related News Alerts
More by Alexandra DeFelice
|
Can a Small Biz Make It Online? August 03, 2006 
It makes sense to invest in at least a basic analytics package and understand conversion rates, which pages are the most popular, and what products are the best-sellers, said Sucharita Mulpuru of Forrester Research. "Then companies can look to big competitors for where to expand to next, and which customer-friendly features it may make sense to integrate next."
|
Intel's Brad Bickford: Data Storage Is Third Leg of the Stool August 04, 2006 
"The pain the enterprise is facing in terms of the explosive amounts of digital data is not an enterprise-level-only issue. This has to go down to the SMB space and even the digital home space. We need to drive an agenda into our product development that will allow SMBs to effectively manage the group of data. This is almost out of the Intel playbook."
|
Firefox a Growing Target for Hackers August 01, 2006 
While the Firefox browser has generally been considered a more secure alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, its increased market share and corporate deployment have finally made it a worthwhile target for malware authors. Users are advised to start treating Firefox with the same level of security preparedness they used to reserve only for IE.
|
Get Business and Technology News Alerts
Most Popular | Spotlight Features | Exclusives
This Week on ECT News Network | Podcasts
WiFi Hotspot Locator 
Inside TechNewsWorld
|
Reader Services
|
Corporate
|
Headline Feeds
Talkback: 
