With Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 delivered in the first half of September 2008 and the feedback incorporated in the development process, Mozilla is gearing up for the next stage of Shiretoko. The first taste of Firefox 3.1 is now available for download. Mozilla is offering the nightly trunk of Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 Pre signaling that the release of the first Beta development milestone of codename Shiretoko is just around the corner. In this regard, September 30 was synonymous with the code freeze of Firefox 3.1, but although Mozilla indicated that the Beta 1 build would be delivered in October, it failed to pin point a specific deadline.

“It's time to test the Firefox Nightly Trunk Build in preparation of the Firefox 3.1 Beta 1! We are on the road to Firefox 3.1 Beta 1, so there is plenty to test! If you want to test your favorite Firefox Feature, great! But you can also run some more tests in Litmus and try out the Nightly Build and the other great new Firefox improvements,” revealed Mozilla's Carsten Book.

According to Mozilla, Firefox 3.1 is set up to deliver a range of improvements across the table. Shiretoko will feature an enhanced Awesome Bar delivering superior control to end users as well as privacy enhancements. In addition, Mozilla is cooking a performance boost for Firefox 3.1, and the much publicized evolution from the JavaScript rendering engine to TraceMonkey is an illustrative example in this context.

Firefox 3.1 will also feature Private Browsing Mode, which Microsoft introduced in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, support for Windows Vista's Aero Glass, but also closer integration with Ogg Vorbis and Theora codecs, native JSON, CSS 3 and HTML 5. Following the release of Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 in October, Mozilla will make available at least one more beta in November 2008.

As far as the precursors of Firefox 3.1 are concerned, the past week Firefox 2.0.0.17 and Firefox 3.0.2 were offered with Mozilla serving the Firefox 3.0.3 update immediately after to fix a regression issue introduced by version 3.0.2.

“In order to repair a problem experienced by some users with the Password Manager feature in Firefox 3.0.2, and as part of Mozilla Corporation’s ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 3.0.3 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as free downloads. We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 3 or Firefox 2, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting 'Check for Updates…' from the Help menu,” said Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's User Experience lead.

Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2, Firefox 3.0.3 and Firefox 2.0.0.17 are available for download here.