Firefox 3.1 codename Shiretoko Alpha 1 is available for download. The fully-fledged Alpha development milestone of the next version of Mozilla's open source browser went live at the end of the past week. In this context, Mozilla managed to slip just a tad from its initial plans to make Alpha 1 available in mid-July. Firefox 3.1 only entered the code-freeze stage on Monday July 21, with the first build up for grabs on July 26. Still, Mozilla is moving full steam ahead to deliver the successor of Firefox 3.0 launched on June 17, downloaded over 8 million times just in the first 24 hours.

According to Mozilla's own release criteria, Firefox 3.1 is meant to be nothing more than "generally usable for testing websites and features". Developed under the codename Shiretoko, version 3.1 of Firefox has not, as of yet, officially been made available for download. Still, the Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 bits were published to Mozilla's FTP servers over the past weekend.

"After a successful freeze on Monday night (and a quick Awesomebar performance regression backout the next morning) we rolled en-US builds for Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1and QA began their tests. A bug (444963) was found in which launching Java embeds on OSX builds would result in a complete browser hang. A workaround patch was generated, so we'll be taking that and respinning those builds. This respin (since builds are being done manually at this point) will likely move our release date for Alpha 1 into early next week. I think that's fine, as I'll be on the ground in Whistler on Monday and can marshall the release from there," stated Mike Beltzner, User Experience Lead.

Mozilla is currently planning to drop the Beta 1 of Firefox 3.1 in August 2008. In this regard, it seems that the Alpha development stage will be short lived for Shiretoko, even though Alpha 2 is already in the works. As early as Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 next month, users will be able to get a taste of all the upcoming features that will be implemented into the successor of Firefox 3.0, according to Mozilla.

Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 for Mac OS X is available for download here.