14 DAY TRIAL // The upcoming development milestone of Firefox 3.6 is a clear indication that Mozilla is tailoring the next iteration of the open source browser to Windows 7. Released to manufacturing on July 22, Windows 7 is heading for General Availability next week, on October 22. By the time Windows 7 hits the shelves, Mozilla will have already released the fully fledged Beta 1 for Firefox 3.6, which is currently scheduled for availability on October 21. Firefox 3.6 Beta has been adapted to Windows 7, especially to the evolution of the graphical user interface.
In the image below, you can see the Taskbar Thumbnail Previews that are now supported by Firefox 3.6 in concert with the Windows 7 Superbar. Hovering the mouse over the Firefox 3.6 Beta now causes the browser to display thumbnails of each opened tab, the same functionality that is offered by default by Internet Explorer 8. Users can simply preview and navigate to a certain tab or opened Firefox 3.6 window via a Thumbnail Preview (via Mozilla Links).
If you are willing to give Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 a try for yourselves, Mozilla is already offering a preview build. This week, the company code froze Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 and started providing nightly builds for testing purposes through its FTP servers. Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 Build 1 is available for download and installation on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, but testers need to understand that this is not the final Beta, which will only drop one day ahead of the Windows 7 official launch.
At the same time, there are additional changes for the integration of Firefox 3.6 into Windows 7. In this regard, Mozilla has also worked on having Firefox 3.6 support Jumplists, namely mini-Start menus that offer, via right-click on the browser icon on the Taskbar, easy access to the most visited websites. Users of Firefox 3.6 in Windows 7 will also be able to enjoy the same functionality when it comes down to browser downloads as it is currently offered with Internet Explorer 8, namely a visual indicator of the action’s progress.
The latest releases of Firefox for Windows are available for download here.
