Jan 7, 2011 15:25 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla is gearing up to release the ninth Beta of the next iteration of its open source browser.

According to the open source browser maker, the current plan is to have Firefox 4.0 offered to testers next week.

Following a range of delays which impacted the Firefox 4.0 project, the Beta 9 development milestone was pushed into early 2011.

The upcoming test release of the open source browser is intended as a date-driven Beta, and Mozilla hopes to have it right this time around.

The browser maker wants to code freeze today, January 7th, 2010, and then produce the first Builds as early as Monday January 10th.

If all goes well, early adopters could have Firefox 4.0 Beta 9 available for testing as early as January 13th.

Of course, I must underline that this particular deadline is in no way set in stone. Provided that Mozilla will not come across any blockers it will need to resolve, Beta 9 is highly likely to be launched in less than a week.

But if major issues are indeed identified with this Beta, the release is bound to be pushed even further back into 2011.

The eight Beta of Firefox 4.0 was served to testers on December 21st. According to Mozilla’s initial plans, it was supposed to have wrapped up version 4.0 of the open source browser by November 2010.

However, a range of nasty blockers have plagued Firefox 4.0, the vast majority of which have been dealt with, allowing the development process to move forward.

Testers still have Firefox 4.0 Beta 10 to look forward too, and at least one Release Candidate (RC) development milestone, but probably more, after that.

There still isn’t a deadline for the release of Firefox 4.0, but by the looks of it, Mozilla will still need a few months to ready the browser.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 8 for Windows is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 8 for Linux is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 8 for Mac is available for download here.