Firefox 4.0 Drops in Q3/Q4 2010

The next major release of Mozilla’s open source browser is planned for availability in the second half of 2010, over a year from now. According to the official Firefox/Roadmap, Firefox 4.0 will be offered to users in the third or in the fourth quarter of 2010. Specifically, Mozilla is currently targeting October and November 2010 for the release of Firefox 4.0, along with Fennec 2 from the mozilla-1.9.4 branch. You will be able to get an insight on Mozilla’s plans for Firefox 4.0, Firefox 3.7 and Firefox 3.6 via the graphic included with this article. What is important to note is that the product roadmap is simply a draft, and that all deadlines set by Mozilla are subject to, and will probably change.

According to the Firefox Roadmap, Firefox 4.0 will bring to the table: “process separation for chrome and content, new extensibility mechanism through APIs, revised UI on all platforms; platform enhancements; content and chrome in separate process; binary component versioning; new extensibility platform (JetPack); end user feature enhancements; browser sync (Weave); new UI on all platforms; speed and responsiveness improvements; and tracemonkey engine improvements.”

Following the delivery of Firefox 3.5, Mozilla is currently hard at work building Firefox 3.6, codenamed Namoroka, along with Fennec 1.0 from mozilla-1.9.2 branch. Firefox 3.6 is expected in Q3/Q4 2009, with Mozilla aiming to offer the next iteration of its open source browser in November 2009. Firefox 3.6 codename Namoroka is designed as a minor update for the browser.

Mozilla plans to offer “support delivery of mobile device and Windows CE device Firefox releases as well stabilize and update Firefox quickly to improve application responsiveness. [But also:] platform enhancements; interruptible reflow; phase one of compositor; Windows 7 integration; end user feature enhancements; lightweight themes (Personas); awesomeformcomplete; speed and responsiveness improvements; asynchronous location bar; tracemonkey engine improvements; improved scrolling model on Windows; tilecache on Maemo and Windows Mobile; optimized session restore to show focused tab contents quickly and startup optimizations.”

There will be another release between Firefox 3.6 and Firefox 4.0, also set up as a minor update. Firefox 3.7 is planned for the first half of 2010, namely Q1 or Q2. Mozilla will accompany Firefox 3.7 with the release of Fennec 1.1 from the 1.9.3 branch. Firefox 3.7 and Firefox 4.0 will both bring to the table overhauled graphical user interfaces, with Mozilla offering a taste of the redesign it has planned for the two releases.

With Firefox 3.7 Mozilla wants to “run plugins in a separate process to improve overall application stability and responsiveness. Improve startup time; platform enhancements, out of process plugins, phase two of compositor, support for animation in XUL, end user feature enhancements, bookmark synchronization, run websites as an application, task oriented browsing, speed and responsiveness improvements, tracemonkey engine improvements and pageload optimizations.”

The latest releases of Firefox for Windows are available for download here.