14 DAY TRIAL // Firefox 4.0 has been pushed even further back into 2011, after Mozilla confirmed a consistent delay for the next generation of its open source browser in the second half of October 2010. After it announced the postponing of Firefox 4.0, the browser vendor updated the Beta release schedule. Looking at the dates planed by Mozilla, it is clear that the project has slipped yet again, and that customers will have to wait even longer to get the final version of Firefox 4.0.
For example, Firefox 4.0 Beta 8 should have already been delivered at the end of the past week, on November 12, 2010. This is clearly not the case, especially since early adopters have just received Firefox 4.0 Beta 7 for testing.
Beyond Beta 8, Mozilla has two more Beta development milestones lined up, both planned for release by the end of 2010.
At this point in time, the open source browser vendor is looking to offer Firefox 4.0 Beta 8 in November, or in early December at the latest.
This means that two more Beta releases of Firefox 4.0 need to be offered to testers in the coming month.
However, judging by the delays suffered by Firefox 4.0 thus far, it’s more likely that testers will also see a Beta development milestone of the next version of Firefox in early 2011.
Of course, Mozilla still has to confirm this, but on the other hand, development schedules suffer changes all the time, and this should not be viewed as something out of the ordinary.
The first Release Candidate of Firefox 4.0 is still planned for early 2011, and the final release of the browser will also come next year.
This just means a little more waiting for users, and a number of additional development milestone for testing.
Of course, following the release of Beta 7, Firefox 4.0 is now feature-complete, so testers won’t be seeing any new features.
Firefox 4.0 Beta 7 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 4.0 Beta 7 for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 4.0 Beta 7 for Mac is available for download here.