14 DAY TRIAL // Codename Namoroka graduated from Alpha to Beta stage at the end of October 2009, but Mozilla is not yet done offering Beta downloads of version 3.6. In fact, additional releases of Firefox 3.6 Beta have been planned on the way to the fully fledged RC. Mozilla has already released Revision 1 of Firefox 3.6 codename Namoroka, and a second revision is scheduled to drop soon, according to Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox at Mozilla.
At the start of November, Mozilla revealed plans to refresh the current development milestone of Firefox 3.6 frequently via the Beta update channel. Early adopters of version 3.6 of the open source browser will be able to recognize the refreshes through the "3.6b#" versioning. Also, Mozilla intends to label all updates to Firefox 3.6 beta as revisions.
“We're planning on building a refresh of the Firefox 3.6 Beta which we'll issue to our existing users through as a minor update on the Firefox 3.6 beta update channel. We'd like to ensure that this update includes not only all the blocker fixes to date, but also: a lockdown of the component directory so that only whitelisted DLLs are loaded; added support for a blacklist of DLLs that we'll never load; the revised syntax for CSS gradients,” revealed Beltzner.
With the exception of the revisions, Firefox 3.6 will move straight from Beta to Release Candidate stage. Firefox 3.6 RC is planned for public availability later this month. Mozilla is looking to have the release Candidate of Firefox 3.6 shipping to testers on November 26. Such a late launch deadline for Firefox 3.6 RC means that that the final development milestone for the minor update to Firefox 3.5 will be offered only in December 2009. In this context, Mozilla has missed the general availability date for Firefox 3.6 planned initially, which was set by the end of November.
Firefox 3.6 Beta (revision 1) for Windows is available for download here.