14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla is gearing up to release the next major version of its open source browser: Firefox 6. The successor of Firefox 5 is still in Beta development stage at this point in time, but it won’t stay there for much longer.
In fact, the open source browser vendor is preparing to build the final Beta of Firefox 6 as early as next week.
As far as Mozilla is concerned, the final Firefox 6 Beta is an equivalent of a Release Candidate. So it will actually be Firefox 6 RC that Mozilla will be putting together the coming week.
Just because Firefox 6 RC will be built next week doesn’t mean that it will also be launched next week as well. At the time of this article Mozilla had yet to make public the availability deadline for Firefox 6 RC.
As it’s usually the case with software development projects, the Release Candidate indicates that Firefox 6 is extremely close to being finalized.
Mozilla plans to merge Firefox 6 into the Release Channel in approximately three week, on August 16th, 2011. Users need to know that the merge date and the release deadline are not one and the same.
But it’s pretty much a safe bet that the final version of Firefox 6 will be released in mid-August, with Firefox 7 moving to Beta, Firefox 8 to Aurora and work starting on Firefox 9.
Earlier this week Mozilla released the third Beta refresh of Firefox 6. Firefox 6.0b3 is currently available for download to early adopters testing the browser.
In parallel testers can also take Firefox 7 Aurora out for a spin, and even download and try the nightly builds of Firefox 8. Users will be able to find download links for all the releases mentioned in this article below.
Firefox 6 Beta, Firefox 7 Aurora and Firefox 5 for Windows are available for download here.
Firefox 6 Beta, Firefox 7 Aurora and Firefox 5 for Linux are available for download here. Firefox 6 Beta, Firefox 7 Aurora and Firefox 5 for Mac are available for download here.