14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla is hard at work getting ready to put Apple's Safari 3 back in its place. The Foundation announced that it is getting closer to the next milestone release of Gran Paradiso, the next version of the open source Firefox browser. Safari 3 for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista and Windows XP was made available on June 11, following an announcement by Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2007, just a week after Gran Paradiso Alpha 5 went live.
"We'll be freezing on June 27th at 11:59 PM PDT for Gran Paradiso Alpha 6. The previously posted schedule called for the freeze to be tonight, but we have moved freeze days to Wednesdays for the alphas to accommodate the Gecko 1.9 meeting as a last update before freeze. I'll be coordinating this freeze and release process, and acting as the key driver for blockers and late landings," revealed a member of the Firefox development team.
Apple revealed that Safari 3 - now in Public Beta - will be finalized for the Windows platform concomitantly with the delivery of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Windows Vista and Windows XP users can get a taste of Leopard ahead of time through Safari 3. In the weeks after the launch, Apple updated the Safari browser twice plunging a variety of security vulnerabilities.
Firefox 3.0 will be Mozilla's response to Safari 3.0. Apple touted 1 million downloads in the first 48 hours after launch. This will undoubtedly translate into a similar success with the final version scheduled for October. Mozilla's Firefox 3.0 is currently planned for November 2007, but this date is preliminary and it could slip. Still, Gran Paradiso Alpha 6 is almost here and the first beta for the open source browser is not very far behind.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8.0 is nowhere to be seen. The company is dogfooding alpha builds of IE8 but not much else is happening with Microsoft's browser. IE8 is planned to hit the market in late 2008 early 2009. Recent speculations have pointed that the first beta for IE8 will be made available concomitantly with Windows Vista Service Pack 1 by November 12 2007. This information was not confirmed officially by Microsoft.