Do you want to be the first who tries the new Firefox?

Nov 12, 2007 13:38 GMT  ·  By

The answer to the subtitle would be "you have to wait for a while until Mozilla officially releases it" but at this time, you can always download and install the release candidate builds rolled out by the company. But here's what happened a few days ago when a user nicknamed "corevette" published an entry on Digg to announce the release of Firefox 3.0 beta 1. The user pointed to the server which hosts all the release candidates on the browser which created a huge bandwidth usage and an impressive avalanche of users looking for the new application. The result? Mozilla took the decision to close the HTTP server and provide downloads only through the FTP server.

"At around 4am PST today, the last of the Firefox 3 Beta 1 release candidate builds appeared on our public FTP. This was mistakenly reported on Digg as the official release of the first Firefox 3 Beta. It's extremely flattering to get this sort of attention, and we know that it's motivated by the very best of intentions," Mike Beltzner wrote on the Mozilla blog.

"For now, we've restricted access to the builds by HTTP, meaning that if you click the link in Digg, you'll see this page instead of the builds. We've done this to protect our own bandwidth, and also to limit the distribution of what's essentially an unfinished product. People can still use FTP clients to get the release candidates, and if they want to help QA test the beta, we encourage people to do so! If not, however, we'd ask you to wait another week or so, at which point we expect to have the final beta release available for public consumption."

Firefox 3.0 is one of the most awaited applications this year as it is supposed to come with several new functions for all the users. Codename Gran Paradiso, Firefox 3.0 will be the new Mozilla weapon in the battle with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Although it was first scheduled for July, the Firefox developer hasn't released the program yet.