Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta Released

The Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross. They believed the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser.[18] To combat what they saw as the Mozilla Suite's software bloat, they created a stand-alone browser, with which they intended to replace the Mozilla Suite. On April 3, 2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that they planned to change their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird.[19]

The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. Originally titled Phoenix, it was renamed because of trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies. The replacement name, Firebird, provoked an intense response from the Firebird free database software project.[20][21][22] In response, the Mozilla Foundation stated that the browser should always bear the name Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion with the database software. Continuing pressure from the database server's development community forced another change; on February 9, 2004, Mozilla Firebird became Mozilla Firefox,[23] often referred to as simply Firefox. Mozilla prefers that Firefox be abbreviated as Fx or fx, though it is often abbreviated as FF.[24] The Firefox project went through many versions before 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004. After a series of stability and security fixes, the Mozilla Foundation released its first major update, Firefox version 1.5, on November 29, 2005. Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.12 is the final version officially supported under Windows 95.

Tentatively scheduled for release in November 2010, Firefox 4 is currently in the beta stage with the fourth beta released on August 24, 2010. It will bring a new, "faster" user interface.[52] Early mockups of the new interface on Windows,[53] Mac OS X,[54] and Linux[55] were first made available in July 2009. Other features slated for Firefox 4 include a new Account Manager,[56] improved notifications, application tabs, a redesigned extension manager,[57] and support for multitouch displays and 64-bit systems.[58]

Get Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta.