News
Next Rev of Firefox Already in Alpha
Firefox 2.0 has been out for less than two months but Mozilla.org developers have already released alpha code for the next major version.
According to the release notes posted online, the next revision, which is dubbed Gran Paradiso Alpha 1, is an early developer milestone that is being built on top of the next generation of Mozilla's layout engine, Gecko 1.9.
New features in the Gecko 1.9 engine can be tested by using Gran Paradiso Alpha 1. For instance, Cairo is now the default graphics library, affecting all graphic and text rendering , Cocoa Widgets are now used in OS X builds, and the engine includes an updated threading model, according to the release notes.
In addition, Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows ME are no longer supported platforms and neither is Apple OS X 10.2 .
The release notes caution users that this release is for testing purposes only and is not meant for current users running Firefox.
Firefox 2.0 shipped in final form in late October.
More information and the download of Gran Paradiso Alpha 1.0 are available here.
About the Author
Stuart J. Johnston has covered technology, especially Microsoft, since February 1988 for InfoWorld, Computerworld, Information Week, and PC World, as well as for Enterprise Developer, XML & Web Services, and .NET magazines.