A beta release of Firefox 3 has been pencilled in for release on July 31 following the release of Alpha 4 last weekend.

Further alpha releases – which are code named Gran Paradiso “in an effort to discourage regular end users from downloading them” – will appear on a monthly schedule. Alpha releases are best left alone unless you are involved in the project or a web developer who needs to start investigating Firefox 3 compatibility well in advance.

Changes in Alpha 4 – which is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux – include Mac user interface improvements and bug fixes, inclusion of the FUEL JavaScript library for developers of Firefox extensions, and improvements to offline web application support.

Work scheduled for Alpha 5 includes search engine keyword support, an Extension Manager, and integration with the Growl notification system for Mac OS X. Growl support was removed from Alpha 4 shortly before release following the discovery of a significant bug.

The further development of Places (the integrated bookmarks and history manager that will be a major feature of Firefox 3) should also be seen in Alpha 5.

Source: Itwire

~LC