In the dust trailing behind the big news of Google’s Chrome browser stood the unveiling of Mozilla’s Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 for developers. The project, codenamed “Shiretoko Alpha 2,” features some improvements that seem to place the next public release of Firefox directly in contention with Chrome.
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 will feature the ability for users to drag and drop tabs between browser windows, something that Chrome users can do already. Alpha 2 will also support the HTML 5 <video> tag element, which will enable users to embed videos more easily.
The Shiretoko Alpha 2, built on the pre-release Gecko 1.9.1 layout engine platform (also developed by Mozilla), will also offer initial support for Web Worker threads, in addition to a new selector “to create areas of Aero-style “glass” in XUL.”
Other features listed on the Mozilla Developer Center page include:
- Support for CSS 2.1 properties:
- Support for CSS 3 properties:
- Performance improvements and new preference values for color management profile support
One feature that is glaringly absent from the list is the inclusion of the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which is supposed to be faster than Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. TraceMonkey is available in the nightly builds of Firefox 3.1, however. Many will point to Firefox’s JavaScript rendering speeds as the browser’s most important feature.
The first beta version of Firefox 3.1 is planned to be unveiled in October, while a full release of Firefox 3.1 is tentatively set for the end of 2008.
Firefox 3.1 will be Mozilla’s most watched and scrutinized version to date.
Sources:
http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/
http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2008/09/mozilla-rolls-out-firefox-31-a.html
http://www.crn.com/software/210600264
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