Firefox.next due for 2010 release

 

Gallery

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 7 Apr 2009 at 08:48

Mozilla has released the roadmap for Firefox 3.6, which is due to arrive in "early 2010".

Codenamed Namoroka, Mozilla has warned that Firefox 3.6 may yet see the same bump in version number that saw Firefox 3.1 leap to version 3.5 overnight. The foundation has suggested referring to the browser as Firefox.next in the meantime.

The roadmap indicates Mozilla is placing a great deal of emphasis on improving the responsiveness of the browser. According to the notes the team wants to "achieve dramatic, human-percievable (>50ms) speed increases on startup, opening a new tab, autocompleting a location in the Awesomebar and playing rich media content."

Elsewhere it looks as if a visual overhaul is on the books. The document suggests the introduction of new animations to "reduce lag between action and feedback, and to improve perceived speed."

It will also benefit from new default Aero-Glass and OS X themes that should see it integrate more tightly into the common operating systems.

This will follow through to easier customisation, with Mozilla bringing support for new "lightweight" themes and add-ons that can be installed without requiring the browser to restart. This could build upon the Personas project, which brings simple visual skins to the browser.

Elsewhere, users can expect the usual raft of UI tweaks - with Mozilla currently touting the ability to save groups of tabs, and a vague suggestion about "customising browser behaviours based on personal history," which could see the browser reorder suggestions in the Awesome bar based on the frequency with which you use them.

The two headline features, however, remain those discussed by Firefox architect Mike Connor back in February. Namely the building of the Ubiquity command-line interface directly into the browser, and the adopton of Prism - the labs project which allows users to turn web apps such as Gmail into pseudo desktop apps, which are accessed from the Windows desktop or Start menu.

As for a release date? Mozilla has set "an intended release target of early-to-mid 2010. As always, we will only release the finished product when it's ready."