Mozilla Updates Firefox Timetable

Planned incremental releases for the Firefox browser will be skipped in favor of a September 1.5 version release.

The Mozilla Foundation made some changes to the Firefox roadmap. On its web site, Mozilla shows a couple of 1.1 releases and a 1.4 release previously scheduled.

Now, the next full scheduled release should be September’s 1.5. Barring any further issues, the development team has version 2 and 3 targets for release in the first and third quarters of 2006, respectively.

“Our goal is to continue to build a “best of breed” browser product for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. We have ambitious goals for the workload between now and our next major release set,” Ben Goodger wrote on the Firefox roadmap site.

Firefox has grown to nearly a nine percent share of Internet users, with mostly community marketing responsible for getting its message out. Favorable coverage from some major media outlets like USA Today has helped the effort as well.

Firefox did get some unwanted attention at its marketing site, Spread Firefox, when attackers broke in via a flaw in the content management system that site uses. Mozilla organizers of the site had to advise signed-up users to change their login credentials while acknowledging personal contact information may have been exposed.

But the development community and general Firefox users remain supportive, and the development team has shown it can quickly deal with security issues that occur.

David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.