Mozilla plans for Firefox 3 and beyond

The gift wrap is scarcely off Firefox 3 and the Mozilla community is already looking toward its next update. The first alpha release of Firefox 3.1, codenamed Shiretoko, may be released as early as this month, while its final release might see the light of day by year's end. Let's take a look at where this popular Internet browser is headed in the coming months, and what new features users can expect to see.

Several features were nearly included for Firefox 3.0 but didn't make the cut because they weren't completely ready. New features expected to be in version 3.1 include a history and bookmark organizer with unified search and smart folder capabilities, and visual tab switching that shows thumbnail images of the web sites opened in each tab when moused over, both of which were abandoned in lieu of other, more critical features.

According to an email sent to the mozilla.dev.planning mailing list, Mozilla's Vice President of Engineering, Mike Schroepfer, says there are other features expected to make it into version 3.1. For instance, native JSON DOM bindings (preferred by web developers over its JavaScript counterparts), an improved Awesomebar, support for cross-site XMLHttpRequest for the development of more powerful web applications, and better system integration are a few of the features Mozilla is anxious to get into the hands of users.

Schroepfer says, "This, along with the overall quality of Gecko 1.9 as a basis for mobile and the desire to get new platform features out to web developers sooner has [led us] to want to do a second release of Firefox this year."

In the event a feature isn't ready for version 3.1's targeted ship date, Schroepfer says rather than hold the release, it will simply be included in the next major release instead.

In a recent blog post, Schroepfer says the new decision to aim for shorter, date-driven release cycles is in large part due to Mozilla's desire to "deliver releases of the quality and impact of Firefox 3 with much greater frequency." More frequent indeed; the gap between the release of Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 was almost two years.

Not surprisingly, Firefox 4 is expected to usher in a whole host of changes, not the least of which is the introduction of Mozilla2, "an extensive update to the Mozilla platform to feature highlights like ActionMonkey, the merge of Mozilla's JavaScript engine (SpiderMonkey) and Tamarin, Adobe's JavaScript virtual machine open-sourced in late 2006."

Details of the features expected to ship with Firefox 4 are sketchy, but the Vice President of Mozilla Labs, Chris Beard, has two projects currently under development that he'd like to see included: Weave and Prism.

Weave is similar to the wildly popular browser synchronization add-on, Foxmarks. While Foxmarks only syncs an individual's bookmarks across machines, Weave's goal is to replicate a user's entire browsing experience — including bookmarks, favorites, passwords, and preferences — no matter where they access the Internet.

Prism takes aim at Google Gears by making browser functionality available even while offline. Previously known as WebRunner, Prism is based on an idea called site specific browsers (SSB) and is already implemented in Fluid for Mac OS X, Adobe Air, and Microsoft Silverlight. Prism team member Matthew Gertner explains, "Rather than running programs in normal web browsers like Firefox or Safari, wedged in a tab between New York Times articles and TechCrunch posts, each app is given its own dedicated browser, which is customized to include many of the desktop features that users know and love." For a taste of what Prism can do within Firefox 3, download this extension.

Of course, one of the biggest questions on the minds of many people these days is: what's up with the mobile version of Firefox? Although it looks like there's a ways to go before Mobile Firefox turns up on your Razr or BlackBerry, the rapid release cycle of Firefox will help push the project along. Schroepfer says, "There are already devices shipping with early versions of Gecko 1.9 at the core. More are coming soon and we'll be releasing milestones of full branded versions of Firefox (with XUL and the Firefox team taking a lead in the user experience) later this year. This lines up well with Firefox 3.1 and a synchronized release schedule will make everything run more smoothly."

The development team is working on sorting through some of the basic differences among mobile devices such as a touch screen versus non-touch screen interface, virtual versus tactile keyboards, and so on. If you're interested in trying out the prototypes, they're available on the team's wiki page.

Firefox 3 has been downloaded more than 8 million times since its release on June 17th, and more than 90% of users download the latest version of the browser within 7 days of its release. Clearly, Firefox has a large and growing user base, no doubt due in large part to Mozilla's willingness to offer new and useful features in a timely fashion.