[gui-talk] Final Firefox 2.0 Browser to be Released Tuesday

[Christopher McMillan]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9004314
Final Firefox 2.0 browser to be released Tuesday
Todd Weiss
October 20, 2006 (Computerworld) The final version of the new Firefox 2.0 
Web browser will be launched Tuesday, just eight days after the last review 
candidate for the software was released for public use.


A spokeswoman for the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, which maintains the 
open-source browser code, said the Release Candidate 3 (RC3) version of 
Firefox 2.0, which was posted for download on Monday has been doing well 
among users and is ready to be finalized as Firefox 2.0 for distribution.

"RC3 is substantially the same as the final release," the spokeswoman said. 
The final version will be branded as Firefox 2.0 and will be available for 
free download on its own Mozilla Web page sometime on Tuesday afternoon. 
"That's definitely scheduled," she said.

The news comes days after Microsoft Corp. launched its first full upgrade of 
its Internet Explorer browser, IE7, on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering for the 
Mozilla Foundation said that RC3 would become the final version of the 
Firefox 2.0 browser "if there are no showstoppers."

The first release candidate for Firefox 2.0 was available Sept. 26, while 
the second was released Oct. 6 as developers sought additional input and bug 
reports from users.

In its latest study on Web browser usage, Netherlands-based OneStat.com 
reported last week that global usage of Mozilla's Firefox browser stands at 
11.49%, down 1.44% from its global usage in July, when Firefox use was 
heading upward. The global use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is 
presently at 85.85%, which has increased 2.8% since July, according to 
OneStat.

In comparison, the global usage of Apple's Safari browser is 1.61%, down 
0.23% from July.

In the U.S. alone, Internet Explorer is used by 80.77% of users, while 
Firefox is used by 14.88% of users, according to OneStat.

New features of Firefox 2.0 include built-in anti-phishing controls, 
built-in RSS and XML feed-viewing capabilities and a new inline spell 
checker.