Firefox 1.1 to Be Released as Alpha Soon

The Mozilla Foundation plans to release the next upgrade of Firefox browser, versioned 1.1, code named Deer Park, as Alpha 1 in early next week.

The alpha version, which is scheduled for release early next week, is not meant for general use, but is geared toward developers building plug-ins for the browser, Hofmann said. There are currently about a thousand Firefox plug-ins, which are applications used to extend the browser's capabilities.

The alpha version of Firefox is built on the latest version of Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine, which supports several new standards, including Scalable Vector Graphics, Cascading Style Sheets Level 3 and Canvas Tags. The latter is a way for JavaScript to dynamically update two-dimensional graphics used in business applications, Hofmann said.

Previously, I’ve read about Mozilla Foundation to enhance the next upgrade of Firefox with auto-update engine, but I’m not sure if it’ll be available in the final 1.1 release. As said, this auto-update engine is believed to enhance the way users receive patches. Instead of re-installing the whole software, perhaps, users can run updates or patches like Windows does.

Reference:
TechWeb - Mozilla Readies Alpha Release of Firefox Upgrade