Firefox 3.1 coming soon?

Developers working on the next version of Firefox aim to release a beta to the public in August.

The project team has set a date of 19 August to freeze features and make the test version of Firefox 3.1 available, according to a calendar posting to the Mozilla wiki. However, the posting notes the date is an estimate.

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Expected new features in Firefox 3.1 include native support for the open-source Ogg Vorbis audio codec and the Ogg Theora video codec, according to a draft list posted to the wiki. The inclusion of the open-source formats accompanies support for HTML5 in the browser, which will mean Firefox 3.1 will work with audio and video HTML tags.

Developer Chris Double wrote in his blog: "The backend has been committed to the main Mozilla source code and is enabled by default. This original commit is a work in progress. There are unimplemented bits, bugs, etc that need to be sorted out. But it's a start towards using a common codec across all platforms and will improve as we get towards the 3.1 release."

The last full version of the open-source browser, Firefox 3, racked up more than eight million downloads within 24 hours on its release on 17 June, setting a world record.

Original article: Date set for Firefox 3.1 beta from ZDNet UK