Download Mozilla Firefox 3.1 alpha 2

Little Penguin points us to the second alpha version of Firefox 3.1, released by the developers of Mozilla last week released. “Version 3.1 alpha 2 of the popular browser Firefox has now been released. This version contains several improvements, including support for the video element that is part of the html5 specifications. There is also support for ‘web worker threads’, which makes it possible to run Javascript in the background without causing the browser to freeze.Finally, Mozilla has the ability to define aero-style ‘glass’ areas in XUL.

Although not yet included in this alpha release, Firefox 3.1 will also use a faster Javascript engine, known as Tracemonkey. With this new engine, executing javascript code will be many times faster than is possible with the current browser(s):”

The second developer milestone of the next release of Firefox – code named Shiretoko Alpha 2 – is now available for download. Shiretoko is built on pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.1 platform, which forms the core of rich internet applications such as Firefox. Please note that this release is intended for developers and testers only.

This Alpha of Shiretoko / Gecko 1.9.1 introduces several new features:

• Support for the HTML 5
• Initial support for web worker threads
• you can now drag and drop tabs between browser windows
• New selector to create areas of Aero-style “glass” in XUL
• Support for CSS 2.1 properties: ::before and ::afterand white-space:pre-line
• Support for CSS 3 properties: -moz-border-image, word wrap: break word, text-shadow, box-shadow and column-rule
• Performance improvements and new preference values for color management profile support

Anyone interested in Shiretoko should read the release notesas well as the “Firefox 3.1 For Developers” article on the Mozilla Developer Center before downloading. Please use the following links to download Shiretoko:

• Windows: Shiretoko Alpha 2 Setup.exe
• Mac OS X: Shiretoko Alpha 2.dmg
• Linux: shiretoko-alpha2.tar.bz2