Mozilla has announced plans to ship the first beta of Firefox 3.1 next week. Though beta 1 will be a welcome milestone -- especially since the final release has already been pushed back several weeks -- the most anticipated new features won't arrive until beta 2, due in November 2008.
As part of its weekly meeting, Mozilla developers have updated the Firefox 3.1 timeline, adding the significant new features -- the private browsing mode and improvements to the "awesome bar" -- to the list of things coming in beta 2.
Mozilla has also outlined a few other possible new features, like the ability to drag a tab out of a window and open it as a new window, though the notes say that there are no plans to hold any releases to accommodate the features.
In other words, if developers get the code done in time those features will be added, if not you'll have to wait for the next version of Firefox.
If you'd like to see a full list of what's under consideration, head over to the Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 wiki page.
We'll be sure to let you know when the first beta of Firefox 3.1 is available.
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