Mozilla releases 'final' Firefox 4 beta

Mozilla has released what it expects to be the final beta of Firefox 4, bringing hope of a final release of the new browser early in March.

The 12th beta fixes over 7,000 bugs in the old code and improves the performance of online video with better linking to hardware acceleration from the host computer's resources.

Tabbing of windows has also been made more flexible, and the positioning of the display for embedded URLs has been altered.

"We are in the final stages of the Firefox 4 Beta cycle," said a posting to the Mozilla blog. "We couldn't build Firefox 4 Beta without the help of our millions of beta testers and their feedback."

Firefox release manager Christian Legnitto said last week that the 12th beta had proved harder to finish than expected, and that another version may be required.

However, Asa Dotzler, director of community development at Mozilla, said in a Twitter post that this will be the final version before release, which suggests a shipping date of early March.

Mozilla avoids setting final release dates for code owing to a long-standing corporate policy of not limiting the testing process.

The organisation expects to ship the fifth version of Firefox much more quickly than Firefox 4, and to add 64-bit support and better performance on Android and Apple platforms.

The new Firefox beta is available for Windows, Linux and Mac from the Mozilla download site.