Firefox 4 still on track for 22 March release date

Mozilla has confirmed that the final launch date for its long awaited Firefox 4 browser will come on 22 March as planned, despite hinting last week that the emergence of further bugs could herald more delays.

Mozilla's senior director of platform engineering, Damon Sicore, said in a developer forum posting on 16 March that the final build of the browser would launch on 22 March, but cautioned that further delays could still be possible.

"If at any time we discover issues that would block the final release, we would issue an RC2 as soon as possible, reset the ship date and communicate to everyone," he said.

True to form, Mozilla was subsequently forced to release an RC2 which included "some minor security fixes and updates to several localisations", but the firm told V3.co.uk today that this had not affected the final release date.

"Firefox will now ship in 80 languages," noted a Mozilla blog post. "We're excited to deliver the new features, look and speed of Firefox 4 to our more than 400 million users worldwide."

Some of the forthcoming features of Firefox 4 include HTML5 support, hardware acceleration for Windows, Mac and Linux systems, a new tab location and improved security and crash protection.

Firefox 4 will also sport a 'do not track' mode which will allow users to opt out of behavioural tracking tools used by some web sites.

Don't forget to follow all the latest news on Firefox 4 here on V3.co.uk, including our first impressions review of the new software as it goes live.

If you can't wait for the official launch on Tuesday, Firefox 4 can be accessed from the V3.co.uk Downloads page in Windows and Mac versions.

Mozilla stressed though, that it is working right up until 22 March to make sure the product is perfect.

"We appreciate everyone's excitement, but we are not done with QA testing and preparing for the release," it said.

"Our hope is people will wait until the download button is updated on www.mozilla.com/firefox, which will happen tomorrow morning PDT once all of our work is finished."