Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 'Shiretoko' Available For Download

open source Firefox Web browser

Shiretoko is intended for developers and testers only who are looking to find and fix bugs and participate in developing the next version of Firefox.

The latest alpha version of the open source Web browser features a host of new features for testers to play with and explore.

One of the more interesting changes to the browser involves its tab browsing. Shiretoko allows users to switch between tabs using a Ctrl-Tab function. Instead of switching between different windows on the desktop, the Control-Tab brings up a "filmstrip" of Firefox tabs. Similar to using Alt-Tab to switch between windows, Ctrl-Tab allows users to switch from the most recent Firefox tab to the next most recent, going back to the tab last visited by the user.

According to Boriss' Blog, adding this type of navigation is "the first step toward increased visual navigation and content organization features."

A second feature that developers and testers can experiment with in Shiretoko involves restricting the number of results the Smart Location Bar gives. In Firefox 3, when a user begins to type into the Smart Location Bar, Firefox comes up with a list of suggestions based on past browsing history and bookmarks. In Shiretoko, users can restrict those suggestions.

Web standards improvements in the Gecko layout engine, Text API for the element and support for JavaScript query selectors round out the rest of the new features that Mozilla is offering with the current Shiretoko offering.

Shiretoko is available for testers and developers to download on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux platforms.