Firefox developer announces 1.1 release delay
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
The meteoric rise of Firefox, the browser to challenge Internet Explorer, is about to be temporarily arrested. After relatively spectacular success in a very few short months following the 1.0 release, former Firefox lead engineer Ben Goodger announced version 1.1 will be late ... and the reasons behind the delay make for very interesting news.
Version 1.1, a midpoint step between the 1.0 and the expected 2.0 release, was originally on target for March of 2005. Goodger declined to specify a new ship date, merely commenting about "the realities of the work remaining to be done" being formidable. The point release was expected to fix a number of minor and a few major bugs in the current browser, most notably a bug that causes the browser to forget its scroll position when switching back to a visited webpage.
Although Goodger neglected to elaborate, the delay is most likely rooted substantially in the recent major loss of talent on the Firefox team. Several lead programmers--including Goodger--defected from Firefox and are now working for ... Google! The world's most popular Internet search portal refuses to confirm or deny that it's working on its own browser, but the theft of Firefox's top brains more or less speaks for itself.
My take - Google has announced that they are working on a google browser. I'm forcasting a version of Mozilla/Foxfire with a google skin.
