Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 DelayedFirefox 3.1 Beta 3 Delayed

Citing bugs in its JavaScript engine, Mozilla for the third time has delayed the release of Firefox 3.1's third beta, which was expected to land on Monday, Feb. 2. And now the final version may no longer be released this quarter.Following the detection of 18 bugs in TraceMonkey --Firefox's new JavaScript engine -- Mozilla has delayed the release of Firefox 3.1 beta 3, which was to be released on Monday. And Mozilla is no longer "100 percent" sure the final version (code named Shiretoko) will be released this quarter as originally planned.

"At this time, we don't have a good estimate for when we'll be releasing Beta 3, as there are some issues remaining which are tricky and complicated, and we want to ensure are fully resolved," said Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's director of Firefox development, in a statement. "We're working on a revised schedule, which should be posted in a few days."

This isn't the first time Firefox 3.1 has been delayed. The Feb. 2 release date for beta 3 was already rescheduled from Jan. 26. And in November, Mozilla announced a third beta to allow the company to conduct more testing.

Mozilla introduced TraceMonkey as Firefox's new JavaScript rendering engine last summer. It's available on Firefox 3.0, though by default it's turned off. TraceMonkey has earned mainly rave reviews, and you can enable it on v.3.0 with these instructions. Reports state that Mozilla is confident TraceMonkey's bugs are containable, which is a relief, since TraceMonkey gives Firefox 3.1 faster speeds than previous versions.

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