The Mozilla Foundation is set to release the first beta of the next version of its Firefox web browser, Firefox 2.0. The organisation wants software developers especially to download and test the new version.

Several "candidate" betas have been released over the last week, to allow for last minute tweaking and testing before the public release of the official version.

New features include phishing filters and integrated spell checking, as well as "enhanced" tabbed browsing, which allows users to reopen a tab they closed by accident. The RSS support has also been tinkered with.

Mozilla has not yet decided which of the new features in the beta will make it into the full commercial release. Public reaction is bound to inform those choices.

The beta is expected to be released this week. Mozilla stresses that it is released for test purposes only, and is not intended for regular users. It can be installed alongside Firefox 1.5.

The full version of the new browser is expected in August. ®