Also known as the 1.8 Beta 4 milestone, the new version is aimed at testers, extension/theme authors and web developers.

The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit public benefit software development organization, today announced that they have released Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 and is available for download.

Also known as the 1.8 Beta 4 milestone, this is the first beta release of the next Firefox update and is aimed at testers, extension/theme authors and web developers. The final release of Firefox 1.5 is scheduled for later this year. New features include an improved software update system, faster backward and forward navigation, a feature for clearing private browsing data, drag-and-drop reordering of browser tabs, a redesigned options/preferences window and better popup blocking. Web standards support is also improved, with support for Scalable Vector Graphics, JavaScript 1.6 and more CSS.

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 is scheduled for release on Wednesday 5th October and the first Firefox 1.5 release candidate is due on Friday 28th October.