Mozilla 1.6 Enters Beta

The Mozilla Foundation released a new beta version of its Mozilla browser this week in preparation for launching a final edition late this year or early in 2004.

A beta of Mozilla 1.6, which was posted for download on the Foundation's Web site Tuesday, includes a number of new features, most prominently cross-platform support for Microsoft's NTLM (NT LAN Manager) authentication scheme and improved integration with the popular GNOME desktop for Linux.

Previously, only the Windows version of Mozilla supported NTLM, but the beta of 1.6 -- also available for Mac OS X and Linux -- allowing all users to be authenticated against Windows proxy and Web servers that use NTLM.

On the GNOME front, Mozilla now integrates with that desktop environment's MIME-type file associations, letting the browser launch the same associated files as GNOME.

Other improvements include the return of a translation menu option that uses Google's translation service to translate foreign language-based Web pages. A host of bug fixes and stability enhancements have also been dropped into the beta.