Mozilla Posts 1.7 Beta

The Mozilla Foundation on Thursday released a beta version of the next edition of its open-source browser and e-mail suite, Mozilla 1.7. Mozilla 1.7 beta, which comes in versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, boasts noticeable performance improvements, according to the Foundation.

Compared with the current stable release--Mozilla 1.6--the preview edition of 1.7 is approximately seven percent faster at startup, eight percent faster at opening windows, and nine percent faster in loading pages.

The beta also debuts a password manager in the browser that now includes a "show passwords" tool for viewing saved Web-site passwords, numerous improvements in the Palm Sync tool of the suite's e-mail client, and support for Secure Password Authentication using SSPI NTLM authentication for SMTP and POP3.

The performance of the mail client in download, viewing, and saving of e-mail messages has also been boosted, said the Foundation, and a wide range of bugs detected in the earlier alpha version has been fixed.

Mozilla 1.7 beta can be downloaded from the Foundation's Web site without charge.