Firefox 4 delayed until 2011

Mozilla has delayed the release of Firefox 4 until next year, with the company saying the development process has taken longer than expected.

Product manager Mike Beltzner said in a blog post that despite “strong progress” the software is not yet ready to be released and that the original release schedule of next month cannot be met.

“Completing this work is taking longer than initial estimates indicated as we track down regressions and sources of instability,” he said in the blog post.

“As part of our commitment to beta users, we will not ship software before it is ready.”

However, Beltzner said beta candidates for Firefox 4 will be released over the next few months, including a release candidate due in early 2011. The new browser will feature many additions, including placing the tabs at the top of the page, hardware acceleration and a hidden menu bar.