On Oct 30, Mozilla released Firefox 3.6 Beta 1.  Then on November 11, Mozilla released Firefox 3.6 Beta 2.

These betas of Firefox 3.6 introduced several new features:

• Users can now change their browser’s appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
• Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
• Support for the WOFF font format.
• Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
• Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.
• A mechanism to prevent incompatible software from crashing Firefox.

Beta 1 coverage highlights:

CNET, ComputerWorld, Internetnews.com, PC Mag, PC Pro, PCWorld, ReadWriteWeb, ZDNet

Beta 2 coverage highlights:

BetaNews, CNET, DailyTech, DownloadSquad, GoMo News, InternetNews.com, Lifehacker, PCMagazine, The H,  Webmonkey, WebWorkerDaily

On Oct 20, Mozilla joined several organizations in endorsing the Web Open Font Format (WOFF) specification.  We also announced the intent to implement the specification starting in Firefox 3.6.

Wired’s Michael Calore on the WOFF spec:

This is a significant step forward not only for the emerging open format, but also for type on the web in general, which is still stuck in a state of mild turmoil.

For years, designers have been limited to using only a set of five or six common fonts on the web. But thanks to new font rendering tools within the emerging HTML5 and CSS3 standards, web designers now have the ability to use newer, more visually interesting typefaces — and make that type appear more consistently across browsers, operating systems and screen resolutions.

Coverage highlights include:

CNET, Technology Review, Webmonkey, Holy Info, The H, and Online PC.

We’ve had a phenomenally busy few months at Mozilla.  I’m pleased to share a number of highlights from Mozilla’s media coverage around the 3.5 launch and more!

First up, Firefox 3.5 launched to much fanfare and widespread coverage in major media outlets including USA Today, Fast Company, Seattle Times,  ABC News, MTV, BusinessWeek, CNET, NPR, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, and more.  Firefox 3.5 also enjoyed top trending topic status on Twitter on launch day.  If you look closely, you can see that we’re beat Michael Jackson

Last week, John Lilly was a guest on the NBC Bay Area show Press:Here, a Sunday morning news roundtable discussion show about Silicon Valley featuring top tech leaders and world class technology reporters.  You can view the segment here.   Creative Commons VP, Mike Linksvayer is interviewed immediately after John so be sure to check out the full episode!

And finally, this past weekend Mozilla was featured in The New York Times Sunday Business section.  The article includes photos of Mitchell Baker, John Lilly, and a number of Mozilla engineers in Mountain View and Toronto (via video satellite).

On Tuesday, our mobile team released Fennec 1.0 Beta 1!

Scott Gilbertson at Wired writes, “The latest Fennec beta brings in two new features from its desktop cousin — The “awesome bar” search engine, which makes it easier to get to frequently visited sites with less typing; and also new is  TraceMonkey, the same, much-improved JavaScript engine set to arrive in Firefox 3.5. Other improvements in the latest release include faster panning, better zoom tools, and other performance related tweaks.”

You can read more about this important mobile milestone in TechCrunch, Lifehacker, CNET, Ars Technica, Network World, Gizmodo, and PC World.

On January 26, Mozilla announced a $100,000 grant to the Wikimedia Foundation to advance open video.  The announcement was communicated via blog posts from Mike Shaver, VP of Engineering, Mozilla, Chris Blizzard, Director of Evangelism, Mozilla, Erik Möller, Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation, and blog.mozilla.com.

The announcement was covered in The New York Times, Ars Technica, PC World, TechCrunch, FOSSwire, WIRED and many others.  You can view all the trackbacks at the bottom of the original blog.mozilla.com post.

On Monday, we announced the release of Firefox 3.1 Beta 2.  To date there have been more than 25 total articles. Reporters have continued to focus on how the updated browser includes the new Private Browsing Mode and how it allows users to surf the Web without leaving locally stored records of online activities.

Coverage highlights include articles in Ars Technica, Computerworld, InformationWeek, CNET, Technologizer, Mashable, PC Magazine, and Wired.

European coverage includes:

Poland:  Gazeta.pl Technologie, PCWorld.pl, Twoje.pc, PCLab.pl

Germany: Markenpost, Big Screen, Linux Magazine, PC Professionell

France: eWeek, MacPlus, CNet, Les Numeriques

Italy: eBizItalia, Punto Informatico, HW Gadget, ZeusNews

UK: The Register, Vnunet.com, ProPortal.com, TechRadar.com

Spain: The Inquirer, Muy Computer.com, Geekets, GenBeta.com

Last week, Mozilla and Zazzle announced a strategic partnership and launched the Mozilla Community Store!  At the Mozilla Community Store, you can browse the gallery to shop from an array of community generated designs. Designs consist entirely of artwork supplied by Mozilla’s worldwide community, with all designs available for customization on over 400 apparel products including t-shirts, sweatshirts and tank tops. To get things started, we’ve seeded the store with over 50 designs from the Firefox 3 t-shirt design contest, but you can also start from scratch and add your own!

US coverage highlights include: TechCrunch, Lifehacker, Startupmeme, and Zazzle’s blog.

A couple weeks ago, Brendan Eich was interviewed for a CNET series called CIO Sessions.  The video was posted to their site yesterday. It’s a great discussion between Brendan and CNET’s Dan Farber about Mozilla, Firefox, and the future of the Web.

Here’s the description CNET posted about the video:

Brendan Eich, CTO of Mozilla, talks to CNET News’ Dan Farber about why the company now commands 20 percent of the browser market and what they’re doing to grow. He also discusses the company’s mobile browser strategy, making Firefox faster than the competition, and taking chances with the company’s core brand.