Firefox, Camino for Intel Macs

Mactel users will soon be able to run a native version of Firefox. The Mozilla foundation this weekend said that it would release in March a native Intel version of its popular alternative browser, Firefox. "We are targeting the official release of Firefox for Intel Mac OS X in late March with the Firefox 1.5.0.2 update," said Mozilla software engineer Josh Aas told ZDnet. "While an unofficial version of the software is now available on Aas' personal Web site, until Mozilla approves it, the developer recommends those with Intel Macs use Apple's Rosetta technology to run the normal PowerPC Mac OS X version of Firefox." Rosetta technology allows users to run most programs designed for PowerPC-based Macs on Intel-based Macs. While some applications take a performance hit, most transparently to the user--without any modifications. In addition to an Intel-native version of Firefox, Aas has posted native versions of Mozilla's Thunderbird email/messaging client and Camino, another popular browser based on the same code as Firefox.

The developer notes that the current builds still have some stability issues because "the Flash plugin included with newer builds of Mac OS X for Intel does not play nicely." The developer suggests that users simply remove the plugin from their plugins folder when testing. "The problem has been brought to Macromedia's attention, and they are working on a fix."

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