Mozilla To Launch Firefox 3.5 Web Browser

Mozilla is launching its latest web browser promising faster online surfing.

Firefox, a rival to Microsoft's market domination, will release version 3.5 later this month.

Its features will include geolocation - information targeted to your location, in-built video players, and private browsing. It comes after nightly testing by 10,000 volunteers.

A "community" rather than a strictly commercial company, a lot of Mozilla's work is undertaken by thousands of helpers.

Only two full-time paid staffers man a support desk for 300 million users - the rest do it for free.

One of main features of Firefox web browsing is increased privacy - users can delete specific parts of their activity or ask the computer to "forget" whole chunks.

But some suggest this might help those viewing child abuse images avoid detection.

"It is not a piece we can control," the vice president of engineering, Mike Shaver, told Sky News Online.

"People who want to do illegal things have always had the ability to be private, to lie and to defraud."

He believes most people have legitimate reasons for secrecy.

"There's been a stigma around being private, we see it as just offering control."

Mr Shaver said Mozilla's community ethic had ended up being a "comparative advantage" during the economic downturn.

"We've never been set up to maximise our financial return," he explained. "We don't have shareholders to please or target numbers to hit."