Under the Mozilla proposal, a new Extended Support Release version of Firefox would arrive every 30 weeks.

Mozilla, faced with business users' stiff resistance to its new rapid update schedule for Firefox, has proposed a slower-moving version of the browser.

Under the proposal, Mozilla would issue a new Extended Support Release (ESR) version of Firefox every 30 weeks. That's five times slower than the new rapid-release cycle for regular Firefox, which updates the browser every six weeks. And each version would be supported for 42 weeks under the proposal.

After Mozilla got an earful in June about how the rapid-release program outpaces some users' needs to test the browser and in-house Web sites that use it, Mozilla set up an Enterprise Working Group to try to hammer out a compromise.

"These proposed releases would provide organizations with additional time to certify and deploy new versions of Firefox while mitigating some of the security risks of staying on an older release," Mozilla's Kev Needham said in a mailing list message yesterday.

The propos... [Read more]

A streamlined "new tab" page debuts in the latest major-point bump for Chrome, along with some refinements aimed at making it easier to distribute Chrome Web apps, syncing the location bar's Omnibox History, and enabling by default the JavaScript Fullscreen API. You can download Google Chrome 15 beta for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome Frame.

Google's new 'new tab' page contains robust organizational features.

The changes to the new tab are substantial, and represent the first major visual refresh to Chrome in some time. The new page splits up your Most Visited sites, Chrome Web apps, and Bookmarks into three distinct sections. There are arrows on the left and right side of the page to flip through them, as well as links at the bottom of the page. The browser saves the last one you were looking at, and returns to it when you restart the browser.

The redesign also includes an intuitive organizational feature. You can drag items from any of the three pages to the bottom bar and create custom categories for keeping them... [Read more]

Avast, a maker of popular free security suites, has announced its purchase of mobile security company ITAgents, which makes the security app for Android and Symbian called Theft Aware. Theft Aware is notable for offering SMS remote control, being resistant to phone wiping, and offering features specifically for rooted phones, in addition to more traditional lost-device mobile security features.

Avast would not disclose a purchase price for the company, although since both are privately held companies, they're not obligated to.

The purchase does not contradict the company's plans to release its own Android security solution in the fourth quarter of 2011, Avast Chief Technical Officer Ondrej Vlcek said in an e-mail to CNET. "When we talked [this summer], we already had the LoI [Letter of Intent] with Theft Aware signed. So it's really no change in plans at all, it was part of the strategy from the very beginning."

Vlcek said Avast plans to keep the anti-theft product as a separate product with similar pricing to what it has now, but that it will also be integrated into Avast's security suite. "Basic features will be available in the free version of the suite, while some of the advanced features will only be present in the paid," he said.

Currently, Theft Aware retails ... [Read more]