Latest Firefox beta gets touchy on Mac

Gives Apple users the finger

Newer MacBook owners can set their fingers to work on the latest beta build of Firefox, which adds multi-touch gesture support for trackpads.

Mozilla this week carted out Beta 2 of Firefox 3.1 sporting new toys like a private browsing mode, improved rendering, a faster JavaScript engine, and stability fixes.

Unique to the Mac version is support for Apple's multi-touch trackpad shipping with every model of MacBook since early this year.

Although it's no sure thing multi-touch gestures will ship with the public release of Firefox 3.1, as they stand, Mozilla's native trackpad gestures outdo what's presently available in Safari.

Native multi-touch gestures supported by 3.1 Beta 2 are:

Swipe up: top of the page
Swipe down: end of page
Swipe left: back in browser's history
Swipe right: forward in browser's history
Pinch together: zoom in
Pinch apart: zoom out
Twist left: previous tab
Twist right: next tab

There's no set date for the public debut of Firefox 3.1, although Mozilla says to expect a third beta before the final release. ®