Mozilla Rolls Out Firefox 2.0 RC3, Nears Final

Mozilla Corp. late Monday launched Firefox 2.0 Release Candidate 3 (RC3), likely the last test edition before the open-source browser's final hits the street.

The last major update to Firefox was v. 1.5, which debuted in November 2005.

Users of earlier editions of Firefox 2.0 began receiving the update to RC3 automatically Monday; others can download the third release candidate in verisons for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux from the Mozilla Web site.

Firefox 2.0 features anti-phishing alerts, session restore, spell checking, suggested searches, and several other enhancement and additions to version 1.5. According to the most recent statistics from Web metric firm Net Applications, Mozilla browsers accounted for 12.5 percent of the surfing market in September.

Although reports circulated Tuesday that barring any major bugs, RC3 will also be the final, Mozilla has not set an official deadline. It would not be unprecedented for Mozilla to simply dub a release candidate as the final code; it did the same thing during the last-minute run-up to Firefox 1.5.Firefox 2.0's rival, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, is also nearing completion, with the final of that Windows XP browser expected before the end of the month.