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We had already expected the release to come in mid-June and it looks like Mozilla has held that date true, they have officially announced that Firefox 3 will be available on June 17.

In addition, they have also, as we mentioned early yesterday, released an additional release candidate as RC3 that took care of a few last minute bugs found in the Mac version.

Otherwise start getting ready to download and install Firefox 3 on June 17, and don’t forget to help all of your not-so-computer literate friends and family members do the same.

In addition to the release, June 17 will also be the day that Mozilla is attempting to set the world record for the most software downloaded during a single day.

Read [Mozilla]

While we were all set and waiting for the final release of Firefox to drop at anytime now, CNET is reporting that some of us may indeed be given an RC 3 sometime today. The latest release, which will come officially as RC 3 will only be for Mac users as the Windows and Linux versions are already considered stable. The changes are also reported to be “internal” so assuming you are a Mac user and do choose to update, its more than likely you will not see any difference. Still no word of any delay with the final release, so as of now Firefox 3 is still on track for a “mid-June” release.

Read [CNET]

As we expected Mozilla has made the next early-adopter release of Firefox 3 available for download. The latest is Firefox 3 RC2 and although the release notes are a little light on the exact updates, its safe to say they have taken care of the issues that were found during the testing of Firefox 3 RC1. This latest download of RC2 is expected to be the last early release and the full, final Firefox 3 is still on track for a June availability.

I have been using RC2 since last night, and was able to update from RC1 without any issues, similar to the last few versions of FF3 it has been stable so far. However, a little friendly warning, as always take caution with any beta or pre-release software.

Download [Mozilla]

We have seen numerous reports, those even coming directly from Mozilla about how we can expect the final release of Firefox 3 to land this June and up until now it looked like it was right on track. While we have not heard any news of a major delay with that expected date, the latest news may push it up just a little bit. Recently we had seen the reports that ten critical flaws had been found in Firefox 3 RC1.

Since then Mozilla had been working to decide whether to ship the final “consumer-ready” release and then fix the flaws with version 3.0.1 or just move onto a Release Candidate 2. Well it seems the decision has been made, because they have officially announced that we will indeed be getting an RC2 before the final.

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Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 users, listen up. Mozilla has stated that RC1 contains ten “high-priority” bugs, which have been marked as “critical.” Released almost two weeks ago, RC1 was thought by the developers as a possible final product, but now that these flaws are coming to light, the company is debating whether to release Firefox 3 Final with the updates or ship out another release candidate for further testing from the community.

“We are making a go/no go decision early next week, as we are still collecting feedback.”

Some of the bugs include certain websites crashing the browser, Ubuntu 8.04 breaking “3.0pre’s addons,” the spell checker once disabled is not able to be re-enabled again, and drag and drop bookmarks not being usable. These bugs could also be fixed, if RC1 is the final release, in 3.0.1 (which would essentially be RC2). The bugs are currently undergoing testing and by May 27, we’ll have word if RC1 is in fact the final release or if RC2 will be compiled and released to the public for another round of testing.

Read [PC World]

As expected Mozilla has rolled out the first non-beta release of Firefox 3. For those who are currently running a beta version or just feeling adventurous Release Candidate 1 is now available for download. A final release is still expected to come in June, of course the beta version has been pretty stable for us, we could only imagine the same from Release Candidate 1.

According to the developer page, RC1 includes some updates to the look and feel, improved security and web compatibility as well as added some new features which include location bar auto-complete, bookmark backup and restore, full page zoom and more.

Those running a beta version of Firefox 3 can get the update by going to Help, then Check for Updates, or simply by visiting the download link below.

Download [Mozilla] Read [Mozilla Developer]

Mozilla has released what will be the final beta version of Firefox 3, which comes in the form of Firefox 3 Beta 5. While normally we would not get this excited over such a small jump, because going from beta 4 to beta 5 should not result in excitement. According to the release notes there has been over 750 changes since beta 4 became available, most of which comes not as new features but bug fixes, which should make any current Firefox 3 user consider moving up. That is especially true for any OS X users because that pesky jfif issue with copying images from the web has been fixed. Oh, and we cannot forget, there is a new initial launch splash screen to marvel at.

A release candidate (RC1) is expected to as early as next Tuesday and Firefox 3 is still on schedule for a June final release. Also don’t forget that even though Firefox 3 seems stable, it still is beta, so you can be pretty certain that you may have some issues, thankfully ours came only in the form of extensions and themes.

Download [Mozilla] Via [Macworld]

During a recent roundtable discussion, Mozilla CEO John Lilly announced the final release of Firefox 3 will be available in June. According to the timeline Beta 5 is expected to be available in early April and the first Release Candidate (RC1) is expected in the beginning of May. While a Beta 5 will be nice to see, that almost seems like a formality at this point, RC1 will be the nice step (especially for early-adopters) because at that point we will start to see more themes and extensions beginning to work (or work properly) with Firefox 3.

Current estimates put the use of Firefox 3 beta 4 at around 700,000 users, which is just a very small portion of the total 160 million people running Firefox. Personally I have been running beta 4 on all my machines since its release, which is a mix of Mac and PC’s, and although I should not say write it, I have yet to experience any issues, aside from themes and extensions not working.

Via [Wired]