Download Mozilla Firefox 4.0 RC for Mac OS X

Mozilla has released Firefox 4.0 RC for all supported platforms, including Mac OS X, bringing the browser inches close to its final release.

According to a post on The Mozilla Blog, “Mozilla Firefox 4 for Windows, Mac and Linux has exited the beta cycle and is now available as a release candidate in more than 70 languages.”

According to the people behind the popular web browser, its code-savvy developers have been able to patch more than 8,000 bugs since the first beta release.

As usual, users are asked to help test the release candidate, and provide feedback to its makers, thus ensuring that Firefox 4 Final will be clean as a whistle.

For those who haven’t yet updated to the new version, Firefox 4 RC includes an updated interface “that’s sleeker and easier to use,” including on Mac OS X, according to Mozilla.

Cool visual enhancements that also come with new functionality include the new tab location (tabs are given top visual priority for more efficient and intuitive browsing), the ability to navigate more easily by switching to open tabs from the Awesome Bar, and App Tabs, which allows users to take the sites they always keep open a permanent home in the browser.

The RC includes Firefox Sync, a feature which synchronizes your Firefox history, bookmarks, open tabs, passwords and form data across multiple devices.

This feature comes with its own aesthetic changes which, according to Mozilla, make it easier to set up and use between your home and work computers.

Equipped with the enhanced SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine with TraceMonkey and JägerMonkey JITs, Firefox 4.0 RC will speed up everything “from faster start-up time and improved page-load speed to the performance of Web applications,” its makers claim.

The browser does hardware acceleration as well (faster loading of pages containing rich and interactive content).

In addition to enhancing its security, Mozilla also equipped Firefox with failsafe elements that provide uninterrupted browsing when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins.

In other words, the entire browser will not crash should one of these plugins crash or freeze in one of your open tabs.

“Instead, you can simply reload the page to restart the plugin and try again,” Mozilla explains.

Download Mozilla Firefox for Mac OS X (Free)