Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 3 is now available for download. With this release, Mozilla inches closer to the availability of the final version of Firefox 3.0. The RC3 build really managed to come out of nowhere, as the initial plan was to shoot directly for the gold release from RC2. In fact, Mozilla has managed to say very little about RC3 in comparison to the previous candidate. However, one thing not made public was the impact delivered by RC3, an additional stage in the development process to the original plans related to the official release of Firefox 3.0. Ahead of RC3, Mozilla pointed to mid-June 2008 for the availability of Firefox 3.0.

Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 2 was dropped on June 4 and brought to the table no new features, as the release was focused exclusively on resolving some last minute show-stopper bugs. Essentially, RC2 was identical to RC1. And this is also valid for RC3. As far as Windows and Linux versions are concerned, the Release Candidate 3 and Release Candidate 2 builds are completely identical. The sole differences will be experienced by Mac OS X users.

Following RC2, Mozilla identified a functionality issue affecting both the latest versions of Firefox 2.0 and of the Firefox 3.0, but only on Mac OS X operating systems. RC3 comes to solve problems related to Firefox 3.0 RC2 causing Mac computers not to shut down or becoming unable to close itself. As of yet, this is the only information related to Firefox 3.0 that Mozilla has made public.

The fact that the only difference between RC2 and RC3 is one less bug, and that on the browser's edition for Mac OS X, indicates that Firefox 3.0 is indeed close to the finish line. And the week passed from RC2 to RC3 signals the fact that Mozilla could be able to meet its initial goal of a mid-June launch even with RC3.

Firefox 3.0 RC3 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0 RC3 for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0 RC3 for Mac OS X is available for download here.