Firefox 3 Nearing Completion, RC3 for Mac Released

The Mozilla foundation released another release candidate today for the Mac version of their Firefox 3 web browser. The update was released to fix a "showstopper" bug that would cause the browser to hang after updating an OS X machine from 10.5.0 to 10.5.3 directly. The new build will go through further testing, and the project’s lead developers have stated they are confident correct any remaining problems by the end of the week.

The Windows and Linux versions of RC3 share the same code as RC2, and are completely identical. Although an official release date has yet to be determined, I would expect the final version of the browser to be released in the next week or two.

There’s a reason for that, we’ve learned: Mozilla is preparing a public rebuild of its release candidate for Mac OS X, that addresses a bug uncovered by users. It cropped up as a result of the operating system update process. Specifically, when you set up a Mac with System 10.5.0, then use Apple’s update system to upgrade directly to 10.5.3. When that happens, Firefox 3.0 RC2 can hang after it’s been made the default browser, and when it’s trying to load its plug-in database. Users who upgrade only to System 10.5.2 don’t experience the problem.