Among the higher-profile patches added to RC2 was one that addressed a performance problem in Firefox for Linux. Mozilla made the decision to go with another release candidate last week — rejecting the option of shipping Firefox 3.0 as is, then following up with a bug-fix update later. Mozilla executives assured users that the additional RC would not delay the expected launch date, which has been set for mid-month.

There’s a mountain of improvements in Firefox 3 compared to Firefox 2, many relating to the important issues of security, reliability, and performance … there’s malware protection, a web forgery protection page, checks for add-ons and plugins, protection against cross-site attacks, and the ability to see information about a particular web site simply by clicking on its icon in the location bar. Firefox’s JavaScript engine has been speeded up, and memory leaks (the curse of many a Firefox user) are supposed to be tightened up. Additionally, user data (such as bookmarks, cookies, and preferences) are stored in a more secure database format so that, even if the browser crashes (ha ha) they’ll be protected. Added to these, a whole host of features have been added which are supposed to make FF3 easier to use, including better password management, simplified add-on installation, full page zooming, tab scrolling, and better integration with Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.

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