Mozilla launched Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 1on Friday, and although still in testing, and with more work required, it looks pretty good for the next generation of browsers. Offering more security, improved performance, more personal and easy-to-use features, Firefox 3.0 promises to win a new set of fans.

It’s going to be a couple of months at least before we can see the final version of it, but there is a point to testing and checking user feedback before rushing into launching something, and Mozilla wants Firefox 3.0 to be the browser we’ve been looking for.

With an earlier than thought release of Firefox 3.0 RC1, the new browser offers malware protection, web forgery protection page, anti-virus integration, Vista parental controls, better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks and much more.

In terms of performance, Firefox 3.0 promises better speed, by bringing improvements to the JavaScript engine, a reduced amount of memory used (after hundreds of leaks have been fixed), and better reliability (with user bookmarks, cookies and preferences stored in a secure database format) preventing data loss and system crashes.

In addition to all that, the new address bar will make search a lot easier, by allowing the browser to automatically search for matches in the user’s bookmarks and history. The new Smart Bookmarks will enable the categorization of user’s folders by several criteria, such as the most frequently visited, recently bookmarked and recently tagged websites.

As for users’ reaction, there have been reports of minor bugs, but that is in fact the point of initiating a testing period. Among them, users reported either periodic heavy hard disk activity, crashes, or the failure to save bookmarks and passwords, but there is nothing to worry about. Firefox 3.0 promises to be the next generation browser. The question that still remains is when to expect it… how about this summer?...