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Its been almost a month since the first Release Candidate of Mozilla’s Firefox 3 web browser and yet there was no official word on the final version. In fact they have launched Firefox 3 RC3 just a week after the release of RC2. Whenever asked about the final version, they used to say it will be shipped whenever its ready. Now its ready.

Mozilla has officially announced that they would be releasing the final version on June 17. It is the result of months of active development and contribution of many.

After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th.

Microsoft which had over 94% of the market share back in 2003, has lost shares consistently to Firefox and the later is about to surpass 20% worldwide market share in July. This certainly shows that Firefox has been progressing steadily regardless of the fact that Microsoft with its Internet Explorer product controls the web browsing market.

Internet Explorer 8 is in its beta testing right now and the final version is expected by the end of 2008. If Firefox 3 succeeds in making its mark, it might make Microsoft think about releasing IE8 soon(they might consider adding more features so that they can compete with Firefox 3).

Mozilla is trying to set a Guinness World Record by making Firefox 3 the most downloaded software in a day’s time. The new version is fast, has strong features and it works fine on different operating systems which may help them registering their name in the Guinness Book of World Records.

What we have to see is how Microsoft reacts after this final version and what they will have to offer in IE8.