The folks at Mozilla cut loose Release Candidate 2 recently, with vows that an additional test version doesn’t mean they’ll hold up the final release that’s slated for mid-June.

Mozilla officials say all remaining issues with the Web browser are on the server or site side, not in the app itself.

RC2 fixes about 40 bugs identified after RC1 came out in May. Among the higher-profile patches added to RC2: one addressing a performance problem in Firefox for Linux.

This new release is supposed to clear the way for the browser upgrade that many have been looking for.

Mozilla appears intent on getting new versions of its browser to users in rapid succession — a move many say is behind their success at eating into Microsoft’s lead in the browser market.

Firefox 2.0 made its debut about 18 months ago.

Speaking of Microsoft and its browser, Internet Explorer (IE), the software giant announced it’ll be releasing a second beta of IE8 before the end of this October.

The announcement comes with a warning to site administrators to prepare for a broad release of the browser by adding a compatibility tag to their sites, or risk display issues.

After a push from site developers, Microsoft designed IE8 to default to a new, standards-compliant method of displaying Web pages, instead of the Microsoft dependent mode of IE7.

My, how times have changed.

Tags: browser, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Mozilla