Mozilla has announced the availability to testers of the first Release Candidate (RC1) for the forthcoming Firefox 3 web browser, with features focusing on security, usability and personalisation.

Firefox 3 has been built on the new Gecko 1.9 web rendering platform, which was updated to feature improved performance, stability and rendering, according to Mozilla.

The latest version of the browser features support for Extended Validation SSL certificates to protect users against visiting phishing sites, enhanced protection against cross-site JSON data leaks, and malware protection to prevent users visiting malicious sites.

On the usability side, Mozilla has simplified the installation of add-ons and there is a tab scrolling function to make tabs easier to find, said the firm.

Finally, Firefox 3 RC1 features reduced memory usage, improvements to the JavaScript engine in order to speed up performance, and technology to enable web applications to provide offline functionality.