The Firefox 4 Release Candidate (version 1) was made available to the public on the 9th March. The most noticeable difference (from it’s mainstream predecessor, Firefox 3.6 at the time of writing) is the new GUI (Graphical user interface). It’s sporting more of a Microsoft Office 2010 look with the menus.

Perhaps the most significant feature with FF4 is the addition of HTML5 support, which natively integrates video, audio, drag & drop as well as file handling. Its a massive step forward for open web standards which Mozilla has embraced with FF4.

Hardware acceleration is also now featured in FF4 meaning better graphics acceleration with Direct2D and Direct 3D (Windows), XRender (Linux) and OpenGL (Mac).

Bottom line, FF4 has reached Release Candidate status, which generally would indicate the barrage of Beta builds is now over, and the product is almost ready to ship (metaphorically speaking).

Download Firefox 4 Release Candidate here.

Read the Firefox 4 Release Notes here

Dive into HTML5 here

View HTML 5 Demo’s and Examples here