It appears Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate 1 is now expected at some stage this week. Nightly builds of the browser now include the RC1 tag, suggesting that we will see a release some time this week.

Current early Windows builds weigh in at 7.6MB and run on Windows 2000 all the way up to Windows 7.

On the outside, the browser doesn’t appear too different from Beta 4, but there are plenty of bug fixes that have gone in under the hood. “Even before shipping the RC, we’ve managed to find a number of issues that needed fixing,” said Mike Beltzner, the director of Firefox.

The final 3.5 release is still expected before the end of the month, and we will let you know as soon as the release candidate is released.

After weeks of delays associated with the most recent two Firefox 3.5 beta’s, Mozilla is now on track to deliver Firefox 3.5 release candidate (RC) 1 in June.

“We’re setting an aggressive code freeze target of next Wednesday, May 20th  for Firefox 3.5 RC” said Firefox Director Mike Beltzner. This puts “the RC release somewhere in the first week of June.”

Currently, there are still outstanding code blocking bugs stopping Firefox 3.5 from hitting RC status. Provided they are all completed in time, we may even see a final release of Firefox 3.5 sometime in late June or early July.

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 can be downloaded in the mean time from the Firefox beta website.

Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 (formerly known as Firefox 3.1) and is available in over 70 languages.

This beta includes a faster TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, enhancements to private browsing, and location aware browsing.

For a full list of changes you can read the release notes.

Existing beta users should have the upload pushed out to them, and new testers can download the latest beta from Mozilla.

Latest nightly builds of Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 include a new recently closed window feature.

The feature is located in the History menu, right below the recently closed tabs feature, and is sure to save people plenty stress after they accidental close a window.

Beta 4 is expected in the next few weeks, but you can test the recently closed window feature in the latest nightly build.

The latest code freeze for Firefox 3.5 beta 4 (formerly 3.1) deadline has slipped. The reason being due to some remaining outstanding priority 1 issues.

“Code freeze was scheduled for today, but as just announced, some of the P1 blockers have not yet been resolved and so we’ve delayed the freeze to wait for these fixes,” said Firefox’s Director Mike Beltzner.

Beta 4’s release is still slated for next week. A list of remaining P1 blockers can be found on Bugzilla.