Mozilla’s long-awaited Firefox 3.6 is nearing its official release and an RC1 version of the web browser has been made available today for testing.

New features and big changes abound in this latest effort, including a host of performance enhancements thanks to the Gecko 1.9.2 web-rendering platform including extended support for new web technologies, improved Javascript performance and general improvement in speed and stability. The much-hyped Personas feature allows for complete customization of the browser with a single click while Firefox will now keep an eye on your plugins for updates so that your browser is also running as well as possible.

Mozilla Firefox 3.6 RC1 is available for free download here with the official release notes here.