Although Mozilla Corp. has already released its Firefox 2.0 Release Candidate (RC2) for testing, it still may be Microsoft that emerges as first to the retail finish line as the American software behemoth has stated that Internet Explorer 7 is still scheduled to ship before the close of October.

Firefox 2.0 RC2 became available on Friday as an automatic update to existing Firefox 2.0 users, and is the first update to the open-source browser since the 1.5 edition in November of last year. However, the latest update isn’t restricted to current users, and those interested in the 2.0 RC2 can download it for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux is 39 different localised editions (including Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Mongolian, Russian, and Slovakian).

Yet, despite Mozilla’s progress, one further RC version is expected before the final edition is nailed. “There are a handful of security and stability bugs we’d like to see get in before the final FF2 release,” said Mike Schroepfer, director of marketing at Mozilla. “Thus we’ll be doing a third release candidate.”

And, as is the way with these things, whilst Mozilla iron out the last few creases, and continue to dodge commitment where a concrete release date is concerned (another RC would mean the final version certainly isn’t ready before the end of October), Microsoft has stated that it plans to ship Internet Explorer 7 before the end of this month—marking the browser’s first really significant update since 2001 (yes, 2001!).

Come on Mozilla, pull your finger out, eh!