Firefox 4 looks set to have just one more beta pushed out before Mozilla shifts the forthcoming browser to its Release Candidate stage, making the whole thing ready for showtime within the next few weeks.

"There are currently fewer than 20 'hard' blocking issues which have been identified as requiring beta coverage [1] and only 7 without patches," noted the open source outfit's Mike Beltzner late on Friday.

"At this point in time I do not believe we will require an additional beta, and am recommending that we continue to push hard to close these blockers out over the next few days."

Late last month, Mozilla prepared for the prospect of releasing up to 13 betas of Firefox 4 before reaching the all-important RC stage.

But it now seems confident enough that 12 test builds of the browser will be enough to kill all remaining known bugs in Firefox 4.

"People have asked me for a code freeze estimate, and my best estimate is: as soon as possible, and when that list is at 'Zaroo Boogs Found'. Let's all do what we can to get it there sooner rather than later," said Beltzner.

Last week, Mozilla released the 11th beta of Firefox 4, to which it added the "Do Not Track" http header to the build.

Mozilla hopes to make the feature an internet standard, and is intended for Firefox users who want to outfox cookie-bothering behavioural advertisers.

Meanwhile, Mozilla's latest iteration of its popular browser was expected to arrive before the end of February, after hitting several delays along the way. It's unclear if that will happen, however. The official schedule simply states "early 2011" for when the RC of Firefox 4 will be squirted out. ®