Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 released
has been released and is available for download for Mac (Universal), Windows, and Linux. Our sister site, Download Squad, notes that although there have been reports of this release since Monday, this time it's for real.
Some of the new features in Firefox 2.0 that sound like they're worth checking out are:
Built-in anti-phishing protections.
Automatic session restoration after a browser crash.
The ability to reopen accidentally closed tabs.
In-line spell checking that comes in handy when you're filling in forms and other text boxes.
Microsummaries of bookmarked pages. Microsummaries are regularly-updated short summaries of web pages. As explained by Mozilla, "When you bookmark a web page that has a microsummary, you can choose to display the microsummary as the title of the bookmark. Then, when the page changes, the title will also change, so you can find out the current status of the page just by looking at the bookmark."
The Mozilla Developer Center has a full list of the new features in Firefox 2.0. Like all betas, this one should be installed with caution. We echo Download Squad's warning to backup bookmarks and settings before installing. And don't be surprised if your Firefox 1.5 extensions no longer work with 2.0.
