Subscribe to RSSFirefox 2 Beta 2 available for download
Posted by Phil on Thu 31 Aug 2006
Last week it was Microsoft who was showing of the latest version of their internet browser, and now it's Mozilla's turn. Firefox has been my choice of browser for a while now because of features like, tabbed browsing, integrated search, and better protection from spyware/adware, and this newest release of Firefox 2 Beta 2 doesn't back off on upgrading the existing features, and rolling out some new ones.
I never downloaded the Beta 1 release because I wasn't really interested in dealing with some of the stability issues, so this was my first experience with Firefox 2. One of the first things I noticed was that the user interface, while not radically different, has received a little bit of a face lift, including some new icons and a new look for tabbed browsing.
Some other notable new features include, but are definitely not limited to:
Phishing Protection warns users when they encounter suspected Web forgeries, and offers to return the user to their home page.
Search term suggestions will now appear as users type in the integrated search box when using the Google, Yahoo! or Answers.com search engines.
A new built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms without having to use a separate application.
Users can decide how to handle Web feeds, either subscribing to them via a Web service or in a standalone RSS reader, or adding them as Live Bookmarks.
Beware that this is a beta release, so you are bound to have some issues with it, and, because it isn't the official release, many of your extensions won't work. You can try this trick to get some of your extensions working, but no promises. If you don't feel like waiting, and want to see what the next generating of web browsers will be like, you can find a download link for both Mac OS X and Windows XP here .
