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Firefox 2 released

Days after Microsoft finally released Windows Internet Explorer 7, the Mozilla Foundation release the next version of their flag-ship Firefox browser. Firefox 2 has been available as a release candidate for just under two months, with the last releases code base identical to today’s version.

Firefox 2 is generally everything we have come to expect from version 1, but with a few new features.

• Session management now remembers what you were doing for those unfortunate events when Firefox crashes, or stops working for some reason.
• In-line spell checking, catering for all the next generation web application users. Firefox now checks the spelling of all forms and blog-input boxes (like the one I’m typing in), so now we get Microsoft Word-like instant feedback on incorrectly spelt words - and suggested solutions of course.
• Phishing filters, using Googles anti-phishing database, Firefox will warn you if the site you are navigating to is a well known phishing site.

Underneath the hood, Firefox 2 still uses a branch of the Gekko engine we were used to with Firefox 1.5, so don’t expect any real changes to the rendering system. Indeed after checking, CSS 3 support in Firefox 2 is almost identical to the previous version of Firefox.

However, Firefox 3 (codenamed ‘Minefield’) is available for download from the darkest depths of the Mozilla web site. Firefox 3, probably released around Easter 2007, is branching from a completely new trunk of the Gekko engine, Gekko 1.9.x in fact. After taking the alpha for a spin, one very noticable thing is that the rendering engine is lightning fast and handles CSS 3 with ease. Unfortunately the browser itself is very unstable, which is to be predicted as it is an alpha.

You can download Mozilla Firefox 2 from http://www.getfirefox.com, if your copy of Firefox hasn’t updated itself already.