Mozilla Releases Firefox 2

Version 2.0 of Firefox, my favourite browser, which I totally recommend by the way, is finally out.

I tested a couple of the beta versions in the past and liked what I saw; I can’t wait to get home and install the final version on my laptop.

This new version brings with it a number of new features, the ones I’m most excited about being the following:

– Resuming your browsing session: The Session Restore feature restores windows, tabs, text typed in forms, and in-progress downloads from the last user session. I’ve been waiting for this feature to be added to Firefox for some time now, and when I saw it in the beta, it put a smile on my face.

– Enhanced search capabilities: Search term suggestions will now appear as users type in the integrated search box when using the Google, Yahoo! or Answers.com search engines. It’ll also be easier to manage the list of search engines you can use from that box.

– Improved tabbed browsing: By default, Firefox will open links in new tabs instead of new windows, and each tab will now have a close tab button. Power users who open more tabs than can fit in a single window will see arrows on the left and right side of the tab strip that let them scroll back and forth between their tabs. The History menu will keep a list of recently closed tabs, and a shortcut lets users quickly re-open an accidentally closed tab.
These need a bit of getting used to at first, but they’re really good and useful once you get the hang of it.

– Inline spell checking: A new built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms. Should come in handy every once in a while.

– Built-in phishing protection: Phishing Protection warns users when they encounter suspected Web forgeries, and offers to return the user to their home page. Should be a good feature for people who aren’t careful enough.

– JavaScript 1.7: JavaScript is hot again with AJAX and all, so Firefox gets an upgrade introducing several new features such as generators, iterators, array comprehensions, let expressions, and destructuring assignments.

There’s a bunch of other interesting features that come with this version that you can find in the release notes.

Here’s where you got to go to download Firefox 2.