Firefox 2 Rocks!

I downloaded Firefox 2 last night. (I know I’m a little late, but in my defense, I was out of the country on vacation). It’s awesome - there are so many new features! For starters, tabbed browsing is improved: each tab has an "X" to close it. The History menu has a list of recently closed tabs in case you accidentally close one, something I tend to do…a lot. When you’ve opened too many tabs to fit in a window, scroll bars appear, so you never run out of room.

Another new feature I love is the built-in spell checking. Even as I compose this post at TypePad, Firefox is spell checking it for me in real time by subtly underlining misspellings in a light, dotted red line. I can even add words to the dictionary! Changing the misspelled word to the correct word or using the dictionary feature is all available via a right-click.

Search improvements in Firefox 2 include search suggestions - text that appears in the search box as you begin typing. You can also choose your preferred search engine via an easy drop-down, and this page offers tons of other search engines you can add, too.

If Firefox 2 ever crashes on you, the new session restore feature brings back all your previously open tabs. Hopefully, I won’t be using this feature much!

Feeds are improved - you can still subscribe via the Live Bookmarks feature, but the drop-down box also gives you the option of subscribing in Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo, or you can choose an application that’s installed on your computer. Options are good. I chose Google Reader, and when I subscribe to a feed, I get the option to add the feed to My Personalized Google homepage or Google Reader. Sweet.

A brand-new feature some may not have heard of yet is the Live Titles feature. As described on the Firefox features page, "Live Titles are regularly updated summaries of the most important
information on a Web page. As the information on the page gets updated,
so does your Live Title." The example they use is keeping an eye on an auction. You could add the auction to your Bookmarks Toolbar folder and the bookmark itself will display the current status of the auction.

Firefox 2 also brings built-in phishing protection. If you come across a phishing website, Firefox warns you and offers to take you to a search page so you can find the real website you’re looking for. You’re protected from spyware as well -  Firefox won’t allow a  website to download, install, or run programs on your computer without your explicit agreement.

Most of my extensions were compatible with Firefox 2 (except my "copy plain text" extension which the developer seems to have given up on. I may have to learn to live without it.) You may have to double-check even after the upgrade, which searches for updates for you, by opening the extensions…errr…add-ons window (Tools –> Add-Ons). In this window, click the "Find Updates" button. The add-ons window is also where you can change themes. IE7 refers to its "extensions" as "add-ons", which may lead to a little confusion. I think putting "Themes" on Firefox’s Tools menu as a separate option may have been a better choice, like it was in 1.5, but details, details…

Overall, a great upgrade; and if you’ve never used the Firefox browser, there’s no time like the present!