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Firefox 2 beta 1
They made me do it . . . write this preview of the latest Firefox beta, that is, and I suppose they ("they" being my editors) are right. Millions of people have left IE over the last few years in a great browser exodus. The alternatives garnering the most buzz tend to be Firefox and Opera—for good reason. Both have provided plenty of innovative ways to view and use the Internet. My reluctance to write about Beta 1 of Firefox 2.0 exists out of fear that, because we've spent some electrons writing about it, readers will head right over to Mozilla's site to get it. Don't! Heed this advice from the Firefox developers: "We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only." Since it's definitely not intended for mass consumption, we're not giving this release a rating, either.
If this hasn't persuaded you, keep in mind that none of your extensions are likely to be compatible with this version—and if you're a regular Firefox user like me, you're probably running a decent number from the thousand-plus that are available. All this aside, there are many minor tweaks to Firefox 2.0 that we'll all eventually come to appreciate—that will probably completely escape our attention.
One of my personal favorites among the more noticeable additions, improvements, and new features is Session Restore. When your browser crashes or hangs and you reopen it, Session Restore gives you the option of reopening everything from your just-ended session. I also appreciate the ability to open an accidentally closed tab—you simply right-click while hovering the cursor over the tabs bar to select the feature. This saves time and should be a big help to those not used to browsing in a tabbed interface.
You'll find still more handy features, like the search suggestions that now appear, along with your search history, in the search box (located by default in the upper right-hand corner) for Google, Yahoo!, and Answers.com. Not only will Firefox predict what the rest of your query is going to be, it will also suggest other relevant searches based on what you've typed already. It's a fine distinction; if you're having trouble picturing it, make sure to check out our Firefox 2 Beta 1 slideshow . You can also add additional search engines, now, and manage the order of those that appear—there are hundreds to choose from
Another new feature—spell checking from within text boxes—lets you just highlight and right-click a word for suggested spellings. You also get the option to add the selected word to your dictionary. I'm still trying to sort out exactly where in your browser or on the Web this dictionary is stored.
One last cool feature—you can add microsummaries to bookmarks. It's especially handy for those bookmarks whose titles don't really explain what the page is, or for a quick note to remind yourself why you bookmarked a particular page.
Less noticeable, but very important, are built-in phishing protection and support of JavaScript 1.7 (which provides developers with a more expansive toolset for producing interactive Web applications), as well as support for SVG (scalable vector graphics) text. Finally, there's a new Microsoft Windows installer based on Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, as well as support for client-side session and persistent storage.
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