Firefox v2 Takes Second Steps

Late Friday Mozilla Foundation let Firefox version two-point-ohhh, release candidate #2 out of the compound and into the hands of certain intrepid segments of the web dev public. This is still a "preview" release, but indications would have us believe its getting pretty darn near to the real thing. After all, one must be prudent with timing and not allow the coming IE 7 release steal all the thunder.Per Mozilla, "Web application developers, our testing community, and users who want to get a sneak peek at the next version of Firefox should download and install this release candidate." The quick diff on release candidate two feature changes is this: * A new theme that updates Firefox's user interface * Built in Phishing protection * Enhanced search engine management and search suggestions for Google, Yahoo! and Answers.com * Improvements to tabbed browsing, including the ability to re-open recently closed tabs * Firefox will resume from where you left off after a system crash or browser restart * Better support for previewing and subscribing to Web feeds * Inline spell checking in Web forms * The ability to create bookmarks with "Live Titles" for Web sites that offer micro-summaries * New Add-ons manager that simplifies management of extensions and themes. * Support for JavaScript 1.7 * Extended search plugin format * Enhanced Extensions framework, improving security and easing localization * Support for client-side session and persistent storage * Support for SVG text using svg:textPath * New Windows installer based on the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System Of course there are a number bug fixes, performance improvements, yada yada yada. Users running Firefox 2 RC 1 should expect to be automatically updated to Firefox 2 Release Candidate 2 through the Software Update feature. One thing testers should not expect is that all their normal extensions, plugins and themes from previous versions of Firefox to work properly. If you're a seasoned Firefoxer, this is not news, but is one of the more painful aspects of version updates. The build is available in over 40 languages and may be downloaded here: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bonecho/all-rc.html.