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Introduction / Overview

Mozilla released the latest version of its popular web browser ‘Firefox 2.0′ with variety of new and useful features that makes it a must-have upgrade for its users. Features include, inbuilt spell checker, session restore, integrated search, anti phishing filter, good RSS handling and good tab handling.

The visible structure of Firefox hasn’t changed all that much from its predecessor. It looks like its earlier version Firefox v1.5, even as you browse through the tabs in the Preferences screen and the menu structure. This release is pegged as a major upgrade but the features might not visible to the everyday users.

There are some visible/invisible changes, but to spot them, we have to have a closer look.

• Phishing protection
• Improved Tabbed Browsing
• Ability to re-open accidentally closed tabs
• Integrated spell checking option
• Automatic restoration of your browsing session if there is a crash
• New micro-summaries feature for bookmarks
• Enhanced search capabilities
• Support for Java Script 1.7
• Web Feeds (RSS)
• Live Bookmarks
• Accessibility

Features

This release Firefox v2.0 may disappoint those who expected a major change, but as already stated, it adds a variety of useful features that make it a must-have upgrade for normal as well as advanced Firefox users. Apart from the regular browser features, anti-phishing filtering, better RSS handling, a built-in spell checker, and more advanced tab handling are the welcome features in this version. Though almost all features are already adopted by much talked about Microsoft Internet Explorer v7.0, the availability of customized Firefox extensions still gives this browser the edge over IE7.0 in usefulness.

The Firefox v2.0 looks nearly identical to its v1.5 predecessor but there are actually a fair number of new features of interest to the typical user. Here’s a quick look at some of them.

• Anti-phishing tool: Mozilla in its new Firefox browser tried to address the problem of phishing. Free On-line Dictionary of Computing defines phishing as follows: “Sending e-mail that claims to be from some well-known organization, e.g. a bank, to trick the recipient into revealing information for use in identity theft. The user is told to visit a web site where they are asked to enter information such as passwords, credit card details, social security or bank account numbers. The web site usually looks like it belongs to the organization in question and may silently redirect the user to the real web site after collecting their data. Firefox tried to address this problem by checking every Web site you visit against a constantly updated list of known phishing sites, and also examining site characteristics to see if they match those of typical phishing sites. If it finds that the site is a phishing site, you get a warning. Click “Get me out of here!” to leave the site and you’re sent to your home page. Click “Ignore this warning” to visit the site. The anti-phishing feature uses the same Safe Browsing technology currently available in Google’s Toolbar for Firefox. Because phishing sites change rapidly, Firefox’s list of sites is updated “regularly,” though at this early beta stage, there’s only a limited list of sites
• Tab Browsing: Individual close button on each tab, instead of one global close button at the right edge of the tab bar. Every new tab takes only as little as 1MB memory while loading as compared to loading the entire browser once again into the memory as in the case of IE, if you want to open another webpage simultaneously. But if you open 15-20 tabs, you need to be able to organize them a little bit. The tabs get smaller and smaller and at a stage you can’t read them, if you keep opening them. The Mozilla should consider giving an option of scrolling the tabs that are inaccessible on the main window. Another annoying feature is that if you click any link from any external application, Firefox loads the webpage in the current tab wiping out the current webpage that was there. Installing “Tabbrowser Preference” add on adds many options to tab browsing, such as placing the tabs at the bottom instead of at the top, specifying when you prefer to open a tab and when to overwrite an existing one, and so on.
• Automatics Session Restore: This is another good feature provided in new version of Firefox. In case, for any reason, if the browser crashes, it will automatically reopen tabs, resume downloads, and bring back the text you filled in the forms at the time of crash, once you re-open the browser. Another feature that this version supports is restoring the tabs, if you have accidentally closed any of them. One can restore the closed tab by going to ‘History’ menu option and then choosing the desired tab from ‘Recently Closed Tabs’ option. This feature comes very handy when you accidentally close any tab. Though this feature was available in previous versions of Firefox but in the form of extensions, but this time this feature is well integrated in the browser itself.
• Integrated Spell Checking: A new built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms. The integrated spelling also allows you to add different languages and switch between them as necessary.
• 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. A new search engine manager makes it easier to add, remove and re-order search engines and users will be alerted when Firefox encounters a website that offers new search engines that the user may wish to install.
• Web Feeds: In Firefox v2.0, when you visit a site with a feed and then click the feed icon in the URL bar, you’ll get a nicely-formatted presentation of the feed’s contents, as well as options for how to handle the feed.

Installation

Firefox required 233MHz/64MB RAM/50MB Disk Space/win98 as minimum configuration to support installation. But Mozilla recommends 500MHz/256MB RAM/100MB Disk Space/Win XP for seamless working.

Though the installation is fairly simple if you are using Firefox the very first time on your computer but we recommend you to take back-up of your profiles built with previous version, if you were already using Firefox.

Step 1: You can download the latest Firefox browser installer from here.

Step 2: Locate the file you downloaded in step 1. It should be called ‘Firefox Setup 2.0.exe’. Double click on the file to start installation. Once the install is under way agree to the license and accept the suggested default options or you may use custom if you an advanced user. Choose the location you want to use for installation. The default is c:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Small installation (i.e., 5MB as compared to 80MB of IE7.0) More secure than Internet Explorer Stability, feature set, and general performance
• A new “History” menu has been added, replacing the largely useless “Go” menu.
• The history menu lists your most recent browsing history, so you can quickly jump to a page you’ve already visited, and also includes the ability to open recently closed tabs.
• Both extensions and themes are managed from the same screen, titled Add-ons.
• Updating, installing, and removing extensions is made slightly easier as part of the redesign Privacy control.

Cons

• If you upgrade from older version of Firefox you may discover that some of the extensions and themes you’ve installed do no work yet in the version 2.0.
• Firefox 2.0’s phishing filter will warn you away from this Web site. But its performance is erratic, and Firefox doesn’t always catch phishing attacks that its competitor, Internet Explorer 7, does.
• No ActiveX support (a proprietary Microsoft Active Scripting technology), so not all sites work in Firefox.
• Although Firefox loads web pages faster than Internet Explorer, the program itself takes longer start as compared to its rival IE6.0. Also, Firefox needs more memory to work as compared to Internet Explorer.
• Lack of proper integration with Microsoft Outlook and Pocket PC Synching.
• Need to install browser plug-ins line Flash and shockwave etc separately.

Conclusion

No doubts, there are enough improvements in this latest release of Firefox. But is it worth shifting to the new release? It actually depends upon how the individual uses their browser. If you are a casual user, you could go ahead and use the browser but if want to use is for more serious work then we recommend to wait untill Mozilla comes out with the stable version of its browser with added functionalities for power users.

The main competitor of Firefox is Microsoft IE7.0. But is it better than IE? That depends on which features are most important to you. IE7’s anti-phishing tool and built-in RSS reader is much better than Firefox’s, in our opinion, but Firefox’s tab handling is superior to IE7.0. What gives Firefox an edge over IE7.0 is its extensions because those will give it a significant set of features that IE7 doesn’t offer.

Overall, Firefox v2.0 has some excellent additions and improvement over version 1.5. We are waiting for the next version to see if the few cons we found will be fixed or improved.