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Softonic Rating:
Excellent
License:
Free (GPL)
Added:
July 18, 2007
Updated:
April 17, 2008
Publisher:
Website
File size:
5.76 MB
Downloads:
6,339
Nick Mead

“The web's best browser”

by Nick Mead

Since Firefox exploded onto the web-browsing scene in 2004, it has been downloaded an incredible 200 million times according to its developers, Mozilla. Since then, apart from some minor changes, visual teaks and security fixes, there haven’t been any radical changes – that is until now. Firefox 2.0 is finally here and brings fans a whole host of integrated functions that were previously either unavailable or needed plug-ins.

Note that many of the existing themes and extensions will not work with this beta release although you can try forcing them with the “Nightly” extension – at your own risk of course.

Amongst the security highlights of 2.0 are anti-phishing support which helps the browser discriminate between genuine websites and those intended to store and retrieve your personal information. Other goodies include enhanced tabbed browsing (each with their own close option finally), the ability to un-close tabs, search plug-in/add-on manager, and much, much more. One of the most useful features we found was a predictive search function within the Google toolbar that would suggest potential phrases and popular search terms as you typed. The automatic session retrieval option (previously available with the Tab Mix Plus plugin) is also a tonic when your system crashes or you’ve got too many tabs open and Firefox cripples under the strain.

The extension incompatibility issue is the main drawback although this will change as developers update their plugins over the coming weeks and months. The legendary memory leak also still doesn’t seem to have been fixed as Firefox continues to guzzle processing power. This resulted in frequent crashes, keyboard head-banging and violent swearing.

Whilst the recently released Internet Explorer 7 is only just introducing tabbed browsing, Firefox is already taking internet surfing to a new level. Although many of the new features are available with plug-ins anyway, this is still a rip-roaring browser and consolidates Firefox’s position as the best browser on the market by miles.

Languages:

English

Recent changes in Firefox:

  • Security update: the Crash in JavaScript garbage collector bug has been fixed

Minimum requirements for Firefox:

  • OS: Win98/98SE/Me/2000/NT/XP/2003
Pros
  • Anti-phishing support
  • More tab options
Cons
  • Memory leak still a problem
  • Many extensions not compatible with this release
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From the publisher of Firefox

Mozilla Firefox 2 is the long awaited release of the next generation Firefox browser and after 3 test versions, is now available on full public release.

Please note that at this time, users should not expect all of their extensions, plugins and themes from previous versions of Firefox to work properly.

Amongst the highlights of this new release are visual refresh, built-in phishing protection, enhanced search capabilities, improved tabbed browsing, session resume function and lots more.

If you're tired of Internet Explorer, then this could be the solution you've been looking for although wait for the final release if you are worried about compatibility issues.

Firefox options

Firefox Options

Reviews of Firefox in other languages

Softonic Rating:Excellent
7/10

User Rating

29 ratings
usability
  • Currently 7/10.
stability
  • Currently 6/10.
installation
  • Currently 7/10.
functionality
  • Currently 6/10.
appearance
  • Currently 6/10.

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