Anything Anywhere: Firefox 2 Beta is here :)

Mozilla's latest beta release of the next Firefox browser is fully baked and ready to download. Installation instructions, release notes and the FAQ are available at Mozilla's site. Here's a link to the releases server, or you can scroll down to the next post for direct download links to the English version.

The new browser, formerly known as Bon Echo, features several improvements over the current version of Firefox (1.5.x). This time around, we get glowing buttons in the user interface, a scrollable tab bar, a close tab button on each individual tab and improved RSS subscription options. Whenever you click on an RSS feed, you can choose between adding it to a desktop reader, saving it as a Live Bookmark, or adding it to a web-based reader. Google Reader, Bloglines and MyYahoo are there by default, but you can add your own service.

There are also some new features that were added (presumably) to directly compete with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, the most notable ones built-in phishing protection and an integrated spell-checker for text forms. I can confirm that the spell-checker works like a charm (I'm using Beta 2 to post this review).

A couple of features that were included in previous alpha releases -- a new bookmark manager and a history manager -- aren't here for some reason. Maybe they didn't cut the mustard?

None of my installed extensions (Web Developer, Greasemonkey, DownThemAll) work in the new beta, but Ars Technica reports that the PDF Download extension is Beta 2 compatible.

Firefox 2 Beta 2 also cleans up some of the previous releases' annoying behaviors. There's a search engine manager for that little integrated search box that makes deleting engines as easy as adding them. There's also a new Windows installer that should resolve some of the installation difficulties reported by Windows users.

The new beta also has something called Session Restore, which will restore your open pages, tabs, and text in forms in case the browser crashes. Which, um, should be really helpful... considering the fact that this is a beta.

Oh yes, and speaking of betas, install this puppy at your own risk! Windows, Mac (universal binary) and Linux i686 versions for all of the major languages are available from the Mozilla dev server. Or, scroll down to the next post for the direct links.