Firefox 2 Beta 1 is out

Thanks to Rd52 in the forums for pointing this out!

Firefox 2 Beta 1 has now been released to replace "Bon Echo" as the beta version of Firefox. Once all the bugs are ironed out and new features added, we should see a final release of Firefox two circulating by Q3 2006. Going a bit further ahead, Mozilla is also hoping to have Firefox 3 ready for Q1 2007, but this is not confirmed.

So what new features can we expect from Beta 1? Well, as with Bon Echo there is the new spell checking function which appears in text areas, particularly useful for forums. Close buttons for each tab, rather than being on the top right corner of the window, under the address bar. There is also a new security feature, anti-phishing which cleverly detects whether a website is a fake. Release notes can be viewed here.

For all you Firefox fanboys out there, Beta 1 is available for download in the usual many languageshere.

This month, 51% of bit-tech readers have been using Firefox and 39% Internet Explorer. More interestingly, we've seen a massive jump in the amount of people using Opera, now up to 6%.

Better than Firefox 1.5? What features do you like and what else should be added? Give us your opinions on Firefox 2 Beta 1 in the forums.