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First Firefox 2 beta ready

Graeme Wearden ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 11 Jul 2006 18:20 BST

The Mozilla Foundation is ready to release a beta version of Firefox 2, the next major version of its Web browser.

This will be the first beta version of Firefox 2 to be made publicly available, and Mozilla hopes that software developers will download it and test whether it is compatible with their existing Firefox extensions.

"We have over 1,000 extensions already, but they may not work with this new version," explained Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe.

According to reports, the beta version comes with a built-in anti-phishing tool, improved search box capabilities and an integrated spell checker. Changes have also been made to the RSS support.

Nitot declined to speculate about the features that might appear in the commercial release of Firefox 2, pointing out that changes may be made following public reaction to the beta.

You can download release candidate 3 of the beta from Mozilla's ftp server, and the full beta will be released later this week.