Product Reviews

Firefox 2.0 is the much-anticipated follow-up to our favourite web browser and Mozilla's reply to Microsoft's excellent Internet Explorer 7. While Microsoft made some brave interface changes, Mozilla has retained the look and feel of Firefox. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the clean interface is easy to use and users of the previous version will feel right at home. Should you want to update the look and feel of the browser, there are several downloadable skins.

Underneath this exterior, Mozilla has made some significant changes. The biggest addition is the Internet Explorer-alike Phishing filter. This checks every site you visit against a local list of known phishing sites or a constantly updated one held by Google. This option requires Firefox to send Google a list of every page you visit. If you're uncomfortable with this, stick to the local list or turn off the feature.

One of Firefox's best features was Fast Find, which let you find keywords on a webpage by typing, rather than having to bring up the Find dialog box. This still isn't provided by Microsoft. This feature makes it to Firefox 2.0, but there's no Next button to find the next occurrence of a word. If you want to do this you either have to use the keyboard short cut (Ctrl-G) or bring up the Find dialog box. It's a shame that this feature isn't quite as easy to use.

Navigation has been improved, with webpages set to open automatically in new tabs by default. Each tab

ADVERTISEMENT

now has a close button, so they're easier to shut down, too. The best new Tabs feature, though, is the Resume option. If your web browser crashes, it asks the next time you start it if you want to reload all the tabs from the point you left them. For anyone who's had the annoyance of losing lots of tabs, this is a real lifesaver. If you close a tab by mistake, the History menu has a list of recently closed tabs, so you can restore it easily. Finally, you can drag and drop tabs around, so you can get them in the order you want.

It's also easier to add new alternative search engines to the search box. Perhaps one of the smartest features is the Keyword search. For any site with a search engine, you can set a bookmark with a keyword, such as Shopper' for www.computershopper.co.uk. Typing the keyword and search criteria into the Address bar © Shopper Microsoft, for example © searches that site. It's brilliant for all the sites that you visit often, and it's easy to use.

RSS feeds are also handled better. By default, they're added to the Bookmark bar that runs just above the Tabs. Selecting one pulls up a drop-down list of the latest entries to that site. It's a much quicker and easier way of handling feeds than Internet Explorer or Opera provides, but the entries don't display summary information. However, you can change Firefox's options so it uses the RSS reader of your choice instead.

The biggest problem with using Firefox was that a lot of sites didn't work with it. Firefox 2.0 is a big improvement and worked with some sites that we used to have problems with, such as www.odeon.co.uk. That said, Firefox 2.0 has no support for ActiveX, so you can't use it with sites that need this technology, such as a lot of banking websites. This means you'll still need to keep a copy of Internet Explorer to hand.

Slick and easy to use, Firefox 2.0 retains all the features we loved from the original, while its new features make it even slicker and easier to use. Without a doubt, this is the best web browser you can get.