Upgrade your Firefox
If you’ve been using Mozilla Firefox as your web browser for a while, you should make sure that you are using the latest version. By mid-May, Mozilla will have officially ended support for Firefox 1.5, which was released in late 2005, and they are encouraging everyone to upgrade to version 2.0.
Until now, Mozilla has been distributing security updates and stability improvements to both Firefox 2.0 and Firefox 1.5 users through its automatic update mechanism. But once support for Firefox 1.5 is dropped, that version will no longer receive fixes for newly discovered issues.
Because Firefox 1.5 does not yet automatically upgrade to 2.0, many people are unaware that they aren’t using the latest version. To find out which version of Firefox you’re using, click on the “Help” menu at the top of your Firefox window and select “About Mozilla Firefox”.
Mozilla plans to offer all Firefox 1.5 users automatic upgrades to 2.0 sometime in mid-May. But in the meantime, you can safely upgrade Firefox on your own by going to the Firefox website, clicking on the “Download Firefox - Free” button, and running through the simple installation process. All of your settings, bookmarks, etc. should remain intact.
Some of the new Firefox 2.0 features include automatic inline spell checking in webpage forms, website fraud protection, search term suggestions in Firefox’s search box, ability to re-open accidentally closed tabs, and more. See the Firefox 2.0 release notes for more information.
The upcoming Firefox 3.0 is planned for release by the end of 2007 and is expected to be the most significant Firefox upgrade to date. For the curious types, there is a publicly available list of planned improvements.
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