Support for Mozilla Firefox 1.5 to end in mid-May

Firefox users take note: Mozilla will only supply security and stability upgrades for Firefox 1.5x until mid-May of this year (2007). They encourage all Firefox 1.5 users to visit http://getfirefox.com to download the latest version of Firefox today. Mozilla is focusing on delivering a faster and more secure online experience. They want all of their users to benefit from the new features in Firefox 2.0, and in the not to distant future, Firefox 3.0.

I personally made the switch to version 2.0.x about two months ago and have no regrets. All of the Extensions I was using are now updated to work with version 2.0 and newer. The tabs that used to get squeezed in width as more were opened will now generate horizontal arrow buttons to scroll them to the right or left, when you have more tabs open than the width will accomodate. There are a lot of neat skins being developed for these new Firefox browsers and some awesome new "Add-ons" as the Extensions are now called. Firefox 2 supports JavaScript 1.7 and inline spell checking in text areas and text fields, which is a tremendous help for us Bloggers and Forumites.

Other new features:
* Microsummaries provide a way to create bookmarks that display information pulled from the site they refer to, updated automatically. Great for stock tickers, auction monitoring, and so forth.
* Search engine manager lets you rearrange and remove search engines shown in the search bar.
* Tabbed browsing enhancements include adding close buttons to each tab, adjustments to how Firefox decides which tab to bring you to when you close the current tab, and simplified preferences for tabs.
* Phishing Protection to warn users when the web site you're looking at appears to be a forgery.

Behind the scenes version 2 and newer have increased security enhancements not found in version 1.x, and they are now basically Windows Vista compatible, with a few minor Vista bugs scheduled to be fixed in soon to be released updates. At the time of this Post the current version of Firefox browser is 2.0.0.3, with 2.0.0.4 around the corner. Updates are released to fix compatibility, security and stability issues and can be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu, on the toolbar, or by allowing (periodic) automatic update checks.

Firefox is available for Windows 98 through XP and now Vista, and non-Microsoft operating systems as well, including Mac and Linux. Current versions offer the option to also install the Google Toolbar, which is used by searchers and Webmasters alike.