Firefox-2 and Fedora-6

If you hadn't already heard the oh-so-happy news, Firefox 2 has officially been released. Go now, and get the goodness for yourself. Seriously, stop what you're doing, and go download the awesomeness yourself. Right now.

Coming just days after the launch of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 offers a refreshed user interface, anti-phishing protection, improvements to the built-in search feature, tabbed browsing changes, the ability to restore an interrupted session, better support for Web feeds, inline spell-checking, support for microsummaries and a number of other enhancements.

Upgrading seems to be pretty painless, and I'm honestly surprised by how few extension incompatibilities I've run across. In my personal installation, SessionSaver (who's functionality is now integrated into Firefox by default) and Reveal were the only ones that were angry and annoyed. I've never had so few extensions stop working after an upgrade, especially so soon after a major release.

Get Firefox 2

If you're still not sure, you can still take this puppy for a spin without having to install anything. As of this writing, v2.RC3 is the latest version of Firefox available at PortableApps.com, but the public release should be up there soon. In more obscure news, Fedora Core 6 (Zod), the latest version of the Community-driven and RedHat-sponsored Linux distribution has also just been released. According to a buddy of mine, who beta-tests and troubleshoots FC releases, remarked that FC6 is "very shiny." I'll probably be getting the install DVD from him in the next few days. Download information can be found at the Fedora Project website. If the jump from FC4 to FC5 is at all telling, Fedora users should be in for a real treat this time around.