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Mozilla adds security features to Firefox 2 release candidate

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Mozilla is distributing the preview release of its next version of the Firefox web browser, promising new security features along with other conveniences.

The Firefox 2 Release Candidate 1 is now available on Mozilla's website for application developers, the testing community and users who want a sneak peek.

For additional web security, it offers built in protection from phishing, which warns users when they come across forged websites and offers to take them back to their homepage, according to Mozilla's website.

The feature is turned on by default, checking sites against an automatically updated online list of phishing sites.

The release candidate also has a session restore feature that automatically returns users to the windows, tabs, text typed in forms and downloads they were using before a system crash. Also activated automatically, it will ask users if they want to resume their previous session after a system crash.

According to the latest SANS Institute Top 20 Security Vulnerabilities report, a rapid growth in critical Firefox flaws was listed as a top trend.

As the popularity of alternative web browsers has grown, hackers are turning their attention to Firefox and Opera, as well as Apple's Macintosh OS X operating system, numerous experts have said.

Among the other new features that release candidate 1 has made available are:

  • Enhanced search engine management;
  • Improvements to tabbed browsing;
  • Inline spell check for web forms;
  • The ability to create bookmarks;
  • Support for client-side session and persistent storage;
  • Support for JavaScript 1.7;
  • The ability to create bookmarks with live titles that offer short summaries of the site.

Click here to email Frank Washkuch.

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