People were so anxious to grab a copy of Firefox 2, that they launched the rumor that Firefox 2 is here a day earlier. Slashdot linked to the British version for Windows of a Firefox build from a FTP server and Mozilla developers had to explain why that was a bad idea. In the past, I also placed direct links to files from Mozilla's FTP server.

All in all, Firefox 2 is now officially launched and available at mozilla.com.

You can find out more about the new features from the reviews of Firefox 2 Beta 1 (spell checking, feed preview, anti-phishing, how to make your extensions compatible with the new version) and Beta 2 (the new visual theme). There's also a complete list of the new features.

The new features are not that significant to justify a major version. Chris Beard, VP at Mozilla, explains that "it's more sort of a natural evolution. It felt to us like a 2.0 product, particularly if we looked at it from what 1.0 was, to 2.0." The update comes 5 days after Microsoft launched Internet Explorer 7.

Related:
Handy calculator in Firefox 2.0
10 useful Firefox tips
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