Firefox 2.0 RC1 Released

I just saw that Mozilla released Firefox 2.0 RC1 -- cool!  I like Firefox.  I admittedly prefer IE7 over it, but that's largely for two reasons:  Intranet sites that require integrated authentication, and ActiveX for streaming music.  For general browsing, I find it 6 of 1.

Here's what I've noticed so far:  there's a few minor fit & finish pieces that are needed in some of the dialog boxes (nothing major, just background color and what not -- it's possible this is only evident on Vista).  I'm happy to see that each tab has its own close button, instead of just one close button that closed the active tab.  IE7 got this feature in initially, but I like what Firefox has done: they've made the close work without first having to give focus to the tab.  That's really useful and I hope to see that in IE7.

Interestingly, though, one of the first things I checked:



What is this??  No MSN or Live search option?  Pffft.

OK, I know there was this big hoopla that IE7 defaulted to MSN Search.  Let's be real though: this is an obvious snub.  To include default options like eBay and Amazon, as well as esoteric sites like Creative Commons (who I didn't recognize until now), but not include MSN ... well, it's a bit obvious.  I guess some might see it as the pot calling the kettle black, but kool-aid aside, I see it a bit differently.