Mozilla's Firefox 2.0 to rival Microsoft's IE7 browser

The non-profit Mozilla Foundation will release a new version of its popuolar Firefox Internet browser on Tuesday, officials of the group confirmed.

Developed by an "opensource" community made up of thousands of volunteers, Firefox has become the greatest rival of Microsoft's market leading Internet Explorer. Firefox already accounts for up to 30 percent of the market in some territories, Mozilla claimed.

The software is currently being downloaded by around 350,000 users a day, Mozilla said. The launch of Firefox 2.0 follows on the heels of Microsoft's launch last week of a major upgrade of its Internet Explorer browser, IE7.

Firefox 2.0 promises several new features, as well as a solution to an annoying memory leak that has troubled earlier versions, according to Mozilla.

Mike Schroepfer, vice president of Mozilla, revealed that "Firefox will be released in around 30 languages" while "IE7 shipped only in English."

Other features of the new browser revision include phishing protection, which reports if a website may be malicious; session saving, which restores windows or Firefox tabs if the browser crashes; improved access to Web feeds; spell checking; and search suggestions.

A day before the scheduled public release, Mozilla has posted the final versions of the software on its FTP servers in preparation for the public launch.

Source:Xinhua/Agencies