The rest of what's new is a little underwhelming. For example, while Mozilla is touting a revamped tabs interface, it doesn't seem much improved to me. The revised Add-Ons Manager, which houses extensions and themes, is only mildly improved. The enhanced search capabilities include a bigger integrated search box and a new search-engine manager. The visual refresh offers button sculpting and shading. But it's all pretty minor, to be honest. Check the Firefox 2.0 Release Notes (http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0/releasenotes/) for more detail.

Bottom line: If you liked Firefox 1.x, there's little about this that's changed. Your biggest problem, if you're downloading Firefox 2.0 right away (ftp://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0/), is very likely the question of whether your extensions are supported. If you use a lot of extensions, almost certainly not all will be supported -- but as I mentioned before, Firefox 2 might eliminate the need for some of the extensions you previously used.

Tell us your experience

So that's one man's first impressions of Firefox 2.0. But what about your experience? While Computerworld editor Val Potter and I create a Firefox 2.0 final review and visual tour, please tell us your experiences with the new browser, for possible inclusion in our upcoming story. Here are some questions to help you consider the new Mozilla browser:

Does Firefox 2 fix your Firefox memory footprint problems? (http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/apps/story/0,10801,111065,00.html)