Here's what's new in this release of Firefox:
* Live Bookmarks
You can now subscribe to and read RSS feeds in your Bookmarks. When you visit a page that advertises a RSS feed by using a <link> tag, a RSS icon will appear in the status bar. Click it to view a list of feeds the page is offering. Click one to subscribe - this adds a Bookmark Folder that contains all the recent posts from the feed.
* Improved Find
Find is easier and more powerful now with our new Find toolbar. The Find toolbar (which shows at the bottom of the browser window) automatically highlights text in the page as you type and has a useful highlight feature.
* Managing Annoyances and Protecting Security
You can now open blocked popups, and the Extension install system now blocks all attempts to install software from sites other than update.mozilla.org. Users can add other sites to a list that allows them to offer software, but software is never automatically installed. In addition to these steps, several other measures have been taken to prevent phishing attacks and to highlight when a page is being viewed over a secure connection.
* Better Bookmarks
Numerous improvements to bookmarks including more reliable presentation of Site icons, and a split pane view in the Bookmarks window.
* Strong Encryption For Passwords Available
Passwords saved with the Password Manager can now be more easily encrypted with strong encryption by creating a "Master Password". If you create a Master Password, you are prompted once per session to enter the Master Password so that Password Manager can automatically fill in site logins. A useful feature for people who share computers with others and want improved security.
* Improved Compatibility for IE users
Undetectable document.all support for site compatibility and improved compatibility for keyboard accelerators further smooth the transition for IE users
* Better System Integration for GNOME users
You can now configure Firefox as your Default Browser on GNOME, and Firefox will adhere to your GNOME settings for edit field key bindings, etc.
* And a horde of other bug fixes...
See The Burning Edge's Bigger Picture for more details.
What's new in 1.0 Preview Release
New features
* 250231 - Find toolbar.
* 244078 - Live Bookmarks (RSS feed integration)*.
* New keyboard shortcuts
o 213377 - Pressing Esc now stops image animations.
o 246719 - Link modifiers now work in many places in the browser UI. For example, Ctrl+clicking the Home button opens your home page in a new tab.
o 208035 - [Linux] Pressing Backspace key now goes back.
* 225944, 247960 - Add folder pane to
Bookmark Manager (screenshot)*.
* 211023 - "Sort by name" on context menus for bookmarks folders.
* 239241 - Add password manager mode to display saved passwords.
* 218694 - Implement master password UI.
* 217664 - Ability to use same proxy for all protocols.
* 166395 - Need ability to override navigator.appName and navigator.appVersion from prefs.js.
* 173569 - Clicking in focused textbox should open autocomplete results.
* Neil Turner: More on new Firefox features describes these new features in more depth.
Major improvements
* 174265, 173762, 228862 - Favicons for bookmarks often wrong and forgotten after shutdown.
* Firefox update and Extension update improvements
o Firefox now checks for updates every 24 hours. (Firefox still only checks for extension updates every 7 days.)
o 251473
- Allow extension authors to remotely bump maxVersion for a given
extension version to prevent users from having to redownload an
identical new version when they upgrade Firefox where the only change
is a newer maxVersion.
* Pop-up blocking improvements
o 176564 - Can now open blocked popups.
o Yellow information bar for blocked pop-ups in addition to status bar icon*. This information bar can be disabled.
* Security improvements
o 241705 - If a site not in your whitelist attempts to install software, a yellow information bar now appears instead of a dialog*. This prevents malicious sites from repeatedly popping up a software installation dialog until you accept. The initial whitelist contains only update.mozilla.org.
o 22183 - Make the status bar visible in all pop-up windows to prevent spoofing. (See also 252811, 259192, and why this isn't sufficient to prevent spoofing.)
o 245406 - Display domain in status bar for secure sites.
o 244025 - For secure sites, show lock icon in address bar (in addition to showing it in the status bar) and make address bar yellow*.
o 157354 - Hide user
ass in the address bar. (Usernames and passwords in URLs come before the hostname, which is confusing and has been used in widespread phishing/spoofing attacks.)
* Alternate stylesheet support improvements
o The status bar icon now only appears when the page actually has alternate stylesheets.
o 216424 - You can now select alternate stylesheets using the keyboard (View > Page Style).
o 253332 - The Page Style menu (but not the status bar menu) has a "No Style" option that removes all styles, including ones from style attributes and other HTML attributes.
* 253046 - New missing plugin finder (screenshots).
* The "Web Features" options panel has been reorganized.
* 232089 - The "Add bookmarks" dialog should not default to the last folder you added a bookmark to.
* 242586 - Add Amazon, Dictionary.com, eBay, and Yahoo to the search bar (in addition to Google). You can still add engines from Mycroft.
* 237727 - When installing on top of an existing Firefox installation, the installer now deletes old files program files without nuking the entire directory from orbit.
* 177996
- [Linux] Better Start Script for Firefox - When invoking Firefox with
an instance already running, pass a URL to the running instance (if one
was given) or tell the running instance to open a new window.
* 257405 - [Linux] Use GTK2 native keybindings for input and textarea. This means Firefox no longer uses Emacs keybindings in text fields unless you chnage an option in Gnome/GTK.
New web developer features
* 248549 - In quirks mode, add undetected document.all support.
* 256932 - In quirks mode, expose elements by their name/id in the global scope.
* 28998 - Proxy: Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD).
* 250666 - Implement the npruntime plugin scriptability API.
* 237586 - SPNEGO+NTLM support (implement negotiateauth using SSPI for Windows).
* 231529 - Optionally enable unprompted NTLM authentication.
Major bug fixes
* 229100 - Shift+Tab is broken in the search bar.
* 232770 - Ctrl+Tab to switch tabs should work even when the address bar has focus.
* 246078 - URLs from other apps result in two Firefox windows or a window and an error dialog.
* 101190 - Firefox incorrectly blocks requested popups while the page is loading.
* 231393 - Tab URL does not persist on bad links if tabs switched.
* 213186 - Change "Cookies are delicious delicacies." to something more informative.
* 217120 - Back button does not restore scroll position on eBay.
* 201040 - Unable to view page source of the page that uses IDN.
* 125276 - Printing causes squished images on second page; replicates images on first page.
* 192577 - [Windows] URL bar drop-down does not collapse on second click on down-arrow.
* 248423 - [Windows] Make config.trim_on_minimize work again.
* 229062 - [Windows] Clicking link in Download Notification does not show Download Manager.
* 228977 - [Windows] Firefox gets wrong desktop folder for downloading.
* 239358 - [Linux] Reverse DNS lookups are degrading performance on Fedora Core 2.
Security hole fixes
* Details will appear on mozilla.org's Known Vulnerabilities in Mozilla page.
http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/bigger-picture.html