Firefox 2 is out in the wild and on my computer. It’s more an evolution than a revolution this time (so why the major version number?) but it’s a nice one. The browser has received a little facelift, but the most important addition in my humble opinion, is a small one. Firefox now natively will remember which tabs and windows you had open and re-open them when you restart the browser.

Just like Opera has done for, uh years. And just like Internet Explorer does now with IE7. And just like the Google browser sync has done for a while, though Google browser sync can sync between browsers and computers and so has a few tricks that the aforementioned tricksters can’t.
To enable the session saver on Firefox 2, go Tools -> Options, select the “Main” options from there from the Startup box, choose “When Firefox starts: Show my windows and tabs from last time”. With IE7, the corresponding manoeuvre is to Exit IE7 and when the Really exit?-confirmation dialogue box pops up, click the little button to reveal the more options, then check in that you want the tabs to be saved and, optionally, that you don’t want to be asked again (since i’ve already chosen these settings, i can’t cite the settings verbatim, but you’ll get the gist).

I was also made aware of the Download status bar extension, which shows download status information in the status bar instead of in a separate popup window. Aaah.

What more? Firefox 2 also has a built-in spellchecker (sorry, spell checker, or is it spelling checker?) so you don’t have to see so many of my errors in these entries. And it has the very nifty Undo Close tab command (which you needed the Tab mix plus extension for before).  Shortcut: Ctrl-Shift-T.  Very Mac-like.  Why they wouldn’t go for Ctrl-Z is beyond me.
What Firefox does not have, in comparison to IE7, is an overview of all open tabs. Press Ctrl-Q and you’ll see. It’s nifty.