Firefox 2 was released today (not yesterday as reported by most of the tech news sites). Get it for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (I’m having a problem compiling it on my Gentoo Linux box though).

Notable Improvements that I think you’ll notice:
1) Page rendering speed (I actually noticed)

2) Visual Refresh: Firefox 2’s theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability without altering the familiarity of the browsing experience.

3) Improved tabbed browsing: By default, Firefox will open links in new tabs instead of new windows, and each tab will now have a close tab button. Power users who open more tabs than can fit in a single window will see arrows on the left and right side of the tab strip that let them scroll back and forth between their tabs. The History menu will keep a list of recently closed tabs, and a shortcut lets users quickly re-open an accidentally closed tab.

4) Resuming your browsing session: The Session Restore feature restores windows, tabs, text typed in forms, and in-progress downloads from the last user session. It will be activated automatically when installing an application update or extension, and users will be asked if they want to resume their previous session after a system crash. This is already a feature of Opera but is incredibly annoying at work as it tries ot authenticate 15 pages at once upon startup.

5) Inline spell checking: A new built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms (like this one) without having to use a separate application.