CYBERSPACE – The Mozilla Foundation has released the initial beta version of Firefox 2.0, which includes a couple of handy new features in addition to addressing a number of minor bugs and flaws in previous versions of the browser.The new iteration of Firefox includes a built-in “phishing filter,” which automatically screens sites visited by the user against a locally-stored blacklist of known phishers. It also has an option to “ask Google” to use the massive search company’s anti-phishing mechanisms.

Another new addition could prove highly useful to “spelling-challenged” webmasters who frequently post on message boards. The new version of Firefox utilizes an integrated spell-checker for web-based text input forms. The spell-check feature isn’t sensitive to context, so it won’t necessarily prevent users from confusing “your” and “you’re,” but should at least prevent them from spelling either as “yoor.” The tool automatically flags misspelled words with a dotted red line, much like the squiggly red underline used to indicated spelling errors in Microsoft Word.

The user interface in 2.0 remains essentially unchanged from previous versions of Firefox, although the “tabs” are handled a little differently in the new version. Unlike earlier releases, in Firefox 2.0, users can scroll the tab bar horizontally when it gets too large for a single screen.

The beta 2.0 version, which Mozilla has code-named “Bon Echo,” is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.