MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA– The Mozilla Foundation is set to release Firefox 2 tomorrow, the company’s first major upgrade the browser since the release of Firefox 1.5 last fall, according to an announcement posted to the MozillaZine.org web forum.According to MozillaZine, the site to which the Mozilla Foundation refers users as an open-source support forum, the new release of Firefox will include improved anti-Phishing safeguards, a “session saving” feature, an “improved interface for web feeds,” and on-the-fly search suggestion feature in which “common search terms are suggested as you type in the search box.”

The MozillaZine announcement post also includes instructions on disabling a potentially cumbersome side-effect of one feature introduced in a recent release candidate version of Firefox; the “close tab” button employed in Firefox’s “tabbed browsing” system.

The “close tab” button can add up to a lot of occupied space when a user has multiple tabs open, cluttering the tool bar and taking up screen space. To get rid of the “close” buttons, the MozillaZine moderator instructs users to type “about:config” (no quotes) in the address bar, press enter, and set “browser.tabs.closeButtons” to “3.”

Last week, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7.0, with some features very similar to those of Firefox 2.0. The close proximity of the releases has rekindled the “IE vs. Firefox” debate online, with proponents of each browser jumping to the defense of their favored software.

The IE 7 release was met with immediate reports of new flaws and vulnerabilities; with Microsoft’s supporters noting that the flaws were minor and suggesting that the company’s critics and the media exaggerated the problems due to an anti-Mircrosoft bias.

Critics of Firefox counter by noting that Firefox generally sees a greater number of total flaws reported, month to month, to which the Mozilla-minded retort that it is the open and comprehensive nature of open-source error reporting efforts that lead to the large number of error reports. That openness, in turn, leads to more troubleshooters working the problem and stronger software products as a result – or so the argument goes.

At the moment, regardless of their relative merits, IE remains the vastly more popular browser, in large part due Microsoft’s corresponding stronghold on the operating system market. For Firefox to make major inroads, noted Ryan Paul of ArsTechinica.com, Firefox needs to find a way onto the desktops of more Windows users.

“Firefox marketshare has steadily climbed, and presently rests on a plateau between 10 and 15-percent, depending on whom you ask,” Paul writes on ArsTechnica.com “Will the improvements in the latest release help the browser to continue its climb, or will Microsoft’s browser continue to retain its dominant position in the wake of its recent considerable overhaul? To close the gap, Mozilla will have to get its own icon on Windows desktops by cultivating relationships with OEMs, ISPs, and computer distributors.”