Firefox's default home page is a custom page featuring the Google search engine. At the top right hand corner of the screen you can also see a search box through which various search engines such as Google and Yahoo can be quickly accessed -- all without actually visiting their home page, until you get the results. This feature is also available in the previous version.

Firefox 1.5 includes a speedy way to clear all data accumulated when browsing, such as cookies, cached files, history and entries into text fields.

You can have more than one window open simultaneously in Firefox in a feature known as 'tabbed browsing'.

New to Firefox 1.5 is a feature that allows you to reorder the tabs. For example, in this window you could move the ZDNet Australia site to the left-most position, before the Firefox start page. This is known as 'tab reordering'.

You can use a variety of search engines on the search box and even add your own. Answers.com is a new addition with Firefox 1.5.

Firefox allows you to use RSS content feeds as bookmarks. In this example Firefox lists the latest headlines from the BBC's news Web site. These are bookmarks that will change as the BBC adds new stories to its site.

Firefox's preferences window has a new design.

Firefox provides you with a variety of options for maintaining your privacy online.

The ability to block annoying and unwanted pop-up windows has been improved in Firefox 1.5. You can also set many different options for what Web sites can do with Javascript, or what images they are allowed to load.

These options can help stop some advertisements from being displayed.

You can change the way your tabs work.

Firefox manages the way files are downloaded with a dedicated 'Download Manager' window. You can change the way the browser handles different types of files.

New in Firefox 1.5 is the ability to update the browser when a new version comes out. Previously, you had to download and install the browser yourself.

A variety of third-party add-ons are available to extend Firefox's abilities.

You can set which Web sites (if any) are allowed to open popup windows.

You can set which Web sites are allowed to load images.