Mozilla's Camino, the lightweight Mac alternative to Firefox, is getting very close to a 2.0 release. The first release candidate is out now -- you can download it by checking for updates in an earlier version of the browser -- and it's got updates to appearance, security features and more. You'll notice a new, more Leopard-like look for the tabs and toolbars, making Camino blend in better with recent versions of OS X.

One of the best additions to the new version of Camino is a built-in Flash blocker. You can turn it on to block all Flash animations, and then add exceptions the sites whose Flash you actually want to see. Other security features include making use of Google Safe Browsing, which warns you when you're headed for a site that Google has blacklisted for malware or phishing. All-in-all, Camino 2 isn't as feature-packed as Firefox, or as pretty as Safari, but it's lighter than either one (and offers Firefox-equivalent page-load times using Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine).

[via TechCrunch]