Mozilla had announced earlier that it is not planning to do any further security & stability updates for Firefox 2 and the phishing protection service will no longer be available for Firefox 2 users from January 20, 2009. As announced the phishing protection service has been turned off for Firefox 2.
The phishing sites list (also known as black list) is generated by the Google Search in Firefox 2 using the initial version of the SafeBrowsing Protocol. Google and Mozilla have updated the SafeBrowsing protocol to version 2.2 now. Google has requested Mozilla to turn off the phishing filter in Firefox 2 to encourage users switch to latest versions of Firefox and discontinue using the old browser so that Google can stop using the old protocol.
Firefox 2.0.0.19 and 2.0.0.20, the final 2 versions of Firefox 2.0.0.X series were released without this built-in security mechanism while further earlier versions of Firefox continued to provide the service.
Mozilla has advised users of Firefox 2 to disable the setting Tell me if the site I"m visiting is a suspected forgery in the Security preferences under Options Menu. Mozilla has also recommended users to upgrade to Firefox 3 as it offers a free Phishing and Malware Protection service.