Domain: mozilla.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to mozilla.com.
Comments · 1,093
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Firefox is the most unstable program in common use
You said, "... I have never ever seen the behaviour you have described, except..."
You said, "Sorry, but this is just pure anti-Windows BS."
A) You are not sorry.
B) Your statements are quite arrogant, since you are saying that if you have never seen a problem, it doesn't exist.
C) Follow the links: Firefox development sometimes resembles playing. There are numerous links, leading back to several years ago. I suppose you have never joined the discussions of Firefox instability.
D) Basically, this seems to be the story. Winifred Mitchell Baker, the CEO of Mozilla, is a socially uncomfortable lawyer who became CEO when no one thought there was an opportunity. Now Mozilla Foundation is making millions from designating Google as the default search engine.
Winifred has insufficient control over those who work for her, because she doesn't understand what they do. The Firefox CPU hogging and memory gobbling bug would take some serious troubleshooting to find, and no one wants to do the work, apparently.
The bug in Firefox is apparently caused by inadequate allocation of resources. Apparently there is a bug in Windows, or more than one, that causes the entire Microsoft Windows OS to become unstable when Firefox starts CPU hogging.
In any case, the only way to get Windows back to a stable state after killing Firefox is to re-start the computer.
The Firefox CPU hogging bug occurs only during heavy use of Firefox, with many Windows and tabs open for several hours, such as happens when someone in purchasing in a corporate environment is researching computer parts. The problem is made worse if the computer is hibernated or put in standby. -
Good idea...Quote from the blog entry on the new password manager: The first part, a long slog of untangling and porting the old C++ code to JS, is now complete. Now, THAT sounds like something you want to do. I always mock up something quick in C++ and port it to JS afterwards.
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Re:Firefox 2
At the moment, there is no need to change the default, the feature checks sites against a downloaded list, rather than sending them anywhere:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/phishing-prot ection/ -
Firefox 2
Or just upgrade to Firefox 2, which has the feature built in.
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Re:Got NoScript?
Firefox 3 includes a cycle collector to handle these memory leaks in extensions, as well as some remaining memory leaks in Firefox itself.
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Fire Winifred!
Firefox is the most unstable program in common use.
Someone with no technical knowledge cannot run a technically oriented company. Fire Winifred! That's Winifred Mitchell Baker, the CEO of Mozilla, a socially uncomfortable lawyer who became CEO when no one thought there was an opportunity. Now that Mozilla Foundation is making millions from making Google the default browser, Winifred can afford to hire people to make herself look good.
Don't let ignorant and foolish and even stupid managers destroy your programming efforts. Find some way to have them removed.
The idea of using SGLite is a good one, provided there is a way of exporting bookmarks to HTML.
However, there are many, many quirks in Firefox that should be fixed first, but no technically oriented manager to organize that. -
Re:So...who makes what?
We're actually about 100 employees today. Also, we pay taxes on that revenue and we have non-trivial operating costs -- employees, community support and empowerment, facilities, and definitely in the infrastructure that we've built out to support the 500,000 Firefox downloads that we serve every day, the millions of daily sessions at our various web properties, the 100 million or so application security updates we ship every 6-8 weeks, etc.
No one at Mozilla is getting rich. I'd wager that most people at Mozilla could go elsewhere and probably do better. We're here because we love doing what we're doing. That Mozilla has the resources to support so many community members with full-time salaries is a good thing - an amazing thing. We were 10 people when the Foundation started and we're about 100 today. Many former part-time volunteers are now able to spend a lot more time working on Mozilla projects and that's a great thing.
I was spending 20-30 hours a week volunteering for Mozilla long before I was getting paid to do it and a lot of other Mozilla employees were also volunteers before coming on full-time. If you're interested in full-time work with Mozilla, see our careers page: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/about/careers.html
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Re:Opera!Current Firefox (2.0.0.3) for Windows: 5.5MB download. Current Opera (9.2) for Windows: 6.3MB download. Nope. You're not comparing like with like. According to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/, Firefox (English) is 5.7MB. Likewise, according to http://www.opera.com/download/, Opera (English) is 4.7MB. Opera *international* is 6.3MB, but that's due to the sheer number of languages it supports. Couldn't give a hoot about the features. All the good in Opera is hidden behind a terrible user interface. I gots shit to *do*, ya know? But the whole point of Opera is that it's almost infinitely customisable; and the interface is very, very easy to change, much easier than Firefox. In fact, it's the interface that put me off Firefox -- not the default interface, but the difficulty of customizing it; unless you're willing to either manually manually edit
.css files in your profile or install a shitload of extensions that make FF take about 10 minutes to start. E.g. I prefer the tab bar at the bottom of the screen. In Firefox I have to manually add a string to a .css text file; much harder in Opera.
Besides, what's so bad about the default interface? The only really unusual thing is that it puts the tab bar above the address bar, but as I said, that's very easy to change. -
Re:Besides the cache
The Firefox features page is just boasting about all the stuff they are loading onto Firefox.
In particular, I consider the RSS feed reader, built-in session restore, and Live Titles to be feature creep. Better to leave most things for extensions and keep Firefox light. -
Re:More than embarrassment
eBay cannot simply release their plugin now
They also cannot simply change their site functionality to break the student plugin, as they'll alienate customers who are using it.
Sure they can. They've got no obligation to support third-party extensions. From an eBay user's perspective, the eBay site will continue to work flawlessly but the extension will be broken. Who's the user going to blame?
You don't have to be a lawyer to figure out if the customer prefers better functionality.
You don't have to be a lawyer to see that this is an open-and-shut trademark infringement case. Go to the My eBay Fox website. It looks very similar to the official Firefox website. It uses the Firefox and eBay logos. There's a clear possibility that consumers will believe that My eBay Fox is a product of the Mozilla Corporation and eBay. This is exactly the situation trademark law is designed to deal with. If My eBay Fox has a security bug or is just plain crashy, there's a strong possibility it could reflect badly on Mozilla and eBay. Trademarks are all about trust and reputation. The developers of My eBay Fox don't have the right to hijack the goodwill associated with Mozilla and eBay and put it at risk.
While Firefox is open-source, the name Firefox and the logo are trademarked. If you want to distribute an extension with Firefox and call it Firefox, you have to get permission from the Mozilla Foundation. See the 'Extensions, Themes and Plugins' section of the Mozilla Trademark Policy for details. They'd be on much safer ground if they called it Steamdonkey or something. Of course, eBay are a more traditional company, so their trademark policy will be even stricter.
Either way, My eBay Fox will not continue to branded and marketed as it is at present for much longer.
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Re:How pratical can it be to hold out?
Apparently Firefox 2.0.0.3 will run under Windows 98:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requir ements.html
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Defend yourself against Doubleclick
Use firefox + ad block plus and filter doubleclick out with *.doubleclick.net/*
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Please install this security update for MAC :-)
So they found a hole in Safari and exploited it. So one should install this security update?
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Re:Painful marketing
The two links below would give you a better idea about the features
Release Notes
Notable bug fixes -
Re:Painful marketing
I take that back, the features page is better: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/features
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Re:Painful marketing
Click on the Release Notes: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/2.0.0.0/
r eleasenotes/ -
This is what I posted...I posted this one to here a few hours ago, thought you might prefer this version of the story
:) Mozilla's Thunderbird email software has reached version 2.0.0.0. Includes tagging messages, quick navigation through threads, improved (and saved) searches, and (most usefully for some) support for checking .mac and gmail. Reports that Thunderbird 2 may contain a mole were quickly quashed. -
Re:One example:
Isn't the ppi on a Mac different than on a PC? It has been a long time since I looked into that but doesn't a Mac and some Linux Distros set up as 96ppi versus a 72ppi for Windows? Would that not account for the longer upload box? I am not sure on that, as like I said, it has been a long time since I looked into that stuff.
When did Firefox 1.3 come out? I know of Firefox 1.0.3 and Firefox 1.5, but not Firefox 1.3. In fact 1.0.3 was a Security fix and improvements to the update process.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vul nerabilities.html
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/releases/1.0. 3.html -
Re:I imagine this is thought through very well.Hello T,
I'm a College student in Maine and I cant afford My Medical bills or most commercial software. The later of the two led me hear to answer your comment. By way of choosing to use Linux.
In my opinion the argument that the flow of good Art will slow to a trickle, code weavers will dry up and guitarists will stop playing music when we make copyright and D.R.M. laws FAIR is a bunch of crap.
I belive this because I see it everyday when I boot Ubuntu or Knoppix and everything just works. I see it right now looking at Mozilla Firefox I don't spend 50% of my time and half my cpu cycles running Malware scans. Theres an Increase in productivity for you.
FurthermoreI for one will continue to advocate open source software, reject D.R.M. and "Intellectual proprietary.".
Many people seem to believe that Norway's putting itself at the forefront if a political movement that may be the story of my generation. How we Control the Peoples access to data, its content and depth thereof.
I do agree with you on one thing the current climate or copyright law and D.R.M. is easily comparable the state of big Pharmaceutical. Our coverage is like our software and fear is used to push pills like they were Norton Anti virus.
As for it copyright fairness leading to bad health Norway has a great social health care system, here I cant afford a month of meds. I have to pick them up a few at a time and I am not alone there.
If you were to step into my shoes you might just smack the words out of your own mouth...
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Re:Firefox plugin
Already done.
See, it plugs into Windows. Since IE is integrated into Windows, it's really a plugin for IE too. -
On WindowsI've done this a couple of times recently -- once for my new machine, and once for a friend of mine whose machine got pwn3d. My checklist works roughly like this:
- Perform an inventory of the hardware in the machine. Note especially the vendor and model number of the major components. You'll need this later.
- Establish partitions on the boot drive (only if I'm dual-booting Linux or BeOS or something).
- Yank network cable.
- Install Windows from installation media. This takes a ridiculous amount of time, considering that most of the work is (should be) simply copying files. Reboot.
- Install Service Pack 2, which I conveniently have on a separate CD I burned. Reboot.
- Crank up Windows firewall to highest setting, or moral equivalent thereof (I'm behind a NAT router, so that works).
- Visit Windows Update, and download all security and bug fixes. Duration depends on connection speed, but it can easily consume an hour. Reboot.
- Using the hardware inventory you prepared earlier: for $item in $inventory ; do
- Visit hardware vendor's site.
- Locate, download, and install latest device driver(s) for $item.
- Reboot.
- done
At this point, you have a usable machine. If it's my machine (and even if it isn't my machine), I usually install the following software:
Schwab
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Re:Sorry, couldn't RTFA
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Re:So what's included ?
I have not actually seen what is on their CD, but there are some examples of free programs, most of which, have already been mentioned, that are available for both Windows and Linux.
- Firefox Web browser
- Thunderbird full-featured email program
- GIMP Image Manipulation Program
- ImageMagick software suite for creating, editing, and composing bitmap images
- Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor
- ClamWin free antivirus scanner for Windows
- 7-Zip file archiver
- Celestia space simulater that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions
- OpenOffice office suite
- Scribus professional page layout program
- AbiWord word processing program
- Gnumeric spreadsheet
- LyX Document Processor
- Gaim multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client
- Audacity Sound Editor
- Blender the advanced 3D modeling program capable of producing high quality animations
- VLC - the cross-platform media player and streaming server
- Nvu complete Web Authoring System
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Re:So what's included ?
I have not actually seen what is on their CD, but there are some examples of free programs, most of which, have already been mentioned, that are available for both Windows and Linux.
- Firefox Web browser
- Thunderbird full-featured email program
- GIMP Image Manipulation Program
- ImageMagick software suite for creating, editing, and composing bitmap images
- Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor
- ClamWin free antivirus scanner for Windows
- 7-Zip file archiver
- Celestia space simulater that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions
- OpenOffice office suite
- Scribus professional page layout program
- AbiWord word processing program
- Gnumeric spreadsheet
- LyX Document Processor
- Gaim multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client
- Audacity Sound Editor
- Blender the advanced 3D modeling program capable of producing high quality animations
- VLC - the cross-platform media player and streaming server
- Nvu complete Web Authoring System
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Re:Gouged?
My mistake. I was going by this : http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/legal/eula/firefox-e
n .html -
Re:OpenCDI am often asked by family, friends, and coworkers (I work in IT and have contact with a large number of end-users) what applications I use, and what I recommend that they use. I do suggest GNU/Linux, but clearly most of them are using Windows and prefer to keep it that way for now. Here is the list of applications which I usually give them. Granted, some of these are NOT "free as in freedom" but are rather just "free as in beer" since, as noted elsewhere in this thread, for some categories of software there is no open source package available for Windows, or at least none available that your proverbial Grandma could be expected to use without installing Cygwin or something. (Obviously this list is aimed more at your Grandma than at the average GNU/Linux user, since that is the target audience. In real life I only use some of these applications myself. However, I do support family and friends who use them.) You could, of course, argue that better choices could be made, and you'd be correct.... General Tools
- Openoffice.org (use word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database, and similar applications)
- Picasa (view/edit photos)
Internet Tools
- FireFox (browse Web sites)
- Gaim (chat with users of AIM, YIM, MSN, IRC, etc.)
- Thunderbird (e-mail)
- Pegasus Mail (e-mail)
- Macromedia Flash Player (watch Flash animations within Web browser)
- Java Plugin (run Java applications inside Web browser)
Basic Tools
- 7Zip (compress/decompress files)
- EditPad Lite (edit text files)
- vim/gvim (edit text files--advanced)
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (view PDF files)
- PDF Creator (create PDF files)
Security Tools
- ZoneAlarm (firewall - detect unwanted Internet access)
- Avira Antivirus (detect/remove viruses)
- ADAware Personal SE (detect/remove spyware)
- SpyBot Search & Destroy (detect/remove spyware)
- HiJackThis (detect/remove spyware)
- Discombobulator (make Windows more secure)
- Shoot the Messenger (make Windows more secure)
- Unplug-n-pray (make Windows more secure)
- PGP (encrypt/decrypt files or e-mail for privacy) - see admin for more details
Advanced Tools
- Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel for Windows XP (mount ISO images as filesystems) from MSDN
- IMAPSize (manage/search/backup an IMAP mailbox)
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Re:OpenCDI am often asked by family, friends, and coworkers (I work in IT and have contact with a large number of end-users) what applications I use, and what I recommend that they use. I do suggest GNU/Linux, but clearly most of them are using Windows and prefer to keep it that way for now. Here is the list of applications which I usually give them. Granted, some of these are NOT "free as in freedom" but are rather just "free as in beer" since, as noted elsewhere in this thread, for some categories of software there is no open source package available for Windows, or at least none available that your proverbial Grandma could be expected to use without installing Cygwin or something. (Obviously this list is aimed more at your Grandma than at the average GNU/Linux user, since that is the target audience. In real life I only use some of these applications myself. However, I do support family and friends who use them.) You could, of course, argue that better choices could be made, and you'd be correct.... General Tools
- Openoffice.org (use word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database, and similar applications)
- Picasa (view/edit photos)
Internet Tools
- FireFox (browse Web sites)
- Gaim (chat with users of AIM, YIM, MSN, IRC, etc.)
- Thunderbird (e-mail)
- Pegasus Mail (e-mail)
- Macromedia Flash Player (watch Flash animations within Web browser)
- Java Plugin (run Java applications inside Web browser)
Basic Tools
- 7Zip (compress/decompress files)
- EditPad Lite (edit text files)
- vim/gvim (edit text files--advanced)
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (view PDF files)
- PDF Creator (create PDF files)
Security Tools
- ZoneAlarm (firewall - detect unwanted Internet access)
- Avira Antivirus (detect/remove viruses)
- ADAware Personal SE (detect/remove spyware)
- SpyBot Search & Destroy (detect/remove spyware)
- HiJackThis (detect/remove spyware)
- Discombobulator (make Windows more secure)
- Shoot the Messenger (make Windows more secure)
- Unplug-n-pray (make Windows more secure)
- PGP (encrypt/decrypt files or e-mail for privacy) - see admin for more details
Advanced Tools
- Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel for Windows XP (mount ISO images as filesystems) from MSDN
- IMAPSize (manage/search/backup an IMAP mailbox)
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Re:Bottom line
And I'd say, "except for the fact that I'm not subscribed to any feeds!"
You are mistaken. "Latest Headlines" is a default bookmark/live feed which I guarantee you have if you are getting that prompt.
The live feed points to:
http://en-us.fxfeeds.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/hea dlines.xml
which redirects to:
http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edit ion/front_page/rss.xml
Next. -
WARNING: Firefox 1.5 vs. 2.0 :: Old vs. NewNew software and new cars generally have more defects than old software and old cars. The first-year release of a Toyota Camry relies on customers to find and report the defects. The defect information is fed back to the Toyota engineers, and they redesign the defective parts of the Camry. The third-year release of the Camry should be quite reliable. (Toyota has some of the highest rates of recalls in the automotive industry. Toyota typically recalls nearly 10% of its vehicles -- versus "only" 7% for General Motors.)
Software works in the same way.
If you are using your Web browser to do critical jobs like online banking, you should continue to use the latest iteration of Firefox 1.5. The latest iteration is version 1.5.0.10. If you are still using Firefox 1.5, look under the "Help" option to find the option, "Check for Updates", which will enable your to upgrade to 1.5.0.10.
Continue using version 1.5 until 2007 April 24. On that date, Mozilla programmers will cease fine-tuning version 1.5.
After April 24, switch to version 2 of Firefox. Waiting 2 more months before using version 2 will give vital time to Mozilla programmers to fix any critical problems in the new version.
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Alternative setup
This is true, in fact after 60 days if you perform a scan even the clean result window will have a big red cross on it!
Uninstall and put Antivir (http://www.avira.com/en/pages/index.php) (you can change the update reminders in preferences) and Zonealarm (http://www.zonelabs.com/) on instead, for FREE!
You can also use AdAware (http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad-aware_se_pers onal.php) and Spybot Search and destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index .html), to clean up spyware.
PS: DONT USE INTERNET EXPLORER (dont know about v7 though?) use firefox instead http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ -
Re:The solution!
That's exactly how Microsoft tried to solve it and why their distributed software is huge. It also has led to problems of competing dlls which are often incompatible. If you think you have dependency problems now, just wait until you implement your idea!
I do believe Firefox is being distributed that way, and it seems to work for them. From their site, you download one
.tar.gz file, extract it anywhere on your system, and bingo. The package includes all the binary libraries that it requires, and I've never seen dependency problems arising from it. Sure it makes the download bigger, but there's a price to pay for simplicity. -
Re:remuneration??
nowhere in the said "article" is it clear what "support" is supposed to mean, ( a pat on the back, a blue ribbon perhaps?) so I'll go ahead and stand by my original post
The article doesn't say it? There's a link to a FAQ right at the top of the page, so why don't you make a little effort and go find out yourself instead of making clueless assumptions.any organization that is pulling in 50 mill usd per year, due in large part to the continued support of its unpaid volunteers, damn well better start thinking about paying those top contributors salaries, because if they don't, there is obviously a market out there that will.
So they should start paying contributors salaries... wait, then why not just hire them full-time if possible? That'd be even better, no? Then guess what: that's the whole point of Mozilla Corporation. The revenues are spent for the most part for hiring employees for the Mozilla Corporation. Many of the MC employees had been voluntary contributors before they were eventually offered a job. The Mozilla Corporation employees are nothing but paid contributors.
There's of course a large group of part-time contributors that aren't hired and for those the community giving program was launched. -
Re:Important nuance: small village school
I don't use StarOffice, but I have used the Russian OpenOffice.org suite has always worked very well for me. And yes, there is a Russian Firefox available too.
At least this software doesn't get random 'updates' that suddenly break part of the dialogs so they appear in English and Russian partially. -
Get Gmail!
1) Tell Lycos to F*** off!
2) Sign up for Gmail. http://gmail.com/
3) Use Gmail with Thunderbird. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
4) ???////
5) Profit.
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More Advanced Browser
From TFA
The more avid users download the upgrades in between, but of XP users how many downloaded a browser that was more advanced than the one they had? Maybe you and the people you know all did, but most people don't.
Yes, Bill, they do, and that browser's name is Firefox. -
Re:Linux is Inhibited by Greed
Of course there is a replacement for Outlook and Exchange! It's called sendmail and it's part of every unix-like system. You install an MTA (either the original sendmail or a compatible replacement) and a POP3 server on a machine (an old desktop is fine), configure your firewall to route incoming traffic on port 25 to that machine, log into your DNS control panel, and set its internet hostname as the MX for your domain. Then you run a normal mail client on each desktop. Specify your mail server's inside IP address as the SMTP and POP3 server in your mail client, and away you go.
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Re:If there's anything that should completely die
We'd need to replace them first. Specifically windows XP, which is essentially the same as 5 years ago (it was released 2002 right?), and is still quite easy to get working, and quite easy to use. I mean, contrast the following:
Installing Firefox 2.0 on XP:
Download the installer from the firefox website, run and keep pressing "next".
Installing Firefox 2.0 on Fedora Core 6 (linux):
Download a .tar.gz from the firefox website. Open it to find what appears to be all the files that make up firefox. Extract it and attempt to run various things, firefox, updater etc. Nothing happens (at all). Attempt to read the readme, which seems to contain just a web address. Go there, and look at the woeful "install instructions", which don't actually say anything[1]. Go hunting on the net. Eventually find that the best way to get FF2 is to run a few command-line commands on yum to activate the "Development" download repository and download FF2 for Fedora Core 7.
[1]: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0.0.1/relea senotes/#install
Installing Firefox 2:
Please note that installing Firefox 2 will overwrite your existing installation of Firefox. You won't lose any of your bookmarks or browsing history, but some of your extensions and other add-ons might not work until updates for them are made available.
And then there's the struggle to activate hardware-acceleration on my Radeon X1900 under FC6. Apparently just installing the ati driver isn't enough, I have to use the command-line-login to run some really long commands at run-level 3 (without the help of copy-paste), followed by modifying the X config file myself to undo some of what these commands did, specifically reverting the modules section back to the default 7 or so modules (just removing the whole section works), instead of just loading dri, which the defaults included anyway. Then I had to add some more lines to disable some things so that it didn't drop back to software rendering for no obvious reason.
On XP? Just install the drivers, and the newest direct-X as part of whatever 3D app or game wants to use it. Works first time. -
Stay legal, use free GPL licensed software instead
Don't be a software pirate, stay legal and properly licensed by using the various free open source GPL licensed programs instead that are also available in Windows versions. Many of the best free GPL licensed open source programs which have been developed for Linux users have also been released in Windows versions. Not everyone is ready yet to move from Windows to a free GPL licensed alternative such as Ubuntu Linux. For them, a first step to freedom would be to keep on using a properly licensed copy of Windows, but to start using the various free GPL licensed alternatives to their various favorite programs. Someday, if they decide to move to a totally free operating system such as Linux they will then be able to use the Linux versions of those same programs. There is now an amazingly large complete alternative free software ecosystem of free GPL licenced software legally available for free to everyone.
Here are just a few examples of free (mostly GPL licensed) programs which are also available in Windows versions:
- OpenOffice the free office suite
- Mozilla Firefox web browser
- Thunderbird email program
- Clamwin free antivirus
- Gimp image mainpulation program for photo retouching and image composition
- ImageMagick software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images
- Inkscape open source scalable vector graphics editor
- PuTTY: A Free Telnet/SSH Client
- FTP client and server
- 7-Zip file archiver which can handle compression formats such as 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
- Scribus open source page layout application
- AbiWord the free word processing program
- Gnumeric the free spreadsheet program
- Stellarium free open source planetarium
- Celestia free space simulation and space exploration program
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Stay legal, use free GPL licensed software instead
Don't be a software pirate, stay legal and properly licensed by using the various free open source GPL licensed programs instead that are also available in Windows versions. Many of the best free GPL licensed open source programs which have been developed for Linux users have also been released in Windows versions. Not everyone is ready yet to move from Windows to a free GPL licensed alternative such as Ubuntu Linux. For them, a first step to freedom would be to keep on using a properly licensed copy of Windows, but to start using the various free GPL licensed alternatives to their various favorite programs. Someday, if they decide to move to a totally free operating system such as Linux they will then be able to use the Linux versions of those same programs. There is now an amazingly large complete alternative free software ecosystem of free GPL licenced software legally available for free to everyone.
Here are just a few examples of free (mostly GPL licensed) programs which are also available in Windows versions:
- OpenOffice the free office suite
- Mozilla Firefox web browser
- Thunderbird email program
- Clamwin free antivirus
- Gimp image mainpulation program for photo retouching and image composition
- ImageMagick software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images
- Inkscape open source scalable vector graphics editor
- PuTTY: A Free Telnet/SSH Client
- FTP client and server
- 7-Zip file archiver which can handle compression formats such as 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
- Scribus open source page layout application
- AbiWord the free word processing program
- Gnumeric the free spreadsheet program
- Stellarium free open source planetarium
- Celestia free space simulation and space exploration program
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Re:How much effort should a person go to?So the answer is clear : contributing to FOSS projects on Windows is a pain.
On Linux, I never got these problems at all when contributing. Huh? His Mozilla complaint at least is project-specific not platform specific. There are no debug symbols avaiable on the Firefox download page. -
Re:Email-Design = Applied Stupidity!
My GUI MUA automatically detects URLs and makes them clickable anyway, even in plain text.
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Re:That old saying about SMPT
Thunderbird is Mozilla's standalone e-mail client with extensions (addons) like Firefox.
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Re:That old saying about SMPT
Thunderbird is Mozilla's standalone e-mail client with extensions (addons) like Firefox.
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Re:Firefox
There may not be a "change to default" button, but there is a "restore to default" button. At least on version 2.0.0.1 on Windows. Clicking that button changes the home page to:
http://en-us.start.mozilla.com/firefox?client=fire fox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
It is the Mozilla Firefox Start Page which is similar to the Google with the Firefox logo. -
Re:Are both ways fixed?
yes, go to mozilla.com
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Yay, new Firefox users!
My god, I don't know how I've missed this one. It's the most scary thing I've seen in a long time. I like to think I'm pretty savvy, and I stay up with all of the latest scoop, but this is the first I've read about this gaping security hole.
For the past half hour, I've been showing people I work with this exploit (I'm sorry, I refuse to call it a "feature"), and everyone's been forwarding e-mails to their home account with two pieces of information: 1) The ScriptingMagic site URL to play with at home and show other people, and 2) the Firefox URL to install as soon as they get off today.
Thank god I've been using Firefox for a couple of years or so now. This is unbelievable. The thought that an IE window in my background could have been sitting there all along, quietly capturing and reporting everything I put in my clipboard, is just unbelievable.
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Re:What About Thunderbird?
The beta was released yesterday. You can download it here.
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Re:Front End? Hardly
Yes the new look wasn't great so I just downloaded a theme and now it's very easy on the eyes, well at least for my eyes anyway. There's bound to be something in there you'll like the look of.
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Re:The Problem with Verizon
I'm running Minimo 0.16 (compressed with UPX4PPC - if you don't have this program, get it!) and it takes about 16 seconds from initial launch to complete loading the first web page (the first time I start it). I use the web a LOT so I allow it to run in the background all the time - time from launch to loading 2nd time and thereafter is less than 0.05 seconds. The actual browsing speed is much faster than PIE for even very basic pages (and it can load pages within 20-30 seconds that would lock PIE for 10-20 mins). Minimo definitely has a ways to go in the loading speed dept but it is quite fast otherwise. If you have Minimo installed on an SD card, try optimizing your SD settings in the registry to get the best read speed. One of the best parts is that it supports full CSS and JS so you can use the drag feature on google maps (http://people.mozilla.com/~chofmann/map.html)! Also, it can store the cache on SD so you can let it have any size disk cache you want (PIE uses up ROM for file cache). Any tips for me on software you use on your PPC-6700?
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Why bother? MS should use Opera or Firefox instead
Maybe MS is somehow is benefiting from the endless cycles of MSIE-based spyware, viruses, and general security problems. If not, then it (and we) would be much better off if MS should drop MSIE completely. Where does MS come out ahead financially? MSIE is probably the largest single public relations problem as well as one of largest security and productivity problems that MS produces these days.
The Netscape/DOJ v MS has been over for years. MSIE wastes our time, it wastes MS time. There's simply no need for anyone, even MS, to be wasting resources with MSIE. The public certainly has no reason to let MS foist on them such low quality security hole masquerading as a useful application. Drop MSIE or let users uninstall it completely.
Firefox and Opera are what people are using anyway. Go with the flow and invest the resources that would have gone into trying to keep life in MSIE go somewhere they'll actually have a chance of doing good.