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Shouldn't the Firefox team be more concerned about crashes? These two ABC news stories, Chavez: Low Oil Rates a Thing of the Past and Blair's Anti-Terrorism Law Wins Approval, for example, crash the latest version of Firefox (1.01) every time. The crashes have been known and fixed for 6 months (Copy and paste the URL, Bugzilla does not accept links from Slashdot.). They have been fixed in the recent developer builds (see bottom of page), but you are warned that recent builds may have other bugs. Shouldn't the developers of a program with "more than 25 million" users release crash fixes quickly or at least warn users?

More reports from users, sometimes imperfect, with minimal editing for clarity:

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11864609 "The last few releases have a habit of freezing up in various ways. It's not something that happens every day, but it happens a lot more than it used to."

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11865831 "... firefox DOES NOT let other applications that need it [memory] get it back. it [Firefox] routinely crawls the machine to a halt until it's killed and restarted."

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11866690 "[Firefox] really shouldn't use as much memory as it does, and it shouldn't have the memory retention policy that it does either. The amount of memory that it uses does matter, because it completely fragments the heap, it pushes the address space of other programs to disk, and it performs... [badly] after you've used another program that requires a lot of memory.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 68266 "basically after using firefox heavily for a while (many tabs open and closed, often on complex pages) firefox will start eating 100% CPU and become slow as molasses and never recover."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 75707 "I have found that if I load a PDF document and then use 'Back' to back up to the page which had the link pointing to the pdf document that Firefox crashes. Eventually, the adobe reader process also crashes."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63855 "I'm on a Mac, so it tends to only actually crash when it's loaded down and I hit a bad flash or java applet"

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63924 "Usually though it [Firefox crash] happens after an extend period of time, without fail really, as my lone firefox window often stays open for days on end, so while my usage habits aren't much (compared to some at least) in the short term, in the long term the crashes have been making me wonder if a memory leak may be the cause, but sadly I lack the time to investigate it myself."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 64110 "There are bugs that cause memory leaks and slowdowns, relating to plugins and Javascript. Any one of the page

Shouldn't the Firefox team be more concerned about crashes? These two ABC news stories, Chavez: Low Oil Rates a Thing of the Past and Blair's Anti-Terrorism Law Wins Approval, for example, crash the latest version of Firefox (1.01) every time. The crashes have been known and fixed for 6 months (Copy and paste the URL, Bugzilla does not accept links from Slashdot.). They have been fixed in the recent developer builds (see bottom of page), but you are warned that recent builds may have other bugs. Shouldn't the developers of a program with "more than 25 million" users release crash fixes quickly or at least warn users?

More reports from users, sometimes imperfect, with minimal editing for clarity:

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11864609 "The last few releases have a habit of freezing up in various ways. It's not something that happens every day, but it happens a lot more than it used to."

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11865831 "... firefox DOES NOT let other applications that need it [memory] get it back. it [Firefox] routinely crawls the machine to a halt until it's killed and restarted."

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11866690 "[Firefox] really shouldn't use as much memory as it does, and it shouldn't have the memory retention policy that it does either. The amount of memory that it uses does matter, because it completely fragments the heap, it pushes the address space of other programs to disk, and it performs... [badly] after you've used another program that requires a lot of memory.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 68266 "basically after using firefox heavily for a while (many tabs open and closed, often on complex pages) firefox will start eating 100% CPU and become slow as molasses and never recover."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 75707 "I have found that if I load a PDF document and then use 'Back' to back up to the page which had the link pointing to the pdf document that Firefox crashes. Eventually, the adobe reader process also crashes."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63855 "I'm on a Mac, so it tends to only actually crash when it's loaded down and I hit a bad flash or java applet"

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63924 "Usually though it [Firefox crash] happens after an extend period of time, without fail really, as my lone firefox window often stays open for days on end, so while my usage habits aren't much (compared to some at least) in the short term, in the long term the crashes have been making me wonder if a memory leak may be the cause, but sadly I lack the time to investigate it myself."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 64110 "There are bugs that cause memory leaks and slowdowns, relating to plugins and Javascript. Any one of the page

Are there any more plans to put weight behind the calendaring solution?

I know that Sunbird exists and there's now Lightning but the project details are quite vague. The Mozilla Suite could benefit greatly from a fully functional calendar, especially in the small business realm.

>> answers.com has a much cleaner interface than dictionary.com

Yep, just changed my longtime Mozilla d keyword.

There's a simple solution for Firefox users:
Adblock
combined with
This
will remove any of his ads, along with a ton of others.

According to this FAQ entry it does so, and this FAQ entry describes how too.

Nvu doesn't feel like a Composer replacement. It doesn't have a Mozilla animal-like name (I don't even know how to pronounce "nvu"*). It doesn't have a Firefox-like icon. It's not one of the Mozilla products. It feels like a fly-by-night operation, not a professional app like Firefox.

(* - Don't bother responding with how to pronounce "nvu". I could find it if I really cared. The point is not that I don't know it, it's that program names shouldn't be unpronounceable in the first place.)

The thing that brought people together to hack on Mozilla is that it was Mozilla -- the continuation of Netscape, even if it wasn't actually the same code as Netscape 4, and even if it didn't run yet. Brand is a powerful thing, even to hackers. I think the biggest thing that could be done for "nvu" right now is to make it feel like part of the Mozilla collection of applications.

Well, you can either use the Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut for new tabs or...

Get Tabbrowser Preferences. You can set up the program to open links and such in tabs, so you don't need to middle-click.

Then again, is she wants empty tabs, Tabbrowser Preferences can't help. So if she wants to use Firefox, she'd have to use ctrl+T (personally I like opening empty tabs too, and I always do it that way).

From what I understand, the Mozilla Suite is based off a toolkit called XPFE. This is not the case for Firefox/Thunderbird.

Could anyone please explain what toolkit these use and what has changed? I couldn't find this in the website/wiki/bugzilla.

For a third-party developper wanting to target the Mozilla platform, are there any deprecations they should be worried about from the technology at http://www.mozilla.org/xpfe/ ?

Oops, hit submit too fast, here is the link

Graymodern

Here is a link to The Book of Mozilla

From what I've heard, there may not be anymore "Firefox" and "Thunderbird".

There was plans to rename them as "Mozilla Browser" and "Mozilla Mail".

And lo and behold, my hunch is correct.

From the branding strategy:
Use the names "Mozilla Browser" and "Mozilla Mail" to describe the Firefox and Thunderbird projects after the 1.4 release.

So there will be Mozilla Firefox 1.4, but 1.5 and so on will be called Mozilla Browser. Firefox's popularity might change these plans though.

Phoenix when it was originally developed was intended as an alternative not an upgrade to Mozilla, an alternative to an all in one browser / mail suite.

Yes, but then see the current mozilla roadmap (http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap.html): I'll quote from the first key point ...

"Focus development efforts on the new standalone applications: the browser currently code-named Firefox, the Mozilla Thunderbird mail/news application, and standalone composer and other apps based on the the new XUL toolkit used by Firefox and Thunderbird. We aim to make Firefox and Thunderbird our premier products, and encourage extension authors and other ISVs to target these applications for their work as well." [my emphasis]

1. After a short period of me trying to frustrate you, I want you to learn to frustrate yourself. ("You don't give up.")
   
2. I can ignore elements of what was said before, in order to make my attempts to frustrate more seem more logical. (Ignoring that many people are reporting problems, and that there is obvious difficulty in characterizing a problem that takes a long time to make itself known.)
   
3. If you use a few words that I don't like, I can ignore whatever good there may be in what you did. ("... without all the "firefox is mission critical and godly" stuff...")

Note that first person to bring "god" into the conversation (by saying "ungodly") made it completely clear that he intended to frustrate the bug-reporting process. At that point, the bug became more a social problem, and not just a technical one.

No one should doubt the enormously discouraging influence that one angry person can have on a social group.

I was unable to find anything open source to do my taxes, and I do not trust my tax data to any company's servers, so using Wine in linux I installed the Windows version of Firefox, the Mozilla plugin for activex and H&R Block's Tax Cut.

Not totally open source, but it worked well for getting taxes done!

Not that I'm an insider and know for myself. I only know what publicly available on their website.

It's not that the Mozilla Foundation is evil - there are a few issues here. First, they aren't saying much. Pretty much everything we hear is coming from only Asa Dotzler, not official statements by MoFo. Second, the Mozilla Foundation does have limited resources - the points people are making about two products being difficult are valid. Marketing is another big issue. It would be in the Mozilla Foundation's best interest to present ONE front: the aviary products (Firefox, Thunderbird).

I don't think NIH is the big problem - the problem is that while Firefox could have been just the browser portion of the suite, it isn't. It looks and feels different. The people who like the suite like the look and feel of it. Switching to Firefox means giving up a mature, stable, familiar user interface for something different that changes a lot with every 0.1 release (for example, Firefox 1.1 will have a completely rewritten preferences panel).

One of the major concerns right now of developers interested in SeaMonkey is the development process currently used for the aviary products: gigantic patches are included without any review, and often with very little testing. Regressions are found by users, and they file bugs which get fixed. However, the lack of review still allows much lower-quality code to enter the source. Between the landing of the patch and fixing of regressions, nightly builds (which developers work from) are often in very bad (unusable) shape.

The SeaMonkey front-end currently requires not one, but TWO reviews of all code. Does this slow the pace of development? Yes. It's extremely difficult to thoroughly review the bigger patches (doubling a patch length probably quadruples the work), but it maintains high code quality, and minimizes the introduction of new bugs. It helps that the SeaMonkey front-end is already mature, because less development needs to happen.

In theory, the Mozilla project was supposed to offer a cross-platform application development toolkit. This toolkit would be maintained, and an application written for it should work properly on future versions of the toolkit. This would offer a way to easily save Mozilla: port it over to this toolkit (which is just a modified version of what it uses right now, minus thorough code review). However, there is doubt among the developers that the Mozilla Foundation will actually keep this toolkit in usable shape - the track record of Firefox developers has been "change what we want when we want to", which would mean any application using this toolkit would need frequent updates. Porting the suite to a toolkit like this would mean we get all of the downsides (less code review), plus extra maintenance work required.

Basically, I think most of the suite developers just want their favorite browser not to die, and not to be based on shoddy code.

"html sucks for equations"

Not sure what your standard is for "sucks" but MathML works reasonably well and is supported in Firefox/Mozilla, though you need some particular fonts.

Some of the MIT OpenCourseWare like, Calculus makes fairly extensive use of fairly involved formulas.

I wish it worked on Konqueror, maybe it does, but it didn't last time I tried it.

Probably would be nice if this stuff was supported in a more standard way in Linux/Firefox distributions too, without having to rummage around.

It would be great to see stuff like MathML and the MIT course ware get a lot wider exposure, especially to young people. Maybe it would counter the general bad education system, especially in the U.S.

I'm surprised at how quickly a port was done from Familar Linux to WinCE/WM2003. I have a Dell Axim X5 from a few years back. When extracted, the current version is about 15MB, 9MB going for winembed.exe. From what I've heard, users running WM2003SE have more problems than those you have slightly older devices. It seems like Minimo isn't using any windows mobile or ce.net specific APIs. The top bar is forced to the bottom of the screen, the bottom bar doesn't exist and the input toggle is forced onto the top bar. This caused a conflict with ICBar and will probably cause conflicts with similar ICBar based UI customization programs.

Forms and links don't work yet, but it is almost akward seeing a website rendered just as it would be on a full browser, especially after suffering through Pocket IE.

It looks good on the ipaq linux conversions.

Thank god. The crappy html browser in the windows smartphone platform (bastardized internet explorer) was the only thing holding me back from getting one of the smartphones out there today. Symbian is still a hot contender but most symbian phones are way too bulky for my use. For some reason the windows smartphones seem to be much slimmer. Sendo has a nice proprietary smartphone setup with their Sendo X but they still haven't worked all the bugs out. The ability to use a "real" browser with a smartphone just tipped the scales, goodbye Ericsson P910!
Link to minimo project
--Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County comes out to play

You're doing something on a non-professional level, and expect professional level results on the cheap? I don't think its going to happen.

Nah, that could never happen.

This is a really good idea.

The crash feedback systems in Mozilla exhibits this model of testing.

I think more of the casual user applications I run on the desktop should be compiled with debugging and a simple transparent mechanism for returning information to the developers about problems.

Nothing mandatory, no hidden information sent back to the mother ship, just a text file showing back traces, etc. that the user can see contains no sensitive information.

Thus all users become beta users that can feedback to the developer which bugs really matter.

Taken to the next step of optimization and UI design, developers can find out which code paths really matter in terms of real life usage if the application is instrumented with profiling turned on and the option for the user to feedback information this way. IIRC, some compilers have options to take advantage of run-time statistics to better compile the second time around.

I mean that Firefox can be a base for "rich client"

Well, not Firefox, but XUL Runner :-)

While Firefox has millions of users, and a dire shortage of developers and reviewers, the Suite is in a nearly opposite situation: plenty of interested developers, but relatively few users. In fact, the development community is so strong and interested in Suite that they're starting a project to "save seamonkey" (some info here). Some core developers have even hinted that they might stop working on Gecko if the Mozilla Suite is killed off.

The six would be the module owner and peers for Firefox, who are: Ben Goodger, Vlad Vukicevic, Mike Connor, Dave Hyatt, Brian Ryner and Blake Ross.

Is there much point to using Netscape since it uses the same engine as Mozilla and Firefox and Camino?

Put that another way: is there much point to using Mozilla and Firefox and Camino since they use the same engine as Netscape?

Netscape was more relevent when it based on the old Mosaic engine because that made Netscape unique.

Netscape never used the Mosaic engine. It used the, er, Netscape engine, which just doesn't cut it today. It didn't cut it in 1997, which is why they started NGLayout (now known as Gecko).

I'm sure they could revamp the old Netscape engine if they wanted to, they would just have to put some money into it... and we all know AOL will never do that.

Here's the code: http://lxr.mozilla.org/classic/source/. Knock yourself out. You'll find some docs at http://www.mozilla.org/classic/layout-classic/. Oh, and AOL funded the development of Gecko for five years, so you may wish to reconsider your statement.

Why use Netscape to browse with the Gecko engine, when you can use a more streamlined and optimized Firefox browser. Firefox was designed by people who know the secret tricks to really get the best out of Gecko, because they are the same programmers who actually made Gecko!!

No, they're not. Not largely anyway. Most of the people that work on the Firefox frontend (which is practically the only thing that's different from the new Netscape Browser 8.0 Beta) are not Gecko developers. And anyway, the version of Gecko you'll find in Netscape 8.0 Beta is practically identical to the one in Firefox 1.0. And Mozilla 1.7.5. And some version of Camino. And...

I still keep a copy of Netscape 2.0 Gold - does everything Internet Explorer can do.

Really? CSS? Advanced JavaScript? PNG images? Thought not.

Is there much point to using Netscape since it uses the same engine as Mozilla and Firefox and Camino?

Put that another way: is there much point to using Mozilla and Firefox and Camino since they use the same engine as Netscape?

Netscape was more relevent when it based on the old Mosaic engine because that made Netscape unique.

Netscape never used the Mosaic engine. It used the, er, Netscape engine, which just doesn't cut it today. It didn't cut it in 1997, which is why they started NGLayout (now known as Gecko).

I'm sure they could revamp the old Netscape engine if they wanted to, they would just have to put some money into it... and we all know AOL will never do that.

Here's the code: http://lxr.mozilla.org/classic/source/. Knock yourself out. You'll find some docs at http://www.mozilla.org/classic/layout-classic/. Oh, and AOL funded the development of Gecko for five years, so you may wish to reconsider your statement.

Why use Netscape to browse with the Gecko engine, when you can use a more streamlined and optimized Firefox browser. Firefox was designed by people who know the secret tricks to really get the best out of Gecko, because they are the same programmers who actually made Gecko!!

No, they're not. Not largely anyway. Most of the people that work on the Firefox frontend (which is practically the only thing that's different from the new Netscape Browser 8.0 Beta) are not Gecko developers. And anyway, the version of Gecko you'll find in Netscape 8.0 Beta is practically identical to the one in Firefox 1.0. And Mozilla 1.7.5. And some version of Camino. And...

I still keep a copy of Netscape 2.0 Gold - does everything Internet Explorer can do.

Really? CSS? Advanced JavaScript? PNG images? Thought not.

I actually worked with a Netscape engineer to write the patch. Unfortunately he then left Netscape to move onto better things and the patch then proceeded to bitrot. I needed review from Ben Gooder, who refused to look at it. Unfortunately their review/super-review system is a hangover from the first days of the project (and maybe the Netscape Navigator days) and simply doesn't scale down to the number of people working on Mozilla nowadays (which should be much larger for such a high-profile project)

The bug number is 16489 (copy/paste). Working on that pretty much wiped out any enthusiasm I once had for hacking on Mozilla.

Unfortunately, the Mozilla project is IMHO far, far too dependent on Bugzilla for interaction. There must be mailing lists, somewhere, but the newsgroups they used in the early days are sprawling and mostly abandoned. It looks like they have no good public discussion forums so the core Firefox developers retreated into a clique. Shame.

If you can think of it, there is an extension
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/morei nfo.php?application=firefox&version=0.9&os=all&cat egory=Humor&numpg=10&id=31

New Features (about halfway down): http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/2.0/in dex.html/

And XForms is big on Mozilla's to-do list http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xforms/#FeatureSta tus/

I doubt MSOffice will *ever* support XForms unless it becomes entrenched to the point that they have no choice (a la their early 90's view on the WWW).

Say what you will about XForms, but these are the first ventures I've seen from "mainstream" apps to support the technology, which could very well lead to general acceptance of XForms, provided the two implementations complement each other well enough. Free (quality) editor + everyone's favourite browser :) = rich client web apps available on any platform?, sounds like heaven to me. Technologies keep promising this same thing, maybe this one will actually deliver.

It's already open source. Suggesting to GPL it is just being zealot.

I'm not a zealot. I'm just uninformed. I went and read a bit of the Mozilla and Netscape Public Licenses and it appears you could very easily fork the Firefox project. So my basic point still stands. If development really does stall, it looks like it would be pretty easy for a group of new developers to fork the project and continue the development of Firefox under a new name. (Yes, yes, I know there are amazing problems in getting people to adopt. But it would happen, maybe slowly at first, but it would happen.)

(either that, or they're just not allowing sufficient access).

Architecture documentation

How to write Firefox extensions

From the article:

Of the six people who can actually review in Firefox, four are AWOL, and one doesn't do a lot of reviews. And I'm on the verge of just walking away indefinitely, since it feels like I'm the only person who cares enough to make it an issue.

What good is people submitting patches if no one is there to review the code prior to commit? Indeed, I submitted a very trivial usability enhancement to Firefox, and it was quickly swept under the rug. Perhaps it should simply be made into a plug-in, I don't know. Just thought I would share it as first-hand experience.

- shadowmatter

Well, I'm contributing $10/month to the Mozilla Foundation via Paypal. You can too.

I think some things need to be funded, and if Mofo needs the cash, then Cashdot should be able to help out (maybe do a sidebar-fundraiser or something)... I'd pitch in a couple of bits for my fave browser! Hell make it a contest so people can win firefox/mozilla SWAG!

I think some things need to be funded, and if Mofo needs the cash, then Cashdot should be able to help out (maybe do a sidebar-fundraiser or something)... I'd pitch in a couple of bits for my fave browser! Hell make it a contest so people can win firefox/mozilla SWAG!

WiMAX has a theoretical bandwidth (warning: pdf, see pg 5) of about 4.5Mbps per 3.5Mhz channel (outdoors, range 15km)

Thanks a million. I'm hoping it's suburban outdoor so I can download important stuff faster there. You know, like Vega Strike or something. <offtopic>I wouldn't put "warning: pdf" though--at least for those who have broadband and version 7. I have it on now and I was able to get to that page without waiting for no stinkin' badges. I mean, plugins. They know how important that is--just look at the first list item. (Version 6 users know what to do.)</offtopic>

What, you mean like firefox?

Subtle...

pop-up ads?

Good grief, they still do those?
Cure Part-1 - Cure Part-2 - Cure Part-3

Go download the new ForecastFox plugin and get the weather on your status bar from almost anywhere courtesy of weather.com - it's a really cool plugin - it shows me small icons representing now and the next 5 days in my area (near the coast in UK, West Sussex)

Mozilla says it doesn't.

Prior to installing Firefox 1.0.1, please ensure that the directory you've chosen to install into is clean and doesn't contain any previous Firefox installations.

If you can't trust Mozilla's own instructions for upgrading, who can you trust?

If anybody is using Firefox for Fedora Core 3, I made this RPM that incorporates this patch.

Did you also fix the regressions/related bugs caused by that path? See for example, bugzilla.mozilla.org bugs #246382 and #246999? Also try test case 1 or test case 2.

If anybody is using Firefox for Fedora Core 3, I made this RPM that incorporates this patch.

Did you also fix the regressions/related bugs caused by that path? See for example, bugzilla.mozilla.org bugs #246382 and #246999? Also try test case 1 or test case 2.

If anybody is using Firefox for Fedora Core 3, I made this RPM that incorporates this patch. It's based off the original Fedora Core 3 firefox SRPM. Let me know if you find this package that useful.

They've been working on it for a while. Check out http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/

I hated Flash and Flash adverts too, until I discovered FlashBlock.

and when will all the browsers support it..
http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/main.html
the simple stuff already works with:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/
samples

Now, I'm no expert on the Mozilla Public License, but it seems to state pretty unequivocally that if you make modifications you have to release them under the same license (just as with the GPL) including source code. Whereas the Netscape browser license says:

3. RESTRICTIONS. Except as otherwise expressly permitted in this Agreement, you may not: (i) modify or create any derivative works of the Beta Browser or documentation, including customization, translation or localization; (ii) decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code of the Beta Browser, or in any way ascertain, decipher, or obtain the communications protocols for accessing the AIM Service, or the underlying ideas or algorithms of the Beta Browser (e.g. in an effort to develop other applications or services that provide similar or substitute or complimentary functionality to the Beta Browser);

and so on. There is no mention of the Mozilla license and no source code. How is this legal? Did they buy special rights from the Mozilla Foundation or something?

First, download Mozilla Calendar

Next, configure Apache 2 to use WebDAV to access the calendar from anywhere. Uncomment these lines in httpd.conf:

[IfModule mod_dav_fs.c]
DAVLockDB /var/lib/dav/lockdb
[/IfModule]

Make sure /var/lib/dav and /var/lib/dav/lockdb exist and have read/write by the Apache user.

Add the following lines to httpd.conf:

[Directory "/www/mydomain/ical/"]
DAV On
[/Directory]

In Calendar, create a new calendar file, and point the Remote Server URL to:

http://mydomain.com/ical/foo.ics

Replace mydomain, the path, and the calendar file name with your
values. Check the "Automatically publish your changes..." checkbox.

Now you can access your calendar from anywhere.