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> Opera 4.02 supports a tabbed interface much
> like the one in Opera 7. The tab bar can be
> docked at the top, left, right and bottom of
> the window. Tabs can't be moved around in
> this early version, though.

I say again, that was *MDI*, not *tabs*.

"Opera added the mixed window/tab feature in Opera 6 only after it had already been implemented in Mozilla and made it a new mode of browsing that can replace their MDI model. Remember, tabbed browsing is not MDI." -- http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/dave/archives/2002_ 07.html#002789

He seems to have gotten a bounty from the Mozilla Foundation for this.

Netscape also offers 7.1 of its venerable browser based on Mozilla code. It's available from www.netscape.com, but you'd better hurry: It'll be the last Netscape-branded browser AOL produces.

there will be future versions of Netscape that are essentially repackaged upgrades of Mozilla.

Netscape also offers 7.1 of its venerable browser based on Mozilla code. It's available from www.netscape.com, but you'd better hurry: It'll be the last Netscape-branded browser AOL produces.

there will be future versions of Netscape that are essentially repackaged upgrades of Mozilla.

The Mozilla press release even has a "click here" link to automatically install the patch! Who doesn't think that this kind of thing will have endless potential for hackers to exploit in the years ahead.

I don't think that. Because mozilla uses whitelisting to mark servers you're allowed to install from. If you try installing from another server, it throws up an error. A user would have to manually add a server to the allowed list before an exploit could be installed. Ofcourse, there might be a bug in the whitelisting system, but overall I think the approach is reasonably secure.

Why not just design a browser that works on multiple platforms, using an established cross-platform GUI such as wxWidgets, rather than going away to create a browser and coming back with another new, slow, bloated, universal uber-platform swiss-army-knife UI language...

Because you can't. I am not aware of any native toolkit that allows you to implement a browser fully compliant with the W3C standards, and wxwindows is even less capable than native toolkits. Mozilla optimizes by using native controls where it can, but if it didn't have the xul toolkit, compliance and compatibility would be a lot worse.

David Hyatt, who was/is a developer on both the mozilla and safari teams has written about the trouble with native widgets before. It's just not as simple as you would think it is.

I know, "Do it yourself dude", and plenty of geeks out there just love the customizability of XUL, but truthfully all I want is a fast, small browser. It just seems like everything is getting larger, slower and more bloated these days.

With modern standards being what they are, firefox is about as good as it gets. We're no longer in the days of html 3.2 (well, ok, slashdot still is, but that's beside the point). A browser nowadays has to do a lot more than just render html.

But if you think you can do better, please try.

Why not ask here, or here??

I just finished reading This Thread at Mozillazine which has a pretty good discussion regarding TRUNK vs BRANCH vs Aviary Branch, etc.

Moox isn't the only one providing custom builds (although I use them :) ), MozillaZine has a forum dedicated to custom builds (ThunderBird, SunBird, etc...). And if you can't find what you need there are several guides (and official ones) for configuring and building the source. I suppose the processor-specific optimizations are hidden somewhere too, bugzilla maybe?

Hm, I suppose you could check out this forum too...

Moox isn't the only one providing custom builds (although I use them :) ), MozillaZine has a forum dedicated to custom builds (ThunderBird, SunBird, etc...). And if you can't find what you need there are several guides (and official ones) for configuring and building the source. I suppose the processor-specific optimizations are hidden somewhere too, bugzilla maybe?

Hm, I suppose you could check out this forum too...

Although I would love to see Firefox do well, they do face some stiff challenges. I have been unable to use the scroll on my Synaptics touch pad and a mouse for months, and I have posted on all forums, yet I have not got a solution to it.

People just visit the Firefox support forum to make complaints, there is nobody to solve them.

Take a look at this posting I made in the Mozillazine forum.. http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=1272 73&highlight=scroll/ not a single user has a clue on how to solve it.

I'll be convinced IBM contributes as much as Sun to OSS when I see that IBM has GPLed AIX like Sun will GPL Solaris...

Funny, the latest I've heard was that Sun still isn't saying what license they plan to use for Solaris. Do you have a link to an article where Sun claims they will use the GPL? All I've heard from them is that they want to "take the model with Java and bring it to Solaris."

Personally, as a Linux user, I'm much interested in IBM's real contributions to the Linux kernel. Their intent is to make Linux capable of replacing AIX eventually.

I'm not just talking about mainframe and POWER ports, as an anonymous coward above suggested, either. Of course, we all know about JFS, NUMA, SMP scalability, and EVMS (the last of which wasn't accepted, in the end). IBM has also contributed work on ext2/3, IA-64, PCI hotplug, udev, USB, and a number of other projects.

...or that IBM has given a huge office solution like OpenOffice...

How many office solutions do we need? How about a huge software development solution like Eclipse, instead?

...or that IBM supports Gnome with code contribution/HIG...

How about donating code to projects like Mozilla, Samba, and of course Apache (and more Apache)?

Finally, let's not forget that it's IBM that is paying the legal bills that will prove that Linux is free of whatever UNIX intellectual property may still exist, while Sun has been pumping funds into SCO's war chest.

The delay isn't an insulting, newbie-proofing feature to "make sure you read the dialog". It's a fix for a real security hole: a race condition involving human reaction time. Because it is a fix for a real security hole, there should not be a setting in about:config to reverse it. I'm disturbed that I haven't seen fixes for the same security hole in Opera and Internet Explorer.

If you know that your worst-case reaction time is less than two seconds, you can change the delay.

Check out the thread devoted to Rebuilding TBE's featureset with other plugins at the mozillazine forums.

There are links to various small tab extensions so you can pick and choose the functionality you want.
This gives you only the features that you actually want without having to put up with the full Tabbrowser Extensions performance hit.

I use MiniT to give me drag and drop, all bookmarks in new tabs, and the order of focus, and BlankLast to prevent closing the last tab from closing the browser

Obviously different websites have different audiences, so the raw numbers have little significance unless you take a large sample of websites. However, it's the trend that is important here, and it seems to be consistently positive for gecko on various websites.

One problem with migration to Thunderbird from Outlook, apart from calendaring, is the ability to download Hotmail, MSN, AOL, or Yahoo! web mail. Mozilla doesn't do this.

Not that I think it's a necessarily useful or even sensible feature, but the point is that a lot of other people do.

On more than one occasion I have tried to encourage someone to switch to a less bug-ridden mail client only to be met with "But how do I check my hotmail?"

Therefore, I'd like to see this feature introduced, not for functionality, but as a migration incentive.

Better not read bug track forums if you think this way. Firefox, etc do the same thing. They talk about bugs before a release is due.

With businesses able to host their own messaging servers behind the firewall and use it with Apple's included IM client, will this effect Jabber's overall share of the IM market?

You assume that ther are enough "mac" computers in business to affect market share? Some companies are hip enough to use Macs in business. Many many many are not.

If MozillaFireFoxBird had built-in support for Jabber instead of having to download a special client, Jabber might find its way into more homes and businesses. Like the US economy, Mozilla is starting to gain some traction.

A decent list of unsung heros would be thousands of people long and still miss contributors that play(ed) very important roles in all of the open source software we use today.

I don't know nearly as many people as I should and I certainly haven't done enough to thank or otherwise praise many of the open source contributors who have been giving to projects, large and small, that I use every day. This topic has prompted me to start looking a little bit closer.

There is one person I do know who has had a huge impact on the entire open source world as well as my open source continent (Mozilla) that doesn't get the recognition she deserves.

Michell Baker of the Mozilla Foundation is definitely a hero. The author of the MPL and the Chief Lizard Wrangler for the Mozilla project, she has been a driving force behind the Mozilla projects since the beginning. Without Mitchell, Mozilla just wouldn't be where it is today.

--Asa

I used to love Tabbrowser Extensions, but it got bigger and slower over time until it finally became unbearable for me. I still think it's a brilliant extension, but I use Firefox instead of Mozilla specifically because I don't want one package that does everything. (:

Piro points to a list of smaller extensions that add features from TBE on an individual basis. I use a few of those and love them. But the one thing I really miss from TBE is the coloured tabgroups. I loved having related tabs all grouped together, and being able to close the group without closing all my other tabs as well.

I have a few years of experience writing/hacking Mozilla-and-family extensions, so I may eventually tackle this myself. But I'm quite busy (lazy) and I keep hoping someone else will miss it enough to write a tabgroup extension for me. (:

There's an extension called MozEX that allows you to use an external program for View Source.

TFA ended up describing the author's personal favourite extensions, so it kind of missed the point that there are extensions for almost everything, like what you need. Some good places to look for extensions:

• ExtensionRoom
• update.mozilla.org
• MozillaZine extensions forum (more intended for developers of extensions, but there are some neat finds there)

Like any other kind of software, extensions can vary in quality and stability. You might want to get other opinions of an extension you're considering before you install it. Fortunately, the new Extension Manager in Firefox 0.9 and up makes it easy to uninstall an extension. Before that came along, you had to do it manually which was tricky and easy to screw up.

More ideas about how to organize your toolbars in this handy Mozillazine forum topic:
Post your 0.9 custom toolbars here.

The most recent Firefox nightlies feature a new user-interface to manage the XPInstall whitelist. When a user tries to install software from a site that is not on the whitelist, a thin non-modal yellow bar appears at the top of the content area, informing the user that the install has been blocked (bug 241705). A button allows the user to add the site to the whitelist if they choose. Testers of the beta release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 will probably find the yellow bar familiar: it's almost a carbon copy of the new Internet Explorer Information Bar that appears when an ActiveX control is blocked.

Ok, it's the last item of three in the rightmost of three columns near the bottom of the page, or at least it was for me.

That seems about fair, especially seeing as last time I tried it (0.8) I went back to the suite within minutes, and that despite having never wanted nor used a mail client integrated into my browser.

Google has now taken it one step further and created a word-identification script filter as part of the login process.

This is true, if you consider mis-typing your password 5 times part of your normal "login process", otherwise, it still works like it always did, as the word identification script does not kick in until after you have mis-typed your password 5 times (seriously! go try!)

Personally, I find Google's gmail notifier annoying since it sits in my taskbar and doesn't have popup notification

Thats great and all except it DOES have pop up notification (not only does it popup, but you can right click the google icon on your tray and have it "tell you again")

Shouldn't I be free to use whatever third party software to check my email?

YES, you should be free to use whatever third party software to check YOUR (POP3/hosted/payed for) email. However, Google is also free to NOT allow you to do so with your free gmail account. There's nothing to argue about, if you don't like it, dont use it.

Will we be seeing controls on browsers that can view gmail next?

yes

Why was this article even posted to slashdot? There werent even links to outside sources (besides Gmail itself). This is just one guy writing up some stupid (wrong) comments, and it's on the freekin /. homepage.

May I suggest an alternative? Sorry for being off-topic (yet related to the parent post), but I believe this may be valuable to some.

If you access /. through a RSS feed, you'll both save some time (because of how fast reading a tiny feed file is) and get rid of the weird color schemes, because all links from the feed point to slashdot.org, no subdomains.

If you're wondering about a practical RSS aggregator, well, the next Firefox release will feature that (pretty basic, but it will). For the impatient, there are the nightly builds (but you know, no guarantees and all).

Just use Gmail Notifier 0.3.3 for Mozilla Firefox.

See also WebMailCompose Makes mailto: links load your webmail's compose page and adds a Compose link to the context menu. Currently supports GMail/Yahoo/Hotmail/Netscape/OperaMail/Mail.com/Ho rde/Squirrel and 1 user customizable entry. (Firefox/Mozilla Suite/Netscape 7.x)

And pagerankstatus

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=1046 70&postdays=0&postorder=asc&postsperpage=15&start= 0

A minimize to tray extension is in the works that would help this problem out to a degree.

Minimize To Tray Extension

The extension works pretty well for Firefox and Thunderbird, and if/when Sunbird allows extensions, it will be extended to work with that too. This of course means Sunbird/Calendar would always be running, able to send out alarms, but not taking up lots of room on the taskbar. At the moment, the minimize to tray extension is only for Windows, and it's not a perfect fix, but it may help out some people who just want any solution for this issue.

Since when have Mozilla folks started to work around IE brokenness, and why?

When? Looks like about July 2002.

Read the damn bug yourself. (Note: copy and paste the link, Bugzilla rejects visits from Slashdot.) It is not designed to encourage bad writing: support for document.all will ONLY activate if the web developer really was stupid and did not use any sort of test to detect it.

Additional discussion can be seen from the Mozillazine article published weeks ago.

I say, jones, this article sounds kind of familiar...

Not sure about formatting or images, but you can have a vertical tab bar in Firefox.

As in, all HTML email is broken on the import, just because some jackass(es) think this "isn't their problem." If it's not Thunderbirds' problem, whose problem is it? You expect a normal user to download a PHP or Perl script to fix the broken import process? Yeah, right. People with this attitude (it's not that rare) in open source projects should be told thanks for their contributions, but your efforts are no longer needed, and shown the door.

I use Thunderbird .7 and it's really slow and uses like 120mb of RAM. I figured it's just because I have 10,000 emails in one folder, but I like being able to search everything in the same folder. Is there a better way?

I posted the question in the forums but no one has answered it

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=6604 49#660449/

I previously had Mozilla Firebird 0.7 installed on Windows 2000. I've tried to migrate to Firefox befoew, but certain things (like Sessionsaver sessions and the theme) didn't work/look proper[ly].

For those that don't know, Sessionsaver can save tab /window sessions so that they come back up after closing and re-opening the program. It's really nice when you have 15 tabs that you have the way you like them and accidently close the window. Qute is the Firebird theme and the most popular on the themes site.

Previously, all of my settings for Firebird were kept in C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Mozilla\Phoenix\ and there was a file in \Mozilla\ called pluginreg.dat.

I have always downloaded the .zip files and put them where I want them, so if you install using an installer, YMMV.

Here's how I got my settings back with the Firebird theme and all of my tabs back open. There's no real haX0ring involved here, but in the case that any one wants to do this, this is what worked for me. (Gripes to follow.)

Download Firefix 0.9.3
I downloaded and unpacked the Firefox zip file for Windows (ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rel eases/0.9.3/Firefox-win32-0.9.3.zip).

Load Browser, Migrate Settings
Then, I loaded the browser and it prompted me as to whether or not I wanted my old settings migrated. I did, and selected the default options. The browser loaded and my homepage and network settings were there (YES!).

Download and Install Qute
Now, I liked the way Firebird looked and the way my tabs were saved by the Sessionsaver 0.2d extension. So, I went to the Themes manager and clicked Get More Themes. I downloaded and installed Qute. Then, in the Themes manager, I selected the Qute theme and clicked the Use Theme button. It didn't show up in my browser window right away, but I figured "maybe it needs me to shutdown and restart." So, I wasn't too worried.

Download and Install Sessionsaver 0.2d
Then, I googled for "sessionsaver", and got lucky. I installed the Sessionsaver extension. In the Extensions manager, it asked me if it wanted me to install it to my user preferences folder. It suggested that this way, it wouldn't have to be reinstalled when I upgrade the browser. I know that's not true, but I said yes, anyway. I loaded up an extra tab and a window to see if it would load them back up the next time.

Restart Firefox
Much to my surprise (and excitement), Firefox didn't open back up with my test windows and tabs, but my old Firebird session!

I went through this process again (making sure to remove my \Mozilla\Firefox folder and any added files and the program folder made when I unpacked the zip file), just to make sure I wasn't crazy.

Now, for the things that annoy me:

1) The Qute theme isn't EXACTLY like it was in Firebird. The buttos are shinier or something. I may write to the designer or search around for an older version if I can, but I'm going to live with it for now.

2) The Extentions, Themes, and Downloads windows suck up tons of CPU time when I move my mouse cursor between the panes and in and out of the windows. WTF?

3) The Download manager. I personally preferred the old progress windows from Firebird. I know there's an extension to allow me to use external programs for downloads, but I really did like those little windows. At least give me the choice of using the manager or the windows. The one function of this that I do like is t

One way to keep updated about Mozilla releases and developments in many different areas is by subscribing to one of the developer mailing lists:
http://www.mozilla.org/community/developer-forums. html

MozillaZine.org also does a good job of summarizing the development, but it's almost always 2-3 days late.

For the true cutting-edge lizard in you, there's always the feedhouse:
http://feedhouse.mozillazine.org/

And of course it has RSS feeds.

For those of you wanting to know when specific bugs have been fixed, I find the "edge" websites to be most simple to read (although not thorough):

The Rumbling Edge (for Thunderbird):
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/rumblingedge/

The Burning Edge:
http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/

Saddly, there is no information about the releases almost a day after they have been out on http://mozillaeurope.org/en/ ... I wrote a note this morning but I imagine they are submerged.

Enjoy!

One way to keep updated about Mozilla releases and developments in many different areas is by subscribing to one of the developer mailing lists:
http://www.mozilla.org/community/developer-forums. html

MozillaZine.org also does a good job of summarizing the development, but it's almost always 2-3 days late.

For the true cutting-edge lizard in you, there's always the feedhouse:
http://feedhouse.mozillazine.org/

And of course it has RSS feeds.

For those of you wanting to know when specific bugs have been fixed, I find the "edge" websites to be most simple to read (although not thorough):

The Rumbling Edge (for Thunderbird):
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/rumblingedge/

The Burning Edge:
http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/

Saddly, there is no information about the releases almost a day after they have been out on http://mozillaeurope.org/en/ ... I wrote a note this morning but I imagine they are submerged.

Enjoy!

I was only thinking about changing these to true only yesterday. I don't know why these are not enabled by defualt.

Well atleast .location and .status and possibably .titlebar, .close, directories, .toolbar and .personalbar

For more info
http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Firefo x_:_FAQs_:_About:config_Entries

-AC

My organization just dumped IE for Firefox

Mozilla Foundation Looking for Names of Organizations That Have Switched to Mozilla

Not sure how you're supposed to tell them about it, though.

'If you look at the copyright notice in the Netscape Store article linked to in the story you'll also notice that the store is run by MozSource which is the retail arm of the Mozilla Foundation.'

Not true. MozSource is a trading name for E-Flo, an completely independent company. E-Flo have been contracted to run the Netscape Store for donkey's years. Soon after the Mozilla Foundation was created, it quickly made a deal with E-Flo to run its store.

'If you look at the copyright notice in the Netscape Store article linked to in the story you'll also notice that the store is run by MozSource which is the retail arm of the Mozilla Foundation.'

Not true. MozSource is a trading name for E-Flo, an completely independent company. E-Flo have been contracted to run the Netscape Store for donkey's years. Soon after the Mozilla Foundation was created, it quickly made a deal with E-Flo to run its store.

Whilst many claim Firefox doesn't have the brand recognition that Internet Explorer does, it's getting a big push here in Australia.

Take a look at the front cover of the Sydney Morning Herald.
You can read the full article here.

Kudos to MozillaZine for running an article on it. :)
So yeah... people in Aust. are taking firefox seriously... most Aust. sites are getting hammered if they are not FF friendly. :)

Cheers,

M.

It's the first release since the Mozilla *Foundation* was founded just over a year ago. It was formed July 15th, 2003 and Netscape 7.1 was released June 29th, at the time it was expected to be the last Netscape release.

Writing something that parses XHTML is a LOT simpler than writing something that parses HTML.

How do you know that? Did you actually write both an HTML and an XHTML parser? While I didn't, I would also instinctively think that parsing a stricter language would be easier; but David Hyatt, however, who worked on Mozilla and now works on Safari, seems to think otherwise:

Every modern browser, including Mozilla and Safari, is much worse at XHTML than at HTML. People tend to foolishly gloss over the transition from one to the other, thinking that code you write for one will "just work" when you switch to XHTML. That simply isn't true. If you look at XHTML in both Mozilla and Safari and compare it to HTML, you'll see that it's slower, non-incremental, and generally buggier than HTML.

Writing something that parses XHTML is a LOT simpler than writing something that parses HTML.

How do you know that? Did you actually write both an HTML and an XHTML parser? While I didn't, I would also instinctively think that parsing a stricter language would be easier; but David Hyatt, however, who worked on Mozilla and now works on Safari, seems to think otherwise:

Every modern browser, including Mozilla and Safari, is much worse at XHTML than at HTML. People tend to foolishly gloss over the transition from one to the other, thinking that code you write for one will "just work" when you switch to XHTML. That simply isn't true. If you look at XHTML in both Mozilla and Safari and compare it to HTML, you'll see that it's slower, non-incremental, and generally buggier than HTML.

Check this out
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=7140 4

RSS Bandit (Windows)
Syndigator (X)

There is also a rss thunderbird extension Formzilla but you have to be using a version of thunderbird build with the xmlextras extension... it is all described in the post.

This is possible now, using Mozilla autoconfig. Unfortunately this excellent feature is relatively unknown, and woefully underdocumented. Here's one of the few (only?) guides, and a mirror. Additional information about Mozilla profiles is available in this forum topic at Mozillazine.

One thing that Mozilla has proved to the software community is that Open source projects can survive. And they can make a decent (if not in billions of $) profit. I think the main reason behind Mozilla's success are the developers. I am not talking about the on and off developers, but people like Asa Dotzler, Doug Turner, Christian Beisenger, Mitchell Baker, Boris Zbarsky, Brendan Eich, and the other drivers of Mozilla and not forgetting the countless others who are developing applications *using* Mozilla. Three cheers to everyone. I think the Mozilla foundation has evolved a wonderful business model for any entrepreneur looking to build software based on OSS.

One thing that Mozilla has proved to the software community is that Open source projects can survive. And they can make a decent (if not in billions of $) profit. I think the main reason behind Mozilla's success are the developers. I am not talking about the on and off developers, but people like Asa Dotzler, Doug Turner, Christian Beisenger, Mitchell Baker, Boris Zbarsky, Brendan Eich, and the other drivers of Mozilla and not forgetting the countless others who are developing applications *using* Mozilla. Three cheers to everyone. I think the Mozilla foundation has evolved a wonderful business model for any entrepreneur looking to build software based on OSS.