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Mozilla 0.9.6 Released
bluephone writes: "Yessireebob. mozilla.org has released the 0.9.6 milestone. Here are Release Notes and a link of files on the FTP server. For milestones 0.9.7 and 0.9.8, the focus is on performace enhancingment, and stability of the Mail/News end of the suite. And boy, is it getting good..."
Very nice release so far, mail/news seems to be "catching up" to the browser function.
... does anyone have a reasonable explanation on why the performance is so radically different between linux/win.
The tabbed browsing is almost up to galeon-level, though the speed is still slow, and its missing an (X) to close individual tabs. Use ctrl-w to close tabs in the meantime. This feature is quickly becoming my favorite.
One thing that continually bugs me is the total lack of performance of the linux builds compared to the windows builds. On windows, moz is FAST, and getting faster, and I don't mean just the turbo-load stuff
From my daily usage, mozilla on windows is "done" as far as for what I need to do, on linux, it still has a long way to go.
What is making mozilla slow on linux?
go Mozilla!
its looking really good - every release gets a lot more reliable, and has slowly taken over #2 from opera, and is now getting close to giving IE a run for its money. one thing i wish i knew how to do is make a nice solid, simple theme for moz though - i'm not too high on any of the themes i've seen so far.
regardless - this is not the mozilla devolpers jobs - they're doing a great job with the browser! the performance fixes they are referring to are also much anticipated - speeding this bad boy up would shut up a ton of critics.
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
If the only part of mozilla you like is Gecko, then use only gecko with a simplified interface.
For linux, try Galeon
For windows, try K-Meleon
From the release note,
System requirement
* Intel Pentium-class 233 MHz (or faster) processor
So your hardware isn't even covered by the requirement. However, Mozilla runs fine if you have a lightly loaded system, e.g. a clean install of Windows 95. I was able to run Netscape 6.2 on a Pentium 100 with 32MB RAM in Win95, and it outperforms Netscape 4.79 (try fancier pages like www.msn.com; simple pages doesn't justify what Gecko is capable of).
Your hardware is pretty old. If you're thinking about running Mozilla on top of X in unix, well, you're pushing your computer too hard
I've found every release better than the last, except for 0.95, which seemed to have gained a few more crashes. I'm excited to see how this one goes. Can anybody give me instructions on how to integrate the Netscape spell checker and change the language settings to en_GB? I tried following instructions for the spell checker before (installed the .xpi), but I couldn't figure out how to actually use it (were the UI bits removed?)
:(
Only comment so far on the latest build: it polls all of the news groups and servers in my Netscape profile when the news/mail client starts. This is bad as I have a load of crap in there, and a load that are only accessible from when I switch internet connections. I have to click cancel on a lot of dialogs before I can get going
Yep - it's pretty slow on my C64 as well.
Well lets look at the system requirements, which as we all know are very conservative
:)
Windows
* Intel Pentium-class 233 MHz (or faster)
* 64 MB RAM
* 26 MB of free hard disk space
Linux
* Intel Pentium-class 233 MHz (or faster)
* 64 MB of RAM
* 26 MB of free hard disk space
Since you probably can't upgrade your processor on your board maybe you should try and bump your RAM to 128MB or so? That would definitely help out. Otherwise I recommend you give Opera a shot. It's right up your alley and it works on Linux and Windows
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
9.7 (two months)
9.8 (six months)
9.9 (one year)
9.99 (two years)
9.999 (five years)
9.9999 (nine years)
9.99999 (thirty-seven years)
9.999999 (nine hundred and twenty-eight years)
(No offense meant to the Mozilla team - the last time I poked at it, it looked like a nicely developing and nifty browser).
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Interesting line from export restrictions, ...". And we all know that those areas will be non-exsistant :)
"This source code is subject to the U.S. Export Administration Regulations and other U.S. law, and may not be exported or re-exported to certain countries (currently Afghanistan (Taliban controlled areas)
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
Though I haven't checked 6.0 yet. If the Mozilla team can straighten out some of the plug in problems (for example, it takes some voodoo before java actually works), or at least come up with a definitive install procedure, we'll be rockin'. The browser is solid, but I don't want to have to be asked what MIME type an m3u file (winamp playlist) is. Heck, I don't actually know! I'm so used to it being taken care of. This kind of "plays nice with others" is something we take for granted - even if it's fake in Bill Gates' case!
Idea wishlist:
I'm a very busy person who does some good for the community already in his free time, so don't ask me to implement these features. I just don't have the time.
Perhaps this would be a good time to ask... does anyone know of a proxy that allows you to rewrite packets on the fly? I think the web's got to the point where I want to start overriding some HTML arbitrarily. I know regular expressions, so some sort of regex interpreter would be quite handy.
I duel boot between linux ... and Windows...
Pornzilla's goal is to turn Mozilla into a great porn browser. I started the project because I felt some important bugs were being neglected by Netscape engineers, even though they do a very good job with other bugs. (Are they not allowed to look at porn while at work?).
The web site includes several modifications to Mozilla that make it better suited for porn browsing and a list of bugs and feature requests related to porn surfing. If you have any other bug numbers or ideas for modifications, please tell me.
(Sorry for the duplicate message. I guess using "preview" before posting isn't a good idea when you've temporarily disabled cookies.)
But I'm curious as to why the connection to the ftp server was so solid and fast: is it a great example of load balancing ftp?, a sign that people are happy with pre-0.9.6 versions and aren't rushing to upgrade?, or is it (*gulp*) that people aren't interested in Mozilla anymore?
I'm not anti-Mozilla at all. I'm using it for browsing, email, IRC, etc. There are things I like about Konqueror, but I depend on Mozilla. Even my biggest "Internet Explorer"-only client is asking about recasting IE-specific development in Moz-compatible terms. Its just that the server is so fast it doesn't feel like the days of M15 - M18 when I had to fight for a connection...
As an aside: it's perplexing to observe MSFT dropping the ball on browser development. They've got the market wrapped up, but they don't seem to have capitalized on this lead (except the recent MSN fiasco). Or perhaps I'm not giving proper credit to Mozilla developers for pressing ahead with features and usefulness... With the licensing pain with MSFT and the maturation of Mozilla+{Gnome|KDE}+Linux it's getting more and more palpable to switch the enterprise away from the child-settlers.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Just my $.02 on why Mozilla is better:
- Mozilla is Open Source
Zealots aside, why is this better? Have you modified any of the source code? Have you contributed? Have you searched through it to make sure there are no back doors that mail out your keystrokes? Or are you karma whoring?
- Mozilla won't accept activeX or other such nonsense
Which limit's its use on heavily scripted, harmless, usefull sites. True, it saves you from mailicious porn webmasters who want to install their dialer programs, but that's not a problem if you know how to set up your internet security zones on IE.
- You can disable Mozilla's JS window.open()
A nice feature, true, but what happens when you go to click on a "help" icon and it can't open a new window?
- Mozilla has tabbled browsing
Which slows down the quick alt+tab everyone uses to switch between browser windows...
- Mozilla is standards compliant
Which is again nice, but means nothing if developers dont make their sites for standards, which they dont
- Mozilla doesn't redirect you to MSN (or AOL for that matter) and spill your privacy for all to see
Nor does IE, if you configure it correctly.
- Mozilla has a development team that cares about the end product
More ramblings from a zealot. I'm sure the IE programmers care about IE. They just dont feel the need to sit around and pat each other on the back in public message boards.
- Mozilla has site-specific image and cookie management
Internet privacy zones. From your top menu in IE6: tools -> internet options -> privacy -> click the edit button. Yep, it works in IE on a site by site basis.
- Mozilla is stable (close to 100%) and won't bring down the OS when it crashes
Just like IE6 (which hasnt ever crashed on me, even though I use it roughly 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the past few months)
So.... yea, you like mozilla. that's cool. use what you like.... just realize that every one of my arguments is absolutely true, meaning IE is "better and better" too...
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Just upgraded to 0.96, and now I see that Slashdot articles with large number of responses crash mozila (I already sent in reports with that crash feedback thingy). This is Win98 , celeron 366 with 512M of ram.
Only seems to happen on articles with a large number of responses (I'm a moderator and I'm trying to browse at -1 , but I can't).
Constantly crashes on Geek Gift Ideas 2001 and Microsoft Would Settle For The Children
I just uninstalled and reinstalled mozilla, and the crashes still happen.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Microsoft's answer to this failing was to make threading as fast as possible, and to push multithreaded programming as a hack around a fundemental OS problem.
Many OS purists think that using multiple processes is a hack around understanding multithreaded programming especially since traditionally there is a context/address switch cost from process to process versus when using different threads. Linux merely legitimizes this hack by implementing the clone system call and copy on write semantics for pages shared amongst processes which makes the worst problems with using multiple processes instead of multiple threads dissappear.
So, now Linux has both faster processes and threads, but thread performance still sucks.
This statement puzzles me greatly. How can Linux threads be faster yet their performance still sucks? Faster than what then?
mostly to support implementing multithreading in userspace (ick).
Huh? How is userland programs being able to create multiple threads a bad idea? Should creating multiple processes the only way to handle multiple tasks at once in an application?
So, the moral of the story is that Linux has a much better core, but seeing that the Linux community actually cares about standards, performance isn't quite up to snuff.
This statement implies that Linux has POSIX compliant threads which the last time I checked is not true especially since the primary kernel hackers (Alan Cox, Linus, etc) are against it. They specifically had issues with the inconsistent way signal handling is suposed to be implemented amongst threads in the same process if memory serves me correctly.
Now you can visually scan directories -- for that perfect Akira Fubuki cumshot, Anna Nicole Smith softcore clip, or nasty nekkid ebony hoe playing with vegetables -- simply by using the arrow keys, Return, and Backspace.
In order to enjoy a comparable masturbation experience with Linux, you must use a combination of Electric Eyes (for thumbnail browsing) and Netscape (for image viewing). Oftentimes, you will even have to use both hands to get the process started -- very inconvenient. Add in the fact that UNIX-like systems don't function very well with widespread use of spaces in directory names, and you have all the makings of an extremely poor monkey spanking.
Hey, let's get a MacOS user in on this. TRoLLaXoR, does MacOS provide easy thumbnail image navigation like Windows?
--
I like to watch.
According to the nightly build comments for Nov 20, there is a new theme page. If you check out the MozillaZine build comments here, you'll see the mention and the bugzilla bug number...
Note that I have not actually tried this myself... I'm just happy that other stuff is working as well as it is at this point with the nightly build from last thursday or so.
This is not meant as a Troll. If you are a Windows user, checkout the latest beta from Opera, it rocks. Choice of Single/Multiple document interface,new skins, and mouse gestures too! Still retains fastest browser credits. Give it a try.
I have tried to go over to mozilla as part of my slow conversion from Win to Linux. Thought it might be a good place to start.
When I installed Mozilla at 0.9.5 I was impressed. This app has come a loong way!
However, I have a couple of hickups, which someone might be able to help me with
- Load time Compared to IE, which takes 1-2 secs to load, Mozilla take around 8 secs to load. Not that much extra, but when my short term memory is 5 seconds, I most often choose to load IE, so I don't forget what I wanted to check out.
- Shortcuts I don't know who fucked up the shortcuts, but I must use alt-d over 100 times a day in IE, the shortcut that brings you to the address bar. I had a (not too investigative) look at the Mozilla help, and couldn't find any info on shortcuts, which brings me to
- Help You can't search the help! Hello.
- Search My seconds favorite feature in any program is text search, and I have found the search in Mozilla to be buggy (forgetting last search word and settings, needing to 5 click before it starts, not finding text which is there)
The most important to me is load time. I just don't see myself, only using Mozilla until load time is decreased. But hey, good luck to the dev team, I will hang in there.
-Kraft
Live and let live
Mozillas codebase currently is IE 6.0 level in terms of features quality, and speed.
It took Microsoft 6-7 years to get to this point, It took Mozilla 4 years.
4 Years is pretty good.
Opera is about 3 years behind Mozilla so dont even mention Opera. Opera isnt nearly as powerful, Opera is a light weight browser thats nothing special, its something anyone could have written up in a year or two.
Mozilla on the other hand has alot more features and the only browser to compete with it feature for feature is IE, currently Mozilla supports more standards, has better security and is more stable than IE 6.0 making Mozilla more complete.
When IE 7.0 releases, it will essentially be updated to be more secure, support more standards and basically be more like Mozilla.
As far as Mozilla 2.0, Mozilla has the base done, the base what took 4 years, once the base is done all they have to do for 2.0 is add a few new features most likely to support new standards, optimize it for speed to make sure its faster than IE and Opera, fix bugs so it never crashes, and then allow Netscape and AOL to intergrate ICQ, AOLIM, Winamp and so on into it in a way that doesnt make it seem overwelming.
Right now AOL isnt properly intergrated, but once it is, i see it being very useful, more useful than email for sure.
And ICQ intergration would be good too.
From there intergrate netscape into AOLs software suite.
Now while Microsoft fixes all their bugs and security, Mozilla will be adding new features.
If Mozilla developes at the pace it is right now, it will be about 2 -3 years ahead in development of Microsoft when 2.0 comes out.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I don't know about you but I use mozilla exclusively for the IRC chat program.
Got friends?
- You can disable Mozilla's JS window.open()
A nice feature, true, but what happens when you go to click on a "help" icon and it can't open a new window?
The mozilla anti-popup feature disables popups on window open, page load, and window close (and timers). So obnoxious auto-pops don't happen, but e.g. The Onion's horoscopes still work.
Sumner
rage, rage against the dying of the light
Here are a couple of build options that I frequently use in my .mozconfig when building mozilla to keep it running extreemely well also cutting alot of the cruft out.
These build options are for all the people that are complaining about shoddy mozilla performance under linux and people that would like to have a look at some really new features.
ac_add_options --with-extensions=all
Enables such things as the Chatzilla IRC client and the dom inspector(which I think is extreemely neat for debugging and viewing dynamicly changing html object model) also contains some very experimental things such as xmlterm.
ac_add_options --enable-mathml
Very neat standard for displaying math of all types and sizes in xml.
ac_add_options --enable-crypto
Great option, about a year ago this option wasnt even possible due to netscape not realeasing it's code due to US laws afaik. Now everyone that want to compile the lizard can get ssl support built right into the browser.
ac_add_options --enable-optimize="-O3 -march=i686 -mcpu=i686"
The main optimization part. This option has the biggest leaverage affect on the actual quickness of the browsre itself.
ac_add_options --disable-tests
Get rid of the unneccesary tests.
ac_add_options --disable-debug
We don't need any debuging symbols in th build if where not a developer do we.
ac_add_options --disable-shared
ac_add_options --enable-static
A nice new enhancement of the moz build system which links all of the modules in statically, im experiencing a big speed increase and a decrease of startup times with this option probably because it doesnt need to read each individual shared object from the hard disk.
Opera and Konq also have this nice feature.
I'm hoping Moz steps up to that plate soon....
What i want is a secret 'porn' button that i can press
There is one. But its secret.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Sorry but after installing mozilla and doing some performance tests with dhtml, mozilla is about 70% slower than IE6 (p4 1g ram winXP) even in simple animations making practical dhtml worthless in it and flash seems more attractive by the day as this isnt dependant on a slow javascript and rendering engine, which would be a shame.
:p
Load time isnt even an issue as its so slow even when its loaded.
Javascript to plugin communication still doesnt work out of the box (contrary to what the moz site says) at least ns4 supported it.
standards support is meaningless as no-one supports them , making it more of an "ideal" than a standard.
quote : "standards are great because there are so many to choose from"
i don't think m$ has anything to fear from mozilla in its current state, at least not in this decade
Try right-clicking on any link. The context menu that pops up has an option for opening a new tab. Likewise, right click on the newly appeared tabs and you can close them.
Go figure. Who would have thought that Mozilla users would be asking for a feature that Lynx has had for years. :-)
This is one of many reasons why I keep Lynx around: when I'm using a web interface to a bug-tracking system, and I want to, say, paste some code in to the "explanation" textarea before I close the report, I can just pop into my $EDITOR.
I don't know of any other *nix browser which lets me do this (but I haven't looked very hard).
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)