Mozilla Jumps on 'Lean Browser' Bandwagon

fader writes "Following in the footsteps of fast (and often fantastic) wrappers around Gecko (the Mozilla rendering engine), Mozilla has just released their own lightweight browser, Phoenix. Only Phoenix will still use XUL, the cross-platform markup language used for the current Mozilla interface. Will it still be fast enough to overcome the final gripe about Mozilla, namely that it's just too slow?"

Comments

I timed it

[Publicus]

If you allow Mozilla to load itself into memory for faster startup times (only fair considering IE does it without asking) you'll find that you can get a page loaded faster with mozilla.

I tried it using both browsers on the same site with my machine at work. The difference was on the order of seconds...

IE is junk compared to mozilla. Also, the Orbit theme rocks! Take a look here.

Re:Gripe

[Jugalator]

The Mozilla IE Theme looks pretty much like IE to me, and I'm using IE regularly.

Of course won't solve the shortcut problems and if it's not customizable by editing some file (anyone know?), then I hope the Mozilla team will have that in 1.3 or so.

Screenshot

[Jodrell]

Here's a screenshot of Phoenix (mirrored here), if you're interested (via Google).

Tried it.

[DeadSea]

They cut out a lot of the Mozilla's best features to make a smaller browser. There is a note in the prefs under advanced saying "your favorite features will be here soon".

Gone:

• Themes. This browser has yellow buttons that look pretty good but a bit bright. You can go in the prefs and rearrange the buttons with drag and drop or choose small icons.
• Ability to block popups without disabling javascript.
• Fine grained cookie management. No more "alert me" and "remember this decision".
• Sidebar
• Chatzilla, Mail, Composer
• Site Navigation Bar

Still there:

• Bookmarks and bookmarks manager
• History
• Javascript Conole
• Download Manager
• Search plugins
• Tabbed browsing
• Cache

Since my computer is fast enough and has enough memory to run Mozilla, I don't notice that Phoenix loads faster. An older computer with less memory would probably be a better test. Since my favorite privacy features are missing, I have no intention of switching, but if it runs faster on older computers I would recommend it for that. (Please try it on something slow and report.) It might also be appropriate for somebody who wants "just a browser" because of the lack of other applications. The lack of these applications seems to only save a couple megs of download, again I'll take the full featured Mozilla.

Re:Tried it.

[mwa]

There is a note in the prefs under advanced saying "your favorite features will be here soon".

Just for grins, I copied my Mozilla prefs.js over the phoenix version. Theming doesn't work, but the proxy and tab preferences do and it appears to ignore onLoad for popups as well. Apparently, the Edit preferences ability is not done, but using the prefs.js does.

Re:Gripe

[benwb]

I'm at home right now so I don't have a windows box in front of me, but I'm pretty sure IE will find next by hitting F3

This is version 0.1, *not* 1.0

[TomatoMan]

This is not a finished product by any means, although the /. story says it's "released." It's the FIRST release, version 0.1, missing many features; 0.2 is in development now. Also, there's no mac version yet.

Re:This is version 0.1, *not* 1.0

[jacobito]

There will be no Mac version. The Chimera project fills that niche (with a Cocoa UI, to boot).

Re:Mozilla's Biggest Problem -- Poor Branding.

[mr3038]

Mozilla needs some marketing oriented types instead of more nerds.

Ever heard of company called "Netscape"? Mozilla isn't meant for end users. Quote:

Mozilla is an open-source web browser and toolkit, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability. Mozilla.org provides binaries for testing and feedback.

(emphasis mine)

Re:Gripe

[Tekai]

next try, i think theres a bug in the comment system code, preview as plain old text killed my link although i noticed my mistake and set it to HTML Formatted. Here is the url: http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html#keys