Slashdot Mirror


Phoenix 0.2 Web Browser: Lean, Mean Mozilla

GonzoJohn writes "Linux Orbit reviews the Phoenix 0.2 web browser: 'I've never been a huge fan of the Mozilla web browser. It's too big and too slow in my opinion. I like the Opera web browser a lot, but it is closed source, ad supported (for the free version) or costs money (if you want to get rid of the banner ads). Opera is almost exactly what I'm looking for in a web browser as far as features are concerned: fast, browser window tabs, mouse gesturing, and I can configure the interface a little. It has its problems, no doubt. Java and Javascript are big tripping points for it to name just a few. But speed is what I'm looking for. Then along comes Mozilla's Phoenix web browser. Phoenix still uses a lot of the Mozilla code. In fact, Phoenix code is based completely on Mozilla code, so the development should move rather quickly. Here is a link to a road map for what it's developers think is a close time-line for its development. Although still in heavy development, I have found Phoenix quite useable and stable even in the early 0.2 release and I continue to download the nightly release every day.'"

539 comments

  1. I like it. by Zonekeeper · · Score: 0

    Leaner IS better.

  2. Palm OS version needed by darnellmc · · Score: 1

    They need a version of the browser for the PalmOS ;o) .

    1. Re:Palm OS version needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should check out http://www.zframe.com. Full featured browser for PalmOS and WindowsCE.

    2. Re:Palm OS version needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you for a link to the most buzzword-laden site I have visited in the last week (quite a feat as I've been researching XML/XSL quite heavily). I'll admit that Plucker (which is Free Software, unlike zframe) doesn't do forms, but it (and several other readers) do a fine job with a decent subset of HTML on PalmOS. What I'm really curious about is whether zframe can render the f*cking flash demo of their "interface" on my PalmOS? Whaddya think? If their approach to software development is even remotely as lame as their web design and marketing skillz, I'd say that your company is better off hiring a C programmer to design a custom PalmOS app for whatever your needs are.

    3. Re:Palm OS version needed by rapidweather · · Score: 1

      They need to get the one they have running right first. I find some problems with Phoenix 0.2 on some web pages in the area around the .gif files. Netscape 4.79, and Opera 6.05 render these items correctly, so Phoenix should also. I should mention that these tests were performed on ET4000, 512K graphics, which is old, out of date stuff. Works with above mentioned Netscape and Opera (win 98), however. I have tested the Linux version of Phoenix 0.2, with a 4 MB graphics card, and everythings fine there. Was pleased to find that the Linux verson has all of the features of the Windows version, something that's not always found. I heard that the Netscape 4.51 that comes with Redhat 6.1 is really a port of a Windows 3.1 version, so it is not up to par with the Windows version of that number. Currently I am testing Phoenix 0.2 with a 2 MB S-3 Trio 64v+ card, and it's ok there. May not be as fast (once booted up) as mozilla, but it's hard to tell, and I have heard that they are going to optimize the code a bit in 0.3 due out Tomorrow.

    4. Re:Palm OS version needed by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      Well, the rendering engine *is* mozilla, there isn't any defference between the two in that respect. I would have to say it's either a problem with the mozilla code at that moment (it's not using "stable" code...) or a problem with your setup. I'd opt for the earlier, considering even they said any rendering problems are from mozilla's codebase.

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
    5. Re:Palm OS version needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I heard that the Netscape 4.51 that comes with
      > Redhat 6.1 is really a port of a Windows 3.1
      > version

      Ahhhhh...would guess it's a port of the early SGI/Solaris versions...

    6. Re:Palm OS version needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not being an expert on web design, I'll pass on defending the web page. The most important thing to mention is that Plucker is not so much a Browser as an Offline Html Viewer. The ZFrame browser is an actual browser allowing you to surf in realtime on most PalmOS devices with most types of internet connections.

    7. Re:Palm OS version needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cool this will end the buggy IE from MS (evil empire) but wait RH 8.0 is kicking windows ass now

    8. Re:Palm OS version needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are all your computers old and shitty? I mean, you don't even have old, GOOD stuff.

  3. Roadmap Link by neurostar · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is the link to the roadmap: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/phoenix-ro admap.html

    neurostar
  4. IE by DBordello · · Score: 3, Troll

    As sad as I am to say, until now nothing has really competed with IE. Mozilla is nice (as I am using it right now) but it is big and bloaty. Perhaps this is finally a solution that is as reliable (hmm) as the MS browser and as quick (hmmm).

    1. Re:IE by bsharitt · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Perhaps this is finally a solution that is as reliable (hmm) as the MS browser

      Please don't make Mozilla as reliable as IE, It's to young to die already.

    2. Re:IE by SpookyFish · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sad but true. While Mozilla has made amazing progress, especially in the last year, it still doesn't come close to IE.

      I know, I know, it starts fast because MS ties it so tightly to Windows, it doesn't really do CSS right, it is a security nightmare, etc, etc.. but the bottom line is, considered as a TOOL, IE 6 is the best there is. I rarely have fewer than 10 browser windows open or minimized, 99.99% of pages always render right (because designers have to test with it), and it is extremely stable -- crashes perhaps once-twice a month on average.

      Even though it is still behind, I hope like anyone that Mozilla's rapid improvement continues (with projects like this) and it becomes a superior solution.

      The thing that still scares me is 'why?' -- IE is solid enough that Mozilla needs to do something more than just reach parity to get any real foothold, at least on Windoze. Cm'mon, AOL, switch!

    3. Re:IE by by+hemos · · Score: 1

      Perhaps this is the final solution

      I'm shocked and appalled that you refer to such a dark point in history when trying to make a point about web browsers.

    4. Re:IE by unapersson · · Score: 1

      I can't see how you can say Mozilla doesn't do CSS right and then hold up IE6 as a better example, Mozilla's CSS support surpasses IE6's by a long way. You can do stuff that isn't even possible in IE6 with Mozilla, just try using some of the CSS2 selectors or position: fixed. IE took long enough to get the box model right.

    5. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As sad as I am to say, until now nothing has really competed with IE

      Galeon is a great browser. It uses mozilla's rendering engine but is lighter and faster. It has a few features not found in mozilla also.

      Of course if you're stuck in the windows world you don't get to experience the niceness of galeon. Galeon is reason #443887 to switch to linux now!

    6. Re:IE by cioxx · · Score: 5, Informative

      I am replying to this post in Phoenix 0.2 running on Windows 2000.

      SWEET MERCIFUL CHRIST ON A MOTORCYCLE TALKING ON A MOBILE PHONE!@$ This thing is fast as hell.

      I'm really glad it did not go the way of Mozilla interface, which looks like Netscape. Part of the Mozilla trouble is just that. People presume it's the "old" netscape and are reluctant to keep it on their systems.

      Furthermore, I love it how Phoenix does not integrate into your OS like a multi-headed hydra. Tabbed browsing is a plus. Still achievable with netcaptor on IE 5.x/6.x but not a native application.

      This will be the browser I will use on Win2k when they figure out how to dock the google toolbar on it.

      Also, many windows users confuse the IE loadtime with page render time. It's a common misconseption. I am sold on Phoenix.

    7. Re:IE by damiam · · Score: 1

      He's saying IE doesn't do CSS right. Read it again.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    8. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Arguing that IE6 is superior despite it's security problems is like arguing in favor of a certain make of car "even though theres a 20% chance it will explode when you apply the gas pedal". Do you realize that anyone could make a website that could erase your hard drive if you use IE6? We're not talking about little bugs here, or CSS rendering issues (though it has plenty of those...).

      IE6 has new remote code execution vulnerabilities every month, often every week. How can you seriously use it? It's only a matter of time before some kiddie makes your windows box into a dd0s zombie.

      Do you really trust the authors of every website you view?

      Mozilla isn't perfect by any means, but IE6 isn't safe to use at all. You're gonna get 0wned if you don't wise up.

    9. Re:IE by SpookyFish · · Score: 1

      Actually, my comment was that IE *doesn't* do CSS right, and an implication that Mozilla does it better. Still, it doesn't matter much when people must design for the IE masses.

      Thank god they are both much closer than in the hell days of IE vs. NS4.

    10. Re:IE by Negatyfus · · Score: 1

      Sorry, have to disagree. I can't understand why there are still people who prefer IE over Mozilla. I'm not gonna bash MS here or praise OSS, but I find IE a nightmare to work with! I can't live without tabbed browsing anymore, and I can't do without disabling popups anymore, neither. I think the interface is more userfriendly. I think it's not that bloated; I even use the mail client over Outlook, which most definately *is* bloated. I suppose these people are trying to run Mozilla on a PII-233 or something similar. I don't notice any significant difference in performence between IE and Mozilla on anything bigger or better than 800Mhz Pentium III, which is rather mediocre these days. Mozilla has the better features and does the stuff I need done better than IE. So what's the better tool (at least for me)? This had to be said. I mean it, too.

    11. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IE sucks ass and you know it. If you must use a proprietary browser then use opera because it's un-crap

    12. Re:IE by rseuhs · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Who modded this as insigtful?

      The post contains several reasons why IE sucks "it doesn't really do CSS right, it is a security nightmare" but the conclusion is "Mozilla still doesn't come close to IE".

      Goddamnit, use the "quickstart" option. Your only complaint is solved.

      Mozilla has so many handy features like popup-blocking, tabs and so much more than IE that it beats IE hands down.

    13. Re:IE by jameslore · · Score: 1

      I'm sure a quick reality check will reveal that holocaust is a word in the dictionary, and use of it is not tied to Hitler's Final Solution.

      While it was an *extremely* dark point in history, claiming a word or phrase exclusively is just plain silly.

    14. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IE is total crapware. .., mainly because you must use Windows to use it. The "bloat" comes from adjusting the code to work on Windows, I mean, crapping up some really good code. Mozilla is smaller than IE, has far less bloat, is twice as fast, and adheres to WWW standards much more than IE. Admit it, you like IE because you are stuck in Windows. Poor guy!

    15. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess you haven't seen galeon.

      It is far superiori to IE.

      Regards,

      Kubus

    16. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      800PIII mediocre? For a home user, yes. Business desktops, no. And isn't that the pie in the sky?

    17. Re:IE by plague3106 · · Score: 1

      I'm not really sure what all the big and bloated is about. I can tell how big moz is, but i can't really say the same for Ie, since alot of it is in the OS.

      As far as speed goes, it renders quite quickly. Network latency is usually responsible for slow load times, and it seems Moz handles grabbing the pages better. There are times where Ie just doesn't want to get the page.

      I wonder how big and slow moz would really be if it was in fact an embeded piece of the OS.

    18. Re:IE by doorbot.com · · Score: 2, Interesting

      [IE] crashes perhaps once-twice a month on average

      Is that a plus or a minus? Mozilla never crashes on me, so I have to wonder why you think a crash per month is good. Maybe you're one of those people who just "accepts the fact that computers crash" to which I say, "I'm very, very sorry for you."

    19. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aside from your bigoted statement, you can configure Mozilla to do direct Google searchs from the location bar.

      I don't remember if Phoenix has this or no.

    20. Re:IE by plague3106 · · Score: 1

      and it is extremely stable -- crashes perhaps once-twice a month on average.

      Thats quite alot. I don't think moz has crashed once on me since i installed it. And IE crashes alot more for me. Which is really annoying when you're developing for it.

    21. Re:IE by Yorrike · · Score: 2, Informative
      Well I use Galeon on my Linux boxes, which means I can have all sorts of search boxes in the tool bar (the most useful being the dictionary).

      If you'd like a Googlebar in Mozilla, try googlebar @ mozdev.org. I haven't personally used it, but it seems to be what you're looking for.

      --

      Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?

    22. Re:IE by nirvdrum · · Score: 1

      Even with the quickstart option, it isn't nearly as fast as IE. Plus, it eats a significant amount of memory. IE isn't a lot better in this regards, but it's still better than Mozilla in my book. Of course, this is all IMHO, and surely isn't an authorative answer like yours.

      The fact of the matter is, on different hardware and software configurations, no browser (or any application for that matter) will work the same every time, and what works great for you, may not do so for somebody else. That doesn't make any one person's way the right way, or any one person's experience "better" than another's.

      --
      If there was a "-1 Not Funny", that'd be my most used mod.
    23. Re:IE by nirvdrum · · Score: 1

      The fact of that matter is, it isn't. People don't care how fast/slick/lean some piece of software would be in a hypothetical situation. They care what it is in the current situation. Like it or not, this tends to be harsh reality more often than not.

      --
      If there was a "-1 Not Funny", that'd be my most used mod.
    24. Re:IE by Xoid629 · · Score: 1

      Phoenix does have it's own search bar that can be used for Google, but it doesn't have all the features of the Google Toolbar.

    25. Re:IE by NineNine · · Score: 1

      Well, it's only been a few years, and I'm still waiting for Mozilla to support something as simple as click() on an anchor tag. Fuck the fancy stuff. They need to get the basics working.

    26. Re:IE by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2

      Quickstart has never worked for me. Mozilla is actually *slower* opening when quickstart is on sometimes. WinXP pro, PIII 500 Mhz, 128 MB RAM. The problem is that Mozilla is loaded into memory, and then it gets swapped out to the hard disk while it isn't being used. To bring it back up again, it has to be loaded back from disk, only in a very random and un-optimized fashion. The same thing happens when I minimize a mozilla window and do other tasks for a while. Mozilla gets swapped out and when I click its taskbar icon, it takes freaking forever for it to come back up, and all the while the disk is thrashing making it impossible to do anything else. IE doesn't have this problem since it practically is the desktop shell by itself, and it is always in use. Plus I wouldn't be surprised to see some code like if(isMicrosoftSoftware) dontSwapOut(); down in the bowels of Windows somewhere.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    27. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since it is virtually impossible to remove IE completely from startup, including the core, difficult to say whether Mozilla really takes that much more memory.

      IE *does* use native widgets which may help a bit, but probably not that much.

      Mozilla definitely renders pages faster, and with all my machines at 512MB or more, 40-50 for a browser is trivial.

    28. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      holocaust is a word in the dictionary ... not tied to Hitler's Final Solution ... claiming a word or phrase exclusively is just plain silly

      To attempt to justify Hitler's Final Solution because 'holocaust' is a word in the dictionary is the moral equivalent of Holocaust Denial. You should be ashamed of yourself!

    29. Re:IE by bergeron76 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      99.99% of pages always render right (because designers have to test with it),

      99.9% of pages render right on it because in the past they had to use it. My site conforms to W3C standard precisely and as a result it fails to render properly in IE6. Oh well. Mozilla renders my site perfectly (along with every other w3c-compliant browser out there). As long as myself and other fellow web-designers develop with compliance in mind, it appears that MSFT will be the one playing "catch up". Unless of course, they decide to "embrace by abandoning" features of the standard they don't agree with.

      and it is extremely stable -- crashes perhaps once-twice a month on average.

      Crashes what? The browser crashes, or the browser crashes your system? With IE6 I can see how this is a concern. Hence, another reason why I choose Mozilla. Coupled with all the extra features that it offers and portability, I've finally replaced IE forever. MSFT will likely _NEVER_ offer a popup-killer option because too many of their corporate rapists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H bedfellows wouldn't allow it.

      --
      Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
    30. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never had any speed problems with Mozilla. I can't tell any difference in load times of IE and Mozilla. I guess it depends on what kind of machine you run it on (i.e. how powerful).

    31. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a perfect solution, but ever considered getting an extra 512 megs of RAM? It'll only run you like maybe 40 bucks now, and the difference, ESPECIALLY in windows will be amazing.

    32. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I know, I need more RAM. I'm holding out for a whole new computer, but I don't know when that will happen. Hopefully soon.

    33. Re:IE by rseuhs · · Score: 2
      Phoenix uses much less memory than Mozilla.

    34. Re:IE by Julian+Plamann · · Score: 1

      I second that. This is a dream come true!

      I just installed the Linux binaries on my FreeBSD box and they ran perfectly. Installing was as easy as untarring and running ./phoenix. Very, very fast.

      Many thanks go to the developers of Phoenix. Keep up the good work.. 8)

    35. Re:IE by jameslore · · Score: 1

      I'm speechless. What can I say? I try to avoid personal insults in forums but you're pushing the limit.

      Homework for tonight.
      1) State where in my statement I justify any form of genocide.

      I'm just making a comment about overprotectiveness of language. You appear to be trolling without due cause.

    36. Re:IE by igriv · · Score: 1

      Popup-blocking? How?

    37. Re:IE by Micah · · Score: 5, Funny

      > Plus I wouldn't be surprised to see some code like if(isMicrosoftSoftware) dontSwapOut(); down in the bowels of Windows somewhere.

      Whoops. I think you mean:

      IF isMicrosoftSoftware THEN
      dontSwapOut
      END IF

    38. Re:IE by fireklar · · Score: 0

      Using keywords, it's pretty simple to set up Mozilla to search, lookup words, etc, from the address bar. Probably my second favorite feature of Mozilla besides tabs.

    39. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe people have their settings screwed up, but after I click the quickstarter, the mozilla navigator window is up faster than I get my mouse their to use it.

      IE, on the other hand, takes a good second at least.

    40. Re:IE by billcopc · · Score: 1

      Bitches please! IE6 on Windows 2000 is rock solid. I don't know about XP as I don't run that one 14 hours/day on my overclocked athlon, but IE6/W2K can't be beat.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    41. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This will be the browser I will use on Win2k when they figure out how to dock the google toolbar [google.com] on it.

      you allready have a toolbar in phoenix. you can search the document or your favorite searchengine for the word you type in.

    42. Re:IE by Metrol · · Score: 2

      I just installed the Linux binaries on my FreeBSD box and they ran perfectly. Installing was as easy as untarring and running ./phoenix. Very, very fast.

      THANK YOU soooo much for this post of yours. I would have never bothered to try the Linux binaries out otherwise. Just assumed it wouldn't fly without some mucking around, or compiling from source for FreeBSD. Talk about multi-platform!

      It really does work wonderfully. I'm getting some errors about not being able to locate libpixmap.so, but otherwise it appears to be functioning very nicely.

      The parent post put it as eloquently as anyone could. This thing is working at 1.0 quality for me. Loading up at just a hair slower then Konq (yes, I raced them). Moz rendering, Konq load speed... this app was LONG overdue. I'm a convert.

      --
      The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
    43. Re:IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      As long as myself and other fellow web-designers develop with compliance in mind, it appears that MSFT will be the one playing "catch up".

      Most of your fellow web designers don't develop with standards-compliance in mind, but with satisfy-the-users in mind. And when the users are mostly using IE, that means they design for IE. I'm guessing that you only build sites for yourself, and not for paying customers...

    44. Re:IE by hplasm · · Score: 1

      Yeah! Mozilla will sit and run all day on a Windoze box and not crash out once! What good is that, when IE can self-destruct within minutes. Get those basics sorted out you developers or you'll never be as fast as IE where it really counts...

      --
      ...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
    45. Re:IE by Dreddamo · · Score: 1

      It's nearly as fast (IE still has that shell integration accelerating it on startup), it renders faster (at least in my subjective view), it has the tabbed interface which is just wonderful, a fully XML'ed navbar (meaning altering your navbar is as easy as drag 'n drop - oddly enough a concept MS made famous :D), and best of all, the dev team gives you a roadmap which shows what they think is important - and I like what I see. Again, that's a personal opinion, but...when was the last time you've seen (f)actual development information coming out of MS...

    46. Re:IE by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 2

      Try opening the prefrence window on the NS based browsers sometime, you might be suprized.

      You might be shocked how horribly ugly IE is at everything (from navigation to rendering) after you get mozilla tweaked to your needs, I can hardly browse in IE anymore w/o getting mad at the slow clunky interface.

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
  5. browser requirements by edrugtrader · · Score: 4, Funny

    configurable interface
    tabbed browsing
    full DOM support
    full javascript support
    intelligent form autofill
    intelligent address bar
    full porn support

    --
    MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
    1. Re:browser requirements by Jonny+Ringo · · Score: 2

      Yes, I agree. The PPM rate is extremely important in browsing.

      That's Porn Per Minute rate.

    2. Re:browser requirements by BrookHarty · · Score: 3, Informative

      full porn support

      I noticed that loading large tables of thumbnails is quite slow on Mozilla. Very slow compared to other browsers. 100+ images can really task Mozilla. Checking Bugzilla, it seems to be a known problem, but I couldn't find an exact bug for this problem, a few evangelism bugs on coding styles mostly.

    3. Re:browser requirements by selmer · · Score: 5, Informative

      Turn on enable pipelining in preferences->advanced->http-networking, it greatly improves your porn browsing-speed.

    4. Re:browser requirements by Bonker · · Score: 4, Informative

      Funny you should mention porn support.

      One of my favorite web browsing features comes from a project called Pornzilla, an effort to turn Moz into a better poon-viewing platform.

      At the link above, there's a neat little javascript-bookmarklet which will open a new window and populated with all images linkd to on any given page. You can then save just the images en-masse or view them without clicking to and fro a bunch.

      Yes, it's a neat invention for porn surfers. It's even better for any kind of web artwork or to check image links on a page you're developing. Unfortuneatly, it chokes on donkey balls on sites that check referrer headers before serving images.

      --
      The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
    5. Re:browser requirements by (startx) · · Score: 1

      thanks!

    6. Re:browser requirements by damiam · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Well, it does integrate libpr0n.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    7. Re:browser requirements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually the http_referer is sent by the browser. Why don't Pornzilla fake it to fool sites checking headers?

    8. Re:browser requirements by edrugtrader · · Score: 2

      its funny to me that people modded it funny. i was serious. if my browser hangs on graphic intensive pages, well, that leaves me hanging as well.

      --
      MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
    9. Re:browser requirements by GreenKiwi · · Score: 1

      This isn't a feature in Pheonix yet, is it? I couldn't find it. Is it in the plan for upcoming releases?

      What exactly does pipelining do?

    10. Re:browser requirements by jesser · · Score: 4, Informative

      Unfortuneatly, it [the "linked images" bookmarklet] chokes on donkey balls on sites that check referrer headers before serving images.

      Not anymore -- bbaetz, darin, and I fixed bug 123293 in August. If you find any specific sites or command sequences (such as "linked images" followed by View Image followed by Shift+Reload) that fail to send the referrer header in 1.2alpha or later, please file a bug and cc me.

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
    11. Re:browser requirements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pipelining

      you mean pipesmoking, right?

    12. Re:browser requirements by NineNine · · Score: 1

      That almost makes me think that they didn't throw out all of the Netscape code when developing Mozilla. Netscape has *always* had a very serious problem with any medium to large sized tables (more than 10 or so rows).

    13. Re:browser requirements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's a rendering speed problem on pages with a lot of images (especially animated gifs). Try fark.com on IE or Mozilla, even try it with a local copy of the site.

    14. Re:browser requirements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like Slashdot?

    15. Re:browser requirements by rycamor · · Score: 2

      Fark.com rendered nice and fast in Phoenix 0.2. At least 2 or 3 times as fast as IE 5.5.

    16. Re:browser requirements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >This isn't a feature in Pheonix yet, is it? I couldn't find it. Is it
      >
      >
      It's a carry-over from Mozilla. Enable it under Mozilla and copy your Mozzila user.js and prefs.js to your Phoenix directory.

    17. Re:browser requirements by SiW · · Score: 2

      Leech might help with that last one.

    18. Re:browser requirements by pamri · · Score: 1

      The above Bookmarklet or for that matter any bookmarlet could be used in Galeon.

    19. Re:browser requirements by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 2

      You mean IE has a problem rendering lots of animated gif's?

      I've seen IE bring my system to a crawl with one browser of ~100 diffrent animated gif's open, I've never seen the same from mozilla. Perhaps your talking about a diffrent situation?

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
  6. Weird Weird Weird by io333 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I just finished tweaking it 10 seconds ago under Mandrake 9.

    I LOVE IT!

    The best thing is that I can customize it so that in full screen mode, my most common bookmarks, an address bar, a google search bar, a go button, and navigation buttons are all in one thin line up at the top freeing all my screen space!

    It's also the fastest browser I've ever used under either Linux or WinXP and (in the 10 seconds I've had to use it) seemingly solid.

    There is only one thing missing that may force me back to mozilla: the inability to "block images from this server," i.e., to get rid of ads.

    1. Re:Weird Weird Weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is only one thing missing that may force me back to mozilla : the inabillity to "block images from this server"

      Oh no you don't, you can't escape from goatse.cx that easily.

    2. Re:Weird Weird Weird by EyesWideOpen · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is only one thing missing that may force me back to mozilla: the inability to "block images from this server," i.e., to get rid of ads.

      That feature is targeted for the 0.3 release (October 8th) according to this (search on page for 'Image blocking').

      --

      As with the sun's light
      My mom was magnificent
      Unquestionable
    3. Re:Weird Weird Weird by aengblom · · Score: 2

      As I understand, this has not been removed from Phoenix, it just hasn't been implemented in the UI (similar to Netscape 6/7). My post details how to add that support to Netscape 7. I haven't actually checked if this will work in Phoenix yet and I'm too lazy to Google it.

      --


      So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
    4. Re:Weird Weird Weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why'd you bother to post if yer so busy?

    5. Re:Weird Weird Weird by Hektor_Troy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I hope they improve that function. It's no fun blocking "images.site.tld" when all the images for the site comes from that domain, but all adds comes from "images.site.tld/adds".

      --
      We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
    6. Re:Weird Weird Weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could always hack your hosts file for domains that serve images you'd rather not see. This won't work if you want to deny just the images and get the text from certain domains, but it's better than nothing.

    7. Re:Weird Weird Weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would also like to block HTML from sites. Since ad.doublelick.net has been down, it's annoying to have the browser attempt to load the code from it, even though I've blocked images from there years ago.

    8. Re:Weird Weird Weird by pmsyyz · · Score: 2, Informative

      That would be Bug 78104:
      [RFE] Pattern-matching based (url-based) image blocking

      --
      Phillip
    9. Re:Weird Weird Weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet the _best_ way to block them is to route them to 127.0.0.1. Problem is: who has a nice big list of all these add spamming sites?

    10. Re:Weird Weird Weird by Snarfodox · · Score: 1

      You should try Privoxy to block popups, ads and other annoyances... it is based on the old Junkbuster Proxy code but supports HTTP/1.1 and much more advanced/fine grained configuration.

    11. Re:Weird Weird Weird by Metrol · · Score: 2

      There is only one thing missing that may force me back to mozilla: the inability to "block images from this server," i.e., to get rid of ads.

      Couldn't disagree more with the sentiment. Still getting a download of Pheonix myself here, so I can't yet comment directly on it. What does bother me are browsing tools that truly do remove the basic ad banners like seen here on Slashdot.

      Those banners are going to help pay for the time and bandwidth costs for the vast majority of my favorite sites. As I write this, the banner at the top of the page is for a special Penquin Computing has running. Hey, I'd like to see them folks do well too! In order to do that, they've got to get their message out.

      I will agreee that browser support preventing overtly intrusive advertising, such as pop ups or pop behinds, are a good thing. It's also reasonable in my mind to allow the user to restrict the number of rotations an animation gets to run through. It would be nice to allow that same user to be able to manually request the animation to start over again for the interested.

      Blocking all ads entirely is an extremely bad thing to see get so much time and effort devoted to it. It hurts content sites, and the companies willing to sponsor them. Also, every once in a while there may actually be an ad for a product that you'd purchase. Especially here on Slashdot!

      --
      The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
    12. Re:Weird Weird Weird by EyesWideOpen · · Score: 2

      FYI.

      The Phoenix 0.3 release has been delayed for a week "to give the developers more time to implement the features they want for that release."

      --

      As with the sun's light
      My mom was magnificent
      Unquestionable
  7. Hamstrung by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Too bad it's hamstrung by the Mozilla politics since it's based on Mozilla.

  8. just installed this ... by dlasley · · Score: 3, Informative

    just installed this over the weekend on my SuSE 8 StinkPad and i have officially removed all other browsers except opera (i can't live without it ...) one of my co-workers had me trying release 0.1, and it wasn't bad, but it didn't have proxy support and a couple of things were buggy. talk about a huge update! 0.2 is sweeeet, get it now.

    --
    when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
  9. Nightly builds? by Havokmon · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Although still in heavy development, I have found Phoenix quite useable and stable even in the early 0.2 release and I continue to download the nightly release every day.'"

    Umm why download nightly builds of a usable, stable application?

    If it's usable and stable, why not wait for the next point release?

    --
    "I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
    1. Re:Nightly builds? by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Insightful
      "Umm why download nightly builds of a usable, stable application?"

      Well, the version number in this case is accurate: this is an 0.2 and will act like one from time to time. You can actually expect noticeable changes from day to day.

      Beating on nightlys gives immediate feedback on the effects of changes made that day - catch serious bugs early. Being a tester is a way to contribute greatly to a project as Joe User. And if there's a bug that's really been annoying you, you can get the fix straight away instead of having to wait until the next full release.

      I think Phoenix is doing it this way because that's how Mozilla does it - and it works very well for Mozilla - and therefore because they can (being in the Mozilla build system).

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    2. Re:Nightly builds? by }{@wkmooN · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because that's what they need, people testing and reporting bugs.

      People should test releases if they can

    3. Re:Nightly builds? by OneFix · · Score: 2

      Just a guess, but maybe he wants to help the project by testing new features. I have personaly found Mozilla itself quite usable since at least 0.6, but I still download nightlies to try new features and...who knows, I might find a bug.

      This is the only way open source projects that you enjoy will advance.

    4. Re:Nightly builds? by db48 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To be able to file relevant bug reports, oogle at the new features, get the bug fixes, and have something new and exciting to do every day.

      Everything happens very quickly, stabilty is often just a plus for the testers and programmers.

    5. Re:Nightly builds? by Tassach · · Score: 2

      Ummm... maybe because maybe he wants to contribute to the project by testing the latest greatest build, or maybe because he wants to be on the cutting edge. It's not your box, and you don't have to use it. Why criticize someone else for their choice of what software to use or how they chose to administer their personal system? Even if he was installing the nightly builds of Apache on a production webserver, that's between him and whoever is signing his paychecks.

      --
      Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
    6. Re:Nightly builds? by larry+bagina · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      if you can't find a bug in mozilla, you probably can't find your ass with 2 hands an a gps receiver, either.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    7. Re:Nightly builds? by Trogre · · Score: 1

      Gottahaveitnow features and improvements.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    8. Re:Nightly builds? by Havokmon · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Beating on nightlys gives immediate feedback on the effects of changes made that day - catch serious bugs early.

      You're right, I never even considered that. I think I'm starting to blur the lines between Alpha/Beta/Release, and I know I'm starting to ignore version numbers. (eg. Mozilla 1.0 ~= Netscape 7.0)

      --
      "I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
    9. Re:Nightly builds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Havok moon, wise words possess thou.

    10. Re:Nightly builds? by bwt · · Score: 2

      Two **really** obvious reasons:
      1) It's cool
      2) You can file bug reports and actually *help* the project along.

    11. Re:Nightly builds? by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 2

      Speaking of which, I seem to have misplaced mine. Would everyone mind checking beneath their beds and on their bookshelves for it?

      Thanks.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    12. Re:Nightly builds? by OneFix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And with such colorful language, what Bugs have you opened/fixed?

      I didn't say it is bug free, stable and usable are completely different.

      Stable - Doesn't crash all of the time (pretty much an opinion)

      Usable - Also opinion

      Bug Free - See Fantasy

    13. Re:Nightly builds? by David+Gerard · · Score: 2
      "I think Phoenix is doing it this way just because it's a good idea, not specifically because Mozilla does it... but most people will attribute this to Mozilla. :P."

      And entirely fairly :-) Most projects you can pull from CVS any time you like between releases, but I don't know of any others that routinely make daily test binaries available. "Release early, release often" taken to its greatest reasonable end point.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    14. Re:Nightly builds? by entrylevel · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, in Debian parlance, stable just means it is 20 years old. (Yes, I know woody was finally released.)

      --
      Karma: Incomprehensible (Mostly affected by posting at +5, reading at -1, and metamoderating everything unfair.)
    15. Re:Nightly builds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Bug Free - See Fantasy


      Contrary to popular belief it is possible to program a machine with bug free code.

      If there's a hardware problem there's a hardware problem. The 0's and 1's don't lie baby. They turn stuff on and off.

    16. Re:Nightly builds? by OneFix · · Score: 1

      And I didn't suggest that it was impossible. Just improbable...

      With such a large code base as Mozilla, there will ALWAYS be bugs...

      For example, it's possible for you to fly to Mars today (the technology exists)...but, it's not very likely now is it?

      Now, take it one step further...if you actually think that you will fly to Mars sometime today, that's a Fantasy...

    17. Re:Nightly builds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a troll. Don't try to hide it or justify it, it's perfectly obvious already.

      For example, it's possibly for you to actually make a point worth considering today, rather than beating everyone over the head with "software has bugs" and using it to lead to the illogical, brainless conclusion "Mozilla will never get ahead of IE" (in which you make the assumption, of course, that the Mozilla Project is indeed attempting to do so)..but, it's not very likely now is it?

      Now, take it one step further...if you actually think that you will actually be able to cover your trolling ass by pretending you meant "improbable," not "fuck you Mozilla users," that's a Fantasy...with a capital F! No bolding though, I don't go for the cheap visual cues.

  10. Phoenix is quite usable by the_rev_matt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've been using since 0.1 was announced (I know, that's like two weeks) and I've been quite pleased. Layout on cnn.com is pretty fscked up, but other than that it works tremendously well. It's now my primary browser.

    --
    this is getting old and so are you

    blog

    1. Re:Phoenix is quite usable by brsmith4 · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Don't fret, there are better places to get news than CNN anyway. Check out goats... You thought I would do it, eh? I'm not a troll like that. ./ and K5 are all you really need.

    2. Re:Phoenix is quite usable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm using Phoenix 0.2 right now - went to cnn.com and a couple stories linked from there without any noticable formating problems. I'm using Win2K Pro. (shrug). "Works on my end."

  11. Still lass for more re: Galeon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice, but it still has 50% the features of Galeon and yet uses more memory.

  12. Look here people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Opera rules!

    You know it
    I know it

    Mouse gestures ROCK!

    1. Re:Look here people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get my mouse gestures from Optimoz.

  13. Why can't they arleady do this? by bsharitt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the looks of it, the browser just seems like they took out the navigator part of Mozilla, and optimized it for speed, while keeping it Mozilla(not like Chimera, Galeon, and K-meleon that use thier native OS environments to gain speed). IF they can do this to navigator, why can't they just do it to all the parts like this and bundle them together. I know that there is the whole platform thing, but for Netscape, it looks like Pheonix is the way to go.

    1. Re:Why can't they arleady do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Someone is working on Mail & News as a separate app... it's called minatour. There are documents on mozilla.org about it. Still no binaries to download though.

    2. Re:Why can't they arleady do this? by Fuzzle · · Score: 0

      If and when this comes out, I will be jumpin for it. I have ditched the Moz browser in favor of K-Meleon (Phoenix doesn't quite do it for me yet), and have been looking for a new mail app desperately, since Eudora is pay, and I love the basic UI of Moz/NS Mail.

    3. Re:Why can't they arleady do this? by DrXym · · Score: 3, Informative
      It's not so much optimized for speed as trimmed of all unecessary bits. It still uses XUL and huge chunks of it have been ripped off wholesale, but without half the DLLs, half the typelibs and half the chrome and overlays of Mozilla it runs that much faster.


      Once Mozilla & Phoenix are started and running side by side I don't see much difference. Phoenix is somewhat faster but I appreciate the richness of Mozilla, which does my mail/news/browsing from a single app.


      There's room in the world for both of course, and Phoenix might find a use in situations where people don't need a mail/news client or some of the more complex features in Mozilla.

  14. so are we going to have an anouncement... by night_flyer · · Score: 2

    on every incremental build on this thing also?

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/24/1215 25 2&mode=thread&tid=154

    must be a slow news day...

    --


    Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
    Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
    1. Re:so are we going to have an anouncement... by shadow303 · · Score: 1

      Yup, news is always slow when I have mod points. Darn, now I have to find another thread to burn them on.

      --
      I've got a mind like a steel trap - it's got an animal's foot stuck in it.
    2. Re:so are we going to have an anouncement... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so are we going to have an anouncement on every incremental build on this thing also?

      I hope so. It sounds like a cool application and I, for one, would be interested to hear how it progresses. If you don't like it you're more than welcome to return to whatever MS fan site you came from.

  15. And like a phoenix... by wheany · · Score: 2, Funny

    A duplicate story rises from the ashes of an earlier story.

    1. Re:And like a phoenix... by adamjaskie · · Score: 1

      Uhh, thats an announcement of version 0.1. This is 0.2. Not a duplicate story if you look at the title...

      --
      /usr/games/fortune
    2. Re:And like a phoenix... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh well, accidents happen when you're karmawhoring.

    3. Re:And like a phoenix... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I make statements based on a complete misapprehension of the facts, will I get modded up too?

    4. Re:And like a phoenix... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably.

  16. Faster? On what OS? by OrenWolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since about Mozilla 0.8 or so, Mozilla has rendered faster than any version of IE. The startup times left a little to be desired, but a lot of that is fixed by Mozilla's Quicklaunch option.

    Sure it uses RAM, but so does IE, and not in "IEXPLORE.EXE" either - most of that code is integrated right into the Windows Explorer code.

    A lot of people who have claimed Mozilla is "too big and slow" have never used a 1.0+ build I would assume, or are trying to compare Moz for Linux (which is =much= slower than it's Windows counterpart), with Moz for Windows.

    1. Re:Faster? On what OS? by sheldon · · Score: 2

      Just curious...

      When you are comparing browser rendering speeds, which sites are you using?

      These days, with the exception of download times, the rendering times are nearly instantaneous. How can you get much faster than that, and does it really matter?

    2. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have found Mozilla to be quite sluggish in many areas. Most noticeable is opening a new window or opening a link in a new window... and for me that is unaceptable. This continues to happen even with very recent builds. I started using Phoenix a couple days ago and, while it does crash on me every now and then, at least things happen when I tell them to happen. Shoot, Phoenix opens faster without any Quicklaunch crap than mozilla did with it! (And this is on windows... and on several different machines from a 450 mhz up to a 1.7Ghz AMD with a gig of RAM.)

    3. Re:Faster? On what OS? by legLess · · Score: 5, Informative
      Blockquothe the poster:
      Mozilla has rendered faster than any version of IE
      You're 100% ass-backwards on that one, pal. I timed it and the difference in rendering speed alone is incredible - IE kicks Moz's ass. Now, I've used Moz as my primary browser for over a year, and I don't intend to go back, but let's call a spade a spade shall we?

      In the most recent versions of both browsers I just opened the most recent MySQL manual - over 2MB of HTML in one file. My machine's a Duron 750 with 512MB, running Win2k. I timed rendering speed only - the file is served locally, and the browsers already started - I navigated to the file from a link on an otherwise blank (local) page. I timed from when I clicked the link:
      • IE: 1.5 seconds
      • Mozilla: 8 seconds
      In short, Mozilla has a long way to go before it renders pages faster than IE.

      (This is a repost of an earlier comment of mine).
      --
      This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
    4. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      or are trying to compare Moz for Linux (which is =much= slower than it's Windows counterpart)

      Why is that?

    5. Re:Faster? On what OS? by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Mozilla is slower in some areas. I use Mozilla daily. :)

      Loading large tables and large quanity of images (thumbnails) are slower than IE. Download pre-buffering actually becomes a problem when you download large files, due to it downloading in your temp dir, then moving the file after its completed. Boris Zbarsky said a fix might land in around 1.3'ish http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=129923

      There are a few other slow downs in mozilla, but most are thread releated. 1 active tab can freeze mozilla, etc.. (I would like to see downloads spawn into a seperate process...)

      That being said, the Mozilla developers are top notch in fixing bugs and user interaction. They have always been kind in replying and educating the users.

    6. Re:Faster? On what OS? by fubarmdk · · Score: 0

      mozilla for win32 takes a looooooong time to load. havent really tested its speed with IE 6.0 accurately since my school's network is a piece of junk with idiots in the IT.

      only reason i installed mozilla was to view some webpages that were having a proxy prob with IE. but the latest update to IE 6.0 fixed it and i rarely even touch mozilla now.

      i will give this jenny craig mozilla a go when i get home from work.

    7. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Fuzzle · · Score: 0

      Mozilla is very slow on load, on window resizing, and on rendering of Java/Flash pages. I love gecko, but as it states on the Mozilla page, it's not supposed to be the final product. You're supposed to take it and integrate it like NS or KMeleon or Chimera has. I use 1.2a on WinXP with a 1.4 AthlonXP, and so far it is the slowest of every browser I've used (from neoplanent to opera to ie to kmeleon).

    8. Re:Faster? On what OS? by GigsVT · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I have found Mozilla to be quite sluggish in many areas.

      Me too. It's mostly UI slowness. When I type into the URL box, I don't expect latency!

      Another thing is the terribly jerky scrolling.

      I use Opera. Main things I Opera has that Mozilla lacks, IMO... UI snappiness, smooth scrolling, and the ability to magnify web pages. Don't reply that you can change the font sizes of the web pages, unless you have used Opera's magnify, you won't know what I mean. Opera changes not just the fonts, but magnifies *everything*... graphics, flash plugins, anything. This is a real boon for accessibility, or for people like me that have good vision but hate to squint to read tiny web pages.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    9. Re:Faster? On what OS? by lamp77 · · Score: 1

      Slow downs are pretty miserable with fixed background images to, although I've used the damn thing since m15 (? maybe) or so.

      starting to like sidebars even.

    10. Re:Faster? On what OS? by commodoresloat · · Score: 2

      Mac OS X 10.1.5 (yeah I did buy jaguar but I fsckd up the CD and have to wait for a new one), I can tell you Moz is MUCH slower than IE. It's so slow it was unusable; I have reluctantly switched back to IE until I install 10.2 and experiment with that. But just for rendering basic but large pages from the hard drive, Mozilla was slower by a factor of 10 or more. If anyone has recommendations for an os x based browser that is fast and is a good IE replacement let me know; I tried Chimera which has very few features and is still slower than IE.

    11. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Rutulian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think rendering speed is directly related to content. Rendering what is essentially a text file (the MySQL manual) is a different game from rendering a page loaded with tables, forms, images, javascript, and CSS. Furthermore, rendering CSS is different from rendering nested tables and other related layout methods. I wouldn't be surprised if rendering IE javascript is different from rendering Netscape javascript.

      So basically, I am sure browsers render different pages at different speeds due to the way their rendering engines work. It is kind of like the old color inkjet printers. Some of them could due full color pictures very well on the right paper, but when it came to black text they really sucked.

    12. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps the original poster made the mistake of considering Mozilla faster by testing every page on the web EXCEPT the one you mentioned, in which case Mozilla could be fairly called faster. The nerve!

    13. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Rura+Penthe · · Score: 2

      Yes, unfortunately Mozilla isn't all that fast on OS X (although my complaints lie more in the interface).

      However, Chimera (0.5 and the latest nightlies) smokes IE at rendering just about anything so I don't know where you're coming from with that one. As a quick (and imprecise) test I just loaded cnn.com in Chimera and timed it from the moment it started transferring data. ~4 secs for Chimera on my G3/500 laptop, ~8 seconds for IE.

    14. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Ed+Avis · · Score: 2

      Maybe there needs to be a standard browser benchmark. Many people will tell you 'Mozilla renders pages quickly', but rendering speed is not the only component of browser snappiness. Probably not even the most important.

      A few standard tests, such as: time between startup and the main window appearing (assuming the browser code isn't already in the disk cache); the time to open a new window or tab; the time to render a site like Slashdot assuming that a local http proxy server already has the content; and crucially IMHO the quickness of the 'back' and 'forward' buttons - all these would make some kind of standard browser-speed test. The test would need to be done separately on machines with 16, 32, 64 and 128 megabytes of RAM.

      (FWIW Dillo has rapidly become my favourite browser; it renders well on the sites that matter, doesn't have any crap, and is lightning fast on my P200.)

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    15. Re:Faster? On what OS? by lobos · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think that's a cool idea. (BTW, I posted the parent to your post... forgot to login.) One other thing that bugs me is not only the speed of opening a new page, but how long it takes me to be able to do a Ctrl-L to go to a new location in that page. Grrr.

    16. Re:Faster? On what OS? by zakharin · · Score: 1

      I find speed differences to be negligible between Mozilla and IE. What's bugging me is problems experienced when resizing windows. This is usually unnecessary to do in general-purpose browsing, but with the help system, I do it all the time to be able to see the interface elements I'm reading about... and suddenly I'm reading about something else. This goes back to Netscape 4.x and it really puzzles me how after years of development the final version has this problem.

    17. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Ionizor · · Score: 1

      Phoenix renders a lot faster than Mozilla. I haven't timed it but it's obvious from visual cues alone.

      --

      --
      Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
    18. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Slowping · · Score: 1

      I have to agree with this statement.

      I run Linux for 95% of the time, and do all my work in Linux. I've been using Mozilla for over a year now. I have used the free version of Opera, but I see no reason to put up with the ads or even pay when I could use Mozilla.

      During the 5% of time that I want to play games, I reboot into W2k. Even in Windows, I've switched to using Mozilla. There is just no compelling reason for me to go to IE. I find that it has exactly the features I want, renders the pages I go to perfectly, and is fast.

      I use the QuickLaunch option in W2k, but it doesn't add any significant overhead to the boot time. By the time my Instant Messanger signs in, QuickLaunch is loaded.

      What are people complaining about? Honestly.
      And in case people are wondering, I'm using a PII-400 with 300megs of ram, on a 10kRPM Seagate Cheetah SCSI. I don't understand some people with gigahertz computers complaining about speed. Mozilla renders and runs faster than I can use it. How much faster can you want it?

      Just my two cents in support of Mozilla and that team's hard work.

      --
      (\(\
      (^.^)
      (")")
      *beware the cute-bunny virus
    19. Re:Faster? On what OS? by jesser · · Score: 1

      Loading large tables and large quanity of images (thumbnails) are slower than IE. Download pre-buffering actually becomes a problem when you download large files, due to it downloading in your temp dir, then moving the file after its completed.

      Is that bug 73757 or another dependency of 129923? It's not clear to me whether 73757 applies to all local files or only local files to be opened by helper apps.

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
    20. Re:Faster? On what OS? by edwdig · · Score: 5, Informative

      What you're rendering makes a big difference. I had a friend download Mozilla and had him load a Slashdot page with almost 1000 comments with the threshold at -1 in both IE and Mozilla. I don't know what the specs were on his machine. IE took about 8 seconds according to my watch, whereas Mozilla took about 2 seconds according to the status bar indication. Obviously the IE timing isn't very accurate, but it was still a huge difference.

    21. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Glad you mentioned that because I've noticed MS IE
      on Linux *really* sux.

    22. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's check your list -- Mozilla is noticibly more retarded rendering large pages, forms, images, and DTHML (javascript) when compared to IE. And tables are arguable depending if you like the behavior of Moz's progressive renderer (I'm on DSL, so I don't). CSS doesn't seem especially slow anywhere. Moz also lags on pages with plugins or iframes.

      So basically, I am sure browsers render different pages at different speeds due to the way their rendering engines work.

      Thank you Mr. Truism. Insightful++ to you. Mozilla is still slow.

    23. Re:Faster? On what OS? by tshak · · Score: 2

      Besides the fact that you are wrong about IE (it's still faster then recent Moz builds) you're forgetting that IE is not the only competing browser. Opera is still the fastest and lightest browser by far.

      --

      There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
    24. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've noticed in one particular case were mozilla is smarter than ie. In sites that use CSS to hide certain sections and than use JavaScript to bring them up on demand Mozilla will only download the content (images, objects, etc...) of those hidden sections when they are made visible. IE on the other hand will download everything before displaying the site.

    25. Re:Faster? On what OS? by bogie · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yea because opening a single 2MB html is likely....

      For general web browsing on my cable connection Moz is always just as faster and sometimes faster than IE.

      Lets take a real world example shall we.

      I just loaded foxnews.com on IE it took about 6.25 seconds to load. On Moz it took about 4.5. Oh, IE will do its best by throwing whatever meager bits of code it get up first, but the entire page loads faster in Mozilla.

      www.time.com Mozilla 4 seconds, IE 5 seconds.
      www.merck.com Mozilla 4.5, IE 4.75

      The point is your example is a red herring.

      "the difference in rendering speed alone is incredible - IE kicks Moz's ass."

      Apparantly not.

      --
      If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
    26. Re:Faster? On what OS? by silence535 · · Score: 1

      I wonder what y'all are actually doing on the pages that have to be rendered oh so fast. Does anybody read the text on the web pages?

      Serious. I guess that I spend (roughly estimated) 3-5 minutes scanning the content and reading the text on the pages I load. Often more.

      Lets say it takes three clicks to get to the content, not counting the google page which should render equally fast in both browsers, then mozilla wastes 19.5 seconds of my valuable browsing time (3 x (8 - 1.5) according to measurements given in this thread).

      Privoxy blocks all the annoying banner ads and wwwoffle or squid caches all the pretty deco gifs, so hey.

      What are your browsing habits?

      -rolf

      --
      Dyslectics of the world, untie!
    27. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      appologist.

    28. Re:Faster? On what OS? by legLess · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Yea because opening a single 2MB html is likely....
      It's not just likely, it's certain. I do it every day with multiple files. If you don't do it, bully for you, but find me a better test of raw HTML parsing speed.
      I just loaded foxnews.com on IE it took about 6.25 seconds to load. On Moz it took about 4.5.
      If you think this is a good test then you need to buy a better brand of crack. You're not measuring rendering speed but download speed. Tell me, how did you account for network congestion? Do you know if your ISP proxies or caches requests?

      I just saved all three pages you mentioned, and all their graphics, to disk and had my local Apache serve them to IE and Moz. All three pages loaded basically instantaneously in IE, with maybe a 1/2 second lag in Moz. I don't consider this significant, and in real-world use it's not noticeable.
      The point is your example is a red herring.
      Actually, no. A red herring would be, "IE starts faster than Mozilla in Windows therefore IE is faster." My example was a well-controlled test with few variables. Perhaps it didn't test what you'd like, but I think it was fair.

      The point seems to be that either you have a wretchedly slow computer, or you don't understand how to test rendering speed.
      --
      This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
    29. Re:Faster? On what OS? by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 2

      Opera may still be the fastes and lightest. But it's rendering engine isn't the best. Too many times have I gotten something to work right in both IE and Mozilla, only to have it completely fall apart in Opera. I guess this is why they're dropping it and starting from scratch with a new one.

    30. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why? One word. Hell. One letter. X.

    31. Re:Faster? On what OS? by glens · · Score: 2, Insightful

      (giving up moderation privs for this...)

      Because Mozilla is a Windows app which does not use the environment provided under any unix. It has to, for some reason, bring along it's own way of doing almost every little thing and in the process ignore what's available natively.

      It doesn't even "know" basic X resources nor parameters like -geometry.

      The scrollbars don't work properly. Sure, the middle button in the scrollbar will summon the slider directly to the cursor, and will remain captured so long as the button remains held. They got that right. But try clicking in the trough below the slider. Instead of the slider continuing it's movement all the way to the bottom so long as the button is held, it will stop at the point where the button was pressed. Even if the pointer is no longer there! Try the same on virtually any other graphic (GTK or Motif) app under a recent free unix and see how it's supposed to work.

      Why is the scrollbar broken in such a manner? Because the developers don't like the native action. They much prefer their Windows way. Only they didn't even get their breakage right. If they were going to do it the Windows way, wouldn't the slider continue past the point of first click if you moved the pointer down in the mean time?

      The scrollbars are my pet peeve because they render mozilla unusable at a basic control level, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg. There's saving messages in only one-to-a-file .eml format (what the hell is that?) instead of making a proper mbox format file out of any number of messages at whatever time saved.

      And there's more, much more, rotten in Denmark.

    32. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought dillo was a dead project.

    33. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Yea because opening a single 2MB html is likely....
      It's not just likely, it's certain. I do it every day with multiple files. If you don't do it, bully for you, but find me a better test of raw HTML parsing speed.
      I download about at a rate of 1 MB per hour, according to my ISP. And I surf a lot. Remember, porn != html files.
    34. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Arker · · Score: 2

      or are trying to compare Moz for Linux (which is =much= slower than it's Windows counterpart)

      For the same reason that it can't make Linux crash, but can make Windows crash... the two systems make different tradeoffs regarding video performance versus stability.

      --
      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
    35. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Arker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because Mozilla is a Windows app which does not use the environment provided under any unix. It has to, for some reason, bring along it's own way of doing almost every little thing and in the process ignore what's available natively.

      [...]

      The scrollbars don't work properly. Sure, the middle button in the scrollbar will summon the slider directly to the cursor, and will remain captured so long as the button remains held. They got that right. But try clicking in the trough below the slider. Instead of the slider continuing it's movement all the way to the bottom so long as the button is held, it will stop at the point where the button was pressed. Even if the pointer is no longer there! Try the same on virtually any other graphic (GTK or Motif) app under a recent free unix and see how it's supposed to work.

      As is hinted at by your use of the word virtually here, these things are not 'native' behaviours because X doesn't have such things. Now I agree with you that Mozilla does the wrong things here, XUL is one of my least favourite inventions ever, but it is innocent of the particular charge you bring here. Bringing along their own, non-native toolkit doesn't hit performance under X the same way it does Windows or Mac, because X doesn't have any native toolkit anyway - it's toolkit agnostic from the getgo, whether the app uses XUL or GTK or QT or what have you makes no difference!

      On other systems that do have native toolkits you would get a performance boost by using them - but on X there just is no such thing. XUL can and should take blame for the crummy usability factors, but not for performance under X.

      The real reason, or at least the main one (there are doubtless lots of smaller issues involved) is that X does rendering slower than Windows, other things being equal, because the video routines don't run at the kernel level. You pay a small price in performance for robustness, simple as that.

      --
      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
    36. Re:Faster? On what OS? by evilviper · · Score: 2

      You should try the BSD versions... They at least halve the performance of the Linux version.

      Cross-platform MY ASS!

      (Just a frustrated Mozilla user)

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    37. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just loaded foxnews.com on IE it took about 6.25 seconds to load. On Moz it took about 4.5.

      Whereafter your brain rotted instantly with every word you read.

    38. Re:Faster? On what OS? by rycamor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > XUL is one of my least favourite inventions ever

      Why does everyone keep knocking XUL. Everything I have seen about it tells me _this_ is the way I want to be developing web apps. No more screwing around with DHTML menus, and Javascript trees that don't expand/collapse properly. Yes, its not cross-browser, but it is completely cross-platform.

      And its really capable of being more than just a web application framework, but a real distributed app framework. This thing is the answer to the client side of .NET before .NET was invented. It even has a SOAP API all ready for use (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/synd/2 002/08/30/mozillasoapapi.html). Not to mention, it has already been used to develop some pretty cool stand-alone applications, such as Komodo by ActiveState.

      Fire up Mozilla or Phoenix and spend some time at http://www.xulplanet.com/tutorials/xultu/ or browse the list at http://www.mozdev.org/projects.html

      Also, O'Reilly has already devoted a whole section to Mozilla XUL/XPCOM development (http://www.oreillynet.com/mozilla/).

      XUL/XPCOM has bindings for Perl and Python, by the way. This is one bandwagon I don't mind jumping on, personally. Much more fun than .NET or Java.

    39. Re:Faster? On what OS? by claygate · · Score: 1

      Over at http://www.harmony-central.com if you search for used musical equipment you get fed a 2Mb html file when making a search for all dates. Not only does it choke up Mozilla during rendering, where IE is much faster, but it also often crashes while scrolling up and down the page. This is unacceptable, and I use IE when going to that website since Mozilla cannot handle it.

    40. Re:Faster? On what OS? by namespan · · Score: 2

      I'm posting this from Chimera .13 running under 10.1.2. The thing absolutely smokes IE 5.1 under every circumstance.

      You may want to try iCab if that doesn't work out for you.

      --
      Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
    41. Re:Faster? On what OS? by WhiteKnight07 · · Score: 1

      My theory is that all these speed problems people keep reporting have to do with hard drive speed. You have no speed problems and you have a 10k rpm SCSI drive. I also have absolutly no speed problems with Mozilla (without quick launch) and I'm running a RAID 0 array of 7200rpm IDE drives. FWIW I've got a 1.6ghz AthlonXP and 512megs DDR ram. But you don't have an insane processor (although you still have a good amount of ram) and you still get good speed. I think that Mozilla's startup sequence uses relatively few CPU cycles and not that much memory. But what it does do is require alot of stuff to be read from the hard drive (see XUL and its large number of dlls and other associated files). This would explain why moz is so fast on our comps but not on your typical gigahertz machine with a 5400 rpm hard drive. It would also explain why I can minimize mozilla for 30 minutes and then have it pop back instantly when I re-maximize it.

      --


      We're going to make information free Mr. Anderson, whether you like it, or not.
    42. Re:Faster? On what OS? by e-moon · · Score: 1

      I can just agree with this.

      When i installed the i386 compiled version of mozilla it was quite slow, and not to nice to use.

      The some weeks ago i switched to gentoo and had everything compiled with gcc 3.2 and with -march=athlon-tchicken turned on and mozilla really turned into a new program.

      Try to recompile it optimized for your platform and it will make a huge diffrence.

    43. Re:Faster? On what OS? by jhoffoss · · Score: 2
      Yes, its not cross-browser
      Case in point. Webpages should be written to standards, not to proprietary subsets for a specific browser. Half the people on /. would be up in arms if XUL was a Microsoft development.
      --
      Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
    44. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, and if anyone is curious, I don't like ActiveX either, as that is Microsoft's proprietary product.

    45. Re:Faster? On what OS? by glens · · Score: 1

      I'm guilty of not properly indicating the change of direction in my answer.

      I realize X has no /native/ toolkits; it's just a framework. But it has native methods which are evidently largely ignored by mozilla.

      I was rather pointing to a few examples of the manner in which the Windows way of doing things permeates mozilla. And by inference that's (in part) why it's performance under X suffers: because the developers have seemingly provided us with a version simply modified from the principle Windows version - modified just enough to get it to even run here.

      They picked a toolkit which is (now) commonly used, the GTK, and then decided that the usual way to "do" scrollbars under Unix with the GTK was not to their liking, so they concocted some strange method which is the worst of both worlds combined. Aren't there plenty of examples available for examination?

      In essence they've just about totally reinvented the wheel, and overall it has a very distinct feeling of, say, a VMware window running an OS.

      That is also in part due to the XUL problem which you bring up. But I wouldn't think that XUL processing itself would be that much slower under a Unix unless they're also doing off-the-wall Windows things at that level too. But in retrospect, that wouldn't suprise me.

    46. Re:Faster? On what OS? by mysticalreaper · · Score: 1

      The scrollbars don't work properly. ... [explanation provided]

      To be breif; No, you're wrong. I'm running Mozilla 1.0 on Linux right now. Gentoo Linux, to be specific. I honestly don't know what you're saying is broken. I tried the middle button. No matter what i do, the slider always jumps to the cursor's position, and dragging from there moves it. Using the left mouse button above and below the slider scrolls up or down a page, and holding the button down scrolls the page, screen by screen, until the slider reaches the cursor, or the bottom of the page, whichever comes first.

      Either you're basing your views on an old version of Mozilla, or your system is bahiving differently from mine, for whatever reason. There's another possibility, too, but i'll refrain from mentioning it.

    47. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Lets take a real world example shall we.


      Yeah. Let's take

      http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/api/

      Opera: 5s
      Mozilla: 13s

      Mozilla's (and hence Phoenix's) rendering engine is slower than that of any other browser in existance for very important web pages. If you have a 1GHz Athlon machine you probably won't notice the difference but some people are still on 500MHz K6/2.

      Check out the tracking bug 71668 in Bugzilla. Mozilla's rendering being fast is a myth invented by people who have clock cycles to burn.
    48. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used Phoenix for brosing some general sites and saw no significant reason to to fault it on rendering speed. It didn't crash either, which is A Good Thing. Only thing I would like to ask the developers - when you follow a link and go back again, it looks like it is rendering the page again. Is it possible to cache recently rendered pages?

    49. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Flametard. Actually run some stats. Then post. Thx.

    50. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A lot of people who have claimed Mozilla is "too big and slow" have never used a 1.0+ build I would assume

      I'm one of those people. I'm a fan of Mozilla, but on my P2-266/256MB of RAM, Mozilla 1.0 takes 10 SECONDS to pull pages out of swap, and 2 seconds just to render simple form controls!

    51. Re:Faster? On what OS? by Jason+O'Neil · · Score: 1

      If you really want to measure it's ability to render tables, use the Gimp to export an 800 * 600 image into html file format. This is where each cell is 1 pixel high and 1 pixel wide. Inside each cell must by "img src=spacer.gif" where spacer.gif is a transperant, 1px * 1px gif file. This will take a long time to render on both browsers. I can't be bothered booting into windows so I can't test it with IE, anybody else want to try?

    52. Re:Faster? On what OS? by glens · · Score: 1

      Taking a chance that you'll ever see this...

      Your description of the left mouse button behavior explicitly indicates the way in which it's broken.

      When you click and hold with the left button, the slider should continue to the end of the trough toward which it started, regardless your subsequent positioning of the cursor (anywhere on screen), so long as the button remains depressed. The slider should pass right through either the place where you clicked or the pointer if it's moved. This feature has very great utility and has been purposely and needlessly broken into non-existence by mozilla.

      Try it on any non-mozilla-based graphical application you have and see what I'm talking about. You may find an extremely odd situation where it doesn't work the way I've described it (I believe staroffice is weird, and of course any of the [what was it?] openlook toolkit based apps have a different mechanism).

      There's no sense in stopping at either the initial click point or at the cursor wherever it is. If you want to summon the slider to a particular place you use the middle button to do so. If you only want to scroll so many pages, let off the button. The current behavior is some strange two-button-native way of doing things, and frankly, I'm surprised they even bothered to implement (and again, correctly!) the middle button action.

    53. Re:Faster? On what OS? by mysticalreaper · · Score: 1

      yeah, actually, i did read it. Slashdot has that handy feature where it tells you when someone has replied to you.

      Unfortunately, I am visiting my parents for [Canadian] thanksgiving, and i don't have access to Linux atm. anyways, it was interesting to read how you think it should work. I've never seen, well, probably just not noticed that behavior before, but i'll check for it. To me, it seems like quite a minor issue, as how many people scroll down page by page to the bottom of long documents, without letting up on the mouse, hence making the scrolling extremely fast. I guess if you do though, that's good enough for it to be an issue for you.

      And yes, AFAIK, this is the typical windows behavior, the way it behaves now. Also, have you tried submitting a bug about this scrolling stuff? Do you even know if the devs realize it's broken? Because if you speak up, they may just fix it.

    54. Re:Faster? On what OS? by glens · · Score: 1

      Huh. As you may have noticed, I got my slashdot account relatively early in the process, yet I've never played around with it enough to see the "notify me" option. I'll see if I can find it.

      I jumped on that particular bug bandwagon at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64866# c17 but don't let that stop you from viewing especially comments #2 and #5.

      The mechanism is quite useful for quickly scrolling things. Start the process from somewhere high in the trough. If you see anything which catches your eye go flying by, release the button and click it again a time or two to get the portion back into view. You don't have to move, and move, and move your mouse, nor do it again to reverse direction at least the first time. It's a much smoother process than grabbing the slider and directly dragging it around, too. Sort of a mousewheel type of action before there was such a thing.

      The thing that slays me is the Mac version differs from the Windows version, and they both get their repective expected behavior, so I know it's possible to segregate the responses at compile time. That fact does not help in the situation where the person on the team who could do so will not devote any engineering time to the matter since they believe every other application is broken. He suggested to me in private email that I submit a patch. I countered with both a request to a pointer to the code section(s) involved and the argument that they'd likely spend more time going over my patch than simply backing out or #ifdefing their previous changes. I've gotten no further response.

  17. Unfortunately... by bpfinn · · Score: 4, Funny

    My Phoenix never rose from the ashes. I'm apparently a version of Libc behind. (Oddly enough, I'm posting this using Mozilla 1.2.)

    1. Re:Unfortunately... by hazyshadeofwinter · · Score: 2, Informative

      Looks like it's actually libstdc++ that needs to be up-to-the-millisecond. Considering the still-ever-changing nature of GCC's APIs (see here, here, and here, would it kill folks to either statically link the libstdc++ they use for binary releases, or at least include the apropriate .so file, like Phoenix does for all the Mozilla libs? (libxpcom, etc...) Just a suggestion. Otherwise I'd probably be typing this in Phoenix instead of Opera right now...

      --
      Click here if you just like to click on shit.
  18. I don't get it! by Steveftoth · · Score: 1

    I agree that Mozilla is a little bit bigger then IE, but once you have them both running, the difference is small to none. You can't benchmark browsers on the internet because well, the internet is the bottleneck.

    Both browsers suffer from:
    Freezing intermitently
    Sometimes when loading pages the browser will stop responding, sometimes it's RAM, sometimes the browsers just stops.
    Strange redraw
    Mozilla draws huge pages (like /.) twice for me and both have problems when pages come in with crazy auto-adjusting tables.

    But both are about the same to me. I like mozilla better because I don't have to worry about it auto-installing software for me.

    1. Re:I don't get it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      IE is better. Unlike Mozilla, the bookmarks menu appears the moment you click it. Also, it takes about 3-4 seconds for the download window to close in Mozilla. Because it uses 100% of the CPU cycles closing the freakin' window, the entire application is unresponsive during that period, and this is on an 1.53ghz Athlon. Yeesh.

    2. Re:I don't get it! by AsparagusChallenge · · Score: 1

      If you're having troubles related with downloads and 100% CPU usage check if you have advanced-> networking-> Enable Pipelining turned on; try turning it off, or upgrade. The last time I saw that problem was at Mozilla 1.1b; upgrading to 1.2a solved it.

  19. Mozilla bloated? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    % ls -l /usr/bin/mozilla
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4979 May 13 18:28 /usr/bin/mozilla

    1. Re:Mozilla bloated? by hkmwbz · · Score: 2

      Mozilla's startup script is 4979 bytes? That's interesting. But what does that say about the actual size of the program?

      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
  20. Yuck. by nbvb · · Score: 3, Funny
    ... and I continue to download the nightly release every day


    Why in the name of God's green earth can't we get a decent browser built?!

    We can write software to manage checkbooks, to run space shuttles, to even serve more porn than the world ever needs.

    But we can't get a decent browser out the door.

    Why? Why is this?

    ARGH!

    Every one has its problems:
    Netscape (1.x through 4.x) - Buggy, never rendered quite right ...
    IE - Sucktitude. Security holes you can drive a truck through.
    Mozilla - Bloated mess. Too many damned options & features. Typical open source project -- so many features, it doesn't work right for anyone.
    OmniWeb - has potential, compatible with 3 websites.
    Opera - small, lean, advertises all over the damned place. Compatible with a few more web pages than OmniWeb.

    Why can't we get this right??

    Sorry for the rant, it's just frustrating! I don't care much about the speed (isn't that why we have supersonic processors? So we can write sh_ty code and not worry?) but it needs to WORK. Reliably. Every time.

    As it is, I have *3* browsers I use regularly. OmniWeb, IE and Mozilla. Some things render correctly in each ....

    ARGH! And now we're going to build another half-step child of Mozilla? Like the world needs _THAT_?

    --NBVB
    1. Re:Yuck. by CondeZer0 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Have you tried Chimera?

      http://www.mozilla.org/projects/chimer a/

      Has GUI as nice as OmniWeb and a Gecko rendering engine.
      It rocks.

      --
      "When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
    2. Re:Yuck. by Jonny+Ringo · · Score: 2

      Browser's are doing good. Its the web dev's that aren't going with the standards and/or not testing on various browsers and platforms. That would solve half your problems. So instead of bitching about browser developement, I'd encourge good web developement with standards.

    3. Re:Yuck. by David+Gerard · · Score: 2
      "ARGH! And now we're going to build another half-step child of Mozilla? Like the world needs _THAT_?"

      Think of it as Mozilla forking, but the fork being blessed by mozilla.org. It was clear in the runup to 1.0 that there were tensions within the project; running forks internally keeps the developers happy and interested, and produces interesting things that can be adapted to the main trunk.

      (Or, as is their goal, to replace the main trunk.)

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    4. Re:Yuck. by MoonBuggy · · Score: 1

      But it renders pages the same as mozilla, so it's not creating more compatibility problems, it's giving the user choice.

    5. Re:Yuck. by CoolVibe · · Score: 2
      Why not switch to some *nix and use KDE? Konqueror is a full featured browser that can handle Netscape and its own plugins, has tabbed browser, is fast, doesn't advertise, has pop-up control, supports java applets, and has so far rendered everything correctly I have thrown at it.

      And best of all, it's FREE (beer and speech)

      I think we actually do have a browser worth it's salt.

    6. Re:Yuck. by leshert · · Score: 5, Informative

      We can write software to manage checkbooks, to run space shuttles, to even serve more porn than the world ever needs.

      But we can't get a decent browser out the door.

      Why? Why is this?


      Because a browser that does what you want it to do is significantly more complex than any of the three examples you gave.

    7. Re:Yuck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      more porn than the world ever needs.

      No such thing.

    8. Re:Yuck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Where does Opera advertise "all over the damned place?" I run it all the time and it only has one ad window, and I find that window to be rather non-intrusive.

      I'm not sure what we're not getting right with Opera other than you apparently do not like the way they choose to earn money to stay in business.

    9. Re:Yuck. by brsmith4 · · Score: 1

      yeah, its great... if you run OS frickin' X.

    10. Re:Yuck. by Publicus · · Score: 2

      Part of the problem with those pages not rendering correctly is how the HTML WYSIWYG editors doing a terrible job of constructing pages.

      We could go out and claim that all of the browser projects ought to be able to handle it but I don't think that's fair.

      The W3C sets the standards. The browsers should meet those on the rendering side, the editors should meet it on the development side. Fair is fair, and I think we could name a few companies that haven't been playing nice on this one...

      Let's see, who's got their foot in the WYSIWYG market and the browser market...

      --

      My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!

    11. Re:Yuck. by adamjaskie · · Score: 2

      This has been my complaint all along. It happens every time. Im doing a web site for someone, and they decide, "well, im going to try and update it myself".

      Of course, they dont know HTML, and decide to use FrontPage Express (you know, the one that comes with IE.) They think they did everything right. They upload it, and its TOTALLY SCREWED UP!!!! FrontPage takes the working, hand-coded HTML, and FSCKS with it until its a bunch of garbage, with about 80 tags replacing all my tags, plus the code is totally unreadable because it removed all the line breaks. I have to re-upload the old page, and update it again.

      I even tried it. I made a page look exactly the way I wanted it with manual HTML, then attempted to construct the same page in Dreamweaver, Mozilla Composer, and FrontPage Express. The FrontPage version didnt even look right in IE!!! All three of the WYSIWYG pages had filesizes 3-4 times as much as the hand coded version, and my hand coded version was the only one that passed W3C verification. Mozilla Composer and Dreamweaver did a better job than FrontPage, but still not acceptable.

      --
      /usr/games/fortune
    12. Re:Yuck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mozilla - Bloated mess. Too many damned options & features. Typical open source project -- so many features, it doesn't work right for anyone.

      What kind of dumbass are you? Just because it apparently doesn't work for you - don't project your bad experiences onto anyone else.

      Mozilla may be a *teensy* bit slow (i've only used up to ver. 1.0.1 and my CPU is only 500Mhz) but I think its absolutely great! And Galeon is almost orgasmic. Get a clue before you post to a clue-full message board.

    13. Re:Yuck. by Geekboy(Wizard) · · Score: 1

      Since OmniWeb is designed for OS frickin' X, it was appropriate.

    14. Re:Yuck. by 90XDoubleSide · · Score: 2

      Unfortunately, the colossal amount of programming it takes to implement every standard you need nowadays just to have a browser that supports layout and JavaScript is one of the reasons it's so hard for anything less than a colossal corporation or project to put out a browser that will work on any website (else we wouldn't need Chimera because we could use OmniWeb); even Mozilla still doesn't support every W3 recommendation perfectly.

      --
      "Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
    15. Re:Yuck. by rseuhs · · Score: 2
      You complain about Mozilla being too bloated (which seems strange because you later say you don't care about speed), then Phoenix which is *exactly* what you ask for (a Mozilla without the bloat) is released and you are still complaining?

      Oh jeeez, I think I just fed a troll.

    16. Re:Yuck. by refactored · · Score: 2
      Because you can't program.

      If you could, you would have done the Moz right.

      Well, you can start pulling down the source and cleaning it up now.

    17. Re:Yuck. by Michael+Wardle · · Score: 2

      We can write software to manage checkbooks, to run space shuttles, to even serve more porn than the world ever needs. But we can't get a decent browser out the door. Why? Why is this?

      People are willing to pay for each of the three tools you asked about, while (as you point out further below) nobody wants to pay for a browser when they can get one for free. This may affect the amount of organization or time the programmers can spend on developing your browser free of charge.

    18. Re:Yuck. by NineNine · · Score: 1

      Because a browser that does what you want it to do is significantly more complex than any of the three examples you gave.

      Significantly more complex? It's a fucking BROWSER. It shouldn't DO anything other than render web pages. That's it. No email. No pretty pictures. No fancy menus. Render web pages. And render ALL of them that are even close. I don't want to know if the web page's HTML isn't perfect. I don't want to know if it isn't up to the "W3C specification". I don't give a shit. Just show me the web pages, and show them to me quickly and correctly. I don't know about you, but the current version of IE does this flawlessly for me, and is fast as hell. I'm happy.

    19. Re:Yuck. by ymgve · · Score: 5, Funny

      Significantly more complex? It's a fucking BROWSER. It shouldn't DO anything other than render web pages. That's it. No email. No pretty pictures. No fancy menus. Render web pages. And render ALL of them that are even close. I don't want to know if the web page's HTML isn't perfect. I don't want to know if it isn't up to the "W3C specification". I don't give a shit. Just show me the web pages, and show them to me quickly and correctly. I don't know about you, but the current version of IE does this flawlessly for me, and is fast as hell. I'm happy.

      Significantly more complex? It's a fucking COMPILER. It shouldn't DO anything other than make source code into binaries. That's it. No garbage collection. No pretty GUI tools. Compile programs. And compile ALL of them that are even close. I don't want to know if the program's source code isn't perfect. I don't want to know if it isn't up to the "ANSI standard". I don't give a shit. Just let me run the program, and let it run quickly and correctly. I don't know about you, but the current version of Visual Basic does this flawlessly for me, and is fast as hell. I'm happy.

    20. Re:Yuck. by NineNine · · Score: 1

      Exactly.

    21. Re:Yuck. by brsmith4 · · Score: 1

      my bad, my bad. what the hell was i thinking... lol

    22. Re:Yuck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bwahahahaha... Konq? Talk about bloated and slow.

      Really, I have been using Mozilla forever now it seems. I refused to use Mozilla for a long time (and for good reason) but it is now a very good browser. I use it for 100% of my web duties.

    23. Re:Yuck. by gTsiros · · Score: 2

      > Why can't we get this right??

      Because what we are asking for isn't that simple...for example: if you want an html renderer that follows the HTML rendering standards completely, then you must make it so it just refuses to render pages that aren't html compliant! So next time a page doesn't show up well under your web browser...run that page thru the validator...

      I think it is mean to yell at the gecko programmers when their engine doesn't render non-compliant html pages!!

      And on another note, rendering speed isn't all that matters folks... for me, IE might render faster, but everytime i ask it to open a link on a new window, the stupid IE opens a small window and i have to maximize it by hand... haven't found a way to maximize it by default. Also the goddamn popups which can be disabled with mozilla.

      Mozilla might or might not render pages faster, but generaly it is a more pleasureful experience. (that sounds kinky)

      What i'd like to see was a win32 native interface with the gecko rendering engine...basicaly, just how IE looks and feels but with all the mozilla niceties.

      --
      Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
    24. Re:Yuck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because Konqueror is slower than Moz, crashes a lot, barely renders standards compliant pages... and worst of all, requires you to install an entire shitty and bloated desktop just to use it. Did I mention the constant security holes? It's as bad as IE in that respect.

    25. Re:Yuck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Looks like you're looking for K-Meleon. It uses native Windows controls for the interface, uses IE-like icons, and uses gecko to render the pages.

      Perfect.

      http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

    26. Re:Yuck. by nbvb · · Score: 2

      Not true.

      I paid the $$$ for OmniWeb because I think it's well worth it. I think the potential is there; I'd gladly pay for a browser that WORKS.

      --NBVB

    27. Re:Yuck. by nbvb · · Score: 2
      What kind of dumbass are you? Just because it apparently doesn't work for you - don't project your bad experiences onto anyone else.


      I don't consider myself a dumbass at all. I'm a pretty damned competent sysadmin by trade, and all-around geek elsewise. Mozilla's a 3-year-late bloated piece of code that's got everyone's "pet features" in it. Blah. Now, I'll admit that 1.1 is a whole lot better than anything before it, but it's still big and buggy and has too many options. Elegance through simplicity. It's what makes Solaris beautiful; it's the same reason Aqua is beautiful too.

      Mozilla may be a *teensy* bit slow (i've only used up to ver. 1.0.1 and my CPU is only 500Mhz) but I think its absolutely great! And Galeon is almost orgasmic. Get a clue before you post to a clue-full message board.


      a) Do you realize you said your CPU is "only 500mhz"? Think about that.

      For Chrissakes, Mozilla's slower than IBM Web Explorer was under OS/2 Warp 4 back in 1996! And I ran that on my 386DX/40. Sheesh.

      And no web browser should be orgasmic. Ever. That's just wrong. ... And if you think slashdot is a (clueful) message board, my sincerest condolences. It really wouldn't hurt you to spend some time in the sun, ya know ...

      --NBVB
    28. Re:Yuck. by evilviper · · Score: 2

      > But we can't get a decent browser out the door.

      I've had my eye on Dillo for some time now. It's certainly not "there" yot, but it's incredibly fast, has configurable cookie support (and an SSL patch can be found in the mailing list archives).

      If it had just a tiny number of features (copy text, save images, file-type associations), I'd dump everything else in a second.

      Like I said, it's not there *yet*.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    29. Re:Yuck. by Pete · · Score: 1
      *applause*

      Thank you, ymgve. :-))

      Pete, still giggling.

      PS. Moderators, I think the above comment needs at least a "Score:4, Witty Sarcasm". :)

    30. Re:Yuck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the browsers shall render pages regardless of standards, how is it supposed to know what the author intends to show, and what YOU expect out of it.

      Admit it: You just want a machine with a really BIG button that says: PLEASE ME.

      You have that... Inside you.

    31. Re:Yuck. by David+Gerard · · Score: 2
      "Elegance through simplicity. It's what makes Solaris beautiful ..."

      Um ...

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    32. Re:Yuck. by nbvb · · Score: 2

      Without any of the marketing spewage, Solaris _IS_ beautiful.

      No SAM. No SMIT. No Kudzu/YaST/sysconfig/whatever-the-tool-of-the-week -is. Just raw text files. Crack 'em open and go ... Beautiful.

      Now, is the GUI a mess? Yes, of course. Broken Windows? Ha. CDE? Yuck-o. But who installs that crud anyway?

      Ya don't run GUI's on data center equipment :)

      --NBVB

    33. Re:Yuck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you thought about it for a while, you could probably figure out why your analogy is broken, and why what you wrote is stupid. I'd explain it to you, but I think you'll learn more if you figure it out yourself.

    34. Re:Yuck. by David+Gerard · · Score: 2
      Heh, true. But then I compare Solaris at work to my FreeBSD box at home ...

      "Ya don't run GUI's on data center equipment :)"

      Oh, how I wish that were true >X-(

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    35. Re:Yuck. by FooBarWidget · · Score: 2

      "Typical open source project -- so many features, it doesn't work right for anyone."proprietary commercial software have more features than anybody can handle. Just look at Microsoft Office compared to OpenOffice. Or Photoshop compared to Gimp.
      Your "typical" doesn't make any sense.

    36. Re:Yuck. by leshert · · Score: 2

      I agree that I don't want an email client, an editor, and an IRC client (what was THAT person smoking?!) in my browser. But even so, if you take a look at the code for a web browser that does all the things you ask for (especially showing pages "quickly and correctly" no matter how screwed up the HTML is), and you look at the code for checkbook balancing, rocket control, or web page serving, you'll find that the browser code is more complex.

      I know that's true for the first and third examples, because I've written that code before.

      For the second example, I'm going by published accounts that peg the total Shuttle code at about 400,000 lines of mixed ADA and assembly language.

      That one is a special case, because it runs on a grand total of one hardware configuration (not two major hardware platforms, four different operating systems, and god-knows-how-many hardware configurations as IE must), using known, fixed inputs (not Joe Goofball's randomly borked HTML), and a known software configuration (not the plugin-fest that consumer browsers have to navigate).

      Yep, been there, done that, wanna see the scars?

      Additionally, you have an interesting contradiction: "screw the spec, render anything that's close, and show it to me correctly." For which value of correct? I have to admit I'm out of my depth on this one, because I don't know what is the state of the art in software that can read the mind of some crack-smoking web designer using a WYSIWYG editor written by a team of anencephalitic code monkeys, without having some kind of spec.

    37. Re:Yuck. by nbvb · · Score: 2
      "Ya don't run GUI's on data center equipment :)"

      Oh, how I wish that were true >X-(


      Then it's time to beat your higher-ups with a cluestick. A Sun 414-1100-01 seems to work great. :)

      The only thing that has a GUI in our data center are the 4 "administrator workstations" that we put in cabinets. We've got 4 Ultra 5's that have a GUI so we can run X to get multiple consoles at a time. I've got them using WindowMaker instead of CDE or Brokenwin though, so it's nice & simple. :) They're also on a private network with just them & the terminal servers, so it's about as secure as can be expected ...

      BTW, if you need console management, try one of these: Digi PortServer CM32

      It runs Embedded Linux and does lots of cool things with SSH and console output logging and all that jazz ....

      --NBVB
  21. Project Page by DBordello · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those of you looking for it's main page, it is. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/ You can download from there.

    1. Re:Project Page by Badanov · · Score: 1

      When Phoenix reaches .9, sell.

      --
      Dawn of the Dead
  22. Phoenix vs. Galeon by Wise+Dragon · · Score: 2

    I currently use Galeon. How does Phoenix compare to it? Is it faster? Better? New interface features?

    1. Re:Phoenix vs. Galeon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      just download and try it, it's only 10 meg, everything extract to one nice and tidy dir that you can run it out of

    2. Re:Phoenix vs. Galeon by distributed.karma · · Score: 1

      It's faster than Galeon but less featureful. Works for me though. I think Galeon is getting too big for its original ideology of lightness and simplicity. Interestingly, Phoenix uses XUL which many people blame for Mozilla's slowness...

      --

      --
      If you moderate this, then your children will be next.

    3. Re:Phoenix vs. Galeon by bwt · · Score: 2

      In a nutshell Phoenix is like Galeon but with XUL support. Frankly, I think this is the browser I always wanted Mozilla to be.

      Essentially Phoenix is trying to acheive the same goals as Galeon, so they are in some sense competitors , but using the same Gecko codebase (isn't open source great!).

    4. Re:Phoenix vs. Galeon by horza · · Score: 2

      For me, it's about being able to use something approximate to my fav Galeon on my work Win XP box :-)

      Phillip.

    5. Re:Phoenix vs. Galeon by David+Gerard · · Score: 2
      "Essentially Phoenix is trying to acheive the same goals as Galeon, so they are in some sense competitors"

      Not really. They're both part of the Mozillaverse, so it's all good.

      Even Konqueror isn't a competitor as such with Mozilla - both are open-source and aiming to do a great standards-based browser.

      They are only 'competition' insofar as it's good to have multiple independent streams of development, to allow fresh ideas room to grow. Which is why mozilla.org blatantly encourages two of its key developers (Blake and Hyatt) to go haring off after Phoenixes.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
  23. On the other hand... by Alsee · · Score: 5, Funny

    I continue to download the nightly release every day.

    And I download the daily release every night.

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    1. Re:On the other hand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > And I download the daily release every night.

      That's not what I download every night.

      To each his own.

    2. Re:On the other hand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I download the same old version every friggin minutes!!!

    3. Re:On the other hand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder,

      which one of you gets the latest version sooner?

      Anyhow kick-ass-fun I'm sure. Why not use galeon instead..

    4. Re:On the other hand... by polyp2000 · · Score: 1

      I download the nightly release every hour ...

      --
      Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
    5. Re:On the other hand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am a leet open-sores haxor and I just patch the damn thing myself, recompile and run.

  24. by the time it's done... by h4x0r-3l337 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... it'll be just as big, slow and bloated as any other full-featured browser. People want features. Features come at a price: size and speed. The only way to get both the features and the speed is by using beefier hardware.

    1. Re:by the time it's done... by stu42j · · Score: 3, Informative
      From the release notes:

      Phoenix doesn't include the kitchen sink and it never will. But that doesn't mean that you can't bolt the kitchen sink onto Phoenix and have it work wonderfully. Phoenix developers have implemented a new Extensions panel in preferences which will allow you selectively enable and disable specific extensions. Some popular extensions -- like mozgestures and prefsbar -- already work with Phoenix, and can be downloaded here. It's easy to make other add-ons work with phoenix, and we're working with developers to expedite this.
    2. Re:by the time it's done... by JudasBlue · · Score: 1

      But when "features" are mail readers, newsgroup readers and an HTML composition program, you can do without them.

      I am still waiting for Moz to add a complete emacs implementation.

      --

      7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

    3. Re:by the time it's done... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      by the time it's done it'll be just as big, slow and bloated as any other full-featured browser.

      (Score -2, Naysayer)

      FOAD dumbass. When you get off you ass and write a better browser, then MAYBE you can deride other peoples' perfectly good and functional projects.

    4. Re:by the time it's done... by Fastball · · Score: 2

      By the time I get to Phoenix IE will be rising
      IE will find the note I left hangin' on its door
      IE will laugh when it reads the part that says I'm leavin'
      'Cause I've left that browser so many times before

      By the time I make Albuquerque IE will be VB scripting
      IE will prob'ly stop at lunch and give me a call
      But she'll just hear that phone keep on ringin'
      Off the wall that's all

      By the time I make Oklahoma she'll be sleepin'
      She'll turn softly and call my name out loud
      And she'll cry just to think I'd really leave her
      Tho' time and time I try to tell her so
      She just didn't know I would really go.

    5. Re:by the time it's done... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. I really wish Slashdot had a (-1, Not As Clever As The Author Thinks) mod, right now. Nick deserves better than this.

  25. But why not just use Dillo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Dillo


    It's small, (300K), fast, and free. What else could you possibly want?

    1. Re:But why not just use Dillo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about something that doesn't suck?

    2. Re:But why not just use Dillo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would i want a browser that dosen't support https, frames, java, plugins and such. It would be trivial to fit all this stuff in and still keep things sim. not bad though, if you could hack in tabbed browsing.

    3. Re:But why not just use Dillo by MarkoNo5 · · Score: 1

      Because all it does is sefault ????

    4. Re:But why not just use Dillo by damiam · · Score: 1

      A decent rendering engine.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    5. Re:But why not just use Dillo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought it said... Dildo...

    6. Re:But why not just use Dillo by adamjaskie · · Score: 2

      Dillo is mostly meant for embedded applications. Its not meant to be feature-rich, only to be fast and small. Tabbed browsing would be great for an embedded app though. That would be one place i dont think anyone could disagree that tabs would be good.

      --
      /usr/games/fortune
    7. Re:But why not just use Dillo by terkozer · · Score: 1

      Dude, why would I use a dildo to surf the web!!!!! Oh oops, my bad..

    8. Re:But why not just use Dillo by .com+b4+.storm · · Score: 1
      Dillo is nice, I use it when I want to quickly peak at a link or snag a file from a URL given to me in an e-mail. But what else could I "possibly" want? Here are my main requests, which I don't think are too unreasonable:
      • Frames support (c'mon, even Links can render frames!)
      • Proper rendering of &#n in HTML files. If I go to the Google main page, I see a nice set of &#8226;'s, where there should be bullets.
      • Decent cookie support (i.e. so I can log in to Slashdot)

      When these things are implemented, I'll probably use Dillo a lot more often. If I could code C worth crap, I'd try to add them myself...

      --
      "Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
      -- Ryan Stiles
    9. Re:But why not just use Dillo by evilviper · · Score: 2

      cookies are there, you jut have to edit the cookierc to enable them.

      If dillo had just a tiny number of features (copy text, save images), I'd dump everything else in a second.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    10. Re:But why not just use Dillo by .com+b4+.storm · · Score: 1

      cookies are there, you jut have to edit the cookierc to enable them.

      Well here's what I'm talking about specifically, when I try to log in to Slashdot:

      HTTP/1.1 302 Found Date: Tue 08 Oct 2002 23:15:44 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) mod_gzip/ blah blah blah Set-Cookie: user=blahblahblah

      Pardon my not including the whole message here, seeing as Dillo doesn't have text copying, as you mentioned. :)

      --
      "Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
      -- Ryan Stiles
    11. Re:But why not just use Dillo by evilviper · · Score: 2

      Umm, so? It doesn't automatically follow the redirect... You click on the link that says "this document can be found here", and you are logged in. Or, after you get that screen, just head back to the slasdot homepage.

      If it doesn't work... EDIT YOUR COOKIESRC in the ~/.dillo/ directory

      Mine looks something like this:
      DEFAULT DENY
      slashdot.org ACCEPT .slashdot.org ACCEPT

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    12. Re:But why not just use Dillo by evilviper · · Score: 2

      DAMN SLASHCODE


      ~/.dillo/cookiesrc:

      DEFAULT DENY
      slashdot.org ACCEPT
      .slashdot.org ACCEPT

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  26. Faster than Galeon / Skipstone? by norweigiantroll · · Score: 1

    Anyone know if it's faster that Galeon / Skipstone ? I've been looking for a good browser for my old laptop, Dillo is the only thing fast enough, but it doesn't support JavaScript, CSS, SSL, etc.

    "One thing that I found kind of a pain was that when you first start up Phoenix, it doesn't go straight to your home page. You go to a user menu where you select a username to launch the browser."
    That is dumb. Since all modern OS's (even Windows) are now multiuser, each computer user should have their own user-name anyway.

    1. Re:Faster than Galeon / Skipstone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you like Dillo, but it doesn't have the features you need, try Links. No, it's not Lynx, it's a graphical browser, and it's fast.

    2. Re:Faster than Galeon / Skipstone? by MannyDixn · · Score: 1

      Whadda ya mean, "graphical"? Looks like text to me! That'll win over the IE crowd!

      --
      Can *you* prove that *you* don't have weapons of mass destruction?
    3. Re:Faster than Galeon / Skipstone? by plague3106 · · Score: 1

      There are still alot of computers that aren't multiuser (win9x).

      As far as pheonix starting up and picking a user...it didn't do that for me. Possibly thta poster had multiple profiles already on the computer and phoenix picked them up.

    4. Re:Faster than Galeon / Skipstone? by Viqsi · · Score: 1

      Recent versions of Links (read: past 2.0) have a quasi-graphical mode in that they sort of simulate a textonly display with graphics, and then draw in images. It's cute, but it's also horridly annoying to use, especially since they took out most of the keyboard control stuff.

      That, and of course, they have stated before they have little to no interest in CSS support and are sticking to HTML 3.2 and 4.0 Transitional. As a web developer and one interested in the future of the Web, I consider this attitude to be something beyond utterly unforgivable.

      --

      --
      viqsi - See "vixen"
      If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
    5. Re:Faster than Galeon / Skipstone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think you've read the pages, it is not a text only browser, it just has a text mode as well as a graphical mode.

      Screenshots of Links rendering in graphical mode

  27. BUSH = RECESSION by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What are you going to do when the Iraq "war" plunges the Dow below 7000?

    1. Re:BUSH = RECESSION by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Buy, buy, buy!! The stocks will be on sale then.

  28. the myth of the lightweight browser by tps12 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is hardly the first project with the goal of creating a small, quick, standards-compliant browser. I predict it will fail like the rest. The reason is simple. While it is of course true that 90% of the users of any given program will only use 10% of the features, they will all use a slightly different 10%. In the end, leaving out the 90% of features that you deem "bloat" will lose far more than the 10% of customers that you were counting on.

    You can even see this in the posts that are showing up here already. People are saying, "wow, this looks great, as soon as it has x I'll switch over from Mozilla," "all it needs is y and IE is history," and "this is z away from beating Opera." But, of course, x != y != z, and the end result is a browser that is unusable for just about everyone.

    What these teams don't realize is that the web is used for so many different things today that designing a small, general-purpose web browser is all but impossible. A web browser, if it is complete, is by definition a large, complex system. Microsoft and Mozilla have accepted this. It's time for the rest of us to do so as well.

    --

    Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
    1. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by roca · · Score: 2

      Phoenix is the Mozilla engine with a different UI and some components replaced.

      In terms of what it can render, standards support, etc, it's exactly the same as the Mozilla browser (i.e., pretty much top of the class).

    2. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by norweigiantroll · · Score: 1

      "In the end, leaving out the 90% of features that you deem "bloat" will lose far more than the 10% of customers that you were counting on."

      Use modules / plug-ins. That is what the Dillo project intends to do (well, at least partly.) Then you can load only what features you want, without all the overhead of unused / unwanted ones.

    3. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go back to k5 trollboy.

    4. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by sampson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      so what you're saying is that we need a browser that has many different features that can be enabled/disabled with no cost to performance. i haven't worked on any really large scale projects, but what i'm envisioning is this: a complex ./configure that would let the user pick and choose features to be compiled in.

      do you want mouse gestures? (y/n)
      do you want tabbed windows? (y/n)
      do you want control over javascript behavior? (y/n)

      and you can probably think of even better examples. why hasn't this been done? and if it has been done, how come i haven't seen it from under my rock?

    5. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by Elentar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The fault ultimately should not be placed on the browsers, but on the web standards that have been created over the years.

      HTML was originally intended as a lightweight markup language that was far simpler than SGML. As time has passed, the language has expanded to support more and more features that graphic-happy developers and marketers have demanded.

      Eventually, we'll all be running browsers that use a language more complicated than SGML ever was. Then, somebody will create a new markup language, designed to be lightweight and perhaps facilitate communications, and everybody will switch to it. And then the designers will start demanding new features...

      So, really, it's the destiny of every application (browser or otherwise) to bloat and grow (open-source or not) until it's unusuable and then be replaced by something faster and better.

      Much like governments - but I'll stop there. ;)

      -Elentar

      --
      The wheel it turns, around and around, with an ancient rumbling sound.
    6. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by tongue · · Score: 2

      You obviously haven't used it. I'm still using the 0.1 snapshot and i have yet to find a single problem with it, except that i had to copy over my profile from mozilla to get my preferences working the same way. its tight, its small and getting smaller, its quick, and EVERY SINGLE IE user i've gotten to try it has switched permanently.

      Try spending a little less time sucking Joel Spolsky's cock and a little more time actually TRYING something before having an opinion about it, and maybe one day you'll actually deserve that +5 rating.

    7. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by geekoid · · Score: 2

      you make good points. However I think the way MS and Moz has accepted thgis, is the wrong way.
      Personally, I would like a browser that start off lightweight, and adds modules as I need them. Perferably in a way that I can turn off later, should I choose.
      This was it can have the 10% I need but not the 10% I don't need.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    8. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 5, Informative
      Do some more reading. It seems as if they understand the problem.
      A small snippet from the FAQ:
      The extensions "manager" (really just a tab in a pref panel) is not bloat -- in fact, we're working so hard to support extensions to reduce bloat. Without extensions support, we'd be pressured to include the add-ons in the default build. And, finally, Satchel replaces Mozilla's bloated and complicated form manager.
      Phoenix FAQ
    9. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by BigBir3d · · Score: 1

      sounds like a good questionnaire for doing a online install of a web suite...

    10. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by Ionizor · · Score: 1

      Don't just randomly predict it will fail. It's obvious that you haven't used Phoenix. Try it first before you condemn it to failure.

      So far I've found Phoenix is better than every other browser I've tried. As a matter of fact, I'm using it to post this right now. It's my primary browser and I can't see switching back to IE or Mozilla. If you do decide to try it though, watch 0.2 for password manager crashes, though. It's only crashed twice (I've been using it for almost a month now) but that's what has caused it to crash both times.

      The thing about Phoenix is it does everything I want it to do even without addons. It even does some things I wouldn't switch browsers just to have that make it a lot nicer. I installed mouse gestures. I tried them and I liked them. I installed the radial context menus. I tried them and I hated them. Poof. Disabled. Never have to worry about 'em again. It has a configurable toolbar, something Mozilla has been sorely lacking.

      And it's fast. It's wickedly fast. I can't see myself switching back.

      --

      --
      Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
    11. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by Issue9mm · · Score: 2

      Even the opposite approach would be acceptable, as long as everything were modularized enough to be able to disable quickly.

      Turn everything on, if you must, but give me the option to turn it off if I need to. Give a lightweight option, at the very least. That way, inexperienced users wouldn't have to turn anything on, and more experienced users could turn things off. Best of both worlds. In short though, I totally agree.

      -9mm-

    12. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by ThreeToe · · Score: 1
      I agree that a successful commercial browser must be a sledgehammer. However, I think that open-source developers have a valuable opportunity to provide a large number of browsers, including lightweight browsers, to the general public. Agreed, no such browser will satisfy all the users all the time, but with a reasonable selection, most users will find something that satisfies them.

      Of course, even given a detailed set of requirements, it is often difficult to discover software that meets those requirements. I've found this doubly true for open source software as the number of potential choices is often large, and it is hard to prune these choices without rolling up the sleeves and trying things out.

      -ThreeToe
      -Two Lost In Struggle With Calamari

    13. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by CentrX · · Score: 1

      Why don't they just make it a web browser? Haven't you heard of modularity? There's no need for an IRC client or a mail client! It was supposed to fit on a floppy disk.

      --

      "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
    14. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I predict that you havn't read their FAQ about
      extension handling, and that you just like the
      what you talk.

    15. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 2

      Fail? Define fail. Failed who? Try running Moz or IE on Mac OS X, then try running Chimera. It's succeeded with flying colors. It has no detractors. The only people that don't use it are the ones that can't be bothered to try. That is, of course, a substantial number of people, but while the developers are still getting paychecks...

      Who failed?

      --

      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    16. Re:the myth of the lightweight browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd like to see a browser that, like dillo, is written in c and doesn't depend on huge, slow bloated libraries. Gnome sucks!

  29. Dude, that's bad time management by Murdock037 · · Score: 3, Flamebait

    Why not save the few minutes it takes you to download and install the nightly builds of Phoenix in the morning, and, you know, settle for Mozilla?

    You'd probably end up with a good thirty seconds more at the end of your day to kick back and enjoy.

    1. Re:Dude, that's bad time management by Tassach · · Score: 2

      A true geek would write a cron job that grabbed the latest version every night and auto-installed it.

      --
      Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
    2. Re:Dude, that's bad time management by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the true geek will end up with an unusable browser most of the time.

      Been there, done that.

    3. Re:Dude, that's bad time management by David+Gerard · · Score: 2

      Considering you can get it as a zip file, and just install it to the directory your symlink points to, that's really pretty easy.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
  30. Migration of Plugins by Milican · · Score: 2

    I don't mind downloading the latest builds. However, every time I do I basically delete the old mozilla directory and uncompress the new one. Of course, the plugins are deleted when using this method. Does anyone know if its ok to simply install over the previous directory? If so would my plugins and Java stay the same. Keep in mind I am not deleting my profile directory.

    JOhn

    1. Re:Migration of Plugins by jsoderba · · Score: 1

      Put your plugins (or symlinks to them) in ~/.mozilla/plugins/

      Phoenix will look in ,mozilla as wellas in .phoenix

    2. Re:Migration of Plugins by tushar · · Score: 1

      You can also set MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH to point to where the plugins are installed.

    3. Re:Migration of Plugins by Milican · · Score: 1

      Sweet... is there a similar command for bookmarks too?

      JOhn

    4. Re:Migration of Plugins by tushar · · Score: 1

      NAFAIK. Maybe you can put in a RFE.

    5. Re:Migration of Plugins by Milican · · Score: 2

      Yes JOhn you dolt. Simply check out Bug #104184 on Bugzilla for details. It states that you can add a line similar to

      user_pref("browser.bookmarks.file", "D:\\My Docs\\bookmarks.html");

      Notice the double slashes... on Unix your mileage may vary...

      JOhn

  31. Burning swan? by bberg · · Score: 1

    why does that picture of the phoenix look like a SWAN FROM HELL.

    1. Re:Burning swan? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      a Phoenix is a mythical bird that's made of fire.

    2. Re:Burning swan? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That bird looks like a crazy cartoon from the 60's, we need a dino-bird thing that looks cool like the cool mozilla logo but with wings and stuff!

  32. Tabs vs. MDI by Karamchand · · Score: 3, Informative

    When will people understand the difference between tabbed browsing and MDI windows?
    I really prefer Opera's MDI windows. Because I am able to view more than one windows at a time but still can hide/restore all the windows with a single click. I just like it to move my "surfing workspace" around quite fast (i.e. with ONE click) but still have the advantages of "normal" windows.

    1. Re:Tabs vs. MDI by dbarclay10 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Most people do understand the difference between tabs and Opera's "workspace" approach.

      They're both MDI, though - "multiple document interface". They just accomplish the same goal in different ways :)

      That being said, most people absolutely abhor window-in-window MDI.

      --

      Barclay family motto:
      Aut agere aut mori.
      (Either action or death.)
    2. Re:Tabs vs. MDI by Karamchand · · Score: 2, Insightful

      sorry for the inexactness :) Yea, you're right, both are MDIs... I am just used to only call the Opera-style MDI MDI, from development with Delphi..

      To be honest I simply cannot understand how one can abhor Opera-style MDI :-) I am really happy with it..

    3. Re:Tabs vs. MDI by krogoth · · Score: 2

      Mozilla has that too. Right click on a link and choose "open in new window", and you'll be able to see two pages at once!

      --

      They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
    4. Re:Tabs vs. MDI by Karamchand · · Score: 1

      But then it's a completely new window, which will also show up in the taskbar, right? - that's not what I want..

    5. Re:Tabs vs. MDI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How are tabbed windows not a multiple document interface? Think of it outside of your Powerbuilder/VB/Delphi point of reference.

    6. Re:Tabs vs. MDI by Karamchand · · Score: 1

      I already wrote that this was an inexactness in my post. Sorry for this.
      Still it is different from the MDI model Opera uses. QUITE different..

    7. Re:Tabs vs. MDI by hkmwbz · · Score: 2
      "That being said, most people absolutely abhor window-in-window MDI."
      They do? Where are the statistics on that? Have they all tried proper, working MDI in a web browser?

      Before I started using Opera's MDI I thought it was laughable to use it in a web browser.

      Oh how wrong I was.

      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
  33. Not faster... by Espectr0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's practically the same mozilla code, only that some features are removed, like mail, so the result product is very small, but it still uses XUL, which is the main cause of mozilla slowness.

    I downloaded it to test on my amd 333 64mb laptop, but it is still too slow for me to use.

    However, it's a little more usable in this laptop than mozilla itself.

    I want a fast, small browser with tabs, java, javascript, flash and saving passwords. There isn't any right now, being Opera the closest one. Problems: adware, no password saving.

    1. Re:Not faster... by bunratty · · Score: 2
      I downloaded it to test on my amd 333 64mb laptop, but it is still too slow for me to use.
      Your problem is likely not enough RAM. 64 MB is the minimum requirement for Mozilla, and if you have any other programs running at the same time, the virtual memory will start thrashing. After I upgraded my 366 laptop from 64 MB to 256 MB earlier this year, Mozilla and other apps ran much more smoothly.
      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    2. Re:Not faster... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since the previous story on /. about phoenix I've been trying it, and mind you I'm still stuck on a p2 300 (though I have 416 megs of RAM laugh) and other then the 3-5 seconds of initial load time it flies for me (windows version atm). So far I have nothing but like for phoenix, no real problems and tabbed browsing without using a wrapper on IE, but hey maybe that's just me

    3. Re:Not faster... by Ionizor · · Score: 1

      That's strange that you'd say it's slow on your AMD 333 because I run it on a Pentium 166 128 MB laptop and it flies, especially compared to IE. Also, the page rendering is a lot faster than Mozilla for me.

      --

      --
      Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
  34. My review by DeadSea · · Score: 4, Informative
    Gone for good:
    • Chatzilla
    • Mail
    • Composer

    Gone but planned:

    • 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.
    • Fine grained cookie management. No more "alert me" and "remember this decision".
    • Site Navigation Bar

    Still there:

    • Ability to block popups without disabling javascript. (by default, no option not to)
    • Bookmarks and bookmarks manager
    • History
    • Javascript Conole
    • Download Manager
    • Search plugins
    • Tabbed browsing
    • Cache

      Most of the stuff that is gone but planned just has a broken UI. You can set the prefs if you want to edit your javascript config files or copy the config files from your mozilla directory. Exceptions are the sidebar and the site navigation bar which need to be written. This information comes from my 5 minute review of the browser that I posted last time and the followup comments to it. (My apologies to Asa for getting a few of the details wrong in my first review)

  35. don't install everything by b17bmbr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    when you run the mozilla installer, just don't install all the things like mail, composer, etc. it loads much faster. IMHO of course.

    --
    My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
    1. Re:don't install everything by Ionizor · · Score: 1

      I've used bare Mozilla and Phoenix default install on the same computer. Phoenix is a great deal faster.

      --

      --
      Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
    2. Re:don't install everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You stupid fuck. How could something quantitative - the amount of time mozilla takes to load - be IMHO ??

  36. No Mac OS X by pcolley · · Score: 1


    Unfortunately, there is no version for Mac OS X yet.

    The nightly builds can be downloaded here.

    1. Re:No Mac OS X by pigpen_ · · Score: 2, Informative

      In the README there is the following:

      Q8: What about OS X?
      Chimera is the top gecko-based browser for OS X. We do not intend to compete on that platform.
      Although I really don't find Mozilla to be all that bloated and slow. It's my main browser of choice on OS X, Win NT, and Debian.

      MOJIRA ROARS!
      --
      Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
    2. Re:No Mac OS X by pigpen_ · · Score: 1

      I forgot to add a link to Chimera, which is quickly becoming the best OS X browser:

      http://chimera.mozdev.org/

      --
      Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
    3. Re:No Mac OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, there's always Chimera for Mac OS X in case you didn't know.

      http://www.mozilla.org/projects/chimera/

    4. Re:No Mac OS X by 90XDoubleSide · · Score: 2
      If you want a more in-depth discussion of why there need to be two seperate projects for three platforms to create a lean web browser based on the Gecko engine, read David Hyatt's blog from April 20th:

      http://www.mozillazine.org/weblogs/hyatt/2002_04_1 4_mozillian_archive.html

      --
      "Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
    5. Re:No Mac OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chimera is definitely much faster than Mozilla on OSX. I find that the autocomplete in the location bar is the worst offender; I can often type an entire URL before half of it is displayed in the location bar when autocomplete is enabled...it simply takes far too long to redraw the window to keep up. Chimera doesn't have this problem, but the the lack of any decent cookie management reallly annoys me in Chimera.

      While I'm spouting off, why the heck do gecko browsers have to download a page again when you view source? It makes the feature almost useless when you're trying to debug a dynamically generated website (which I do often).

  37. If its a really really fast browser you want... by Ummagumma · · Score: 3, Funny

    try lynx! :)

    --
    "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
    1. Re:If its a really really fast browser you want... by distributed.karma · · Score: 1

      What is it with these oldskool unix freaks and their Lynx fetish? W3M and Links are smaller and faster.

      --

      --
      If you moderate this, then your children will be next.

    2. Re:If its a really really fast browser you want... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      W3M and Links render better, but they are not, IME, faster. Lynx is still the fastest. To the extent that they're smaller, it's because they have fewer features.

  38. Mozilla and Phoenix slow doing XSLT by rgm3 · · Score: 2, Informative

    For the curious, Mozilla and Phoenix are still pretty slow when doing XSLT with large XML docs, compared to things like Xalan.

    1. Re:Mozilla and Phoenix slow doing XSLT by David+Gerard · · Score: 2
      XSLT is a 'mostly-works' thing in Mozilla. It still needs a lot of testing and beating-on.

      Basically, it'll get better in proportion to people's interest level. Get it to crash and file talkbacks and stacktraces. Publish performance benchmarks. File performance bugs. Get to know the developers. Look into the code, if you dare.

      I would be profoundly happy if XSLT in Mozilla can be improved :-)

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
  39. Maybe he wants to PARTICIPATE! by glrotate · · Score: 1

    You know, simple things like reporting bugs, or documentation.

  40. Just downloaded it by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, all i can say is, im hooked. Im a web developer, and thus in my days i get to look at a lot of browsers, and i can say this:

    Pheonix is the only browser that has come close to tempting me away from IE!

    All i can say is, its fantastic. Small, lightweight. Has jsut the features i use, and is clean as well.
    It even makes fonts look good etc. I think ill be sticking for the time being, and i will certainly be following the development closely from now on!

    1. Re:Just downloaded it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IE? feature poor. i cant stand it. fast computer, fast connection, i want features, speed - well whatever.

      IE, is hideous, its not much faster, but it does lack tabs, popup killing (not kill EVERY popup, including the ones i WANT).

      oh well, im sure Microsoft will catch up eventually.

    2. Re:Just downloaded it by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 2
      Pheonix is the only browser that has come close to tempting me away from IE!

      Amen to that. With a few little GUI tweaks here and there. I'll be saying goodbye to IE. And I most deffinitly won't be sad to see it go.

    3. Re:Just downloaded it by Tack · · Score: 4, Informative
      If you're truly a web developer, you ought to be using Mozilla. Mozilla has, hands down, the best debugging tools available, including an actually useful Javascript console (trying to find JS errors in any non-trivial web app in IE is frustrating at best, virtually impossible at worst), Venkman, an excellent Javascript debugger AND profiler, and the remarkably useful DOM Inspector.

      IE is a good browser, but as a web developer for web development, shame on you for not using Mozilla. :)

      Jason.

    4. Re:Just downloaded it by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      including an actually useful Javascript console and Venkman, an excellent Javascript debugger AND profiler and remarkably useful DOM Inspector.

      A change to Mozilla for me in these circumstances will not have any difference, since i dont use Javascript or Java, or indeed any clientside stuff other than CSS. I just dont like using them, as i prefer using PHP to handle everything server side, and i havent come across a situation i cant handle this way yet.

      IE is a good browser, but as a web developer for web development, shame on you for not using Mozilla.

      Well, all i can say is, IE is normally used almost 100% by my target audience i can target IE totally. Yes i do stick to standards (xhtml1.0 trans) so it should work in any browser :)

      I use IE cause i like it, i dont use Mozilla because i dont like it. Simple really. Now theres pheonix and it looks good enough for me to use in place of IE (actually it may not atm, ive just used it on some webpages which are CSS heavy and it doesnt format correctly, oh well).

      Again, i wish to thank the pheonix developers for this fantastic project!

    5. Re:Just downloaded it by LadyLucky · · Score: 2
      If you're truly a web developer, you ought to be using Mozilla. Mozilla has, hands down, the best debugging tools available, including an actually useful Javascript console (trying to find JS errors in any non-trivial web app in IE is frustrating at best, virtually impossible at worst), Venkman, an excellent Javascript debugger AND profiler [mozilla.org], and the remarkably useful DOM Inspector [mozilla.org].

      You never used J++ then? Full on java script debugging, attach to any old running IE, can even be an embeddded on. Very sexy. Set next statement, watches that are arbitrary pieces of JavaScript.... yumtastic!! And it's been around since 1998 or something.

      --
      dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
  41. Phoenix 0.2 Web Browser: Lean, Mean Mozilla by feto · · Score: 1
    Of course it will rock, what else can you expect from the moz dev team? Before 1.0, they will for sure support Palm OS, and the rest, because it's where they want to be.

    Like I read in a post some days ago, to bad they don't provide patches, having to download 13 MB every release is quite a lot. But what else is still missing?

  42. Impressive by j_kenpo · · Score: 2

    Well Im satisfied, I cant wait to see where this project goes in the future. I just installed Phoenix on my box, and Im running it over a SSH tunnel from my house to work, and over this slow setup I still get better response out of this than I do Mozilla, Evolution, Opera, and a few other X applications that I run. Its not as fast as Lynx... but its tolerable for when I want a graphical browser over ssh. If the optimization in future version helps speed things up, then Ill be satisfied.

  43. Automating nightly builds by lobos · · Score: 1

    I'm new to the OSS scene so if someone could help me out, it would be much appreciated. I'm using windows right now (ugh) and am wondering if anyone knows how to automate downloading and installing the nightly builds of Phoenix. If I can't, will I lose preferences by just unzipping the newest build into my existing folder? Thanks.

  44. Works great in Win2k by mattx · · Score: 0

    Mozilla is slow under win2k, but Phoenix is much faster and smoother. Also love the google search box next to the address bar, like I have IE setup. Buttons are small so the web page can have more real estate. For a 0.2 version browser it's looking excellent.

    And no matter what people tell you mozilla is NOT faster than IE. IE has them beat for speed, but Phoenix is getting closer to matching it.

  45. I've seen this too. by InThane · · Score: 2

    At one point, Moz was rendering faster than the IE on the machine I was using at the time - a P2/400 w/64mb of RAM running Win98SE. This was in the ~0.9.frog-knows era. IE was I believe either 5.01 or 5.5. I don't remember which.

    Nowadays, while Moz is pretty snappy, IE hands it's ass to Moz in sheer render speed. Don't ask me what changed, I have no idea. I've noticed this from a P200/48mb RAM laptop running win98se to a P4/2000 w/256mb or RAM running WinXP.

    I still use Mozilla for everything I can, though.

    --
    InThane
  46. The Slashing Edge by bwt · · Score: 2

    No, what would have been weird is if you had just installed Phoenix 0.2 on your SuSE 8.1 Professional.

    My copy of the later came in the mail today, so I could do just that, except I've already seen Slashdot today, so I guess I'm old news.

    There should be a name for installing the latest thing, poping to Slashdot and finding that thing reviewed. (The Slashing Edge ?!) Triple points for first post, too.

    1. Re:The Slashing Edge by commodoresloat · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, what would be really weird is if you installed Phoenix under SuSE 8.1 on an Indian Linux PDA, then installed SETI@home and started getting messages from Quaoar.

    2. Re:The Slashing Edge by io333 · · Score: 1

      that's beyond weird. i think that happens just before the universe winks out

    3. Re:The Slashing Edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So I can delete these messages from Queen Xnorix of the Third Empire?

  47. You lying get! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's Konqueror and you know it!

    I guess I've finally become numb to the majesty of goatse when the first thing I notice on that pic was the browser.

    Although the penguins poking round the side were cute.

  48. Finally feels faster than IE by slagdogg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On Linux, Phoenix has a long way to go before it fetches me away from Galeon. However, it's the first browser on Win32 that's really compelled me to consider switching from IE. While Mozilla is technically faster on Win32, to me it's never really 'felt' faster than IE. Phoenix wipes the floor with Mozilla and IE in the speed department.

    If you're running Win32, you can use StrokeIT for mouse gestures on this otherwise feature-lite browser.

    --
    (Score:-1, Wrong)
  49. WWEND? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ambushing unsespecting squares with with the holey portal is an important part of operation mindphuk. All right thinking discordians (programmers for instance) would instincively know this.

    Do not take the oracle of the portal lightly!

  50. If you want speed.. by DrunkenPenguin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ..use text based browsers like Lynx or Links. They may seem ackward at first, but you'll get used to them and then you don't want to live without one.

    I could imagine you need browser to find information about something - text based browsers are more than sufficient for that task. Besides it's a pleasure to read clear console text (with custom font set, of course :).

    Of course it's nice to look at pictures of pretty girls once in a while - I do that too, but for that purpose mozilla / konqueror is more than good enough. The point is - ascii text browsers are the best if you are surfing to get some pure information about something.

    1. Re:If you want speed.. by TeknoHog · · Score: 2
      I love browsing in text mode, and I agree that www is more about information and less about pr0n.

      The problem is that most sites are designed for graphical browsers. Even simple, proper w3c html can be a pain to navigate through in text mode. For instance, a table of links (such as Everything2 softlinks) takes time to reach the link you want, because you have to pass through every visible link in their html order. It's much faster with a mouse.

      Our visual/spatial perception is a powerful feature which should be used for our advantage. GUIs are not just for newbies. But I'm not letting go of my terminals quite yet.. right tool for the right job and so forth.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:If you want speed.. by zm887 · · Score: 1

      For those looking for the best of both worlds (ie. a text/xterm based browser that does images), I would *strongly* recommend w3m. It is fast, and IMHO much better than lynx (more intuitive key bindings), and with the addition of the w3mimg package will render graphics *inside* the xterm window. It also support frames. http://w3m.sourceforge.net

    3. Re:If you want speed.. by bmw · · Score: 1

      The problem is that most sites are designed for graphical browsers. Even simple, proper w3c html can be a pain to navigate through in text mode. For instance, a table of links (such as Everything2 softlinks) takes time to reach the link you want, because you have to pass through every visible link in their html order. It's much faster with a mouse.

      I agree that many sites are designed without any thought being given to text based browsers, but don't Links and w3m allow you to follow links with the mouse when in X?

  51. That's part of the point... by Millennium · · Score: 2

    As I understand it, Phoenix is one part of an experiment in modularizing Mozilla. As others have pointed out, a Mail/News app called Minotaur is in the works. We might ses spinoffs for Composer and ChatZilla as well, but I don't know if anything's set up for them yet.

    In that light, Phoenix is actually the first step in the very process you're describing.

    1. Re:That's part of the point... by bsharitt · · Score: 2

      In that light, Phoenix is actually the first step in the very process you're describing.

      I hope so. What I'd really like to see is a Netscape light of something based on Phoenix. While I like the whole mozilla thing, I think it's too late for Netscape to compete with MS on a platform level(leave that up to the open source guys with moz). One complaint about Netscape it it's bloatedness and slow start up speeds. If Netscape wants to gain back some ground from MS, they need a fast, light weight, and powerful browser. They already have the last part, and the first once to thing gets started, but that middle one(light weight) is one where they they fail horribly.

  52. MozUpdate (shameless self-promotion) by Wonko42 · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you'd like a simple Windows app to download and install the latest nightly build of Mozilla or Phoenix with just a few button clicks, check out MozUpdate.

  53. Mozilla Icon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does anybody else find it ironic that the icon and symbol for Mozilla is a dinosaur? Isn't the last thing you want associated with your software the image of an old,big and clunky, (and extinct species)? Who was the marketing genius that thought that one up.

  54. I like it too, but... by fireboy1919 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can't figure out what the fuss is all about. I just ran it on my machine, with little improvement.

    First of all, let me say how I tested it. I am running Gentoo linux on a PIII-500, which is lucky enough to have someone who distributed the source to it for us. So I compiled it and started trying to use it.

    My previous browser was (and now is again) Galeon.

    Everything worked pretty well: I downloaded mouse gestures (and then changed permissions so that they would work without being root), and advanced tabbed browsing, and was generally impressed.

    But then I checked on the speed thing that everyone touts by
    1) Opening a bunch of tabs and switching between them.
    2) Going back and forward rapidly in the browser history
    3) Running some javascript animations

    Then I ran gnome-system-monitor (which can detect threads, unlike top), and checked on the memory requirements.

    Know what I found with all of this? Its seems to run the same speed as galeon. It takes about 25MB on my system, and runs about the same speed.

    Now, both of these two do run faster and with smaller memory requirements than Mozilla, but...we should probably compare it to all Mozilla variations to see if its doing something unique in the open source world.

    The reason I switched back to galeon is because Galeon has all of the features that Phoenix does, PLUS it has smart bookmarks (so that you can search google, freshmeat, dogpile, slackware, etc).

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
    1. Re:I like it too, but... by dcstimm · · Score: 1

      Im glad the ebuild worked for you:-) Gotta Love Gentoo

  55. nice clean browser by Archfeld · · Score: 3, Insightful

    but I do not see any time difference over my stripped out IE 6. I still end up waiting on the proxy to resolve, and once I upped the number of objects IE handles, they seem to both scream. The only issue I see with IE is heavy drop down box usage scerws up screen writing. Next time I have mod points I will bring up Phoenix and see how it performs. Either way you look at it they BOTH blow away Mozilla performance wise...

    --
    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    1. Re:nice clean browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      of course IE suffers a different problem, feature creep. wheres the tabbed browsing? pop up killer? (that works)

  56. Opera + K-meleon = Heaven by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Opera is my main browser and I absolutely love it. Fastest browser ever? Yes! The only problem is that it renders a very small minority of pages wrong, which I'll then check out with K-Meleon.

  57. Are you just trolling? by Steveftoth · · Score: 1

    or are you serious?

    maybe you just don't get out enough and try it on many different computers, on my 933mhz (256MB ram) work machine both are instant. on either browser.

    Maybe it's something else in your machine.

    BTW, I have something like 100-200 bookmarks. So don't try to say that it's because I have no bookmarks.

    1. Re:Are you just trolling? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am running Mozilla under Linux and a relatively modern version of glibc. I wouldn't be too surprised if the Windows version ran faster, though, but that doesn't help me much.

  58. Re:Screenshot by welshsocialist · · Score: 1

    For a REAL Phoenix screenshot, go to http://www.joshuaholman.net/phoenix.png.

    --
    Support the Chagossians
  59. No shit it's fast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, you mean that a GTK interface is faster than the mozilla XML/javascript/GIF slow-as-molasses piece of shit interface that mozilla uses? Well I'll be damned! In all seriousness though, shut the fuck up.

  60. ITS. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Learn it. Use it.

  61. $HOME/.mozilla/plugins/ by Straker+Skunk · · Score: 2

    If your Mozilla install isn't being used by others, just put your plug-ins in ~/.mozilla/plugins/ (or ~/.phoenix/plugins/). Both browsers will pick 'em up fine from there.

    --
    iSKUNK!
    1. Re:$HOME/.mozilla/plugins/ by jacobito · · Score: 2

      and if you're using windows, just backup your plugins directory before deleting the old binary and preferences directories. (i'm assuming that you're starting from scratch with each build to avoid pre-release problems)

    2. Re:$HOME/.mozilla/plugins/ by David+Gerard · · Score: 2

      No, you can do it the easy way in Windows too - find your profile directory, create a folder called 'plugins' and put 'em in there. The only way to live for someone like me who gets a new nightly every three or four days :-)

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
  62. Good one Calvin by tmark · · Score: 3, Funny

    Phoenix code is based completely on Mozilla code, so the development should move rather quickly.

    Bwahahahaha ! Now that put a smile on my face.

    (title borrowed from one of my favorite lines from a PJ's episode)

  63. Please change the UI by InodoroPereyra · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While I agree with a previous poster in that the "light browser" is really a myth and Phoenix will eventually get bloated and there is nothing wrong with that, I also think that the real advantage of Phoenix is that they can improve the old and not so intuitive User Interface that Mozilla inherited from Netscape.

    Mozilla, and for that matter Netscape >= 6, was designed as we know from the ground up with a greatly improved, new codebase. But they kept the same UI to make sure the old users wouldn't freak out. I won't argue whether that was a good decision. But I think that Phoenix has nothing to inherit and should go ahead and put all the effort on an improved UI. That by itself will make the effort worthwhile.

    My 1.99 cts

  64. Its a conspiracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have to admit, the Mozilla team did a pretty decent job of reimplementing Java through C++. I don't think it's as fast as they though it would be, sadly.

  65. Re:MozUpdate (shell script) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
  66. RAM use on WinXP by Inoshiro · · Score: 2

    "Sure it uses RAM,"

    Actually, I was shocked at how little ram Mozilla uses. When minimized, Mozilla uses a megabyte of ram. One megabyte. Why so little? Mozilla tends to pick up the odd memory leak even in current versions all the time, but when you minimize it, it does this thing where it internally restarts itself (guessing, since in drops down to a meg of ram, then loads up to 6 megs with ~15 websites loaded). IE never does anything like this.

    On Linux, Mozilla doesn't do this because the Window managers don't have any standard hinting for min/max/restore (good in some ways [the WM should manage stateful window positions/size], bad in others [apps can't hook it when they need to]). Since I only use Mozilla on Windows at work, this was a completely shocking behaviour to me, when I'd typically restart the browser every 3 or so weeks at home (+ get a new nightly).

    --
    --
    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
    1. Re:RAM use on WinXP by Suppafly · · Score: 2

      it does this thing where it internally restarts itself (guessing, since in drops down to a meg of ram, then loads up to 6 megs with ~15 websites loaded). IE never does anything like this.


      No, mozilla has nothing to do with it.. the os pages unused programs out when they aren't doing stuff.. the same thing happens with IE.

      On Linux, Mozilla doesn't do this because the Window managers don't have any standard hinting for min/max/restore (good in some ways [the WM should manage stateful window positions/size], bad in others [apps can't hook it when they need to]).

      No.

    2. Re:RAM use on WinXP by Inoshiro · · Score: 2

      Interesting. Tack another one up to not using Windows very often :)

      Is there a way to tune the aggresiveness of Windows' swaping? I often find that even with 512mb of RAM, it will swap out too agressively (I will have ~300mb free ram, and the HD will be pegging along mightily swapping in Visual Studio), resulting in a performance loss. It performs as well with 256mb of RAM in it because of how it likes to swap applications out.

      --
      --
      Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
    3. Re:RAM use on WinXP by tupps · · Score: 2

      I think you will find that the Mem usage goes down, but Virtual Memory size (Add it in the Select Column in the view menu) will stay exactly the same. I think it is just a trick to free up some ram in the machine when minimised (and therefore not needed to be immediately available.

      --
      Go out and get sailing!
    4. Re:RAM use on WinXP by letxa2000 · · Score: 1
      If you find out, I'd like to know how. My old laptop only had 128MB of RAM. My new one has 256MB RAM, but it's running XP and swaps the hard drive like there is no tomorrow. It drives me crazy because my USB mouse moves in spurts--moves fine for a few seconds, then stops while the hard drive swaps, then comes back, etc. It absolutely drives me crazy and more than once I've clicked the wrong icon as a result.

      That said, I've migrated completely to Linux on my desktop and I'm browsing now in Linux/Mozilla. But I still have to support some MS projects so I can't go to Linux on the laptop just yet--although I'm planning on buying a new HD for the laptop and going dual-boot on it so I can use Linux 90% of the time and just boot XP when I need to maintain something. As long as I can copy XP onto the new HD without having to go through product activation--something I completely refuse to do.

    5. Re:RAM use on WinXP by Inthewire · · Score: 1

      ...or leave XP on the current drive and install Linux on the new one...

      --


      Writers imply. Readers infer.
  67. Re:Screenshot by cioxx · · Score: 2

    I'll take that and raise you the Windows 2000 version of it screenshot

  68. Ads? What ads... by mbourgon · · Score: 2

    I was under the impression that if you paid, there are no ads whatsoever.

    --
    "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
  69. Standards compliance. by Inoshiro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    XHTML 1.1, 1.0 strict, CSS 1, 2, 3 strict.

    Oh, you'll also need an entire quirks engine that mimics IE 5. Good luck!

    --
    --
    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
    1. Re:Standards compliance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fair enough, but this is version 0.6.6 Alpha :-)

      If you look on the mailing list, there are loads of patches for various things, but the CVS server hasn't been updated for a couple of months, because of an administrative problem.

      To be honest, I think version 1.0 is going to be as feature rich as Links, but that's just a guess...

  70. Atlantis GNOME 2 native Webbrowser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get a look at Atlantis a GNOME 2 native Webbrowser light and usable. Click on Atlantis for Screencaps and bins

  71. Re:Screenshot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yuuccckkk...microsoft.com

    why do you hang out on slashdot if you're an MS fan-person?

  72. Netscape 7 by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Has anyone here bothered to try Netscape 7 yet, it's fast, solid, has a tabbed interface, comes preconfigured for Java, and flash. It's so much better than Netscape 6, tons faster. It's like opera without the ads.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    1. Re:Netscape 7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      errm... mozilla and netscape depend on the same codebase. 90% of it contains the same code line for line so where is the big difference ? and why should i bother with netscape 7 fork from mozilla if i can use the real one ... mozilla ?

    2. Re:Netscape 7 by ksuMacGyver · · Score: 0

      ummm, Netscape doesn't have blocking popups(without, manually editting config)---it is basically a stripped Mozilla with AOL garbage added in. So why use that? Or are you from AOL? =P

      --

      Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

      Interested in AI? MACR
    3. Re:Netscape 7 by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Try Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Scripts & Plugins, open a link in a new window. this will stop pages from showing popups, just try it.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    4. Re:Netscape 7 by hkmwbz · · Score: 2
      Opera without the ads? Does it run on lower-end systems?

      And does it have a single ad window where all ads appear? Or does it actually place "ads" for AOL all over the place?

      After installing Netscape 7 for testing, I had AOL icons on my Windows desktop, quick launch bar, the top level of the start menu as well as in the Netscape 7 start menu folder!

      No thanks. Netscape 7 seems to be more of a single huge ad for AOL. I uninstalled it and happily went back to using Mozilla and Opera.

      A browser which places itself everywhere like that without asking does not stay on my system for long.

      How you can even think about comparing Netscape 7 to Opera - and even without mentioning Mozilla - is beyond me.

      I now use Opera and Mozilla, and I am watching the progress on Phoenix, which looks nice, but isn't quite there yet.

      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
  73. My shellscript. by Inoshiro · · Score: 2

    It preserves an outside set of plugins, and does not reget from the server if the local version is newer.

    #!/bin/sh
    # newmoz.sh
    cd ~/moz/
    wget -t 2 -T 40 ftp.mozilla.org//pub/mozilla/nightly/latest/mozill a-i686-pc-linu
    x-gnu.tar.gz;
    # This will re-extract Mozilla regardless of if you downloaded a new version.
    rm -rf mozilla;
    tar xzf mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz;
    rm -rf mozilla/plugins/
    # links in external plugins automatically (keep your Java and flashplugins easily!).
    ln -s ~/plugins mozilla/plugins

    --
    --
    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
    1. Re:My shellscript. by Chris+Hiner · · Score: 2

      You can optimize this a bit, by putting your plugins in ~/.mozilla/plugins/ then you don't have to worry about them at all.

  74. Oh, you'd *encourage* use of the standard. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, you just fixed everything, didn't you, you idiot.

  75. Speed? by Fastball · · Score: 2
    It surprises me how often the speed comparison between Mozilla and IE pops up here and elsewhere. Is it really that big either way. Here's my observation: render speeds in Mozilla and IE are comparable, period. Even start up times are neglibile. I use Mozilla without Quicklaunch, and I'm pleased as punch. Once I have a browser window, I'm golden. It's not like I'm opening and closing Mozilla left and right, and I'm a web app developer.

    The difference for me lies in good old-fashioned goodwill. I believe in open source, its developers, and share in the overall passion for software that is developed with me in mind far more that marketable software with corporate profit in mind. Pure and simple.

  76. Faster on Windows. by Nailer · · Score: 3

    I often hear someone defend Mozillas memory usage and speed (which I still find incredibly sluggish on an Athlon 900 / 640MB, a Duron 800 / 256MB machine, and a few others with noticable delays with any on screen widgets) by saying that Windows loads many of the components to support IE into their base OS.

    This ignores the obvious argument that this only addresses launch times and rendering ignores the still noticably sluggish widgets. I wonder why somebody didn't just integrate gecko with these components? Create an ActiveX gecko to use instead of MSHTML.DLL, use standard Windows toolbars (because we all know how sucessful Xul was) and add in the other good features of Mozilla, like pop up blocking and security.

    1. Re:Faster on Windows. by Cirvam · · Score: 1

      Erm, mostly because it wouldn't work on linux/hp-ux/solaris/BSD/OS X then. It would just be another IE knockoff.

    2. Re:Faster on Windows. by SEE · · Score: 2

      So, you want K Meleon. Okay, it's coming.

    3. Re:Faster on Windows. by Nailer · · Score: 2

      Actually, the ActiveX plugin someone mentioned above seem to do the trick. KMeleon is currently stagnant and doesn't work with recent gecko releases.

  77. The Preference bar is Groovy! by farrellj · · Score: 2

    I just downloaded it and added it to Mozilla! Cool!

    Now I have to check out Pheonix

    ttyl
    Farrell

    --
    CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
  78. Well, Opera has both by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 2

    But I prefer using it in tabbed mode these days. That way you have everything tucked in one window with no wasted screen real estate and if you want to view two windows at the same time for some reason you simply drag one of the tabs to the desktop (well, any non-opera bit of screen really) and you can do that.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
  79. No! No! No! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The question should be, "What happens when the Iraq war plunges the DOLLAR down to pennies?"!

  80. Another cool feature? by AyeRoxor! · · Score: 1

    "Another cool feature is that you can change the font size just by holding down the "Ctrl" key and using the mouse scroll button. (No messing with drop down menu's for this anymore. I think they learned this trick from Opera.) "

    Wow, that's so cool! How cool? So cool that you can do the same thing with the shift key in IE, since version 3. Wonder where almighty Opera got it...

    Good review, and I downloaded it, but check the competition's features before you rave about one :)

    1. Re:Another cool feature? by hkmwbz · · Score: 2
      "So cool that you can do the same thing with the shift key in IE, since version 3. Wonder where almighty Opera got it..."
      Opera 3 seems to have the zoom on Ctrl+mouse wheel feature as well.
      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
  81. I've been using it for a few days ... by timothy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Phoenix 0.2 does not feel like a "0.2" release!

    I happen to like the Orbitz theme, too --- small, clean, unobtrusive ... a good choice. Why does Mozilla still default to the ugly old NS look? :) (I say that as someone who like Mozilla a whole lot, but I've never heard anyone say they preferred the NS look vs. for istance "Modern," which also ships with standard Moz.)

    One thing about Orbitz/Phoenix is that tabs are less distinguishable than they are with Modern (and most other themes) -- it takes some peering to figure out which tab is active, which makes it too easy to close an active tab accidentally.

    Phoenix starts fast, stays fast. I've had it freeze up once or twice in the last week, but Hey, I guess that's where the 0.2 comes in. (I remember when Mozilla would freeze a lot more than that, though it hasn't in a long time, for me.)

    Also, unlike regular Mozilla, it has smarter tabbed browsing default settings, but I wish they would also include smarter Scripts settings, and *not* allow pages to hijack your browser by default.

    Tim

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  82. Mozilla 1.2 Alpha by dfj225 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use the 1.2 Alpha version of Mozilla and it feels faster than the 1.1 stable release. I can't see a browser going much faster...plus this version has so bug fixes that make certain pages scroll smoother.

    --
    SIGFAULT
    1. Re:Mozilla 1.2 Alpha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i can see a huge speed increase .... remove the XUL crap and windows support.

    2. Re:Mozilla 1.2 Alpha by dfj225 · · Score: 1

      By speed I mean page rendering speed and the quickness of this browser is compared to that of IE. If Phoenix is based on Mozilla's code then it really can't be that much faster.

      --
      SIGFAULT
    3. Re:Mozilla 1.2 Alpha by David+Gerard · · Score: 2
      mozilla.org is still right into the performance obsession with the Mozilla trunk. A 3% regression gets your code backed out within a few hours, and you are sent away to do better.

      People harp on about 'mozilla is so slow', but I remember getting an old Debian with M18 (late 2000) and putting 0.9.8 (early 2002) on it. I think it was honestly about twice as fast. And that comes from 1% here, 3% there, 2% there, week after week after week.

      Slow and steady will indeed win the race. Certainly as long as Microsoft developers have a stated policy of "Performance? Throw more hardware at it."

      And, of course, Phoenix will be tremendously instructive to the Mozilla trunk :-)

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    4. Re:Mozilla 1.2 Alpha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Certainly as long as Microsoft developers have a stated policy of "Performance? Throw more hardware at it."

      If this is true, then why does IE continue to cream Mozilla on render performance?

    5. Re:Mozilla 1.2 Alpha by David+Gerard · · Score: 2

      Er, it doesn't. Gecko is faster than IEHTML.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
  83. couldn't agree more by Dave_bsr · · Score: 5, Informative

    People sometimes just ignore the facts. You learn to deal with it.

    Add to that already-beautiful list of "mozilla is sweeter" features:

    Portability - I can use the same browser on my linux box at home as I can in the windows labs at my university - which is great, IMO.

    Mozilla Composer/Mail/Add-ons - free stuff that people forget are included with the full install - you shouldn't ignore those nice freebies.

    There are several other "cool" things I like about Moz, like zoom ( ctrl + ), image blocking by server, etc. - but I don't know if IE implements these as well.

    Moz isn't perfect, no. But it is my favorite. Phoenix is pretty sweet though - it may steal my browsing crown soon.

    --


    Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
    1. Re:couldn't agree more by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      IE will zoom text with ctrl+wheel up or down (zooming like this is a windows standard, try it in anything). Opera does it better though, smoothly zooming all content, text or graphic.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    2. Re:couldn't agree more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IE can only increase or decrease the point size. Mozilla's zoom actually increases or decreases the percentage size of the text as you specify, which is much better cause you have more control on the size of the text you want.

    3. Re:couldn't agree more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      heh great, so you can only do it if you have a non-standard button.

      what a wonderful UI choice.

      and people like you complain about one button mice on macs, eh?

      not to mention IE's text zoom is far inferior to mozillas (try it on any sort of complex page and you will see why)

    4. Re:couldn't agree more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ummm, mouse wheel has been standard on PC's for a few years now.

  84. Not impressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This software is only slightly faster to start up cold than full Mozilla is. If you wanna be wowed by speed combined with Gecko page rendering, use K-Meleon for Windows or Galeon for Linux. XUL support is just too big a footprint to call this a 'light' browser.

  85. Re:Screenshot by cioxx · · Score: 2
    yuuccckkk...microsoft.com
    why do you hang out on slashdot if you're an MS fan-person?


    I hope you were joking. But if you are not, let me explain why you come off as an ignorant moron.

    1. Vast majority of /. readers are on Windows/IE. Check the statistics.

    2. Some of us are at work, hence are forced to use Windows.

    3. The screenshot was from a microsoft page on "security and privacy" running in an OSS browser. Get it? The joke is on you.

    4. Go buy yourself a clue, kiddie. Hating Microsoft is so last year. Get with the times. If you don't like it then kill yourself.
  86. Re:Yuck. (A followup) by WheelDweller · · Score: 1

    For the same reason that, since the 1880's, we've been able to go down the rows of a cornfield, cut it at the base, lean it over, take the ears of, then take the husks off, pull the kernels out and throw all the rest away....but for some reason something as simple as getting the tractor feed paper to bend the way it sits in the shipping box rarely ever happens.

    Some of the silly stuff is just too hard, and some of the hard stuff is so easy, and we don't get to choose which is which.

    Had only some neutral, perhaps governement (ANSI) standard been the only acceptable standard for web browsers, and changes been made to THAT, all of this would be academic.

    Instead, lazy programmers write things to 'look cool' on a monoplist's standard, and they break all the other browsers, and vice-versa. It looked good at the time, but it caused a lot of problems we still have to deal with today.

    Didn't adhere to the W3 standard? Enjoy: this is what you reap. If not, put up with it, like I do...

    --
    --- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
  87. my experience with compiler flags by Sarin · · Score: 2

    Most people just download a precompiled version of their favourite browser (.rpm .deb .exe) which is precompiled with conservative settings.

    When you compile it yourself, be aware of the compiler flags (/etc/make.conf) these settings can seriously speed things up for everything.

    I also use the latest version of gcc, 3.2, most precompiled things are compiled with gcc 2.95.3, so they are a lot slower.

    All these small factors you might not look at can speed everything up more than you think. I used to run Xwindows with mozilla and it was quite slowly, galeon was nice though. But now with the new gcc and -O3 compiler flags mozilla is better than nice and galeon is more than twice as fast.

  88. Evidence Microsoft isn't involved in this project by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Funny

    (Phoenix) Bugzilla Bug 171082:
    Do everything possible to minimize the build size.

    Targeted for Phoenix 0.3 according to Bugzilla.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  89. mozdev's google toolbar by Dave_bsr · · Score: 2, Informative

    I checked mozdev-googlebar. So far it doesn't seem to say anything about phoenix - but by the time they hit another milestone or three perhaps the googlebar will work on both mozilla and phoenix. Try submitting it as a request...

    --


    Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
  90. Opera reg codes by Ryu2 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Try these... and enjoy the world's fastest browser without ads or payment! Opera is still tops for speed.

    w-EeiCL-QyJFS-3mYfc-rFzFh-NMFWk
    w-ChPii-dvunr-w miwC-tLcMs-WahwF
    w-X5eKx-neJUc-3EMTP-ABLJv-KEDiV
    w-iJ8Xe-VP3my-LTheH-w4DUQ-zyhEw

    --
    There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
  91. PPC? by chocolatetrumpet · · Score: 1

    anyone else want to see PPC port on that roadmap?

    --
    Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
  92. performance by Dave_bsr · · Score: 1

    I use Moz on a pentium 2 266. It loads reasonably well (about as fast as IE, i mean) without the quick-load option. *shrug*. Because I can use tabs, and not seperate windows, for each page/comment/article of slashdot I open up, I save a little bit of memory, I beleive. I like it, it works for me..but then i'm just preaching to the anti-MS choir here...

    --


    Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
    1. Re:performance by Negatyfus · · Score: 1

      I truly wasn't. I really prefer Mozila miles over IE. I like it much better.

  93. Mozilla, in the form of an ActiveX control by yerricde · · Score: 5, Informative

    Create an ActiveX gecko to use instead of MSHTML.DLL

    As you said, the IE engine is an ActiveX control. Here's a Gecko ActiveX control, and it even comes with a program that patches programs that embed IE so that they embed Gecko instead.

    But ActiveX will get you nowhere on the other (non-Windows) platforms tnat Moz supports. Therefore, an ActiveX based Gecko browser for Windows should really be a separate project.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  94. Same with moz by srichman · · Score: 2
    Layout on cnn.com is pretty fscked up
    I have the same problem with Mozilla 1.2a under Windows.
  95. crazybrowser by chocolatetrumpet · · Score: 0

    There's always crazy browser in case you run windows :-)

    --
    Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
  96. opera speed not worthwhile by khuber · · Score: 1
    When I tried Opera (some time ago I admit) it couldn't render pages on sites that I commonly visit. I didn't care how fast it was if I couldn't use it. I'm sure it has improved and it sounds like a lot of people like it.

    I've been very happy with Mozilla. It doesn't seem slow to me like it did early on.

    It sounds like Opera still has problems with JavaScript. Well, again it doesn't matter to me how fast it is if it doesn't work right. (Yes I'm aware of W3C standards issues). I guess I just don't get all the "but Opera is fast!" people. Well I suppose lynx is fast, but it's hard to use with many sites. wget to a file, then catting it is fast too :).

    -Kevin

  97. mdi != MDI by yerricde · · Score: 2

    How are tabbed windows not a multiple document interface?

    Sometimes the capitalized expansion of an acronym refers to something more specific than the lowercase version does. For instance, many Americans are libertarians without belonging to the Libertarian Party. Tabbed windows, in the style of CrazyBrowser, Mozilla, or Opera, are a multiple document interface (lowercase), but they are not Multiple Document Interface (capitals). A typical workstation distribution of the GNU/Linux system has a graphics device interface, but its not GDI. It also has windows (managed by metacity, sawfish, blackbox, etc), but it's not Windows.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  98. I like it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I've been using .2, and .1 before it. Pretty nice, and much more stable on Win2k than Mozilla is (not sure WHY, but it is).

    The only things I dislike:
    1. I hate the drop down in the url bar when I'm entering a site. The ability to disable that would be awesome.
    2. I also dislike entering text in the url bar, and prefered hitting ctrl-shift-L to open the location window to type it in there (don't ask why, it's just habit).
    3. Have an option to disable the download manager. If you're using Phoenix, you should be competent enough to download without training wheels.
    4. That'll make it perfect.

  99. Its already been done.... by toaster13 · · Score: 1

    Galeon is mozilla stripped down...its faster than ie in most cases and already on a stable 1.2.x release...

    1. Re:Its already been done.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      galeon is mozilla extended.. moron get some brain... what do you need to get galeon running ?

      mozilla....

      so mozilla + galeon is stripped down ?

      no. its an addition....

      26 mb mozilla
      6 mb galeon
      ----
      32 mb together...

    2. Re:Its already been done.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So did you miss the fact that Phoenix is ALSO based on Mozilla? Galeon IS better than Mozilla, by miles and miles, much faster, better features etc. It's the only thing that comes with Gnome that I wouldn't give up. Mozilla sucks, it's big and bulky and slow and crashy, probably due to it being a devlopment edition, continuously. And if that 6mb makes that big a diff to you...well, get a real HD. (Let's play the Anonymous Coward game! you obviously aren't terribly nice so I don't want to play target)

    3. Re:Its already been done.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you actually have no clue otherwise you dont reply such a crap. galeon depends on mozilla. galeon itself is no webbrowser it requires a full installed mozilla (the pile of shit you call bloated and bulky).

    4. Re:Its already been done.... by toaster13 · · Score: 1

      Perhaps stripped down was the wrong phrase...it loads some of the mozilla libraries but its actual memory foot print is smaller and it IS faster in all respects. Thats in addition to being more stable and supporting more plugins (i'm gussing here) than that Phoenix browser.

  100. Mozilla font handling by be-fan · · Score: 2

    The font handling in Mozilla (and almost every other non-Qt or GTK 2.x app) sucks. Perhaps it has certain cases where it works, but throw something even mildly non-standard at it and it chokes. Currently, I just can't get Mozilla 1.1 to correctly display fonts. My setup, of course, is insane (CVS version of FreeType, Xft2, and 100% Type-1 fonts) but it works just fine on every build of KDE 3.x I've ever imposed it on. While all Qt based apps display text with incredible clarity, Mozilla's fonts look truely god aweful. And Phoenix, which kicks immense amounts of ass in Windows, only seems to be able to display what looks like Comic Sans (which is strange, because I don't HAVE Comic Sans) in Linux. I've tried editing unix.js to no avail. These custom font handling routines have gotta go (that includes you too, Abiword!) Just use Xft for god-sakes and stop trying to roll your own!

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  101. Galeon by reitoei1971 · · Score: 1

    Anyone ever try Galeon ? Galeon is a browser for Gnome, based on Mozilla. Fast enough for me, plugin support, gestures, etc. I love it! The windows world is still lacking a really good browser. Phoenix is getting there; it's step up from anything else I've seen, but it's still not quite there.

    1. Re:Galeon by theoneandonlySL · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that's my backup browser when i'm having probs with Opera (not often since I turned off plugins). Galeon is pretty slick, definitely a thumbs up from me. ;)

  102. Atlantis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Try Atlantis a cool native GNOME 2 Webbrowser that is NOT based on Mozilla. It is REALLY fast and integrates perfectly into the GNOME 2 Desktop. It also supports GALEON xbel bookmark formats out of the box without converting it etc. You can go the the Webpage and look at some Screencaps or try some early Alpha versions of it.

    Click on Atlantis

    No XUL crap, No long waiting for Compile of Mozilla. Simply start using Atlantis.

    1. Re:Atlantis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are a fucking spammer and your mother is a whore.

    2. Re:Atlantis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes she is... but at least i know who my mother and my father is... i am not sure if you know who your real father is. maybe it's a whole nigger shack.

    3. Re:Atlantis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Is that supposed to be a really bad insult?

      ROTFLMAO

  103. Off-topic by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 2

    That image in on the desktop of your screenshot. Did you do that? If so, what prog did you use to do the fancy radiosity rendering?

    1. Re:Off-topic by cioxx · · Score: 2

      Some guy named Irn made this in 3dMax 4 or 5. Not sure.

      Here are the wallpapers if you want.
      1024x768
      1280x1024

  104. look makes a difference by Error27 · · Score: 2

    If you want to have a really "no bloat" browser, then you have to make your application gray with really small widgets.

  105. Removing Flash by rsborg · · Score: 1

    I'd love the 'zilla a bit more if I could get rid of flash entirely... Anyone got clues on how to do that in windoze?

    --
    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    1. Re:Removing Flash by entrylevel · · Score: 1

      gee, i dunno, maybe, delete your flash plugin?

      --
      Karma: Incomprehensible (Mostly affected by posting at +5, reading at -1, and metamoderating everything unfair.)
  106. What about OS X installs? by cjsnell · · Score: 2


    Does anyone know how to remove these from Mozilla for OS X? On this platform, you simply download a .dmg and copy the binary to wherever you want it. You're not (unfortunately) given a choice of components to install/not install.

    I'd love to nuke Composer and ChatZilla if I could.

  107. Evidently... by fireboy1919 · · Score: 2

    you've never used it.

    Its the same speed as Galeon, uses 23MB on my system (which is only 2 less than Galeon), doesn't do applets very well (try one - it loads it out of the browser), doesn't do tabbed browsing yet in most major releases, and will hardly do DHTML well at all.

    And it doesn't have nearly the features of Mozilla or Galeon.

    I think its worth the measly 2MB price for the same speed and many more features that you get from Galeon.

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
    1. Re:Evidently... by CoolVibe · · Score: 2
      you've never used it.

      I am using it right now. Version 3.0.8 (KDE 3.1beta2). It works fine.

      Its the same speed as Galeon, uses 23MB on my system (which is only 2 less than Galeon), doesn't do applets very well (try one - it loads it out of the browser), doesn't do tabbed browsing yet in most major releases, and will hardly do DHTML well at all. Konq is more than a browser. It actually groks many more media types and acts as a decent file manager as well. So it's a little bigger. Yeah well, it does a lot more. Applets work fine. I haven't seen one fail yet. DHTML support is actually good too. When did you last try Konq? If you are talking about the 2.2.2 konq, you are right. the 3.x konq is a whole different ballpark.

      And it has all the features it needs. Even tabbed browsing in the KDE 3.1 beta's.

  108. An overlooked statistic... by Captain+Smooth · · Score: 1

    Is total startup time. By that I mean the time it takes your browser to start AND render your start page. Just by
    my own anecdotal experience, IE 6 and Mozilla 1.2a each take ~6 seconds to startup and load google.com, and this
    is without QuickStart enabled. On the same machine, Phoenix takes ~4 seconds to load and render google.
    All on my P2 400 with 384 MB RAM. This isn't much, but take into account that IE is definitely loading faster, so
    Mozilla and Phoenix are making that time up with zippy rendering. Just my two cents.

    --


    The ability to monopolize an industry is insignificant, next to the power of the source.
  109. Anti-aliased fonts? by OzJimbob · · Score: 1

    Okay, we all know Mozilla can do anti-alised fonts if you stuff around with it and make it run with Xft - I downloaded a binary of Moz1.0 with anti-alised fonts last week and it runs beautifully (although the binary was a cut down, no-thrills browser-only Mozilla).

    So WHEN oh WHEN are Gecko-based browsers going to start compiling for anti-aliased fonts as standard?! Pheonix should do this; it would certainly be the clincher for me. It CAN be done, it WORKS, so why is "ugly" still the default?

    --
    -"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
  110. I do it thru JunkBuster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In my sblock.ini file:

    /*.*.swf

    IOW, block all flash bs.

    You can comment this line out at will to re-enable this for whatever times you might want it back.

  111. Alright. Have an example or two by fireboy1919 · · Score: 2

    I made this to show to my students.

    The DHTML is old, so it won't work with DOM, EXCEPT for the stars which should be whizzing by, which use normal dhtml. Does that work?

    For a java example, try this. It uses signed applets to allow you to save and load a game. When I tried it, it opened another window to contain the applet, and I couldn't get it to save for anything.

    I tested these with Konqeror v. 3.0.3 for these negative results. This version also doesn't have tabbed browsing built-in. As for extra media types, plugger is a fairly simple and small install, and it has given me all the media types I use, at least (everything that ghostview, adobe, mplayer, abiword, gnumeric, image magick, and xmms are capable of playing).

    If all I want is what konqeror can do, I'll just use links in graphical mode.

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
  112. My god... by cpw · · Score: 1

    If you guys are weeting your pants over this, you have to be trying Chimera on Mac... no XUL, so that overhead is spared; you do get a feel for how quick the Gecko engine can be.

    --

    When your life is no longer your own...
  113. Chimera by kriegsman · · Score: 5, Funny
    The Phoenix README says:
    Q8: What about OS X?
    Chimera is the top gecko-based browser for OS X.
    We do not intend to compete on that platform.
    Chimera is here. It might be nice to see Chimera and Phoenix share ideas, programmers, resources, and code, but both projects seem to be doing OK so far as separate entities.

    Besides, if they merged the projects, they'd have a very confusing animal for a logo: flaming bird with the head of a male lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a snake: a 'phimera'.

    Since the new project would also be Mac OS X -native, they really should also crossbreed this new 'phimera' with Hexley (the Darwin mascot), a duck-billed platypus with horns. The result would be a horny duck-faced lion with a goatee that lays flaming serpent eggs midair.

    I think you can see now the grave importance of keeping these two projects separate.

    -Mark
    1. Re:Chimera by Ignominious+Cow+Herd · · Score: 1

      parent +1 Funny

      At least Dave Hyatt (and I think others) on Phoenix worked on Chimera. You can see the resemblence in the preferences. They even 'stole' OS X's slide out preference sheets.

      --
      Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
    2. Re:Chimera by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 3

      Phoenix, albeit a small quick browser like Chimera, is really quite a different animal. Most mac users are not really going to want a browser like Phoenix. Mac users want a native cocoa browser, with a native OS X UI made in something like Project Builder. But most importantly Mac users want all traces of XUL interfaces to burn in a fiery pit of the deepest depths of hell ;).

      Chimera needs to stick on the path that it is on right now. It's working. I'm fairly sure more mac users are downloading chimera as opposed to Mozilla. A quick browser that takes advantage of OS X's native technologies, services, and interface is a guaranteed winner.

      --
      "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
    3. Re:Chimera by robbieduncan · · Score: 2

      I don't think they stole them as such. I think they re-used the preferences architecture built into OSX. Each button has a bundle for it which is basically a plug-in. The main preferences page simply loads each plugin as required ans resized the view to fit. There is a standard defined for these (by Apple) and a preset template in Project Builder for them.

    4. Re:Chimera by Ignominious+Cow+Herd · · Score: 1

      Sorry, didn't mean 'stole' in a negative context. re-used, borrowed, etc.

      --
      Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
    5. Re:Chimera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, wait, let me get this right... the mascot of this vaporware project would be "a phimera?"

      It's a pun, you see... ephimera... never mind.

  114. Oh no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We certainly can't *pay* for anything. If Opera is such a great browser, why not reward them by shelling out, forking over, coughing up, or plunking down the INSIGNIFICANT amount of money required to BUY it?

  115. Smaller than it looks by Ignominious+Cow+Herd · · Score: 2, Informative

    Currently the Phoenix package still contains all/most of the Mozilla code that is being replaced. Therefore the size is ~25MB as you said. But when they finally remove all the cruft it should be about 8MB or so.

    Also, same speed as Galeon, but still using interpreted(?) XUL. I think they've done great things there. And it's only 0.2!

    --
    Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
  116. Re:Evidence Microsoft isn't involved in this proje by Nicolay77 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    AFAIK this depends too in the gcc linker, the optimization is broken and that's the reason the binaries are so big, compared to, ms VC++ for example. (1.2 MB vs 300k)

    This is a very good project to undertake, and can benefit all the software that uses GCC as compiler (more in the C++ side that C, I think).

    --
    We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
  117. Re:Alright. Have an screenshot or two by CoolVibe · · Score: 2

    The DHTML page didn't work, like you said. But you test for browsers in the javascript. When I asked Konq to pretend to be MSIE, it did work.

    Oh, I use the latest Konq from the KDE 3.1 beta's

  118. FPS by Kashif+Shaikh · · Score: 2, Funny

    www.time.com Mozilla 4 seconds, IE 5 seconds.
    www.merck.com Mozilla 4.5, IE 4.75


    LOL.

    We should find someway to convert these numbers to their relative fps speeds. That way, we can have entire threads, "My browser has more fps than ur browser d00d! I'm leet!".

  119. What Users vs. Content Providers Want by billstewart · · Score: 2
    Users want to be able to see text, pictures, and navigation on most web pages, especially the ones they like. Some of them also like animated pictures, and important navigation features include at least launching email-sending clients from mailto:s and other configured helper applications. Users behind firewalls also want proxies to work. SSL (or equivalent crypto) and forms are important, but that's about as fancy as I want. Cookies were a bad design, but having something to preserve state is probably important too. All told, this is a pretty small browser. Mosaic or the first Opera release was 90% of the way there.


    Content providers have much different desires, which leads them to make web pages that force users to get big hairy bloated browsers with zillions of features. Sometimes this is because they want really tight control over the user experience, which is marketer-speak for "pages that look cool", and sometimes this is because they're using incompatibility-encouraging-bloatware authoring tools to write their pages in (especially if they don't know any better :-). These two intentions are of course interrelated, and they're somewhat driven by the desire of authoring tool vendors to have Lots Of Impressive-Sounding Features so you'll buy their tool instead of just using emacs or some authorware package that's either cheap or integrated into their browser. As a user, I don't *want* my main browser to have Javascript, ActiveX, DreckiFire!, or even Java, and I'd rather not have it enforcing the author's ugly little fonts on me either. I don't mind if there are occasional pages that pop up an auxiliary bloated browser to handle Java if it's doing something I really want, but in fact I've got to leave the stuff turned on most of the time because way too many pages use it gratuitously.

    The only good excuse out there for turning a browser from something small and simple into a bigger-than-emacs operating system was that Java-capable browsers offered a mechanism to make the underlying OS ignorable, which would have let us get rid of Microsoft a few years ago. Internet Explorer wasn't intended to anti-trustfully undermine the profitability of the browser market by being free (Netscape has already done that, and was in no position to complain), but it was critical for Microsoft to avoid having browsers kill Windows by rendering backwards compatibility uninteresting.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
    1. Re:What Users vs. Content Providers Want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Crap! You are such a moron. Why don't you do us all a favor and finally get the hell out of here.

    2. Re:What Users vs. Content Providers Want by leshert · · Score: 2

      I agree with most of your points, but I have to disagree with one:

      As a user, I don't *want* my main browser to have Javascript, ActiveX, DreckiFire!, or even Java, and I'd rather not have it enforcing the author's ugly little fonts on me either.

      That may be true for you, and it may have been true at one time, but I don't think it's true anymore for the web-using population at large.

      Take the average person, and show them the Harry Potter website. Then show them (for example) the bog-standard-following gnu.org website. Then ask them which they prefer.

      Okay, that's a straw man, because of the difference in content. :-) But I think that the current web-using-public at large want flash with their content.

      Personally, I prefer the gnu.org website. Then again, I once said that this new Mosaic thing was pretty worthless, because we already had FTP for files, Gopher for information, and Usenet for discussion.

  120. The world.... by SomeOtherGuy · · Score: 2

    would be a better place if everyone developed and tested with a 200 MMX with 64 megs of RAM. Sure, most people have upgraded -- but you can bet your ass that if you can get something to run good on the above config -- that it would really smoke on some these furnaces of today. Just think of all the memory leaks that would get fixed before release...All of a sudden a program "appearing" 45 seconds after startup on this machine would not be acceptible.

    Or better yet -- you all could chip in and buy me a new laptop -- and I will stop whining.

    --
    (+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
  121. What's wrong with paying for something you like? by Philippe · · Score: 1

    I like the Opera web browser a lot, but it is closed source, ad supported (for the free version) or costs money (if you want to get rid of the banner ads). Opera is almost exactly what I'm looking for in a web browser as far as features are concerned [...]


    If you like it so much, what's wrong with paying for it? Yeah, yeah, I hear the cry "software wants to be free!", but the truth is, I have to put bread on the table.
  122. Re:Faster? not on DHTML by tigger · · Score: 1

    > Since about Mozilla 0.8 or so, Mozilla has rendered faster than any version of IE.

    for HTML, hmmm yeah suppose so.
    for DHTML, nope not even close, even with the recent DHTML. i'm a web developer and spend most of my time in mozilla, flicking over to IE6 to check any kinky DHTML/DOM/JScript i'm doing, and mozilla just doesn't cut it. i'm running a P4 1.8 with 512 megs and its till slow.

    for exmaple: http://www.cross-browser.com/ss/solar_system.html
    try that in IE then mozilla (remember to only have one brower on the page at a time). granted not an everyday use, but i use DHTML for a dragable toolbar for my page layout tool with opacity and their is a notisable difference.

    and the whole - "opps forgot to emit the mouseoff event" is really annoying. and the fact i can crash mozilla with some legacy IE4 code is annoying too - but i'm sure that will get fixed at some point.

    lastly i love mozilla - like a lizard.

    --
    "Maybe with some divine intervention, the next version of Microsoft's OS will actually be good." - Linus Torvalds
  123. Free as in.... what, again? by DragonHawk · · Score: 2

    "I like the Opera web browser a lot, but it is closed source ... [and] costs money ..."

    The poster raises the popular specter of "closed source". Yet he goes on to complain about the cost of the software.

    All software costs money to develop. The only way Free Software can sustain itself is through community contributions: People (and companies) fund the development -- either directly with code, or indirectly with cash. Free Software is about Freedom, not cost.

    I wonder how much money this person has donated to the Phoenix project?

    I wonder, if Opera gave away their browser, would this person still be unhappy?

    I wonder if the poster is interested in Freedom, or simply a Free Lunch?

    --

    dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
    I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
    1. Re:Free as in.... what, again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The poster raises the popular specter of "closed source". Yet he goes on to complain about the cost of the software

      They are not unrelated. As a user, I don't see myself as "paying" developers for their work. That's really not my responsibility. What I pay for is software (and documentation and media and anything else that lets me use it). Being open source *is* a selling point, and when comparing competing products it makes sense to factor in the way a product is licenced.

      My reasons for not paying for or using Opera:
      • They claim to make the world's fastest browser, but I can't properly test that because the browser is always busy loading adds. That's a step below nagware and it bugs me. The day Opera renounces their genius business scheme of annoying potential customers, then there will be much rejoicing and many wallets will open.

      • Their licensing is confusing and not optimal: I don't want a license for just one OS, because I have more than one computer and one of them gets frequent linux installs. So I need a mutliplatform migration license, and that costs $15, but it also only covers one migration. So what I actually need is a multiplatform license for Linux and Mac, but does that cover more that one flavor of Linux/Mac??? Do they really expect me Joe Home Computer Guy to shell out for a volume license ? Gee, I don't know. And what about upgrades? If I pay for Opera it's just not clear to me what I'm getting

      • The source is closed. The thing that concerns me, Joe Home Computer Guy, is that I don't have complete confidence in Opera's business model. If they go belly-up, what will become of their code? What good will my licenses be then? I'll pay for software--heck, I routinely shell out for Linux distros even though I don't absolutely need to--but it really is an investment on my part. In the long term Opera's a far riskier investment than gecko--and gecko's free as in beer to boot.

      • What about security holes? Security holes in open source get plugged pretty darn quick. How responsive is Opera? And what about security patches for older versions? Say I buy my multiplatform license and don't pay for an upgrade and 18 months down the road an exploit is uncovered and a bugfix release comes out. Will I be able to use the bugfix Opera without paying for an upgrade or enduring their banner ads? Hmm. Again Opera's riskier than gecko. And it costs more.

      • I don't relish compiling software, but sometimes it's worth doing. I would pay money for the freedom to do that. I don't demand that every program I run has a GPL license, but I do recognize the value of having the source.


      I don't know the best solution for the problem of compensating developers, but from the user's perspective open source is worth more than closed source.

  124. Anti-aliased fonts? Heres how... by Markos · · Score: 5, Informative

    Go into your Phoenix or Mozilla directory.

    Edit the file defaults/pref/unix.js at about line 230.

    Change
    pref("font.FreeType2.enable", false);
    to
    pref("font.FreeType2.enable", true);

    And there you go!.

    You probably should also tinker with font.antialias.min,
    font.scale.tt_bitmap.dark_text.min and font.scale.tt_bitmap.dark_text.gain until the fonts look good to you.

    1. Re:Anti-aliased fonts? Heres how... by OzJimbob · · Score: 1

      And this works on any version of Mozilla?

      Like, if I download the latest straight binary RPM and install it, all I have to do is this and it works?

      If so, good call, looks like I complained before I had reason to.

      --
      -"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
    2. Re:Anti-aliased fonts? Heres how... by Jugalator · · Score: 2

      I doubt I'll switch from MS' ClearType technology since it's excellent even on my CRT! Crisp and still smooth.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  125. Wise up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dude, you're being trolled. The words "final solution" don't even show up in the original post that is supposedly being quoted.

    -- Brian

  126. I believe you're looking for . . . by xant · · Score: 2
    --
    It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
    1. Re:I believe you're looking for . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In fairness, following the most general pattern, the posessive-third-person-neuter pronoun should be "it's"; it's just because that happens to be a contraction of "it is" that it's an exception. That cartoon doesn't mention the "it" exception at all.

  127. 23MB is still way bloatware by billstewart · · Score: 2
    It's nice to have a brand new shiny machine with over 384MB of RAM, but one reason for using Linux is so that I can use cheap machines in my lab which have much smaller memories - the P60s and P133s that max out at 64MB of old-flavor fast-page-mode RAM, for instance. I haven'tr tried Galeon on them, but Netscape 6.0 on Windows and whatever flavor Mozilla it was on GNOME both died in horriffically ugly ways, because they wanted lots and lots of RAM that just want't there. But Netscape 2.0 and I think even 3.0 really rocked on my 8MB 386 box, and Opera 1.x was not only faster, you could install it from about 700KB of zip that filled half a floppy disk, as opposed to needing half a CDROM.

    Rob Pike's description of the 8 1/2 windowing system on Plan 9 was "Ken and I have spent a decade learning what a windowing system shouldn't do and we wrote one that doesn't do that", and it was small and blazingly fast, in spite of rendering Unicode fonts and such.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  128. dude, you never heard of sarcasm? by b17bmbr · · Score: 1

    IMHO of course

    dude sarcasm. haven't been laid in a while? us married guys forget about you young, single dudes havin to work for it.

    P.S.M
    i guess a 4 helps my karma?

    --
    My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
  129. Source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did I just miss it or is there no source available for it? What are us non-x86 users supposed to do?t

    1. Re:Source? by shadowofdarkness · · Score: 1

      I found instructions on getting the source before. I forget where but it is in the same cvs as Mozilla. I have since deleted the source

    2. Re:Source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's right, you build Phoenix as a modified version of mozilla. The phoenix code is in cvs module mozilla/browser

      Get the mozilla source, checkout mozilla/browser and mozilla/toolkit from cvs, set your configure options as described in mozilla/browser/README and make -f client.mk build.

      You need about 600Mb, and the build took 2.5 hours on a Celeron/466.

  130. Howto block ads by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 1

    Someone suggested copying the ~/pref.js file from a Mozilla installation to the analogous place in the Phoenix installation; this is supposed to transfer the popup/ad-blocking feature to Phoenix, although, obviously, no new adservers can be added nor any unblocked.

  131. Strange.. by fireboy1919 · · Score: 2

    It doesn't check for the browser. It checks for the browser functionality:
    This is the sniffer code I used:
    ns4 = (document.layers)? true:false
    ie4 = (document.all)? true:false
    ns6 = (document.getElementById&&!document.all)? true:false

    So if what you're saying is true, it actually changes the way it works when it switches.
    That's way better than konqueror 3.0.3, which is what I use. I can't get it to work on my page for any reason at all. I guess I'll have to keep my eyes on that one.

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
    1. Re:Strange.. by gpinzone · · Score: 2

      I use the following ripped from overlib:

      // Decide browser version
      var ns4 = (document.layers)? true:false;
      var ns6 = (document.getElementById)? true:false;
      var ie4 = (document.all)? true:false;
      var ie5 = false;

      // Microsoft Stupidity Check(tm).
      if (ie4) {
      if ((navigator.userAgent.indexOf('MSIE 5') > 0) || (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('MSIE 6') > 0)) {
      ie5 = true;
      }
      if (ns6) {
      ns6 = false;
      }
      }

      This is useful because IE 5 and IE 6.0 will pass the NS 6 check.

  132. No Popups in Mozilla by Jason+O'Neil · · Score: 1
    Edit -> Preferences -> Advannced -> Scripts & Plugins.


    Uncheck the "open unrequested windows" checkbox. Warning: this will stop popups other than adds (Polls etc)

    1. Re:No Popups in Mozilla by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 1

      It dosen't block popups opened in onClick() events, so polls will work if they're designed well.

  133. The interface is much slower than Galeon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Half a second to refresh the small preferences dialog on a near 1GHz machine is ridiculous, IMO.
    It runned well immediately, seems well designed and probably solves some more problems Mozilla still suffers from, but the user interface doesn't seem optimized at all. I'll stick to Galeon, but also keep an eye on Phoenix development.

  134. Aaaaahhhh, the arrogance! by mccrew · · Score: 1
    >My site conforms to W3C standard precisely and as a result it fails to render properly in IE6. Oh well.

    Hmmm, let's see if we can sum up this arrogant fellow's attitude:

    "*I* am compliant with the W3C, IETF, and EIEIO standards. Therefore, the world must change around *me*.

    "Nevermind that I arrogantly dismiss over 90% of the universe, they must change to suit my limited world view."

    Clue follows:

    The world uses IE. IE 5, IE6, IE 4, whatever. You and I and everyone else here who dabble in Mozilla and Mozilla-derived browsers (such as Galeon, my favorite) are, percentage-wise, down in the noise. Our market share is insignificant, and it is not likely to be significant for a long time to come.

    The world uses IE. Real world users don't give a rat's ass about standards compliance - they just expect to be able to use the tool and have it work. Real users do not deserve some dufus riding in on his high horse screaming "It's all your fault, you should have used a standards-compliant HTTP rendering client!"

    If you are so arrogant as to dismiss 95% of your audience, then your site must not really be worth visiting.

    --
    Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
    1. Re:Aaaaahhhh, the arrogance! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The world uses IE. IE 5, IE6, IE 4, whatever.

      Ah, so we have standards, but we should ignore them because everyone else does? Yeah, what a great system!

      In fact, i'm go inj tuo start rit no* i dunt lyk inglish rools so i wil gust ignor tyem) tye wurld wil b a beter plas$

    2. Re:Aaaaahhhh, the arrogance! by mccrew · · Score: 1
      >Ah, so we have standards, but we should ignore them because everyone else does?

      No, dear AC. InternetExplorer, in its various versions, comprises well over 90% of the market. Therefore, InternetExplorer is the standard. This is true, regardless of how you feel about the situation, regardless how you feel about Microsoft, whether you like it or not.

      Anybody who codes his site to some "standard" that happens to exclude 90% of the universe, and then pontificates that the world should change, deserves his site to die a death of scorn and insignificance he has chosen.

      --
      Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
  135. Targeting the Standards, DE Jure and De Facto by rjamestaylor · · Score: 3, Insightful
    You forgot the main reason IE is great: it has an overwhelming adoption rate among business users. Sure, IE has problems with W3C Recommendations such as DOM and CSS, et al. However, for years now (since late 4.x and by early 5.0x IE versions) businesses have settled on IE. Intranet, B2B, Extranet applications have been written specifying MS IE (and usually on Windows). It's not the "Committee" Standard--it's the de facto standard. I may desire to create web applications cross browser and may spend the time and sweat necessary to make sure that all pages and features work or degrade gracefully for all browsers on all platforms, but I only get paid to make it work on MSIE running on Windows.

    I'm writing this using Konqueror 3.03-13 on RedHat 8.0. I prefer Linux. (I switched to OS X and switched back to Windows/Linux). I have no bias toward MS or IE, nor any against Moz or Konq or Opera or the W3C.

    The adoption rate among business users is the key reason IE is the target browser for web designers today. AOL probably had a lot to do with that, too. We'll see if AOL can switch the target back to the standards. I think, rather, AOL using Gecko in its service software will push for MSIE compliance in Mozilla development. Perhaps as an obscure option. I guarantee if that happened--if Mozilla developers added a "MSIE" compatibility mode to Mozilla, the adoption rate of Mozilla would increase dramatically. Something to consider. . .

    --
    -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
    1. Re:Targeting the Standards, DE Jure and De Facto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a MSIE compatable mode (called compatability mode), it's used whenever it hits a nonstandard page.

  136. Re:Doesn't Do CSS right.... by yintercept · · Score: 2

    Does anyone do it right. Do even the authors of CSS have the slightest clue of what right is. None of it shows up the same on different browsers. I have several books on CSS, I run their code through CSS validators and it generally fails. I doubt there is such a thing as CSS done right. But you are right on one issue, people tweak their CSS to achieve effects for ie on Win32, and forget the rest of the world...helping us keep the MS monopoly growing.

  137. Mac OS X similarities by anocow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Someone working on the UI of Phoenix must use OS X on a daily basis eh? When you try to customize the toolbar, you get the "Tool Bar Configuration" pane slide down from the menu, just like the way it is in OS X! You can also add extra "flexible space" on either in the tool bar, so you can "float" the buttons in the center. (I always thought this is more efficient) I was surprised to see this sliding pane when I tried out 0.1.

    Now if they can only do that with the Preference pane as well... :) Will this make it into 0.3?

    (I'm only using the windows version of 0.2 right now, so I'm not sure if this applies to the linux version)

  138. love the tabbed browsing! by redpop350 · · Score: 1
    If only I could have gotten Opera to act like this. I can open any link or bookmark with the middle mouse button. It loads in the background while I am reading something else... Great for my dial-up. especially elegant and simple in F11 full screen mode.

    I really like Phoenix, it seems to have a ton of potential. I just have to figure out how to make it work with Flash now.

    Hope the Linux version is as good.

  139. Browser times by horza · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have a number of different browsers installed:

    * Mozilla - I never use. Way too slow. Takes around 30 secs to open up a browser window first time. Still slow after that on my machine
    * K-Meleon - used to use this instead of IE when (a) I wanted something fast and (b) on sites that crash IE (quite a few on my machine). It loads first time in the same time as a preloaded IE. Lightening fast
    * Phoenix - definately replacement for above. Loads around 10secs first time but after that it's instantaneous (as opposed to IE still taking around 4 secs each new window).

    I'll be gradually moving all my bookmarks from IE to Phoenix and using that for all my browsing, keeping IE for testing the sites I work on and the occasional site that Phoenix doesn't render (if I ever find one). I am *very* impressed with Phoenix.

    Phillip.

  140. WinXP and 128mb RAM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1 word: unuseable

    YAMS (Yet Another Memory Shortage)

  141. so.... by fatbitch · · Score: 2, Insightful

    . I like the Opera web browser a lot, but it is closed source, ad supported (for the free version) or costs money (if you want to get rid of the banner ads)

    so buy it ? support the developers...

  142. no Type Ahead Find by nazh · · Score: 1

    in ver 0.2
    think i'll wait for the 0.3, or stick with moz 1.2a.
    somehow i still prefere moz over phoenix,
    might change over time when phoenix gets more features.

  143. Re:Faster? not on DHTML by David+Gerard · · Score: 2
    "and the fact i can crash mozilla with some legacy IE4 code is annoying too - but i'm sure that will get fixed at some point."

    If you can really cause a reliable, or even slightly repeatable crash, file a bug with Talkback-ID numbers. It will get attention! And be sure to attach your test code to the bug.

    (Serious attention to crashers over the last couple of years has sent Mozilla's MTBF up by leaps and bounds. VERY LITTLE kills Mozilla dead these days, and that's why. Crashers are important.)

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  144. Good Stuff! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think Phoenix works great, and at less than 8Mb download, certainly worth it. The fact that it runs out of the box (no installing DLLs and stuff) is a BIG plus. When evaluating software this makes it easier to jump in. I dropped the whole Mozilla testing thing ages ago - simply too much bloat. The main bugbears of posters seem to be the initial loading time of Moz and the rendering speed. My observations on my PII 350 with lots of RAM is that load time is only slow at first use, and even then not enough to complain about. Anybody who still complains about this should preload or be shot. Only would like to ask the developers one thing about rendering: Initial rendering of a page is done at good speed, but when you follow a link and go back again, it looks like it is rendering the page again from scratch. Is that the case, or just how it appears? Or is there a way to switch on rendered page caching? Appearance of the browser is minimal and therefore perfect - most users do not need every possible command and option as a cute icon in front of them. I know some people have beef with tabbed/mdi windows. Once again more clutter - I have a taskbar at the bottom of my screen for that. The built in download manager is great, is that normal a Mozilla feature?
    My verdict - good stuff indeed and it will definately be my default browser at home from now on (still don't know how where to enter the firewall/proxy/whatever username & password to get out on the net at the office)
    TSJ

  145. How to set preferences in Mozilla by Plug · · Score: 2

    The parent doesn't have it quite right...

    Your Mozilla directory (Which is either {\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Mozilla, .mozilla}/profiles/default/*.slt) is different to your Phoenix installation, which keeps everythying in the one directory.

    unix.js doesn't exist. There are two files. prefs.js is generated by Mozilla when you edit your preferences. Don't edit this. The file even warns you.

    To make changes, edit user.js. This overrides prefs and lets you set things you want to keep set. A couple I recommend.

    user_pref("network.protocol-handler.external.mailt o", true);

    Tells Mozilla to use the system wide installed mail program instead of Mozilla Mail for mailto: links

    user_pref("browser.xul.error_pages.enabled", true)

    In 1.2 alphas, turns on support for pages that tell you that a domain couldn't resolve, instead of the annoying modal dialog that you have to get rid of.

    1. Re:How to set preferences in Mozilla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uhh there's no unix.js in the windows builds because they are .... windows builds!

      Anyway the font smoothing stuff that was being talked about only applies to mozilla under *nix anyway i think.

  146. "Your" by Icephreak1 · · Score: 0

    From the article:

    "As for features, well I guess it all depends on what your looking for."

    "Your" expected to use grammar checking when you write articles and expect to sound credible, Mr. Author.

    - IP

  147. Chimera -- Not a winner by artemis67 · · Score: 2

    Chimera doesn't kill popup windows.

    Killing popups is one of the primary features that pushing me from IE to Mozilla. In spite of the fact that I really love IE.

    Chimera also doesn't manage image permissions. I realize that that puts a drag on the speed, if you have a good-sized database of servers, but I'm tired of banner ads trying to blink me to death.

    1. Re:Chimera -- Not a winner by Ignominious+Cow+Herd · · Score: 2, Informative

      Chimera doesn't kill popup windows.

      Oh Yes it does! Early versions didn't give you a selection for it, but if you knew how to edit the prefs files you could enable it. Other versions turned it on for you the first time a popup occurred (after asking politely). Latest has that and a preference checkbox for it.
      As for image blocking, not yet, but probably soon I'd guess.

      --
      Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
  148. Konqueror by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 1

    Have you tried Konqueror? Yes, you need the kde libraries, but if you don't like the desktop then don't use it.

  149. Not true by Ian_Bailey · · Score: 2

    I have been using Phoenix 0.1 (will update later today), and I have been using it since it was released.

    It has all the features I want, is fully standards compliant, and runs faster than Internet Explorer on my machine at work.

    If the fine people behind this project can give me more features without slowing down the browser, I'll be even happier with my choice.

    If you ask me, the project won't fail, because it has already succeeded

  150. Nope by FooBarWidget · · Score: 2

    Creating a browser that pleases you is not complex. Creating a browser that pleases everybody, is.

    You are happy with IE. So what? I'm not. It has lots of security holes - I care. It doesn't comply completely to W3C standards -I care. Just because you don't care doesn't mean the rest of the world doesn't either.
    You don't want email? Pretty pictures? Fancy menus? That directly contradicts with what many users want. Many users do want pretty pictures and fancy menus, colorful icons, translucent and animated menus.

    So how do you create a browser that pleases you AND those other users? You can't. If you put configuration options in your app, people will complain about "bloat", "UI clutter", "bad defaults", "too complex", etc. If you don't, people will complain about lack of options and all the eyecandy.

    In summary: whatever you do, it's always wrong. Building a browser that pleases everybody is significantly more complex, because you have to invent a mind-reading system.

  151. not the first time... by Nomad37 · · Score: 0

    Perhaps it's just me, but sounds an awful lot like the OpenDoc project on the Mac many years ago. And my memory vaguely suggests many other functionality-oriented mix-n-match projects around that time.

    Always seemed like a good idea that was ahead of its time...

    --
    Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will! - Antonio Gramsci.
  152. Yes, faster by cbriscoe · · Score: 1
    "I downloaded it to test on my amd 333 64mb laptop, but it is still too slow for me to use.

    However, it's a little more usable in this laptop than mozilla itself."

    I have been using mozilla on my amd 550 k6, 64mb ram and it is sloooooooooow. Tried Phoenix last night at it is lightning fast in comparison. I love phoenix!

  153. Cool extension for Phoenix ... keyboard shortcuts! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  154. Not Fast by The+Raven · · Score: 2

    Unfortunately, Phoenix is held back (speed wise) by several bugs/design choices in the Mozilla codebase.

    Mozilla contains a bug, unresolved for AGES, in how it handles combo boxes (drop down boxes). Tabbing through a combo box causes cpu usage to peg... this is probably related to a bug that causes the browser to re-render the entire page every time the user interacts with a combo box. I use my browser at work, interacting with a large number of forms... tabbing over a simple Combo box with 'Yes' and 'No' as the choices causes the cursor to pause for half a second. Blech. This bug applies to Phoenix as well.

    Switching between tabs is slow. I have not reviewed the code, but it seems that the browser needs to re-render the page every time you arrive at its tab. It does not store the previously rendered version in memory. Thus, switching between tabs is very slow.

    The tabbing UI is inferior, IMO. I far prefer other tabbing UI's, particularly Crazy Browser. It is not the look of the UI, or how you interact with it... it is the circumstances of when it chooses to make a new tab, or not. Also, it still allows making new windows (which I hate), I would prefer it forced all new windows to be new tabs instead.

    So, unfortunately, I am still stuck with CrazyBrowser (a tabbed browser that uses the IE rendering engine). It is not bad, but I would like to be able to switch to a Mozilla based browser... but until some of these problems are resolved, I cannot.

    --
    "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
  155. Security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm trying to switch from IE to Mozilla but I need to know one thing regarding secure ordering. If I'm ordering from a website, is it safe to use Mozilla or is it more secure to use IE?

  156. Where is 0.3? by butters+paul+butters · · Score: 1

    It was supposed to be released today (Oct. 8), but it hasn't shown up on the ftps yet. Does anyone know if it was delayed or something?

    1. Re:Where is 0.3? by jsav40 · · Score: 1

      It has been delayed until next week. They are pushing the mail client a bit forward as well. See the post on the Phoenix Forum for details.

  157. Security = 'Safe sex' by jsav40 · · Score: 1

    Secure ordering online is a lot like "safe Sex"- you can minimize risk but can't get rid of it altogether. That being said- any browser (Mozilla included) that supports standard protocols e.g. https etc. should give you a fair degree of security whilst shopping. Mozilla won't compromise your security. You might compromise your own security (but that is a whole other topic).

  158. Mozilla isn't big or slow by LinuxFreakus · · Score: 0

    I dont know where people get the idea that mozilla is big and/or slow. I use mozilla on all my linux and windows boxen. On windows (1.2 ghz Athlon) it runs faster than IE6 (which many window users think is the fastest browser) and it uses less memory and less disk space. As far as performance on my main linux machine (dual 533mhz Alpha) it seems to run even faster than in windows, so I don't see why anyone would complain about it being slow or big. I realize that there are faster browsers... Opera for example... but to get faster you have to sacrifice some functionality. I think Mozilla offers the best of both worlds. Speed + functionality.

  159. One solution by Inoshiro · · Score: 2

    It seems to have reduced the amount of thrashing for me.

    Start - Settings - Control Panel - System.

    Go to advanced. Click Performance. Go to Advanced, set memory usage to System Cache (rather than programs). On my work system, it's stopped over aggresively swapping programs to disk when I minimize them.

    --
    --
    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.