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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.'"
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)
... 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.
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)
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!
..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.
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..
:-) I am really happy with it..
To be honest I simply cannot understand how one can abhor Opera-style MDI
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(giving up moderation privs for this...)
.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.
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
And there's more, much more, rotten in Denmark.
[...]
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.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
> XUL is one of my least favourite inventions ever
.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.
.NET or Java.
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
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
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
. 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...