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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.'"
Here is the link to the roadmap: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/phoenix-ro admap.html
neurostarAs 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).
configurable interface
tabbed browsing
full DOM support
full javascript support
intelligent form autofill
intelligent address bar
full porn support
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
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.
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
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)
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
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.
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.
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.)
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
For those of you looking for it's main page, it is. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/ You can download from there.
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.
It's small, (300K), fast, and free. What else could you possibly want?
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Gone but planned:
Still there:
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)
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.
try lynx! :)
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
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!
..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.
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.
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!
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.
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 ?
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)
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
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.
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.
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?
(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!
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?
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
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.
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 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.
Property for sale in Nice, France