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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
neurostarSince 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.
I continue to download the nightly release every day.
And I download the daily release every night.
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- - 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?
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
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
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)
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.
Turn on enable pipelining in preferences->advanced->http-networking, it greatly improves your porn browsing-speed.
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!
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.
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.
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
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?
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?
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.
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.
> 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