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Phoenix 0.3 Is Out
David Tansey writes "The Mozilla-based stripped down browser has now reached binary release 0.3. They are ripping out all the mail and news functions, composer functions, and IRC functions. The point is to work against the 'monolitic' mozilla trunk and make a browser, not a suite. I've noticed that it now uses considerably less memory than Mozilla uses and loads faster. Check it out here."
Minotaur is being developed as a Phoenix-style replacement for Mozilla Mail and News, except with the same UI as Mozilla. Eventually, Thunderbird will be developed from Minotaur, only with a Phoenix based UI.
Actually its 7.0MB on windows and 9.1MB on Linux.
The size will also be getting smaller as time goes on and they rip out more of the uneeded stuff.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
turn off Mozillas Quicklaunch memory resident stuff, then start them both (sequentially).
Phoenix starts as fast as IE does, click *beat* open browser window (and IE is (mostly?) memory resident)
on this AthlonXP @ 1.6Ghz with a gig of ram and a WD1200JB (WinXP SP1), Mozilla OTOH takes like 8 seconds from click to browsable window unless quicklaunch is running.
I managed to replace the slashdot advertisements inside a story with blank space, but removing the top-banner page will also remove all your other slashdot graphics. Maybe phoenix can include a feature that blocks images from a URL containing the text "adlog.pl" ?
Will people please stop bitching about this? If you don't want mail/irc/composer installed then use the net installer and uncheck the boxes. Moz is very componentized, and it will not install them. Don't expect huge reductions in download time or massive increases in speed however - all that stuff is load on demand anyway, so it only slows down your machine when you actually use them.
Just to clarify the confusion with the projects:
Thunderbird is the new name of the Minotaur project. Unlike what some said, they are thus one, and will fill the same function as Phoenix for the mail part.
Eventually we will have two very capable clients, Phoenix for browsing, and Thunderbird for Mail. This will make advocacy easier too, some people complain they cannot run Mozilla on their older Windoze boxen. Well they can run Phoenix and Thunderbird ! I measured Phoenix memory usage compared to Mozilla and Opera (all with about 6-7 tabs open, the same URLs in all three), and Phoenix was really close to Opera, about 10M less than Mozilla.. YMMV of course with different pages etc, but it is slimmer indeed.
life+universe+everything=42
From a webdesigner point of view: *please* use Phoenix or any other Gecko based browser. Opera is a nightmare for webdesigners. Especially when using *gasp* DHTML, which can actually be useful.
The next big Opera release may change this, since it will be a complete rewrite with better DOM support in mind. But as of now, Opera sux in this regard.
It's nice and fast OK, but tried to open a few pages (one at a time) under NT4.0 and look at memory in task manager - it was the same for both Mozilla and Phoenix: 32-34MB. Still not good for our old p-100 w95 machines with 16mb ram.
I'm was pulling down a whoppering 1.0kb/sec from ftp.mozilla.org, thanks to slashdot linking directly to the master server. PLEASE use a mirror, there's a full list of them here. Not all mirrors carry phoenix, and some that do don't have 0.3, but at least this one does (and probably others too).
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Here's a help site dedicated to Phoenix, created by David Tenser. Announced in this thread on MozillaZine, and see also the Phoenix forums.
Got brain?
(mousegestures, prefbar...no uninstall yet)
:).
I'm posting from Phoenix 0.3 now. Check the release notes before posting -- Extension Uninstall is included in this new version. To find it, Tools->Preferences->Themes and Extensions, click on the "Extensions" tab and you can disable or uninstall your extensions quite happily.
Overall it's a great browser, it really shows off what Mozilla can do. I'm recommending it to friends, it can tempt them with all the speed of IE, the features of Mozilla, and the bloat of neither
I'll probably get called an IE Zealot and modded down for this...
I've ran Phoenix 0.2, and I really tried to like it. Tabbed browsing, pop-up blocker, custimized toolbar, and it doesn't have the bloatedness of Moz. Stable too for a 0.2 release. BUT...
IT DOESN'T RENDER THE PAGES I WANT TO VIEW PROPERLY! I ran into the same problem with Netscape 7 and Moz 1.
Sites that I couldn't load properly in Phoenix:
Airmiles.ca
- Couldn't load the front page.
Hotmail
- Loaded front page but couldn't log in.
IGN Cube
- This goes for all IGN game sites... the articles that are locked for subscribers have an 'i' beside them. This does not show up in Phoenix.
My Employers Self Serve site
- I can log in but the page hangs on the welcome screen.
I only have about 15 sites bookmarked, and the above 4 don't work. Who knows how many other sites are out there.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, maybe I have to configure something (If so, let me know please!), but the bottom line is that these sites load fine in IE.
I don't want to hear people say "These websites aren't following a standard". Tell me something I don't know.
I want a browser that lets me view the pages I want to see, thankyouverymuch. Until there's an alternative that does this, I'm sticking with IE along with its swiss cheese security.
Clue me please.
Bazman
(actually I see about six of each of those but I assume thats threads-as-processes for you)
No source? I wanted to compile it for OSX, but I can't seem to find any sourcee.
As for Mozilla, blame Netscape, their graphic designers wanted it that way, which is why, despite having been patched, it hasn't made its way into the Moz trunk. That particular bug doesn't even have an owner right now!! Selective Text on Right is actually very bad for usability, but if you want it, file a bug and see what the Phoenix developers say.
As for the toolbar customizer, how do you figure that it has usability problems? It works the same as almost any other toolbar customizer; you move what you want onto the toolbar! The whole point of the Phoenix customization is to have the customizing happen LIVE, as opposed to making a queued list, and then applying your settings. This is a GOOD usability practice.
Lastly, you name a toolbar when you create a new one so that you can turn the toolbar on and off! The new toolbar appears by name in the Toolbar list. I personally create a new bar called "Address Bar", then drag the address text field onto it. Go to View, then Toolbars, and there it is! Now you can create toolbars and turn them off and on as you wish. Again, this is GOOD UI practice. They have it. You can add, delete, rename, move, etc., your bookmarks from the Boomark sidebar. Again, have you really used Phoenix, as in for more than 30 seconds? I really don't think you have. Almost all of your "complaints" are false.
For mail purposes, there is the Thunderbird (formerly known as Minotaur) project. According to mozilla.org, it is expected around the time of Phoenix 0.5.
As a Mozilla Mail user (on Windows), I personally can't wait to give it a try.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
Mozilla is a huge memory pig. When I unload it I typicaly see anywhere from 40M - 120M of my memory being returned to the system. AFAIK, Mozilla has some serious memory leaks or has the absolutely worse possible cache implementation anyone could create. If the problem isn't either of those two, Mozilla has some serious core problems.
Anything that can be done to address the memory foot print is a HUGE win for Mozilla.
Read the Phoenix documentation -- the whole goal is to produce a modular Mozilla with a rationally designed user interface.
The thing's built around the concept of plugins.
-Billy
Actually the Mac OS X version does force you to install all of the programs.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
"So is there no way of finding out how much is shared? Its useful, because my concern is a web browser for a multi-user machine, and I dont want the memory to run out if 10 people are running mozilla.."
/usr/bin/free, Gkrellm (with memory monitor) or the system monitor applets for the GNOME or KDE panel.
Memory is shared between all 10 Mozilla sessions.
The best way to watch your memory is to use