Phoenix 0.5 Has Arrived

mattrix was among the legion of readers to submit news that "Phoenix 0.5 (Naples) has been released. New stuff since 0.4 includes multiple homepages, download fixes, history, size, memory, accessibility and performance improvements and more. Get it now for Windows or GNU/Linux (i686). Background info: Phoenix is a web browser based on the Mozilla engine, but smaller and faster than Mozilla Navigator." Multi-tab startup page seems worth the upgrade to me, all else aside.

Comments

Name change

[Cheesy Fool]

Wasn't the name supposed to be changed for this release?

Re:Name change

[cioxx]

Well, according to their forums, last time I checked the poll was split 60/40 in keeping the name Phoenix and battling it out with Phoenix Technologies for rights to use the name.

I would guess either a) They are waiting to change the name with 0.6 -or- b) They are testing the patience of Phoenix Technologies ;)

Either way, I don't like the idiotic request from PT. It's not like these two are competing technologies. And phoenix is a generic word. What are they going to do next? Patent the word "Technologies"?

In any event. Phoenix is a straight up IE killer, and it's all that matters.

Re:Name change

[Big Mark]

From the phoenix site:

I kept hearing that you were changing the name from Phoenix to something else. What happened?

That was just a giant publicity stunt. We've observed that in the past, the open-source community has instinctively favored David when big corporations complain of trademark infringement. We wanted to cash in on this sympathy by asking the community to send us money to fight the legal battle (obviously we'd really spend it on cool stuff), but with all the taxing issues and whatnot we decided to can the idea.

Uhhhh...really?

No, not really. This isn't like an action flick where the evil madman reveals the intricacies of his plans to hostages and then leaves them alone with a bomb set to detonate in like 10 hours. When we're ripping you off, we won't explain how in the FAQ. The truth is that we'd already had this 0.5 released planned for awhile, so it was okay to release under the Phoenix name. But under no circumstances will any future release be called Phoenix.

-Mark

Re:Name change

[petabyte]

From phoenix's FAQ:

14)

I kept hearing that you were changing the name from Phoenix to something else. What happened?

That was just a giant publicity stunt. We've observed that in the past, the open-source community has instinctively favored David when big corporations complain of trademark infringement. We wanted to cash in on this sympathy by asking the community to send us money to fight the legal battle (obviously we'd really spend it on cool stuff), but with all the taxing issues and whatnot we decided to can the idea.

15)

Uhhhh...really?

No, not really. This isn't like an action flick where the evil madman reveals the intricacies of his plans to hostages and then leaves them alone with a bomb set to detonate in like 10 hours. When we're ripping you off, we won't explain how in the FAQ. The truth is that we'd already had this 0.5 released planned for awhile, so it was okay to release under the Phoenix name. But under no circumstances will any future release be called Phoenix.

So it would appear that they will be changing the name for .6

Re:Name change

[Isofarro]

I would be great if they named the browser after the really cool ship in "Battle of the Planets" (old eighties sci-fi cartoon series). The ship was called Phoenix.

Performance improvements

[Anonymous Coward]

From the changelog:
"Performance improvements

0.5 is certainly our fastest release ever. You might especially notice a boost if you have a blank page (about:blank) as your homepage."

Does this mean that Phoenix renders a blank page faster than any other browser?

Re:Performance improvements

[Loki_1929]

"Does this mean that Phoenix renders a blank page faster than any other browser?"

On a P4 3.06GHz (with SMT enabled), Radeon 9700 pro, 1GB PC2700, 18GB Cheetah X15 15,000 RPM SCSI hard drive, the Opera browser rendered a blank page 0.00000000234 nanoseconds faster than Phoenix 0.5. I suppose this means there's room for improvement before 0.6 in the blank page rendering benchmark.

Re:Performance improvements

[Angry White Guy]

Yeah, it doesn't have to check with windows update first, so it can get right down to business.

Re:Performance improvements

[cioxx]

I know that you were aiming for "Funny", but in all seriousness, Phoenix is little bit behind in loadtime from IE 5.5/6.x on 2000/XP when dealing with launching the browser at first.

But given the tabbed browsing, it gains a 10-fold speed advantage over IE when time is concerned.

Once phoenix.exe shows up in the services, the loadtime beats IE. It's just the fist instance which is a bit slow. (Note that i'm not talking about page rendering time, rather than the browser loadtime set to about:mozilla for the homepage parameter)

Re:Performance improvements

[Blkdeath]

Yeah, it doesn't have to check with windows update first, so it can get right down to business.

Do you know how to make it (IE) NOT do that? I've got customers who share a 56k dialup connection for a 20+ computer network (Yeah yeah, I'm trying to get them out of the stoneage) and even for the ones on high speed this is annoying as all hell. Even worse on low-end Pentiums with pre-PIO hard drives where IE takes forever to start to begin with, then it has to Phone Home ...

If Mozilla or Phoenix ever forced me to "Check For Updates" with one of their releases, it would be the last time any of my computers ever loaded it.

Re:Performance improvements

[MagPulse]

(2.34e-9 * 1e-9)/(1/(3.04e9)) = 7.1136e-9

How did you measure 7 billionths of a processor cycle?

Re:Performance improvements

[nofx_3]

I believe that IE is loaded all the time in XP except with service pack 2, becuase I think the IE interace determines how the explorer shell draws directories in my computer and such. So if IE really is loaded all the time, all its doing is creating a new windows, which is of course faster than loading a browser (even if phoenix is 5-7Mb) into memory fresh.

-Kaplan

Re:Performance improvements

[Loki_1929]

"How did you measure 7 billionths of a processor cycle?"

Top10 Answers:

10) With a Ruler
9) Very Carefully
8) Rather Quickly
7) With a Stopwatch
6) Listened Carefully
5) Did it 7 Billion times
4) Measured it against how long CmdrTaco lasts in bed
3) Had the Comp travelling at .994c
2) Rough Guess

And the number 1 answer:
1) Rounded up from 6.9 billionths of a processor cycle

Re:Performance improvements

[FRiC]

Actually, disabling the "Automatically check..." option only makes it not automatically open the IE update page, it still phones home. The easiest way is to just filter out that particular URL in the Internet sharing program...

For me I just filter out all *.cab URL's, which takes care of all the Microsoft auto-updates.

Re:Performance improvements

[scrytch]

Tools/Options/Advanced

Second browser option: "Check for Internet Explorer Updates". Amazing what one sees when they take 10 seconds to look. And out of the box, mozilla does check for updates.

Re:Performance improvements

[rmohr02]

It'd be nice if I could unload IE from the memory when I'm not using it (all the time)--then Phoenix would run circles around it.

Re:Performance improvements

[alexburke]

And the number 1 answer:

1) Rounded up from 6.9 billionths of a processor cycle

*sigh* I'm so disappointed! That should have read:

1) My Pentium rounded up from 6.9 billionths of a processor cycle, FDIV style

Kids these days... :)

Re:Performance improvements

[scrytch]

It'd be nice if I could unload IE from the memory when I'm not using it (all the time)--then Phoenix would run circles around it.

I don't see iexplore.exe, shvdoc.dll, or urlmon.dll running at all when I start my system up and when I kill all the IE processes. The bottleneck is XUL.

Re:Performance improvements

[Darren Winsper]

Well, when I load IE, the UI comes up quickly, but then once it starts to load a page, the browser stops to load the rendering engine. If you take that into account, I've found Phoenix has a comparable load time to IE on my system.

Where?

[rutger21]

New stuff since 0.4 includes multiple homepages

So, where are Phoenix' other homepages?

Re:Where?

[thing12]

So, where are Phoenix' other homepages?

Tools/Preferences/General/Location(s):

You can enter the URL's separated by pipes (|). Or just click 'Use current page(s)' when you have your tab set open to the pages you want. It's way cool.

Re:Where?

[rmohr02]

I've done this with Mozilla for awhile--http://multizilla.mozdev.org/.

just unzipped..

[gl4ss]

..(win32) over the earlier (0.4) release.
nothing fscked up.

seems to work just as nice as before.

great job.

if somebody is still holding back.. try it, you'll be glad, especially if you like to have your browser SIMPLE & FAST.

Re:just unzipped..

[thing12]

but not stable, unfortunately. it continues to crash on complicated / poorly written pages for me

Examples? Bug Reports?

If you don't tell anyone, it will never get fixed.

Re:just unzipped..

[gl4ss]

**
*Soemtimes less is more and I really wish they would stop adding useless features to web browsers. How about a webbrowser which only has forward, back, stop, refresh, address line and bookmarks.*

There is one. It's called Phoenix [mozilla.org]**

this was what i was exactly trying to say with SIMPLE & FAST. ie is 'nice' because there's no extra (visible) crap.. phoenix is nice because of that same reason, and no non-visible crap either, and no need to worry that the website you visit daily gets hacked and same day happens to be the weekly nasty ie exploit in the wild day..

Re:just unzipped..

[Reziac]

SIMPLE and FAST are why I still use Netscape 3.04 by *preference*. (And is there any chance someone could dredge up and release the NS3.x source package? Pleeeeeeeeeeze??)

Side note: I've noticed that as a general rule, the more time people spend doing real work online (not playing games or random browsing), the more likely they are to prefer a simpler browser. So there really is a user market for a fast and basic browser.

BTW thanks for the "nothing broke in this release" recommendation. Am presently downloading phoenix to give it a look, as a potential alternative for those few sites where I'm presently forced to switch to Mozilla. (We don't serve IE's kind around here. ;)

Re:just unzipped..

[Tim Browse]

And is there any chance someone could dredge up and release the NS3.x source package? Pleeeeeeeeeeze??

No need to do that - a quick poke around on Netscape's site will find it - took me about a minute - have a look at this page. (From front page, go to Browser Central, then Product Archive).

Granted, I knew it would probably be there, because I know Netscape are pretty cool about keeping old versions available for download. You probably just assumed it wouldn't be on Netscape's site, which isn't surprising.

Hope this helps. The links seem to actually work, too - I just downloaded 3.04 for Linux, just to check the links weren't dead.

Tim

Re:just unzipped..

[Reziac]

Oh, not the browser itself (I've long since archived 3.04 for the platforms I expect I might ever need, out of forward-looking paranoia :) but the *source code*. Even tho I'm not a coder, I sometimes have this horrible feeling that a program I can't live without could be lost forever if we don't have a way to diddle and recompile it in the future, when a version for a new platform may be needed. (Now you know my REAL motivation for opensource. :)

Anyway, I don't see 3.04 *source* anywhere in the archive (unless I'm simply not seeing it; doesn't come up in search), tho as you say they've been very good about old keeping old binary versions up. 2.0x was still on the FTP server not long ago, and theoretically still is. (I use 2.02 as a good test for old AOL and WebTV browser compatibility.)

sillydog.org also has ancient archived versions (all the way back to Mosaic 0.4), and links to Netscape's FTP for the ones still living there.

nice browser, but still too big

[g4dget]

Phoenix is a nice browser. But it's still an 8.9M download for Linux. Does XUL really have that much overhead? How far can this be squeezed down?

Re:nice browser, but still too big

[yobbo]

Yet the windows installer is about 6MB. Instead of asking about the overhead of XUL, perhaps you should ask about the overhead of linux ports?

Don't get me wrong - I don't use windows at all. But builds of mozilla and phoenix ports are consistently larger than their windows counterparts. Why?

Re:nice browser, but still too big

[zapfie]

Uh, from the readme:

No, we have plenty more to trim out and we're slowly getting to it. Our current targets are 5mb for Windows and between 7 and 8mb for Linux, but these are just guesses. It's entirely possible that we'll beat those (case in point: we had previously targetted 6mb for Windows).

There is a reason they are called readmes... :)

Re:nice browser, but still too big

[sean23007]

Are the linux versions of these browsers really "ports?" I thought Mozilla was written natively for linux and natively for Windows (or ported to Windows). Maybe there is just some code built into Windows that allows that version to be smaller than linux's. Anyway, I thought the mozilla project was/is native to linux, not windows.

Re:nice browser, but still too big

[BZ]

The main reason is that MSVC++ produces much smaller (and faster) code than g++ does. This is especially true because g++ 2.9x is being used, with only -O (not -O2, because that produces buggy code) optimization.

Moving to gcc 3.2 (once the Sun people get off their friggin' asses and compile Java with it) will help perf and footprint a lot (15% improvement or so last I heard).

Re:multi tab startup

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care that they think they'd be competing with Chimera, there *NEEDS* to be a Mac OS X version that's keeping up with development.

On that platform we need MORE browsers, not fewer, in the hopes that ONE will actually be good: fast, stable, compatible, and feature complete.

Mozilla is feature riddled but has compatibility issues (TrekBBS.com; MS using propietary plug-in format for WMP on Mac OS) and S-L-O-W. Chimera is fast, not entirely stable, but lacking features or their poorly implemented (History, Location bar).

Name Change?

[reidbold]

I though we were supposed to see the debut of the new name for .5, what gives?

Re:Name Change?

[Simon Lyngshede]

If you read the Phoenix FAQ you'll seen that they where allowed to release 0.5 as Phoenix, because it was already planned at the time Phoenix (the BIOS people) began complaining. Name change is due for the next release.

Re:Name Change?

[mattrix2k]

Basically the name change has been delayed until 0.6.

From the FAQ:

I kept hearing that you were changing the name from Phoenix to something else. What happened?

That was just a giant publicity stunt. We've observed that in the past, the open-source community has instinctively favored David when big corporations complain of trademark infringement. We wanted to cash in on this sympathy by asking the community to send us money to fight the legal battle (obviously we'd really spend it on cool stuff), but with all the taxing issues and whatnot we decided to can the idea.

Uhhhh...really?

No, not really. This isn't like an action flick where the evil madman reveals the intricacies of his plans to hostages and then leaves them alone with a bomb set to detonate in like 10 hours. When we're ripping you off, we won't explain how in the FAQ. The truth is that we'd already had this 0.5 released planned for awhile, so it was okay to release under the Phoenix name. But under no circumstances will any future release be called Phoenix.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Angry White Guy]

I want a bolated browser when it suits me, and a stripped down "lite" version when it suits me as well. It's about choice, it's about innovation, and it's about using the product that fits your needs.
You probably won't want mozilla on an embedded device, but Phoenix will suit your needs. Plus Mozilla has been the testing ground for the coding practices, technology and design of Phoenix.
Why not have both?

Phoenix forums, themes and extensions

[h2so4]

The best place to discuss Phoenix is at the Mozillazine Phoenix forums.

Extensions are available here -- including radial context and mouse gestures.

Themes are available here and there's a beautiful page of similar-but-different themes here.

Re:Phoenix forums, themes and extensions

[Blkdeath]

That's precisely why I don't use Phoenix.. I love it, but until it scrolls, it's crap

I don't use any mice without scolling fucntionality anymore, and Phoenix scrolls just fine for me. WHat sort of problem are you having with it?

Re:Phoenix forums, themes and extensions

[Blkdeath]

I'm not the poster you asked, but I'll answer anyway. :-)

Well that's clearly unacceptable! I expect a penance of five karma for my trouble! :)

I am having scrolling problems on some pages. The scroll wheel simply won't work. Works on slashdot, works on Amazon, doesn't work at http://start.earthlink.net. What is really strange, is if I move the cursor over to the scroll bar and use the scroll wheel it will work. I will sometimes have to click somewhere in the body of the page to get the scroll wheel to work, but even that does not work on that

Is there a reproducible way you can cause this? I've just tested that on Win'XP w/ Phoenix 0.5 and under Linux with a slightly-before 0.5 nightly build and it worked. I don't think I've ever had scrolling problems, except for the nuisance when I've got a text box selected and it scrolls it instead of the page, but that's PEBKAC.

How are you calling start.earthlink.net? Is it your homepage, a bookmark, do you type it into the location bar? New or existing window/tab?

Themes...

[breon.halling]

And don't forget to head on over to themes.mozdev.org for some tasty chrome! Orbit 3+1 is my personal favourite.

Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[j2gEEk]

The reason i prefer mozilla on win32 is quicklaunch. With quicklaunch enabled in my system tray, it launches significantly quicker than even pheonix. If pheonix was quicklaunch enabled (heck, the code's already there, right?), it would be my browser of choice on w32. Until then, I'll stick with the "big mo".

Jake

Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[bencc99]

The reason i prefer mozilla on win32 is quicklaunch

That's my major reason for preferring mozilla too. The other personal gripe is mozillas ctrl-enter in the addressbar for opening a site in a new tab has been removed from phoenix since 0.4.

Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[JanneM]

This is not intended as a flame or anything, but what is the point of quicklaunch, really? I realize it must be important in Win32, as so many people are talking about it. I mean, I start things like Phoenix and Evolution, and then have them running continuously, until I need to reboot or restart phoenix due to a memory leak or something - it's usually running for weeks at a time.

My guess is that the work pattern is different on a Win32 desktop, and that you normally start an app, use it, then close it before you start another. Is it due to the lack of virtual desktops, or some other UI-related issue? I would not think it's resources, as Windows should swap out unused apps just like other OS:s.

Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[thing12]

This is not intended as a flame or anything, but what is the point of quicklaunch, really? I realize it must be important in Win32, as so many people are talking about it. I mean, I start things like Phoenix and Evolution, and then have them running continuously, until I need to reboot or restart phoenix due to a memory leak or something - it's usually running for weeks at a time.

Yep, exactly... people are whining because Mozilla doesn't start as fast as IE because its binary is 2x the size and actually takes much longer to be loaded off disk. Quicklaunch just adds that same amount of delay to the startup time after you log into your computer by preloading the massive binary. Phoenix on the other hand seems to take about as long to load the first time from a cold boot as IE does. And if you already have pheonix loaded it takes steps to speed it up even more and spawns a new thread from the existing browser.

My guess is that the work pattern is different on a Win32 desktop, and that you normally start an app, use it, then close it before you start another. Is it due to the lack of virtual desktops, or some other UI-related issue? I would not think it's resources, as Windows should swap out unused apps just like other OS:s.

My guess is that you're right about the work pattern. In older versions of windows resource handling was so poor that it seemed common to close apps when you weren't using them - of course this is all fixed now - but here's the rub: with quicklaunch enabled you aren't even conserving resources by closing Mozilla! Also worth noting is that virtual desktops are available as a powertoy for XP... but again the work pattern issue rises - people don't know how to use a modern system effectively.

Who knows, maybe people will wise up eventually.

Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[KAMiKAZOW]

You can also use quicklaunch with Phoenix.
Just run "phoenix.exe -turbo"

Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[0x0d0a]

Internet Explorer is an integrated part of the desktop, therefore it is inherently faster than any other programs.

*snort* snicker chuckle

Ahh....

Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[KAMiKAZOW]

You can also copy the password files from Mozilla to Phoenix.
Copy (StangeNumbre).s and (StangeNumbre).w from "C:\Dokuments and Settings\USER\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\default\BLABLA.slt" to "C:\Dokuments and Settings\USER\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles\default\BLABLA.slt" then edit the following lines in prefs.js:
user_pref("signon.SignonFileName", "StangeNumbre.s");
user_pref("wallet.SchemaValueF ileName", "StangeNumbre.w");

Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[jesser]

In older versions of windows resource handling was so poor that it seemed common to close apps when you weren't using them - of course this is all fixed now - but here's the rub: with quicklaunch enabled you aren't even conserving resources by closing Mozilla! Also worth noting is that virtual desktops are available as a powertoy for XP... but again the work pattern issue rises - people don't know how to use a modern system effectively.

I close apps I'm not using so they don't clutter up my taskbar.

Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[asa]

The user doesn't maintain a 'refcount' inside their head to make sure they aren't closing the last window. And with the miniscule startup delay with IE, they don't have to, but with Mozilla, forgetting the refcount costs you a 30 second delay.
30 seconds? What kind of hardware are you running? I see anywhere from 1 to 8 seconds on my fastest to slowest machines.

--Asa

Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla)

[Darren Winsper]

But some of us use an O(1) scheduler so it doesn't make a difference ;)

Differences from K-Meleon Browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could someone enlighten me to any differences between this broskwer and The K Meleon Browser? I have been using the latter a lot recently and am wondering why phoenix gets so much more press..

Re:Differences from K-Meleon Browser?

[C14L]

and am wondering why phoenix gets so much more press.

IIRC KM was almost dead for quite a time. Both browsers are more or less the same. Phoenix uses XUL for its interface, KM doesn't. KM uses its own scripting that is very easy to do, so KM becomes easily costumizable by everybody. I use Phoenix now, because KM repeatedly crashed, and it corrupted also my bookmarks-file (especially letters like ä, ö, ü, etc and arabic or chinese characters were rendered unreadable (I use one bookmark-file for all browsers).

Clean up the skins mess for christ sake

[joshv]

I wish the mozilla team would clean up the skins mess . I downloaded 1.2 recently and couldn't get a single downloaded skin to work. The same happened when I last downloaded phoenix a few weeks ago. I though the idea behind the 1.x release was to stabilize the APIs. If so, why is it so damned hard to have skins that work across multiple releases?

-josh

Re:Clean up the skins mess for christ sake

[Tack]

BTW 1.0.x is the stable release, 1.x is the developmental release.

No, 1.x are stable releases. Development releases are denoted by "nightly build," "alpha," "beta," or "release candidate." Mozilla does not follow the same versioning scheme as the Linux kernel, if that's what you're thinking.

Jason.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[thing12]

Is this to say that Mozilla is already considered bloated and people are asking for a stripped-down version like Phoenix? Just goes to show there are some people you can never make happy.

The Mozilla project's goal is not to make a browser for end users. It's essentially a technology preview. Always has been - always will be. It shows off Gecko, XUL, the portable runtime, and a few other nifty things. Phoenix is an implementation of all that technology; it shares a common codebase but there are massive changes and additions that make it a new and separate project. All this work has made Phoenix an excellent replacement for Internet Explorer on any version of Windows -- Mozilla isn't.

The one thing I wish someone would write is a XUL based file manager. Something on the order of Phoenix. That's all that needs to be added really and you could mostly leave explorer unused on a Windows box. It would be nice to be able to use the same user interface to do things on Windows/Linux/Unix/Mac/etc... Microsoft was worried about Netscape becoming the desktop, and it could still happen.

What's Mozilla On?

[Lu Xun]

With the steady increase in computer power (led by the Moore company I believe) and larger disk drive space, why does anyone need a SMALLER browser? I had to upgrade my memory when I bought WinXP - that's how I knew it was better than the OLD windows. I think Mozilla should concentrate on their browser better, like making the GUI translucent, including the latest version of Flash, and packaging those handy (and FREE!) software packages that speed up your internet connection. For myself, I'll stick with IE - the browser that gets BIGGER all the time, and therefore BETTER.

(remove tongue from cheek)

Re:What's Mozilla On?

[jeti]

Well - there's more than PCs out there.
Embedded systems are getting powerful
enough to run something like Phoenix.

Re:What's Mozilla On?

[Smidge204]

My home network is comprized entirely of 100-160MHz Pentium machines running Win9x. Phoenix has so far impressed me very much with it's performance and size.

It's nice to see that someone is actually making size and speed a priority rather than an afterthought, and without sacrificing functionality!

So far so good!
=Smidge=

Re:What's Mozilla On?

[Yunzil]

So in the future, you should expect Notepad to expand to require 1GB of RAM.

But it still won't be able to open files larger than 32K. :)

Re:What's Mozilla On?

[jim3e8]

My home network is comprized entirely of 100-160MHz Pentium machines running Win9x.

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those! It would be almost as fast as my laptop. ;)

This is the last Phoenix

[SILIZIUMM]

As it's said on http://mozillazine.org/ :

0.5 will be the last release to be called Phoenix. Version 0.6, expected in January, will have a new name. And they really mean it this time.

Re:This is the last Phoenix

[Curien]

Wow... maybe because *it's not English*!

It's Latin.

Re:This is the last Phoenix

[child_of_mercy]

I thought the phoenix was persian in it's origin.

(the whole fire-worship zoroastrian thing)

the romans might have brought it into our cultural tradition from there.

Re:This is the last Phoenix

[Curien]

I have no idea what the origins of the legend are, I was refering to the etymology of the word. It very well may come from Persia, though. The Romans got the word "phoenix" from the Greek "phoinix", who could have easily heard about it from the Persians.

Anti-Aliased Fonts for Phoenix on Linux/i386

[pryan]

If you want to use anti-aliased fonts with Phoenix 0.5 on Linux for x86, you can grab pre-built Xft-enabled binaries.

Xft Enabled RPMs and tarballs built under RedHat 8.

Xft Enabled tarball built under Debian unstable.

If you aren't running RedHat 8 or Debian unstable, then you may have to do some work to get these pre-built binaries to run.

I am running the Debian unstable Xft-enabled Phoenix 0.5 binary. It works just fine, and looks ever so good.

Re:Anti-Aliased Fonts for Phoenix on Linux/i386

[daw]

This little hack enables the old antialiased renderer, which was a sort of homebrew kludge using freetype linked in directly, and was never all that satisfactory. The builds posted above use the new XFt/fontselect renderer and the XRender extension, which is vastly superior in every way -- it looks way better (on LCDs it supports subpixel sampling); it is more efficient (thanks to its use of the Render extension, when available, which may even have some hardware optimization); and (assuming you are on RedHat 8) it uses the same font selection and rendering paths as the rest of the system, for a much more consistent experience.

Do yourself a favor and upgrade to the new renderer. This might be tricky if you are using nightlies, but you can probably just bring over libgfx_gtk.so as you upgrade.

Re:multi tab startup

[oo7tushar]

what you say is one of great importance...Mozilla is slow because of varying factors and they need to be dealt with. But more importantly (as you stated) there needs to be updated versions for all OSes.

Problem being that there's a finite number of monkies that can code at a given time on a finite number of computers of which few are Macs :(

Re:icons

[thing12]

Decent icons. No, seriously. Do proper (ie. a picture of a phoenix)

They're changing the name, maybe after that happens? Maybe for the 1.0 release? Who knows when they're going to change the icon... why the hell does it matter?

But more importantly: you can use any icon you want. Make a shortcut to the Phoenix exe. Then open properties and simply click the 'Change Icon...' button and find one that suits you.

what does phoenix look like?

[fferreres]

Never been able to see a screenshot, ok i am curious and still happy with galeon. But i'd like to see if it will please my eyes or not in case i give it a shot.

Re:what does phoenix look like?

[jdkincad]

OK. Here is a shot of 0.4 with bookmarks toolbar as it looks out of the box.

Re:what does phoenix look like?

[fferreres]

Nice. By the way, I don't remember how (it was not Phoenix related), minutes after posting I landed at themes.mozdev.org and found ALL pretty screenshot in all themes.

I don't know, couldn't they just put a visible link from the phoenix page to the themes area? And if the link is there, i can swear it's really not visible or intuitive. They just tell "Download", "Changelog", "Develop" and some other remarks like how it's not a stripped down mozilla.

They need a better webpage (but the program looks really good, I'll give it a try!!!)

Re:what does phoenix look like?

[fferreres]

Mhh, very nice site! Looks great (both Phoenix + site)!

Phoenix Technologies makes a web browser

[yerricde]

It's not like these two are competing technologies.

Actually, they are. Phoenix FirstView Connect is a stripped-down web browser. Mozilla.org Phoenix is a stripped-down web browser.

Phoenix is a straight up IE killer

And Phoenix Technologies' product is a straight up Pocket IE killer. So will be Gecko, once the Weenies reduce its footprint.

It's not just you.

[eddy]

The work pattern needn't be any different on Win32. I don't get this fixation with startup times either. My preference is Opera, and I usually start it once per boot. Then I have it running.

The nice thing about Opera though, is should I decide to shut it down, it will come up -- when I run it the next time -- in the exact same status as when I shut it down, including positioning inside documents. Can moz/phoenix do that yet? That's a pretty important feature to me.

Also, there's no lack of virtual desktops, should one want them. They're even included in the nVidia graphics drivers nowadays, so there's a nontrivial amount of people who _could_ use virtual desktops on Win32 without the need to switch "explorer" or install any extra software whatsoever.

Re:It's not just you.

[child_of_mercy]

Ok, i have two workstations on my desk.

One is debian/woody, the other is win98.

they're on identical hardware (just happenned that way)

on the woody box I've got an intricate setup of windows to display the data I need, (eximon, gkrellm, tailled feeds from a number of logs)

that box has been up for 113 days. (possibly since it got uplifted to woody)

programs stay open and my arrangement of windows gets steadily more intricate to display everything I want, the point is the load time of a program is utterly irrelevant to me.

if i had to reproduce it I'd be looking at maybe 10 minutes work.

my windows box on the other hand I reboot daily.

I don't do anything intricate, just maximise the lot.

loadtime is an issue.

having said that I HATE quick-starting things in windows eating up my precious RAM (i've got half a gig in this thing)

so thats my side-by-side comparison of usage isues.

Linux statically links GTK+

[yerricde]

But builds of mozilla and phoenix ports are consistently larger than their windows counterparts. Why?

The Linux port of Mozilla statically links GTK+ and Glib.

What About Scrolling?

[kingkade]

Anybody, not have scrolling work with this release (using a laptop touchpad in win32, if that makes a difference)?

Re:What About Scrolling?

[child_of_mercy]

I find with the mozilla/phoenix project that if ONE person files a report it usually gets fixed.

Thats certainly been the experience in our office.

we've filed maybe 4 little niggles and every single one was fixed in the next release (normally within a week or two).

Re:What About Scrolling?

[kingkade]

Thanks, this works perfectly (except I had to change it from "*Mozilla*" to "*Phoenix*" in the block they tell you to copy). I made the change and restarted syntpenh.exe and phoenix worked perfectly (goodbye IE :)

Thanks again.

Free software for creating ICO images

[yerricde]

you can use any icon you want. Make a shortcut to the Ph??n?x exe. Then open properties and simply click the 'Change Icon...' button and find one that suits you.

But why does this Google query turn up a whole bunch of $20-$30 products before this GPL tool for windows and linux?

The full screen bug is not fixed.

[io333]

I installed exactly according to instructions, wiping my old 0.4 installation and running the ProfileManager to create a new profile.

Window sizing is still a mess, and if I quit the browser in fullscreen mode, the next time I start it up and then go to fullscreen, the titlebar is rendered over the top of the screen making the window unmovable until I re-exit and restart the program.

Also, there is STILL no fullscreen button available in the toolbar customization options, forcing me to leave the mouse and go to the keyboard (F11) whenever I want to do that.

Oddly, in bugzilla I've seen references to a fullscreen button, but I have no idea what they are talking about.

It's also interesting that I submitted this story 10 hours ago (moments after the DL was available) and it was rejected. I suppose the /. editors all wanted to get their copy first before everyone here took down the servers?

And finally, kudos to the Phoenix/Mozilla folk. It used to be that I always had to switch back to IE because there were things that only IE could do and I had to get them done. Starting with the 0.4 Phoenix release, I starting having to open up Phoenix from time to time to get things done because IE couldn't do them. Finally about two weeks ago I removed the IE icon from my quicklaunch because I just didn't use it any more -- Phoenix now does so many things that IE cannot do: Tabbed browsing, Password managing that actually works, spyware control though a decent cookie manager, no popups (!), obnoxious blinking banner add removal, bookmarks-menu-navigation all lined up on one toolbar, etc.

Re:The full screen bug is not fixed.

[io333]

Full Screen Button := F11

Oh duh! I kept thinking they meant a toolbar button.

Re:Importing bookmarks.

[TeknoHog]

I think the problem is quite the opposite. Other browsers' bookmarks interoperate quite nicely, but Opera has its own cryptic format. For example, Phoenix's bookmark file is simple HTML which you can access directly from other browsers, once you know the location.

Re:Other Debian packages?

[pryan]

I haven't seen any debs yet, but you can grab the standard tarball. It should work just fine on a stable or testing Debian distribution.

Not to be a troll, but

[woboz]

I guess that means I am going to be a troll now.
Do we really need an update everytime there is a point upgrade in this browser.
0.4 October 30th
0.3 October 16th
0.2 October 7th
This doesn't even include the two seperate submissions to discuss the name change.

I mean come on the last time there was an anouncement for Internet explorer that wasn't about a gaping security hole was over a year ago. Let's get some equal coverage here on this unbiased "news" site called Slashdot

Re:Not to be a troll, but

[Phroggy]

Let's get some equal coverage here on this unbiased "news" site called Slashdot

Slashdot has NEVER claimed to be unbiased. From the FAQ:

Personally, I have a pet peeve when people post comments saying things like "That's not News For Nerds!" and "That's not Stuff that Matters!" Slashdot has been running for almost 5 years, and over that time, I have always been the final decision maker on what ends up on the homepage.... We've been running Slashdot for a long time, and if we occasionally want to post something that someone doesn't think is right for Slashdot, well, we're the ones who get to make the call.

If you're not happy about that, you don't have to keep coming back. :-)

Re:Not to be a troll, but

[Reziac]

As a further note -- if a story generates the usual array of comments, and if as many as half those comments are in some way related to the article, it must have "mattered" to enough of the people who come here regularly.

After all, you don't have to read what doesn't interest you. Just like you don't have use IE if you don't like it. Even if Phoenix sucks and even if 0.1 releases are meaningless, it's still one more option for folk who don't like other browsers.

(See, I wasn't either off topic. ;)

Re:Not to be a troll, but

[child_of_mercy]

if you don't think a phoenix release is big news you haven't used it.

in our non-techy office its a source of wonder and blessing (we're a news service that spends a lot of time accessing web-sources).

for once, something is getting BETTER.

here in windows land that doesn't happen so often. (yes XP is better but it's so darn annoying)

A sugestion to slashdot.

[jellomizer]

How about creating a new section on slashdot called Software Updates. That way every little version number changed can be published and discussed. (Like with Linux Kernels, OS X Updates, Mozzila and the like updates). This way it has the advantage that more of the smaller updates can be published without taking up the main space and still keeping the discussion on the topic. And this should get rid of a lot of "Why do you post every Minor version change" comments and the like.", It also has the advantage of beeing seen for a longer time on the sub pages.

Re:A sugestion to slashdot.

[Phroggy]

Wouldn't that just be Freshmeat?

Galeon's faster for me

[MicroBerto]

In Gnome2, Galeon 1.2.5 loaded a rather large kuro5hin page 4 seconds faster for me. And this is an older galeon based on an older mozilla! So i'm sticking to galeon, need to get my base mozilla and galeon updated though, and test again.

Re:Galeon's faster for me

[MicroBerto]

Athlon 550Mhz, 288M Ram here. It's 3 years old next month, but I haven't found a good reason for a new computer yet!

Mouse Gestures in Phoenix

[skunkeh]

If, like me, you've been using Mozilla's mouse gestures feature for a while you're probably hooked. The good news it that they are available for Phoenix as well:

http://texturizer.net/phoenix/extensions.html#gest ures

Unfortunately there is no menu option to trigger them with the right mouse button (they default to being activated by the left button). If you want them on the right mouse button you will have to edit your prefs.js file. On Windows (depending on what version you are running) this can be found in C:\Windows\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles\???\???\prefs.js

Before editing the prefs.js file you will need to install the gestures XPI, then restart your browser and shut it down again (this will create the default mouse gesture preferences in the prefs.js file). Now open the file in a text editor and look for the following line:

user_pref("mozgest.mousebutton", 0);

Change the number to 2 for right mouse button (or 1 for middle mouse button) and you're done.

a note on two posts below

[brettlbecker]

1) do we really need all these .1 releases of phoenix?... You may not, and if so, fine, don't install them. But I'm glad they are releasing every .1 at the moment because it gives those of us who want to see the development a chance to do so. Look at how babies grow in the first year of life... this is still phoenix's infancy, and we should be watching as it takes its first steps.

2) I do not understand the description of the "fullscreen bug" post below. When I go to fullscreen, there is no window titlebar, because it is IN FULLSCREEN MODE. Why would you want to move a full-screen window around? Where would you move it to? When I exit in fullscreen and then start phoenix up again, and then go to fullscreen mode again, it looks the exact same. I have the option to minimize, close, or 'restore' the window in the upper right,which brings back the titlebar, and that works perfectly. What, exactly is the problem?

This is a fantastic browser so far... so much smooter than original mozilla or galeon, which I've loved for a long time now. The installation of new themes and extensions works almost flawlessly, excepting that occasionally replacing one theme with another results in only a half-success and requires more than one attempt. All of the new menu additions from the extensions site worked perfectly.

I am very impressed, considering this is still a .5 release. Rock on, Mozilla people. Keep these .1 releases coming.

Re:a note on two posts below

[io333]

I'll try to explain this:

This has happened to me on three different machines, two running XP home, and one running XP pro. It is a documented bug on bugzilla.

1. Start Phoenix.
2. Resize the Phoenix window with the corner widget, bottom left.
3. Hit f11 for fullscreen
4. Hit f11 to go back to non-fullscreen mode.

You should now be missing the top widget bar, the one with the title of the page in it and the resizing/closewindow (red x) widgets in top left corner. You can only quit the browser by selecting File>Exit.

Did it screw up for you?

Not faster

[Door-opening Fascist]

I don't mean to be a troll, but in my experience, Phoenix is no real improvement over Mozilla in terms of startup speed, at least for OS/2. Phoenix starts up about three seconds faster than Mozilla on a 200MHz 80586 with 64MB of RAM running OS/2 Warp v3, which isn't saying much when Mozilla takes damn near a minute to open.

Re:Not faster

[Door-opening Fascist]

True. I get around that by starting up Mozilla over ssh from one of our GNU/Linux or BSD boxen.

Re:Not faster

[0x0d0a]

The problem is all this reading and parsing of ten zillion text-based config files. Why does JavaScript need to run to parse the prefs file? Rrrrggghhh...

Less Memory ?

[jalilv]

Not to flame or anything but Phoenix 0.5 takes longer to start and uses more memory that Mozilla 1.0 on my P166 48MB box with latest Debian build. May be this Phoenix build is not for me :-( I use 0.4 on Windows box and it sure beats the hell out of IE as far as speed is concerned. Will get 0.5 for Windows box once the /. effect is over :-)

- Jalil

memory footprint still the same...

[wuchang]

15MB for Phoenix right after startup 16MB for Mozilla 1.2b right after startup (w/ default mozilla home page as start page)

Re:memory footprint still the same...

[Reziac]

This here machine has 1GB RAM, so memory footprint is the least of my concerns (I don't even let Windows have a swapfile). But how is phoenix for resource suckage on Win9*? That's a more-relevant figure for most Windows users anyway.

Re:Other Debian packages?

[reaper20]

I've been using this package:

http://people.debian.org/~eric/debian/i386

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[DarkVein]

Slashdot uses antiquated HTML and CSS practices. Slashdot specifies font style and size explicitly. You can change font size with text zoom, which is CTRL + mwheel[up,down] or CTRL + [+,-].

In Preferences|Fonts and Colors, you can also specify minimum font size and DPI. Small fonts will not remain proportional if they're page-specified smaller than your minimum. Changing DPI will alter the number of pixels occupied per point size. Be wary of this, as most pages make the bad assumption that your browser renders fonts at either 72dpi (Mac) or 96dpi (PC). Slashdot is among these.

Font sizes have been the bane of W3 design since the <font> tag appeared, largely due to it. Calculating point size for monitors is convoluted to begin with. A point is 1/72 of an inch. Apple simplified this by making 1px equal 1pt. Pixels are, everywhere else, one-dimensional coordinates with color value, with no intristic dimensions or aspect ratio. So, on a PC, it's anyone's guess how many pixels per inch your screen is.

With CSS, we gain the ability to specify anything, including font sizes, in pixels, points, percents, millimeters, ems, exs, "absolutes". Most of them are out the window when DPI isn't knowable. Percentages, "absolutes", ems, and exes are relative, so they are usable. Ignoring Netscape 4, which got everything wrong: Percentages were fucked up by IE, absolutes by Opera, leaving ems and exs. One em is the height of the capital letter 'M'. One ex is the height of the lower case letter 'x'. Clear as mud?

I hope that was helpful and educational. I hope slashdot moves to XHTML 1.1. It's embarrassing that such a prominent site, proponent of standards, bemoaner of poor implimentations, should itself be guilty of poor HTML and CSS practices.

Re:multi tab startup

[DarkVein]

Do you remember when the Aqua Mozilla themes were pulled? Apple didn't want skins that LOOKED like Aqua but didn't ACT like Aqua. The real concern was Mozilla on MacOS behaving inconsistently with the GUI it imitates.

Mozilla on MacOS X now has a custom front end, native to Aqua. Chimera is dependant on the Aqua front of Mozilla. If or when Phoenix ports to MacOS X, they and Apple will want Phoenix to have a native Aqua interface.

It's kind of stinky, but it's the best name brand policy both for Apple and Phoenix on MacOS X. However, I agree with you. Phoenix is leagues ahead and above of Mozilla, Chimera, IE5.5:mac, and Omniweb, in order of 0wn4g3. MacOS X needs Phoenix.

Re:multi tab startup

[fader]

I don't care that they think they'd be competing with Chimera, there *NEEDS* to be a Mac OS X version that's keeping up with development.

Amen. Chimera is great, and my primary browser on my OSX box, but it doesn't hold a candle to Phoenix in terms of stability, speed, or release times. (Well, okay, on second thought, it's not fair to compare speed across different architectures like that, but Chimera only gets a new release every couple of months... Phoenix is already surpassing it.)

Re:Windows/Linux sizes?

[asa]

Just what is it that makes the Linux apps so much bigger (openoffice.org also springs to mind)?

A number of reasons. One reason is that the msvc++ compiler can make a smaller (disk and memory footprint) and faster Phoenix binary than it's linux counterpart.Another reason is that there are code and compatability issues that prevent us from statically compiling more of the linux binary like we do for windows.

--Asa

This really isn't true in practice

[Ars-Fartsica]

Excusing Mozilla flaws as the result of the code only being a technology demonstrator is a bit of a crutch. Mozilla is an open source browser. It is not a demonstration of what a browser could or would be, but an end unto itself.

As it stands, with xft builds, Mozilla is in fact more user-oriented than Phoenix on linux.

Users decide what an application is, not the coders. If users decie that Mozilla is the de facto open source browser, then it is.

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[Reziac]

That's yet another reason I stick with my beloved old NS 3.04. 99% of the time, it renders fonts as plain old LEGIBLE 12pt Times Roman. (And I'm GLAD it ignores CSS, because that means I don't have to put up with someone else's notion of readable printsize.)

In other browsers (incl. Mozilla) I'm much more often annoyed by spasms of tiny print. That may be fine for kids, but middle-aged eyes don't like it at all. Switch my default font size? Yeah, for every page I visit? cuz that's about what it would come to.

There's much to be said for leaving certain formatting elements alone. And I don't care how pretty your page is, if I can't easily read it.

My unscientific benchmark

[Mr. Objectivity]

Just out of curiousity, since Phoenix's claim to fame is speed and size, I did a quick test.

On Windows XP SP1 with a wireless connnection to a DSL gateway:

Startup time and RAM used on launch of about:blank as homepage:
IE 6.0 SP1 (IE) - ~ 1 sec - 1,258 KB
Phoenix 0.5 - ~ 1 sec - 2,712 KB
Mozilla 1.2.1 - ~ 2 sec - 15,568 KB

Open time and RAM used to launch Slashdot:
IE - ~2 sec - 8,272 KB
Phoenix - ~2 sec - 13,044 KB
Mozilla - ~3 sec - 17, 676 KB

Conclusion:
Who cares! They are all fast enough, the RAM usage doesn't seem to make a difference. If you don't like IE, there are any number of alternatives. I just wish they all shared favorites/bookmarks. God, it's not rocket science, it's only hyperlink's. Even Phoenix and Mozilla don't share bookmarks, how messed up is that.

gentoo phoenix 0.5 -- make your own ebuild

[zrodney]

For those using gentoo
instead of redhat, etc. you don't have to wait for
the portage tree to be updated and rsync to get 0.5
phoenix.

Just do this (as root):

cd /usr/portage/net-www/phoenix-bin
cp phoenix-bin-0.4.ebuild phoenix-bin-0.5.ebuild
emerge phoenix-bin-0.5.ebuild /usr/sbin/ebuild phoenix-bin-0.5.ebuild digest
emerge phoenix-bin-0.5.ebuild

the ebuild script has the right paths built in
and finds the proper download from the 0.5 in
its filename.

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[DarkVein]

Unfortunately not very well known, you can easily override all CSS, effectively disabling as much as you want. Customizing Mozilla, completely applicable to Phoenix. This page covers a lot. Place overriding CSS rules on userContent.css, with '!important' after the rules, before the semicolon. Opera provides for this mechanism very well.

My Phoenix is Hiding in the Ashes

[jefu]

First off, I must say, Phoenix is a great browser. Fast. Works really well on almost all pages.

Phoenix with the pie menus, tab extensions and popup blocking has spoiled me. It has changed my browsing habits and expectations enough to make using other browsers annoying at best and at worst, well, lets just not say it. When I do need to run another browser (say IE for those pages that don't work right) it takes me about two pages before I'm ready to shoot it.

BUT! Caveat Downloader!

I just downloaded Phoenix 0.5 and installed the RadialContext extension. (Linux)

And now phoenix won't start. Or, more exactly, it starts, shows one of those incredibly annoying "Did you know...." hints window and retreats into the background where it spawns a bunch of threads and stops. I'll be reporting this as a bug, but would like to find a way to fix it (if possible) first so I can use the browser I've come to rely on.

If I don't load the radial context stuff (as now) the browser works fine.

Sigh.

Re:My Phoenix is Hiding in the Ashes

[jefu]

After several re-installs of phoenix and a fair amount of crankiness, I decided to find out what was wrong and fix it. It took a while and I'll bet I've now deleted and rebuilt the Phoenix directory about 20 times, but I found the error - so if you're a radial context user on linux and you get the same problem, edit the "pieIntegration.js" file in the chrome/radialcontext/content directory and comment out the call to "preloadPieIcons()".

Not what I'd expected to spend the morning doing, but I learned something about the way mozilla/phoenix do things and its always a Good Thing to learn new stuff.

Major A.I improvement treated as "issue"

[Pac]

From Phoenix 0.5 Release Notes - Known Issues:
"Folders in the history sidebar are presented in an illogical order."

Now, it would not be the first time a major discovery is treated as an "experimental error" for years. A function that manages to consistently analise and display a given chunck of data in an illogical order regardless of the data previous ordering would be a major advancement in Artificial Intelligence. I hope someone knowledgeable looks deeper into this matter before it is forgotten...

MOD PARENT DOWN -1, Overrated

[yerricde]

According to the 'ldd' output given by an Anonymous Coward, this comment's parent is incorrect.

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[zeugma-amp]

I use the prefbar extension to control some of the features of mozilla and phoneix.I'd like to know if anyone out there would know what you would enter in the configuration to make a button that would simulate the "ctrl+" and "ctrl-" keystrokes?

The options when creating new buttons are:

• id:
• label
• onclick

Some might disdain the use of a button when there is a keystroke alternative, but I'd say that it would be useful to have both options instantly available. Sometimes using the keyboard makes more sense, and sometimes a button is more convienient.

Helpful hints - at last!

[Tim Browse]

"Background info: Phoenix is a web browser based on the Mozilla engine, but smaller and faster than Mozilla Navigator."

See? Now was it really so hard?

If only all /. articles did not assume basic telepathy on the part of the reader.

Tim

Careful ...

[emkman]

"How about creating a new section on slashdot called Software Updates. That way every little version number changed can be published and discussed." ... "And this should get rid of a lot of "Why do you post every Minor version change" comments and the like.'

That means your post would be gone too. And if your post never existed, the new section you have proposed could never possibly exist in the first place. You have just erased youself. Think about that.

vs Opera

[mnmn]

I think opera has really shewn Mozilla/Netscape the true direction of web browsers. Mozilla is a real bloatware despite its completeness and correctness, for all practical purposes, opera just beats it up.

Instead of reducing the engine, I think it might be better to start from scratch, and making a very quick n small browser, and THEN using enhancements to add functionality step by step for people with different requirements. A lot of people need nothing more than HTML4, not even flash n java, phoenix can accomplish this not by reducing mozilla but by starting from a clean slate.

Secondly I think its version number should be bumped to 1.x. To gather more testing data, the version number should smack of stability. Even opera isnt the most stable of browsers. In fact, I've NEVER experienced a 100% stable browser. Can this be ANOTHER aim of this project?

Two things I need a hand with - help?

[teamhasnoi]

First, I can't get .5 to install under XP. .4 is working fine, but .5 just gives me a hourglass for a second or two, and then nothing. I've tried running the profile manager and deleteting the old one and copying over the .4 install but nothing works.

Second, the damn autocomplete! How do I turn it off? I hate the little pop up window which contains all my moments of shameful spelling and such in the google search, as well as the login, search, text ect. fields of every site.

Am I missing something obvious (like a high school education)? Thanks.

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

That's yet another reason I stick with my beloved old NS 3.04. 99% of the time, it renders fonts as plain old LEGIBLE 12pt Times Roman.

You should try 12pt Verdana. Times is a sans-serifed font, and sans-serif has been proven to be harder to read on computer screens.

In other browsers (incl. Mozilla) I'm much more often annoyed by spasms of tiny print. That may be fine for kids, but middle-aged eyes don't like it at all. Switch my default font size? Yeah, for every page I visit? cuz that's about what it would come to.

In Mozilla, you shouldn't need to, because it can resize fonts specified in pixels. Both IE and Mozilla (IIRC) keep you font size the same, so you don't have the enlarge it on every page.

BTW, there should be an option to have a toggle button on the toolbar that enables/dissables css., along with image and javascript toggles, having to go into the prefs each time is such a pain I never bother.

Most important of all

[Mark Bainter]

In my opinion, is that support for middle-click pasting urls is back!

RadialContext for Phoenix hopefully fixed

[jeti]

I just uploaded a new version of RadialContext that
should fix the problem. You can get it at:
www.gamemakers.de/mozilla/radialcontext/ .

The extension tried to preload nonexistent icons.
Earlier versions of Phoenix handled missing images
more gracefully, and the problem occured only
under Linux.

Sorry for the inconvenience,
Jens

Ummm

[bogie]

There is no skin mess, you just don't know how to read instrucions.

Read the notes next to the themes at Mozdev next time, they clearly state if a theme works with 1.2 and the 1.3a series. I've had zero problem getting themes to work.

I doubt it's MSVC++

[g4dget]

The main reason is that MSVC++ produces much smaller (and faster) code than g++ does.

I very seriously doubt that. At best, MSVC++ may produce slightly smaller or slightly faster code for some programs and not for others, and if my previous experience with it is any guide, at the cost of slight incompatibilities. Even you yourself claim only a 15% improvement. Note that optimization with gcc doesn't end with giving it a "-O2"; if you want better optimization, you need to tune the "-f" flags.

Moving to gcc 3.2 (once the Sun people get off their friggin' asses and compile Java with it)

That's the problem with relying on a proprietary piece of software like Java. Phoenix should simply upgrade to gcc 3.2--to hell with Sun Java.

I'm dissapointed.

[Sj0]

I'm kind of dissapointed that there was no mention of the .7 release of K-Meleon, after a full year of development.

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[solferino]

You should try 12pt Verdana. Times is a sans-serifed font, and sans-serif has been proven to be harder to read on computer screens.

i agree with you about using verdana over times-roman for on screen reading

however i think you got yr explanation mixed up - verdana is sans-serif (sans is french for without), and times roman is a serif font - serifs are the little things that hang off letters (like at either end of the top crossbar of a capital T in times roman) - they make a typeface more readable on very high resolution media such as paper but tend to make the typeface too 'muddy' on coarse resoultion media (such as CRTs and LCDs)

anyways, i'm sure you know all this and just mistakenly typed the wrong term - cheers

Tabs in IE

[mikeage]

If you want tabbed browsing, and don't dislike IE for it's security holes, use crazybrowser. It's got better (IMHO) tabs than mozilla, and it under 1/2 a meg download (it's just a wrapper to IE).

Rounding errors.

[saintlupus]

1) My Pentium rounded up from 6.9 billionths of a processor cycle, FDIV style

I still remember a friend of mine's answer to the FDIV bug, as posted on a local BBS.

"Remove the '/' key from all the keyboards you ship with these systems."

--saint

Re:Galeon

[asa]

However, Opera has 16 search options for their search window from the pull down menu

and Phoenix has about 150 search options. See mycroft.mozdev.org

--Asa

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

anyways, i'm sure you know all this and just mistakenly typed the wrong term

Yes, my bad. 10:00am is still to early in the morning for me....sans brain ;)

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[Reziac]

Thanks, good info (don't have time to read it all right now, but saved for reference). Also brought up an idea... how about an option that lets CSS and such pretty much do as they like, except that the user can specify a *minimum* displayed font size?

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[Reziac]

Still, alas, rather a nuisance when flipping among a dozen sites at once (which I think is normal :) Also, those are rather awkward key combos, at least to my hands.

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[Reziac]

I see someone else already waggled feet at ya... 10am and no caffeine yet? Tsk. :)

You point out yet another reason I stick with my ancient NS3.04 whenever I can (which is 99% of the time): my commonly-needed toggles are right there on the main menu structure or as a button. No need to go rooting thru the preference tree to find 'em.

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I see someone else already waggled feet at ya... 10am and no caffeine yet? Tsk. :)

I don't drink coffee. Maybe that's my problem :P

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[Reziac]

Me neither! Coffee tastes like burnt dirt. Now where did I leave the tea and chocolate? :)

Re:slashdot front page big fonts?

[Reziac]

Coolness! Missed that in your first post. Thanks.