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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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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)
That's not a soda... it's a caffeine delivery device!
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.
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.
Examples? Bug Reports?
If you don't tell anyone, it will never get fixed.
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.
Will I retire or break 10K?
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).
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
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
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.
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.
I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.
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
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.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?