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Mozilla Firebird Soars Into View

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the birds-planes-and-browsers dept.

About a zillion people wrote to announce Mozilla 0.6, but asa was the first: "Mozilla Firebird 0.6 (formerly Phoenix) is available for download. This release features a fresh new look, a redesigned preferences window, preliminary support for Mac OS X and much more. Read why you should be using Mozilla Firebird and get the latest release." I'm not exactly clamoring for a new web browser, but it looks worth checking out.

6 of 500 comments (clear)

  1. Font Magnification by Teckla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For those of us without electron microscopes handy to read the tiny, tiny fonts on many web pages, Mozilla/Mozilla Firebird also allows text magnification that *always works*.

    There are tons of web pages whose text can't be magnified in Internet Explorer without first turning on the accessibility options, and doing that is very annoying.

    -Teckla

  2. A browser that puts the user's interests first by Ed+Avis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Mozilla Firebird developers seem to be the first mainstream developers to finally realize that a browser doesn't have to follow every stupid thing that a 'web designer' dictates. A browser does not have to pop up moronic Javascript windows just because the site says so. It doesn't have to allow the site to obscure the status bar just because the site wants to. If the Javascript specification allows these things, well then the spec is broken and it's right for the browser to ignore it and do (by default) what the _user_ is most likely to want. Font resizing that always works is another instance of this.

    (One more thing I wish they would fix, however, and that is links that open in a new window. It shouldn't be up to the web site to control opening new windows in the user's browser, it's confusing to the novice (as Nielsen points out) and annoying to many experienced users. The default browser settings, IMHO, ought to open all links in the same window and let the user choose whether to do something different by middle-clicking instead of left-clicking. I hope the Firebird people can fix this one remaining annoyance in a future release.)

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  3. There is something to be said for Mozilla by DrXym · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Obviously Firebird has it's uses but when you spend all day reading mail, news and browsing there is much to be said for an integrated all in one solution. It's the little things that you miss when you run seperate apps, for example middle-clicking on a link in a mail window and having a tab open in the browser, having a single password manager and so on. Mozilla is generally so rock solid, I'd be prepared to take a hit in stability for the better performance / footprint a single app brings.


    Firebird obviously is useful if you want to use some other mail application but I think it is unwise to split the apps out without good reason, especially for the large number of people who love the integration of Mozilla.


    I would much prefer this - design the apps so they can run seperately if desired, but also allow them to run in the same address space using chrome overlays. That is pretty much all Moz is doing right now, but it could be done much more cleanly so that you could mix and match the bits. This is quite feasible to do and it means the best of both worlds for everyone.

  4. minimum font size by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Yeah, Mozilla has had a minimum font size option for a long time too. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread, as I am so sick of having to stick my head closer to my monitor just to read some BS "fine print".

    Annoyingly, this often throws off the layout of some websites, but that's pretty stupid design if a minor font-size adjustment throws it off... *cough gamespot cough* :)

    --
    Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
  5. Re:Opera by grayrest · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you don't see what you're looking for, check the extension page at Firebird Help. Otherwise, ask in the Mozillazine Forums, which are linked in a dozen places.

    The whole point of firebird is that different people want different things from their browsers. A web neophyte and a web developer will have different requirements. With the extension mechanism, the needs of both can be satisfied.

    For example, my setup looks like this. The features shown there are a mix between built in mozilla features and extensions, several of which I've either created or tweaked.

    The features they list are pretty pedestrian, but since it's pretty easy to create extensions, a lot of interesting functionality is being created. I believe that the creativity of extension makers will be a key source of innovation for web browsers and the ideas that are currently in development will be listed as key features of mozilla in the future.

    Finally, I personally would keep using firebird even if IE or Opera duplicated the functionality of everything in Fb including the extensions. Why? If I want to have a new feature in Fb, I sit down and hack it out. If a feature is almost right, I dive into the source and tweak it. Mozilla interface code is really easy to hack and that is very valuable to me and something that Opera lacks.

  6. Re:Opera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah, but the problem with that is that middle clicks do something else in Firebird. They open links in a new tab in the background, which is way, way, way more useful (especially considering autoscroll puts an autoscroll icon usually in the way of whatever you're reading). Now maybe right button and middle click at the same time or something for autoscroll would fix that, but the middle click/new background tab is so astonishingly useful at browing the web in the way I and lots of other users do that I think it should take precedence, and screw what IE does.