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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.

10 of 500 comments (clear)

  1. Opera by dbglt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Has anyone compared this firebird you speak of, to the mysterious cult of opera? I'm quite happy as an opera cultsman, yet i am open to bribery :P

    Anyone wanna point out to me some features that firebird has/plans on having? Most of the ones on the list look pretty basic...

    1. Re:Opera by mrd_yaddayadda · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm an Operaphile. Straight up front I'll say that but from my very very brief look at Firebird (.6) I'm impressed. One of the things I can't live without in Opera are the mouse gestures. I know that there has been a - imo - rather crappy implementation of the idea available for Mozilla for a while but it seems that it's finally getting there.

      I tried previous releases of Phoenix and while I thought it promising it always has seemed very rough around the edges understandably but this seems to be getting close. Allied with Thunderbird this could be a good mix...

      Worth trying for a while at least.

    2. Re:Opera by J_DarkElf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The only advantage I see in having a XUL-based browser is that it is quite easy to add extensions to it, such as support for additional standards such as Ruby, or adding support for features left out of the main distribution, such as the 'site navigation' () bar.

      Standards support is virtually identical in Gecko and Presto -- Presto does certain things a little better, Gecko has support for SVG and some other things Presto does not yet support. Unless you for some reason need SVG and MathML support, I do not see any reason to move to MF from Opera. But of course that is my opinion ;-)

      Alas The Browser Formerly Known As Phoenix is still at least twice as slow as Opera 7.11 on my system, so it will remain a secondary browser for me. It is certainly at least the second-best browser around!

    3. Re:Opera by Bander · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was one of the Opera faithful for a couple of years, but switched to Phoenix/Mozilla Firebird about six months ago and haven't looked back since.

      Opera started losing favor when the Daily Python site kept coming up in Greek (not that there's anything wrong with that, I just can't read Greek) and their tech support was completely unhelpful.

      Mozilla Firebird is close to everything a browser should be. And nothing more, which is at least as important.

      -- Bander

      --
      What we need more of is science!
    4. Re:Opera by kbielefe · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I agree with you wholeheartedly about the middle clicking opening a link taking precedence. I use it all the time. However, you wouldn't need to do some weird button combination to activate autoscroll instead in this case. If you middle click on a link, open link in a new tab. If you middle click off of a link, activate the autoscroll. Simple as that.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank.
  2. Great Work by mbrod · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would just like to say good job to the developers and the project managers. The direction this part of Mozilla has gone has really put the icing on the cake for it being the best browser IMHO.

    I use it Phoenix (ermmm I mean Firebird) now on every platform at work and at home. Love it.

    Never have any popup problems, very quick and couldn't do without opening links in the background under a new tab as I browse the web then go to them when I am done reading what I am currently on.

    1. Re:Great Work by sisukapalli1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Just a few weeks ago, I felt that Mozilla was good enough and that there was no need to try anything else -- till I downloaded Mozilla Firebird (some nightly after 0.5), and boy is it good...

      Here are the main things:

      The customization is tremendous. I managed to shave off a couple of toolbars from the screen -- only one toolbar with more buttons and options than what I put with Mozilla 1.4b.

      The extensions are wonderful too. Simple things like NukeImage, Tabbrowser extensions, Adblock, and a tonne of other extensions.

      So, right now I use both Mozilla and Mozilla Firebird, and I see the little Mozilla offsprings dethroning parent Mozilla very soon.

      Soon it will be the time to say, "The king is dead, long live the king."

      S

  3. It's great. by The+J+Kid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've got it and it's great.

    It's fast, zippy and speedy too!
    If you haven't been using the Nightlies lately, the new default theme will seem to you as a breath of fresh air.

    It's hands down the best browser for Linux.

    --
    Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
  4. Difference between Firebird and Mozilla? by kevin_conaway · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article mentions that this is a faster, less bloated version of Mozilla. What are they trying to do here, what are hte main differences between Mozilla and Firebird and why do they seem to be advocating one of their products over another? kc

  5. I love this! by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's great that we have an Open Source V Closed Source fight (floabw) on which opinions aren't distorted by one side being the MS behemoth. It's cool to see two sets of obviously talented engineers working so hard at something and in the process demonstrating the strengths and weaknesses of both models.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park