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Mozilla 1.4 RC1
Mister.de writes "Mozilla 1.4 RC 1 is out. We've added lots of features and fixed lots of bugs since Mozilla 1.3. Help us shake it down in preparation for Mozilla 1.4 final. More information is available in the release notes. Mozilla is an open-source Web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability."
Excellent. This was the only reason I kept a copy of explorer around. Now to see if it works. :)
Just another reason to metamod.
How the heck are RANDOM CRASHES an acceptable release time bug? Especialy with the many MANY users out there who have integrated ATI chips?
ah yes, and here is another good one. .
Err, I am NOT using 1.4 RC1 any time soon, I have OCD and I compulsivly click on white space on a website while reading it. (no, seriously. . .
If Mozilla is locked up but doesn't seem to have crashed, make sure there are no dialog boxes still open.
Ah, oh well, IE still has this one (thanks to Acrobat Reader "checking" for updates, which can be hard to spot behind ten gazzilion different IE windows open!)
Noooo comment. . .
Seriously, people, say it with me, s-t-a-b-i-l-i-t-y.
Oh well, it is RC1 for a reason. . . . hopefuly the final RC doesn't have any KNOWN crash bugs. . . . heh. . . . hopefuly. . . . (I really hate it when a software's suggested fix for a crash is "not to do that". Excuse me, but unless I hit the computer with a hammer, I expect it to WORK.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
It also isn't tied into many other aspects of my OS - upgrading or changing certain parts of Mozilla never makes me worry about how it might cripple something in my OS (like IE does). Mozilla doesn't have libraries that are integral to other applications. Mozilla doesn't have hidden code and obscure "features" that may or may not send my info to a particular vendor.
IE is "better"? Dream on.
The next release won't be 2.0. Although the front end is changing to the new toolkit, and the all-in-one suite is being abandoned, the code at the core will (the Gecko layout engine, necko networking library and so on) still be the same and, in particular will not represent a big break in backward compatibility from 1.0.
However, in the 1.5 and 1.6 cycles, it is anticipated that there will be some big backend changes (code simplifcation, rearchitecture work) that will break API compatibility with 1.0. There is also a move to distribute the core librarys seperatley in a form called the Gecko Runtime Environment, which will make it easier for other products to utilise part of Mozilla without needing to distribute the whole suite in their application. All of this means that 2.0 isn't a sutiable name for a few release cycles yet. In addition, it is quite possible that the version numbers of the front end and the back end will no longer be the same (for example the next release might be Firebird 0.7 with Mozilla 1.5)
I'm absolutely thrilled with Firebird at the
moment. I've replaced IE on family member's
machines with it, and have the binary version
running on Gentoo. I have had 0 problems so far
with stability or website compatability. I only
wish some kind gent would role the ebuild for
the source so I can emerge it into Gentoo from
portage. I'm entirely too lazy to do such a thing
what with RTCW Enemy Territory taking up my free
time.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
I completely concur that using 1.4 as the latest 'stable' makes sense, until the 1.5/2.0 version becomes tried and accepted as stable.
Release version numbering should follow major changes in the base code. The specifics listed thus far in this discussion reflect that this will be the case with Mozilla in it's next release (*Disclaimer* - I didn't spend time researching them myself, so I'm basing this comment on earlier comments in this discussion and understanding of Mozilla's development in general).
A classic example is Redhat, of course. With versions 6 and 7, the *.0 release was widely considered stable and tested enough for the typical end-user, but not for 'enterprise level' deployment, esp. on the server side. I have read many comments (and agree) that most businesses waited for a version *.1, *.2, or *.3 before migrating, giving the time necessary to fix any unforseen issues that didn't appear in normal testing.
I concur that a move to a version number of 2.0 is warranted when the change is made to Firebird. The 'refined, heavily tested' version cannot be made available until after the initial release (into production environments - testing will NEVER be able to account for all possible situations).
Silly me, I'll just crawl back into the server rack now. Unlike the kernel, it *is* an end-user product. The Mozilla team can go "it's just for testing" all they want, but it's not the truth. It is being deployed on Linux machines as the end-user browser.
If you remember the Mozilla 1.0 Manifesto, you'll see that one of the most important point of that release is: Personally, I would consider the separate browser and mail spin-offs as a completely unforseen development since 1.0, and that this would have been an excellent policy if they had continued on a unified tree.
However, what they are doing is changing Mozilla drastically, both in terms of structure, as well as the changes that have been made to the browser and mail components, and this is not a natural successor to the 1.4 release, rather a separate branch since 1.0 (or whenever these spin-offs started, haven't kept track).
To me, that suggest that the browser should have version 2.0. It would far more accurately describe it to the end-users you claim do not exist. Nothing would be easier than to specifically state that the XUL 1.0 API has *not* changed, and that all things working in 1.0 will continue to work perfectly in 2.0. The people that need to know (developers and whatnot) would care enough to find out that "nothing" has changed, while the people actually using Mozilla will be made aware that there's been a huge change.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'm hoping the next version of Mozilla mail fixes the POP3 bug, where it's impossible to log on to certain POP3 servers that require the account name to be "@". Mozilla always sends just "" to the server and its impossible to tell it otherwise. The attitude of the developer in a bug report I saw was ridiculous. He sounded outraged that POP3 servers exist which require the domain name. There are many web hosting sites that require it. I hope they fix it...
If MS changes the Windows dll, do you think there's a small chance they will also change how that dll is accessed, thus cutting Mozilla out? Ya think?
Then, once Mozilla has its own cross-platform, built-in NTLM, MS will really change NTLM, but at the server level, so that Mozilla has to start all over again.
And still someone will say, "not an abuse of a monopoly." Har har.
if they change it, all thos corporate customers who are running older versions of IE/Windows will get very upset at not being able to use their clients on their servers.....
My Journal
As somebody who has witnessed the horrors of ever-changing SMB dialects (that computer can't see that other computer for some strange reason, everything changes after service-pack and update) and the mysterious incompatibilities between Word versions (sometimes even within the same version depending on installed printer drivers etc.) I have learned something about Windows users:
Most will suck it down like anything else.
Thankfully, Europe is waking up and starting to implement big Linux-based installations and Microsoft's "designed for incompatibility" strategy will actually start to hurt them in Europe.
You know, these days I need it explained to me what Mozilla is. Are they talking about the full Mozilla suite with the chat/mail/news thingy, or are they talking about just the browser?
I realise 'just the browser' is referred to as Firebird, but the website says the long term aim is to name it 'Mozilla browser'. Which no-one will use, and which will be immediately shortened to simply 'Mozilla'.
I appreciate that you were making a joke, so I don't want this to come across as a missing-the-humour post, but I just thought it was worth mentioning that name 'Mozilla' on its own is getting increasingly confusing these days.
Cheers,
Ian
In my experience people aren't switching as such, but they're not upgrading either, and just sticking with what they have and taking the pain of newer things being difficult to integrate. At some point it just doesn't become economical to keep rolling out windows for precious little needed extra functionality.
Please don't discourage him. The editors could learn something from him. I'm sick of articles of the sort: "Foobar gets AutoFrotzing" where Foobar is an obscure kernel module or some video game and frotzing is something you would only have heard of if you had been following that module or video game yourself.
No, it's not necessary, but I think it's good to shamelessly promote an alternative browser to Micro$oft's advertisement-laden thing. Where else would Mozilla get the free publicity. It doesn't have $20 billion in the bank and a stranglehold on the computer industry, so isn't Mozilla at least allowed to dominate our little Slashdot?
If MS changes the Windows dll, do you think there's a small chance they will also change how that dll is accessed, thus cutting Mozilla out?
No, I don't think there's a chance of that. MS would not change the public API. Not only would it break products that depend on it, changing the API would also break other versions of IE (not to mention other Internet-aware applications). MS has changed the unpublished API before, resulting in broken applications that relied on it. Wah...that's why one shouldn't use those calls.
Then, once Mozilla has its own cross-platform, built-in NTLM, MS will really change NTLM, but at the server level, so that Mozilla has to start all over again.
This assumes that MS has magic powers to instantaneously retrofit all of its software throughout the world to comply with the new format. I don't think anyone, even on slashdot (except maybe you), holds this view.
What's so hard about defending the claim for standards-compliance? Mozila is, by a very long shot, the most standards-compliant browser in existence. Internet Explorer has not-too-bad CSS and DOM support, but can't claim to support either as well as Mozilla does. There's also all the standards that IE doesn't even try to do right -- MathML, which is hugely important for those of us who use it, PNG, which IE only sort-of supports, XHTML, and SVG, even though it's off by default. These and many other open standards are supported natively by Mozilla, something that no other browser can claim to do (not even Opera or Konqueror/Safari).
As for performance ... Mozilla is actually very fast, in some ways. The Gecko HTML engine is one of the fastest around, and handles super-complex CSS positioning with ease. (Yes, KHTML and Opera can be faster, but this is partly because they don't support many of the more complex aspects of CSS).
Also, although the Mozilla integrated suite takes forever to start up, Firebird/Phoenix is a good deal faster, and Gecko front-ends like Epiphany for GNOME and K-Meleon for Windows start up fast enough that if you blink, you'll miss it.
And finally: "fairly" portable? C'mon, there is no other browser that's available for as many systems as Mozilla is. Ever tried to use IE or Opera on BeOS, Irix, OS/2, or OpenVMS?
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