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Mozilla 1.4 RC3 Is Out

zzxc writes "Mozillazine reports that the third release candidate for Mozilla 1.4 has been released. It is available for download from mozilla.org. Testing is encouraged to fix any bugs before the final release. No new features have been added to this release, though many bugs have been fixed. For more information, see the release notes."

32 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. Gecko in konqueror... by CoolVibe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I seem to remember there was a Gecko rendering plugin for Konqueror. Does anyone here know what happened to it?

  2. Firebird by barcodez · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Firebird a subproject of Mozilla is a light weight version of Mozilla seems a lot better bet to me. Opens faster, has all the same features (such as tabbed browsing and popup killing) and seems to be more or less big free. Uses less memory too (at least in my primative tests).

    --

    ----
    1. Re:Firebird by Surak · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've been using the the nightly builds since 0.5 was released. Mozilla Firebird is definitely *not* bug free (the releases are of course pretty stable), but I'm sure they could really use your help in testing it. :) The Firebird team has been really, really responsive about fixing bugs, and most bugs are usually fixed in the next nightly build.

      My personal favorite feature is the ability to customize the toolbars. Admittedly, it's been a feature in Konqueror (my other favorite browser) since the beginning, but Firebird's toolbar customization is cooler as it supports drag-and-drop, while in Konq you have to use a Microsoft Office-style dialog box.

    2. Re:Firebird by DrXym · · Score: 3, Interesting
      It's nice that people think Firebird is great, but there is a lot of hard work ahead before it is anything like comparable to Mozilla.


      It might be lighter, but then it has just a small fraction of the functionality in the Mozilla suite. The 1.5 / 1.6 will not hold a candle on 1.4 until *all* or a significant amount of the functionality in Mozilla is retooled as extensions or ships with Firebird / Thunderbird.

    3. Re:Firebird by Malc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Firebird certainly doesn't have all the same features. I tried to use the latest version for a whiie, but got too annoyed with it. What is more, some of the preferences aren't accessible and I had to go in to about:config and figure it out that way, which is also annoying.

    4. Re:Firebird by Eccles · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Firebird a subproject of Mozilla is a light weight version of Mozilla seems a lot better bet to me.

      While I'm posting this from Firebird, it hasn't had an revision in a little bit, while Mozilla has gotten a few fixes. I've hit webpages that Firebird doesn't handle properly but Mozilla does. I'll be happy when the component breakdown happens, so Firebird stays up to date.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    5. Re:Firebird by Surak · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Right. I just noticed that myself after I posted that...I hit help about and got:

      Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030622 Mozilla Firebird/0.6

      but the spirit of my post is not incorrect -- Firebird isn't by any means behind the main trunk and is by no means still using the 1.3 code base.

    6. Re:Firebird by DrXym · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Oh please.


      Mozilla has had popup whitelists for a long time (soon after they landed in NS 7.0 in fact) and mpgs and wmvs work out of the box too, assuming you bother to have a plugin available to handle the appropriate content types. Do you think Firebird has some magic plugin fairy that makes it handle content types it knows nothing about?


      As for missing features, how about being able to edit a page, send a page to someone, read mail or news, address book, debug a page with the JS debugger, view the page DOM?


      Now perhaps you think 'well extensions will appear for some of that stuff', but then you're just proving my point. Firebird is only a fraction of the functionality of Mozilla right now and until Firebird 0.6 becomes 1.0 through lots of development (and it will be welcome when it happens), it will not be a comparable product. And Thunderbird is even further behind. And having an unmanaged bunch of third party extensions is no substitute for provide functionality that should be in the browser itself or at least offered (e.g. as a base extension pack) during installation.


      I would love to switch, but unfortunately it is not suitable for my requirements yet. I'm sorry if this upsets you but it's a plain fact. I welcome Firebird for being a cool browser with a clean UI and look forward to its development but until it has a comparable feature set including the major functional components of Mozilla, I will not be able to use it. And that is probably going to take at least five months, right up until 1.6 before that is likely to be the case.

  3. RedHat 7.x RPMS? by guacamole · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will the mozilla project provide Mozilla 1.4 final RPMS for RedHat Linux 7.x? It seems like they have discontinued them for all of there 1.4 beta and RC releases.

  4. Mozilla -- Who compiles every release? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ok, now, don't get me wrong here.. I like Moz, so this is not supposed to be a flamebait:

    Just how many of you download and compile every single version of Mozilla that's mentioned on /.?
    It takes time to download (due to the /. effect) and it takes time to compile. Very few bother to go through this process for every release.

    Is it really neccesary to mention every RC's here, or am I just being picky?

    1. Re:Mozilla -- Who compiles every release? by lorien420 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't compile every release, but I do download them all. It's nice to see how much closer to a release the project is.

      The RCs are also good for those of us that would like to use nightlies but are worried about stability. They are close to bleeding-edge without a lot of the risks.

      --
      "[We'll be] really getting inside your head and making it an unpleasant place to be" -- Trent Reznor
    2. Re:Mozilla -- Who compiles every release? by madprof · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You are joking about download time aren't you?
      I've never seen less than 60KB/sec for my Mozilla downloads, and that is normally during the /. rush to get the new version.
      The servers are hosted by AOL who, as you can imagine, have plenty of computing horsepower and not a small amount of connectivity either.

    3. Re:Mozilla -- Who compiles every release? by localghost · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Personally, I use the CVS version. Most recently, I compiled it because there was a bug with Multizilla and bookmarks, and because I wanted to use Java without having to install a different JRE. I compiled it with GCC 2.95, which means I can use Sun or IBM. Plus, compiling it myself, I get Xft support, which Mozilla doesn't offer in its builds. Debian has it, but the debian packages ar never up to date. However, I am still having issues with Multizilla on the version I'm running. With any luck, that'll be fixed soon. I'll probably compile 1.4 final and use that.

      Regarding the compile time, it's not anywhere near as long as I had thought. ~1 hour on an Athlon 1600+ (1.4Ghz). It'd probably take considerably longer if I compiled it with optimization, though. I didn't see any reason to do that, though, since I only plan to run this until 1.4 final is released.

  5. Time for a New Releases Section? by beders · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about a new releases section to cream off most of these storys? Keep the main page for "stable" releases

  6. Why, I do! ;) by SalsaDoom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Absolutely I do.

    Why? Because installing and playing with new software turns out to be a pretty fun replacement for games. Games are pretty sweet, Linux has a growing little number of them. But I mean...

    I can't be the only one who finds updates fun, can I? ;)

    --
    "Computers will never truly be free until the last windows user is strangled with the entrails of the last mac user."
  7. For Slackware Users... by Lispy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    there is a great Gnome-Project wich adapts pretty fast to new Mozilla releases and ships with antialiased fonts (I didnÂt like them in the beginning but am an addict now ;-) called Dropline-Gnome. I keep installing this for my newbies along with Slackware wich I prefer as a Newbie-Distro for itÂs clear structure. From this day on I stopped worrying about fonts in Mozilla. Most Gnome Apps use these fonts so it provides a consistent look&feel, too.

    But last time I tried Firebird I realised the problem was still there. The defaults are ok...but not a beauty. Well, if for non-slackware users I guess Ximian-Gnome ships with antialiased fonts as well...

  8. 343 bugs. by leuk_he · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If i check bugzilla there are currently 343 bugs open that are:

    blocker or critical
    and
    assigned. (i did not select new 1441 bugs because they still contain dupes, or bugs that need te be cleaned).

    That is a LOT! and they want 1.4 to be the next stable release for a longer time. I think it is still time forsome bugsquasing before releasing is.

    LotÂs of these bugs are cross platform bugs (example:it wont build on true64,aix)

    One bad bug i want to note is:209896
    Bug: mozilla crashes if upgraded from 1.3.1 to RC2.
    workround: uninstall first.

    Yeah right: so every bug somebody calls (on some generic internet forum) the response will be: delete you mozilla directory first, then reinstall.

    1. Re:343 bugs. by Wolfier · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Has anyone logged the bug that we're unable to control the CPU use of flash/Java applets? IE can handle 50 pages of flash applets with no problem since the applets themselves are "reniced".

      15 or so Yahoo News pages would bring my Mozilla down to a halt. :(

  9. Re:The big question is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    What you meant to say was that another beta build was needed (as a step up from nightly builds which only the most adventurous fans touch). AFAIK there where unresolved 1.4 blocker bugs when RC1 and RC2 were compiled and these builds where not at all expected to become the release. It's a trick to get more testers, but it's a trick with severe long-term effects. If open source projects really think that their betas are as good as closed source final releases, they need to come up with a better name. How about preview release or end-user beta?

  10. Re:why i won't switch to lightweight firebird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The problem is that the Firebird developers do not search in this way, and thus they cut the feature. Anyone opposing the decision is ridiculed, and told they should do things differently. To use Firebird you /must/ have the same browsing habits as the handful of "elite" developers working on it do, or suffer. If Firebird will indeed become the default browser for Mozilla, there will be a lot of people sticking to 1.4.
    Whatever happened to the idea of choice being good is at this time unknown.

  11. Re:why i won't switch to lightweight firebird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nothing was removed from Mozilla Firebird.

    Do I have to point you to the bonsai logs? There are literally dozens of comments by Blake or Hyatt of the form "this is useless, rip it out" accompanying large CVS removes. toolkit/ and browser/ were basically started by copying xfpe/ and then cutting stuff from it.

    Needing extensions to make a browser not suck (and indeed be usable for anyone with different surfing habits) is wrong. To quote you-know-who, Mozilla [Firebird] should not suck by default.

  12. Moz 1.4 problems on install. Moz crashing. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Interesting


    I have not been able to get Mozilla 1.4 to install on one machine (with a lot of email). I installed Moz 1.4RC3 over 1.3.1, and I get a Windows program crash message, offering to send Microsoft data about the crash.

    The release notes said to install 1.4 in a new directory, but I spent hours teaching Moz to store email in a folder other than the default. I don't want to go through that again. Moz gives the option to install in a folder other than the default, but does not make it easy.

    I re-installed 1.3.1 over the bad 1.4, and it works, no problem. The version I had downloaded does not say 1.4 RC3, just 1.4.

    On another machine, I had no problem installing 1.4. Both are running Windows XP, SP1.

    I am anxious to begin using 1.4 because I've had many problems with 1.3.1 crashing after many instances and many tabs are opened, and some are closed. The crashing seems associated with Windows XP's limit of 21 programs open at the same time. (After that, the program list is displayed in a disordered fashion. That "feature" seems to have been put in by Microsoft to discourage people from opening a lot of programs.) Mozilla's crashing seems to corrupt Windows XP, too, so that a reboot is required to restore full functionality.

    When either Moz or Firebird crashes, all instances and all tabs crash. It would be great if instances were completely separate from each other. I can buy more memory, if needed, much easier than I can repeatedly lose work.

    I've seen the same crashing of Moz 1.3 under Linux with many instances and tabs open, when some tabs are closed. I reported the problem, and there was speculation that there was stack corruption. I hope this is fixed in 1.4.

    Moz/Firebird are not perfect, but they are by far the best, in my opinion.

  13. Re:Huh? by heymjo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    well sometimes i'm typing a url, then realize that i can't remember it anymore and decide to do a search instead.. the mozilla feature is absolutely the way of least resistance for this.. I know I'm having a bit of a wank over this thread but i do use it a lot honestly. I was using firebird from 0.3 onwards, then dumped it again because the feature wasn't there.

  14. Third release candidate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This looks more and more like a beta testing phase.

    I'm having serious rendering problems after a few minutes (and several tabs) using Mozilla on Windows. It doesn't crash, but everything (including the buttons and links bar) deteriorates until I have to shutdown Mozilla and restart. Annoying.

    I think I'll have to go back to Mozilla 1.3.

  15. Re:why i won't switch to lightweight firebird by Cnik70 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    not to mention that Firebird also lacks the ability to be set to compare the page in the cache to the current page everytime the page is loaded. this ability is extreamly important if you read message boards which constantly change and need to be reloaded in order to view new content.

    --
    -Cnik
  16. mozilla link by minus_273 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    here is an intersting website by a moz developer (which sadly is not a parody but the REAL thing.. this guy is dead serious). http://mithgol.pp.ru/Mozilla/

    Both sad and funny at the same time.

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace
  17. Re:The big question is by The_Laughing_God · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I agree that the term "release candidate" *sounds* like it's expected to be a final release, and that may be true of some RC1 releases. However, it is a misleading characteriation of how the process is often meant to work (as indicated by the very fact that they're called RC1, instead of just RC -- RC2 is not unexpected) If all RCs were considered final until proven otherwise, we'd never see an announced "final release candidate", would we?

    An RC1 gets tested more than mere alpha/betas, and that higher level of testing is *necessary* for a reliable release. If they didn't release RC1s with a few known issues, the actual release would not be as "final" (e.g. programs, chipsets, etc. often don't have fully stable function or performance on all features until the "A" version. Real world RC strategy is an up-front recognition of the realities that toss minor monkey wrenches in the best intentions of the engineering and testing departments.

    An RC1 may be released with "minor" known bugs to help debug them, assess severity in the universe of real users, choose workable trade-offs, and enlist user aid in creating fixes for specific configs. Often a well thought-out Release Candidates contains chunks of testing/debugging code that is not meant to be in the final release. No matter what you might expect from the term, a 'Release Candidate" is usually not identical to the final release, even if it passes user testing with flying colors. This fact kills the simplistic assumption of many end users (we've all seen the rare release problems when debug code is removed from a stable RC)

    The more intense RC testing typically turns up a handful of issues (nothing is bug-free). Some can be fixed cleanly once noticed. Others require testing beyond the abilities of the staff. Intermediate versions may be needed to work out the intricacies of the fixes across, say, all hardware and software configs. If intermediate versions are relabeled as "mere" betas, they won't get the testing that an RC gets, and the debugging could be delayed by months. If an RC1 includes 3 subtle issues, would you insist they all be "fully fixed" before an RC2 in 12-16 wks, or would you be happier if a RC2 with 'testing code' for one of more of those subtle bugs led to a fully functional RC3 (or 4) in 4-8 weeks?

    That's why you rarely see post-RC1 'non-RC betas', and why we often hit RC3 or more: it's not that completely new issues arise in RC1/2/3, it's that downgrading from RC to v1.39b3 would have a psychological effect on the amount of deployment and testing, and project leaders know it

  18. Text forms by ozric99 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is it just me or does the cursor in Moz/FB hover over the last character typed thus making it extremely painful to edit text on web forums like this one? How hard would it be for someone to move the cursor a few pixels to the right? I used to be a die hard IE fan, then I got into Opera, but got sick of the 30% of sites that Opera failed to render. I've been using Firebird as my main browser on win32 and While it's still not as polished and bug free as IE (see above), I've come to find many of its offerings to be of superior quality/usability over IE's. Tabbed browsing never really worked for me on win32 with Opera, but "just works" in Moz/BF. I'd prefer the interface to act more like a standard windows one, however, that's another slight bugbear of mine. For example, an extra mouse click is required when selecting text in the address bar or forms to stop it from thinking I want to drag the text to another form/window. Perhaps there's an option in the Advanced Options extension I recently downloaded, or perhaps that's just "the way it works". Either way, I'm sure I can get used to it. Thumbs up Moz/FB developers - you've done yourself proud.

  19. Mozilla in Panther by Sophrosyne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Using the developer preview for Panther, Mozilla refuses to work.
    I hope they can get this issue fixed before the Gold Master.

  20. Just -one- more monolithic version, please? by Jahf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I really hope there is a Mozilla 1.5 ... the roaming code finally is about done and it would be really nice to have a final version of the monolithic Mozilla that includes roaming. It is one of the biggest corporate (and geek for those of us who implemented it at home) features that never got recoded into Mozilla from Netscape 4.x

    See this bug:

    http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1240 29

    if you're interested in the feature. I didn't hyperlink it since their Bugzilla doesn't like requests referred from /. ... copy and paste the link to see the item. It looks like it will go into Beonex and hopefully the standalone Mozilla browser, but alot of companies have adopted the monolithic Mozilla and it will be some time after the change to standalone versions before they switch again.

    --
    It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
  21. Spellcheck in text boxes? by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember hearing talk quite a long time ago about plans to allow spellchecking of textboxes, such as on slashdot, from a menu in mozilla. Anyone know if this feature is still planned once the dictionary is offcially added in? I'm using Mozilla for the moment, as the spellcheck feature is broken in the cvs build of kde right now. And for the most part I actually prefer it to konqueror, but that spellcheck is to me the killer feature which dictates which I use.

    --
    Everything will be taken away from you.
  22. Re:this is SAD!!! by Mister+G · · Score: 2, Interesting

    you should be more interested in ssh:// support, sparky.