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."

Comments

Firebird

[barcodez]

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).

Re:Firebird

[Surak]

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.

Re:Firebird

[DrXym]

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.

RedHat 7.x RPMS?

[guacamole]

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.

Mozilla -- Who compiles every release?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Mozilla -- Who compiles every release?

[localghost]

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.

Time for a New Releases Section?

[beders]

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

Why, I do! ;)

[SalsaDoom]

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? ;)

For Slackware Users...

[Lispy]

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...

343 bugs.

[leuk_he]

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.

Re:343 bugs.

[Wolfier]

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. :(

Moz 1.4 problems on install. Moz crashing.

[Futurepower(R)]

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.

mozilla link

[minus_273]

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.

Re:The big question is

[The_Laughing_God]

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

Just -one- more monolithic version, please?

[Jahf]

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.

Spellcheck in text boxes?

[Joe Tie.]

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.