Mozilla 1.4 Released

Phil writes "MozillaZine is reporting that Mozilla 1.4 has been released for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The new version is pretty similar to today's Netscape 7.1, which is based on the same code, but lacks Netscape's proprietary features. More information can be found in the release notes. The release can be downloaded from mozilla.org's releases page or via FTP. From here on, mozilla.org's focus shifts to Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird." The official release news is now up on Mozilla's main page, so let the downloading begin.

Comments

Install caveat

[John Zebedee]

Just installed the windows version: release notes don't require an uninstall of previous versions (in my case 1.3.1) but V1.4 barfed every time it started until I had rebooted and uninstalled 1.3.1. Seems fine since though

Re:Install caveat

[H310iSe]

I can confirm this - I overinstalled many other versions of mozilla with no problems but when I overinstalled 1.3.2 with 1.4rc3 I had lots of rendering problems (win2k server).

So definately uninstall previous versions, or install 1.4 into a new directory. It does recommend this in the install documentation, btw.

Re:Install caveat

[mu_wtfo]

Yes, new versions of Mozilla should always be installed into a clean directory. Installing over top of previous versions is known to cause problems.

From the relnotes: Note: It is recommended that you uninstall previous versions of Mozilla before installing Mozilla 1.4. This will not delete your bookmarks, history, cookies and other information which is stored in your profile directory.

Re:Install caveat

[missing000]

I just did an install over 1.3 on w2k and everything went very smoothly.

The installation is aware of mozilla.exe running, and prompts that it is shutting it down.

I didn't even have to restart.

I'll see how well the update goes on a redhat box when I get home from work :)

NTLM Security!

[kawika]

This is a very big addition. Some of the intranet sites I use require NTLM to access and I was never able to use Mozilla.

Same as RC3

[mblase]

As was pointed out to me in the recent Netscape 7.1 story, Mozilla 1.4 final is the same code as Mozilla RC3. (Check the "about:" page to see the idential release date.) So if you have RC3 installed, you can safely leave it there without worrying about major changes.

Re:Same as RC3

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only are there no major changes, there are no changes at all. The files are exactly the same. 1.4-RC3 is 1.4.

Same as Mozilla 1.4rc3

[ChazeFroy]

This release is the same thing as 1.4rc3. Log on to their FTP site and compare file sizes. Even the Windows installer says "1.4.0.2003062408".

If you already installed 1.4rc3, don't bother wasting your time with 1.4 final.

Got it, love it

[MrZeebo]

I used to be a Mozilla-only user. However, over time, it seemed that the speed of Mozilla started getting worse and worse, especially under Windows. On my dual-boot machine, I kept with Moz under Linux, but switched to Opera 7 under Windows. For the time, Opera was much quicker, not just at starting up, but seemingly at rendering web pages as well.

When I noticed that 1.4 had been released (in the comments for the Netscape 7.1 story) I figured I'd give Mozilla another try under Windows.

I was amazed.

Mozilla 1.4 is noticeably faster than previous versions under Windows, and seems on-par with Opera 7. For a while, I was running Opera 7 for browsing and Thunderbird for mail... I think now I'm going back to Mozilla for both.

Once the xft-enabled RPMs are up for Red Hat 9, I'll give it a try on that OS as well, but, as I said, speed didn't seem to be an issue there to begin with.

Bravo, Mozilla. Firebird is certainly fast, but some people like the integration of the web/e-mail programs, and it's nice to see a speed boost for us as well.

Re:Got it, love it

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a program that allows you do this, called JetLinks.Get it here.

RPMS ...

[Mr. Mai]

rpms normally are available 3 days after the initial release so dont despair =)

Re:Nice improvements, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

IE starts with Windows, so you don't notice most of the load time. Use Mozilla's quicklaunch if you want a faster load time. Personally, I don't ever close Mozilla, so start-up time in a non-factor.

BitTorrent

[cos(0)]

Get a BitTorrent download here!

wow, bug-city!

[Tumbleweed]

Too bad, so sad. Moz 1.4 is fulla da bugs.

Within 1 minute, I found that it's listing sans-serif fonts as serif, and serif fonts as sans-serif. Yikes.

Also some weirdness in the toolbar buttons with vertical alignment. (Back & Forward buttons 'valigned' to the top, whilst Reload & Stop buttons are on the bottom). Bizarro.

At least this is the FIRST time a Mozilla release has actually NOT decided to make itself the default browser in spite of my always telling it not to. One bug fixed, yay! :)

Re:wow, bug-city!

[nathana]

Also some weirdness in the toolbar buttons with vertical alignment. (Back & Forward buttons 'valigned' to the top, whilst Reload & Stop buttons are on the bottom). Bizarro.

I've seen stuff like this happen when you install a new version of Mozilla on top of an old version, or you install a new version and still continue to use your old profile.

Try wiping out your old profile after backing up your bookmarks and mail (rm -r ~/.mozilla/ or delete Mozilla under Application Data in Windows), and let Mozilla 1.4 generate a new one for you. After that, you may find that all your problems have disappeared!

-- Nathan

Re:wow, bug-city!

[otherwhere]

Within 1 minute, I found that it's listing sans-serif fonts as serif, and serif fonts as sans-serif. Yikes.

Actually, it's allowing you to select _any_ font you want to be displayed when the page author has suggested serif, it's not saying "these are serif fonts, pick one". Therefore, both dropdowns contain all installed fonts. It's a feature, not a bug.

I will admit, however, that toolbar weirdness is probably not a feature.

Re:hmmmm

[swordgeek]

"is it really news worthy every time Moz makes a release?"

No. The announcements for RC1, RC2, and RC3 were really unnecessary.

However, this release--1.4 final--is definitely worthy of a post. This is the official 'stable production' release (the first since 1.0, I think), and is also the final relase in the old development path. If there were only three Mozilla announcements on /. in its entire history, they would be for (1)the initial creation of the project, (2)the 1.0 milestone, and (3)the 1.4 release.

Type and find...

[Rahga]

I'll go ahead and stick my neck out: It may be newer to Netscape rather than Mozilla, but I can't tell you how much I love little things like "Find As You Type"... This is kinda second-nature stuff to those of us who commonly use vi & co..... to find a link, if the browser has focus, just type a word to find a link containing that word, or "/" followed by the word to search the text. Bad part: "/" + "Enter" won't go ahead and look for the next word, instead you have to do "Ctl+G" or "F3"... bah! No regexp support either, at least as far as I know.... maybe not useful for a ton of users, but wouldn't it rock?

Re:Problems I have with Mozilla 1.3

[hawkbug]

As far as pages not loading correctly as your gripe #1 - this is not Mozilla's fault in my cases. It's IE's. How? Well, lets look at this page for a moment:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/clubhouse?team=col

It looks like total ass in Mozilla, and basically any browser I've tried besides IE. It used to look just fine BEFORE that damned MSN ad bar that takes up most of the screen now. You can write terrible code, and have it look fine in IE because IE just ignores a lot of mistakes. I see this as a bad thing, because when browsers try to correctly render a page according to standards, it makes you think the browser is broken and not the page.

BTW, I have tried repeatedly to notify the ESPN guys about all their messed up pages, but obviously nobody cares as long as they get their MSN money.

Re:Favicons?

[mu_wtfo]

What you are seeing is the correct (well, intended) behavior. There have been issues with favicons/site icons for some time, since before 1.0. They've been pulled out, put back in, and pulled out again. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=113574 goes over most of the issues, and can point you at most of the other relevant bugs.

As I recall, however, Mozilla Firebird *does* do favicons in the bookmark menu.

Re:Proprietary Features

[mu_wtfo]

Actually, there is a spellchecker available for Mozilla - http://spellchecker.mozdev.org. It's planned to be included into Mozilla at some point - hopefully soon.

However, no AOL icons available, sorry. :)

Not everything's fixed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try viewing the following page:

http://www.zophar.net

Notice anything...odd?

Re:lacks Netscape's proprietary features

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not mandatory, just go into preferences, turn off pop-ups, then go into allowed sites and tell it to remove all of them.

That's it.... pop-ups gone! :)

Re:MS Content Insecurity!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Proxy Server uses NTLM by default, so this prohibits some users from seeing any webservers.

Re:also released today...

[(startx)]

ummm, you mean like freshmeat or the freshmeat sidebar? Are you trying to make a joke or troll? Whoever has mod points today thinks your serious...

Umm.. it's called Freshmeat

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.freshmeat.net

Re:WinOSXnux?

[bheerssen]

Uh, it was released for just those systems. Although the article did not say one way or the other, a click through to the mozilla download directory would have revealed the following mozilla builds:

mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.4-installer.tar.gz 30-Jun-2003 12:38 95k
mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.4-sea.tar.gz 30-Jun-2003 12:40 13.4M
mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.4.tar.gz 24-Jun-2003 11:38 11.9M
mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-egcs112-1.4.tar.gz 30-Jun-2003 17:03 11.8M
mozilla-mac-MachO-1.4.dmg.gz 24-Jun-2003 11:13 15.1M
mozilla-win32-1.4-installer.exe 30-Jun-2003 12:44 11.7M
mozilla-win32-1.4-stub-installer.exe 30-Jun-2003 12:41 222k
mozilla-win32-1.4-talkback.zip 30-Jun-2003 12:45 10.4M

Clearly, no other platforms are yet listed. According to the release notes, however, we can expect builds for other platforms relatively soon.

Re:Why is Firebird that wonderful?

[asa]

In addition, NONE of my XUL/XPI/whatever plug-ins/skins work. The plug-ins and tabs are what makes Moz worth running in my opinion.

That's strange. None of my XUL/XPI/whatever plugins don't work in Firebird and there are considerably more of them available for Firebird than for Mozilla (74 for Firebird vs. 51 for Mozilla extensions at last count at http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/index.html and 55 themes for Firebird http://texturizer.net/firebird/themes.html vs. about 25 for Mozilla http://themes.mozdev.org/)

--Asa

Re:Why is Firebird that wonderful?

[BZ]

> From the 1.3.x and 1.4 release notes, it seems
> most improvements have come to the
> newsgroups/mail.

Frankly, this is because the release notes just list "new feature" type things. There is a lot of work going on with the layout engine, starting after 1.3 and still going strong. None of it is mentioned in the release notes, except in the form of the vague "performance, correctness, stability fixes".

Re:Java Plugin doesn't work for Redhat 7.x

[Anonymous Coward]

please... not the java/c++ library thing again... go to blackdown and get a java built with your version of gcc and against your c++libs

Old easter egg

[mnemonic_]

This easter egg has existed since the Netscape/Mozilla 0.9.x days, but it's still neat. Type "about:mozilla" in the address box and see what comes up...

Try it in IE too. You get something rather cryptic, to say the least... No, I don't know what it means either.

Re:The about page

[Briareos]

Maybe you've got an entry for "general.useragent.override" in your prefs.js in your profile? That way you can even make Mozilla pretend it's IE in it's about screen.

If you find such a line, you can just safely delete it, and your user agent string should be back to normal.

np: Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit - Royal Roost (Secret Rhythms)

The fix!

[antdude]

See comment #5 at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=208205 #c5 ... It worked for me. :)