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Mozilla 1.5 Alpha Available

Posted by timothy on from the excellence-improved-upon dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla.org released Mozilla v1.5 alpha today, with flavors available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Some of the new features include Composer enhancements, Chatzilla logging, multiple tab window closing confirmation, and quicksearch support in about:config. A more detailed rough changelog is also available. In a somewhat related note, Mozilla 1.4 has been downloaded over a half million times in the past 3 weeks (not counting mirrors)."

17 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. Quicksearch by paul248 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Quicksearching in about:config was a much-needed feature. I always had trouble locating stuff in there, especially when I didn't know exactly what it was named.

  2. Re:sweet by CanadaDave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    tell me about it... I thought Firebird and Thunderbird was supposed to be integrated into 1.5a. That sucks. I guess we'll have to wait until 1.6.

  3. But has the big Lizard lost any weight? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd like to see Mozilla getting leaner with each release.
    And stop with the features already.

    Safari is where it is at anyway.

  4. Bloat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Has the Mozilla crew ever thought of quit making the browser as one giant, bloated super-applicaton and separate all the components into distinct, different programs in the spirit of IE/Outlook/FrontPage as well as Safari/Mail/iCal?

    I know Firebird/Thunderbird/Dodobird exist but they seem like separate distinct projects, and the apps are definitely not as stable as stock Moz; trust me, I've used em all.

    I mean, does my web browser REALLY need an IRC client?!

    At this rate, Moz 1.6 will have an included oral sex plugin.

  5. Choreographed releases. by CryptOntology · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I've been fairly impressed with Firebird and hope the move to 1.5 will start the integration of Firebird concerns, bugs, and issues to the main trunk to be hashed out.

    I think the Mozilla developers have been doing an excellent job lately, especially with respect to choreographing releases with future development needs. --- the switch-over to Firebird could have been disasterous or annoying, but it's been smooth.

    1. Re:Choreographed releases. by insecuritiez · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Smooth? It's been smooth because it hasn't happened yet.

  6. How about convincing software companies to by zymano · · Score: 4, Insightful

    add it to their cd's so people can get a feel for it ?

  7. New feature I'd like to see... by fedaykin42 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Mozilla.org released Mozilla v1.5 alpha today, with flavors available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Some of the new features include Composer enhancements, Chatzilla logging, multiple tab window closing confirmation, and quicksearch support in about:config. A more detailed rough changelog is also available.

    ...usability without having to have a monster machine. I use Mozilla, but damn is it slow for even the most mundane of pages. If you want to load a plugin, forget it. I'm running a 1.3GHz Athelon with 512MB of RAM and it gets bad. Personally, I couldn't care less about a good deal of the wiz-bang bloat features...make it fast and reliable.

    1. Re:New feature I'd like to see... by Slurm-V · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have a grotty old PII 350 with 64mb on win98 (not SE - for some absurd historical reason that I no longer believe and I don't expect anyone else to either) and I use Moz exclusively for tabbed browsing and spam filtering goodness. It's faster than IE from my perspective and, unlike IE, doesn't fall over more often than a one legged man in a falling over competition.

      --
      Of course it's going off the rails. How else is it ever going to fly?
  8. Mozilla news, but what about Opera? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I see Mozilla news almost daily on Slashdot but where's the Opera news? Every small release of Mozilla however unimportant gets mentioned but not even the biggest Opera news gets mentioned. Opera doesn't even have it's own news Icon here on Slashdot. We should demand more Opera news because Opera 7.2 beta 2 came out today and I must say it's the best Opera ever (much better than that memory hogging vile beast of a pig Mozilla). Although no Linux version of beta 2 is out yet, only Windows, it is still news worthy of being on Slashdot. Here's the news announcement and heres some forums to talk about the new beta.

    1. Re:Mozilla news, but what about Opera? by dubious9 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Why predominately Mozilla?

      Mozilla is one of the biggest open source projects out there. Slashdot has lots of people that like open source stuff.

      Mozilla is more than just a broswer, it's a runtime (Gecko Runtime Engine), GUI language (XUL), bayesian mail client, html composer, etc.

      People can actually contribute and test mozilla beta releases, as opposed to opera releases.

      Mozilla is available on more platforms than opera, and is 7.2b2 even available on linux?

      Mozilla has a 30% share of slashdot traffic, and thus is more directly popular with slashdot readers in general.

      --
      Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
    2. Re:Mozilla news, but what about Opera? by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Opera sucks. Firebird is just as fast and doesn't put a huge banner in your face. Only a moron pays $40 for a web brower, especially one as god-awful as Oprah.

      Your whole argument seems to be that paying for anything when you can get something else that does the same job is only for morons.

      If that's true it's a good thing for Ferrari/Porsche/Aston Martin/ Rolls Royce have plenty of rich dumb customers who don't know that they could buy a cheap Ford/GM/Crysler/Nissan/Skoda that'll work just as well.

      Similarly, all those people who pay more than $5 per head on eating out at fancy restaurants are also morons. Don't they realise they could fill up on a Big Mac and fries rather than fillet steak? And what about those idiots who buy designer clothes when the bargains at TK Max will keep them just as warm?

      God-awful? Only for morons? Just exactly what browser are you talking about here? You sure ain't talking about Opera.

      Anyone who's used Opera for more than five minutes (and that's obviously not you) would never come to that conclusion - it's small, fast, innovative and feature-packed. Try saying that about any other browser available on all the major platforms.

      Paying for a browser isn't for everyone - just as paying for a luxory car, gourmet meal or designer labels aren't either - but just because you don't see the benefits of using Opera (hint: open your eyes) that doesn't mean that that's true for everyone else.

      --

      "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    3. Re:Mozilla news, but what about Opera? by BZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, older versions of Gecko that did not attempt to support the bloated mess that is the CSS 2.0 specification were also small enough to fit on a floppy....

      With features, unfortunately, comes size.

  9. Enough Mozilla, More Firebird! by Emperor+Tiberius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know if I'm the only out there who's noticed, but, Firebird development has slowed considerably with all the Mozilla fuss. The next FB milestone (0.7 Indio) is going to be late almost two months in a few days. Meanwhile we've had the Mozilla 1.4 RC1, RC2, Final and 1.5 Alpha come out.

    CVS checkins to the Firebird suite have also lagged behind. Personally, I would like to see FB development accelerated instead of put on the back burner.

  10. Re:Firebird based? by archen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Besides, IE7 comes with longhorn

    Yeah, I'm sure we'll se ASSLOADS of innovation from IE7. Like "a send a DRM report to Microsoft" button added, along with a few other "enhancements" 99% of the population would find useless and annoying like the pop up image toolbar. Well I'm half joking, but MS isn't going to innovate until they see some sort of serious threat, and as it stands now, I doubt they'll make any significant improvements.

    I think the "browser wars" are probably over. It's not really about browsers anymore as they're practically considered essential OS components. Mozilla probably will play a key role in spearheading the Linux movement, along with providing a good open source cross platform browser across many different venues.

  11. Re:Why make a Windows version? by swordgeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hah!

    I use Solaris a lot, and Linux a bit. Mozilla is on both of those platforms.

    But Windows--Oh man, it's nice to have a really GOOD broswer on the universal de facto platform. Given that Windows is a toy to begin with (no insult intended--I use it for games, and nothing else), why would you NOT want to have the best browser on it?

    OK, look at it another way: If 99% of the Linux people used Mozilla (an exaggeration, I'm sure) and 0.5% of the Windows market used it, then which group would account for more browser downloads?

    (Hint: The answer is Windows)

    At any rate, I know a lot of people--100% pure Windows users--who are quite happy about having Mozilla. Tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking is a boon.

    --

    "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
  12. Re:Firebird based? by enomar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think you may be underestimating the innovation behind some of these alternate browsers. IE is just not keeping up. I have a seriously hard time using it anymore. Features like tabbed browsing and mouse gestures are now an itegral part of my browsing experience. They almost feel like...essential OS components.

    --

    :wq