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Mozilla 1.6 Beta Released

Sick Boy writes "As reported on Mozillazine, the Mozilla Foundation today released Mozilla 1.6 Beta. This latest milestone adds support for NTLM authentication on all platforms and improves the implementation on Windows. The automatic page translation feature has been restored (now powered by Google Language Tools) and a new version of ChatZilla, 0.9.48, is now included. In addition, several security and crash bugs have been fixed during the beta release cycle. Builds can be downloaded from the Mozilla Releases page or directly from the mozilla1.6b directory on ftp.mozilla.org. The Mozilla 1.6 Beta Release Notes have more detailed information about what's new and known issues to watch out for."

63 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. Torrents by shamilton · · Score: 5, Informative
    --
    "[A] high IQ is like a Jeep; you will still get stuck, just farther from help!" --Just d' FAQs, c.g.a
    1. Re:Torrents by Aaron+England · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And why should we trust you to provide tampered-free code?

    2. Re:Torrents by shamilton · · Score: 5, Informative

      You shouldn't. Good thing they provide MD5 sums.

      --
      "[A] high IQ is like a Jeep; you will still get stuck, just farther from help!" --Just d' FAQs, c.g.a
    3. Re:Torrents by t0qer · · Score: 4, Funny

      Not that I doubt they can take the load, but why make 'em?

      Holy Smokes! 1 peer, 1 seed and 184kbps??

      You sir are seeding from the bandwidth of the gods!! My hats off to you!

    4. Re:Torrents by pi+radians · · Score: 4, Funny

      I download stuff at 2 Megabytes per second usually. I get my linux isos in 350 seconds.

      Wow. I bet that gets the ladies all wet and anxious. You must be swatting them away like flies with bandwidth like that.

      --

      sin(6cos(r)+5A)
  2. very nice by koekepeer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    especially things like the NTLM authentication support on all platforms gives us a stick to beat the anti-opensource FUD spreaders with

    see? it works!

  3. I'm confused... by Fnkmaster · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The roadmap has implied for some time that 1.4 was the last unified (XPFE) Mozilla-based release. 1.5-1.6 was supposed to be the Firebird transition period, during which Mozilla-the-unified-browser was supplanted by Thunderbird and Firebird. Perhaps that was too ambitious, and they've changed their mind, but the roadmap (here)still indicates otherwise.


    What's the deal? It really looks like the new roadmap is "build in all the features people REALLY bitch about into XPFE Mozilla, then once Firebird/Thunderbird is more stable, we'll transition to those". I'm fine with that, but shouldn't they just come out and say it?

    1. Re:I'm confused... by superyooser · · Score: 4, Informative
      Go here and scroll down to the post by jasonb (a moderator).

      Elsewhere on MozillaZine, somebody (sounding authoritative) said that the transition would occur in the first half of 2004. Nobody really knows. I would guess that it will be at least two more versions after 1.6, but I am not a Mozilla developer.

  4. SVG support by AllergicToMilk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ah, but when will they add SVG support to the standard build. I suspect we will always be tied to the non-open Flash format until someone steps up and makes SVG support in a browser standard.

    --
    There are only 6,863,795,529 types of people in the world.
    1. Re:SVG support by gaspyy · · Score: 5, Informative

      the "non-open Flash format" argument is so old is not funny anymore.

      The Flash IDE is proprietary. The Flash file format is open and documented. You can write your own program to create or read flash files like so many have.

      SVG may be nice but with 98% market penetration I don't see Flash disappearing anytime soon. Also, considering its graphics+animation+sound+video (sorenson based) capabilities, coupled with a pretty good language (based on ECMAScript 4), Flash is a very powerful tool.

      I realize that /. is an anti-Flash crowd, but as a technology Flash is no more evil than animated gifs. Both are abused by advertisers but both have legitimate uses.

  5. Re:Mozilla is a great browser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, u get free Internet Explorer on Windows so why not use it then, what will u lose anyway

  6. Any news on AmiZilla? by Amiga+Lover · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Any news on how the port of mozilla to AmigaOS is going?

    1. Re:Any news on AmiZilla? by mios · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think the development team dropped that in favor of the ComiZilla project ... the port of Moz to the Commodore 64 ( ... the lead developer's email is apparently mccarthy@mozilla.org).

    2. Re:Any news on AmiZilla? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Dead as a doornail. IIRC it began around the time of Milestone 9 or something, and nothing was ever released in public.

      Besides, why do you ask on Slashdot?
      Try a more specific site like ANN.lu or amiga.org.

      (Or if you want to be fed with lies and hear everything's A-OK and you should send more money to "Amiga, Inc." in order to "support the community", then head over to AmigaIncOtherworldly.nuts)

  7. Legal Ramifications Resulting From Use of NTLM by use_compress · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=3 990
    Microsoft's NTLM authentication protocol, popular on Windows-based corporate networks, is now supported by Mozilla on all platforms. Previously, NTLM authentication was only available to Windows Mozilla users, requiring the presence of the Windows SSPI API. Now, the SSPI code has been discarded and a cross-platform implementation has been checked in.

    This makes me wonder if Microsoft will peruse legal action to block Mozilla from using a cross-platform, non MS implementation of an MS technology. Because NTLM is undocumented, I wonder what the legal ramifications of implementing it are? Do you own a copyright to an undocumented technology?

    1. Re:Legal Ramifications Resulting From Use of NTLM by jopet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      no - on what grounds should this be a problem? Copyright applies to original work - no original work of MS was copied or used for implementing this. Also, no secret documentation was used and no animals were harmed. I do not see a problem.

    2. Re:Legal Ramifications Resulting From Use of NTLM by srn_test · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's nothing to do with copyright.

      Since it's undocumented and the implementors have (presumably) never seen the MS code, there can be no copyright problems or IP leakage.

      The only problem may be if MS has a patent on something fundamental in the NTLM system...

    3. Re:Legal Ramifications Resulting From Use of NTLM by YouAreCorrect · · Score: 3, Informative

      The DMCA does no apply to this. While it can be argued that this is reverse engineering an access control mechanism, that it is for interoperability, which is protected under the DMCA, cannot really be argued.

  8. because ... by jopet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because IE is insecure, does not have popup blocking, lacks many other features Mozilla does have and supports W3C standards better. Plus, it comes with a mail client that is more secure than outlook and has a well working spam filter built in.

    1. Re:because ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Because IE is insecure, does not have popup blocking, lacks many other features Mozilla does have and supports W3C standards better. Plus, it comes with a mail client that is more secure than outlook and has a well working spam filter built in.

      So apart from what's not in bold text above, you're saying that IE is a better browser?

      Work on that syntax, son. ;)

  9. Deja-vu by a.koepke · · Score: 3, Informative

    I was getting a bit of Deja-vu reading the NTLM stuff since I was sure they had announced it earlier.

    NTLM support on all platforms was announced on the 18th of Nov and has been available in CVS since then.

    --


    (\(\
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    *This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
  10. Beats me too... by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...I'd think that getting Firebird & Thunderbird going, which seems to be a lot more plug-in oriented would make it easier than the "One tool to please them all" that they're trying to make Mozilla into.

    Oh well, I won't complain, I'll just use Firebird in it's 0.x stage, it's more than stable enough for that anyway. Maybe they'll come in version 2.0 after all?

    Kjella

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re:Beats me too... by koekepeer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      i don't get you... how do you mean "one tool please them all that they are trying to make Mozilla into?"

      Mozilla *is* and *was* already a "swiss-knife" application. including a kitchensink ;)

      but yes, i agree completely that a more modular, plugin-style architecture would make things a lot better (more maintainable). just have a little patience... apparently it takes more time than planned

    2. Re:Beats me too... by chabotc · · Score: 4, Informative

      Unfortunatly the kitchensink patch isn't in the mainstream mozilla yet (see bugzilla.mozilla.org, bug 122411)

      However you can view it in all it's glory here: http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/samples/ kitchensink.xml

  11. IP 101 by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do you own a copyright to an undocumented technology?

    No, you can't own a copyright on a technology - only on an implementation. You can however, own a patent on a technology. However, you can not patent an API, though you can patent an algorithm used by the Windows implementation of that API, in which case you'd have to find another way to implement it. However, since it's undocumented, there's also no known patents to avoid.

    Besides, it would probably fall under the legal protection of reverse engineering for interoperability anyway.

    Kjella

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  12. I disagree by jopet · · Score: 5, Informative

    FB is hardly that much faster - it uses exactly the same rendering engine and set of libraries under the hood, so there is just a tiny speedup from the GUI that is unnoticable on modern fast computers. It does NOT support W3 better or worse, since it uses exactly the same Gecko engine. And it lacks many features of Mozilla that need to be brought back through extensions. And inflationary extensions can eventually cause severe security problems.

  13. Skins by Kethinov · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Warning, this is semi offtopic.

    As much as I love Mozilla as a regular user both in Windows and in Linux (using it now) I really wish they would fix backwards compatability with older skins. There's some really nice KDE skins out there (one in particular on KDElook that I love) that I wish I could use.

    --
    You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
  14. Re:Mozilla is a great browser by phalse+phace · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Yes, pop-up blocking is great.

    I often get customers coming up to me and asking what they can do to reduce or stop those annoying pop-up's. Sometimes I'll have to stop and think for a few seconds to understand/remember what they're talking about since Mozilla has spoiled me.

    The first thing I always do is recommend that they download Mozilla and give that a try while explaining to them that I haven't seen a pop-up in over a year.

    Unfortunately, though, most folks (~ 95%) will just tell me that they like/are happy with Internet Explorer, despite its bugs and holes. After another attempt at explaining to them the benefits of switching, I'll just tell them about products such as pop-up stopper and popup defender. It's sad, really, as they have no idea what they're missing out on.

  15. One flaw with Mozilla & Firebird. by zymano · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was talking to a few members of the development team and asked them when they would implement a faster,better web page caching system like opera but the developers mentioned it would take thousands of lines of new DOM code. They also said if you want faster browsing then just open a new window . I think there is a lack of priorities by the top managers at mozilla. How could making an installer be more important than making the brower faster. Also the fast forward and rewind is a good idea . If you notice ,alot of these direction features are in ADOBE ACROBAT PDF viewers.

    1. Re:One flaw with Mozilla & Firebird. by Alex · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think there is a lack of priorities by the top managers at mozilla. How could making an installer be more important than making the brower faster.

      You haven't quite got your head around this "open source" thing have you?

      Alex

    2. Re:One flaw with Mozilla & Firebird. by falsification · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Mozilla is optimized for tabs.

      Once you've gotten used to 20+ tabs and flipping between them instaneously, watch out. Mozilla is like the crack of the Internet. Highly addictive.

    3. Re:One flaw with Mozilla & Firebird. by wannasleep · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'll give you one reason: the average (window$) users will give up if the installation is not better than smooth and will never see all the great things mozilla has to offer. Sadly, the average user is used to bearing with slow stuff more than he is to thinking.

      Remember: perception is more important than reality.

    4. Re:One flaw with Mozilla & Firebird. by monkeyfinger · · Score: 5, Insightful
      How could making an installer be more important than making the brower faster.

      I think a proper installer is a very high priority. I'm a linux user and use and I am quite happy using tar, but I've got a lot of friends who use windows and don't have the skills to install software that doesn't have an installer.

      With an installer these people can download and install it themselves and then they can tell their friends, who can do the same. Mozilla usage can increase at an exponential rate. Without the installer mozilla would only be available to the technically savvy and their close friends.

    5. Re:One flaw with Mozilla & Firebird. by fiftyfly · · Score: 4, Informative

      Add in a few nifty settings (force tabs to open in the background, and middle click opens in a new tab) a great mod and a daily reading list and the amount one can quickly & effeciently surf is truly astounding.

      --
      "Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"
  16. I know I will get flamed for this... by use_compress · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But why not concentrate on implementing IE's version of DHTML? Given, MS doesn't follow set "standards" in this department. But many developers prefer MS's approach and most users (willingly or ignorantly) use Internet Explorer. These two factors cause many sites to support IE exclusively. It is very expensive for companies to implement Mozzila compatible versions of their webpages for the minority of internet users who don't use IE. Why not save everyone a lot of time and money and support Microsoft's version of DHTML?

    1. Re:I know I will get flamed for this... by LizardKing · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But why not concentrate on implementing IE's version of DHTML?

      Because the Mozilla developers will always be playing catchup. Once MicroSoft cottons onto the fact that the Moz people are expending considerable effort in matching IE's DHTML features, they'll most likely start releasing new extensions. As it is, there is a good compromise already in Mozilla. Web pages that don't appear to be standards conforming are rendered in "sloppy" mode, which generally works for IE targeted stuff.

      At the end of the day, I cannot think of a single website that uses IE specific DHTML in a way that makes me yearn for support for it in Moz. The last IE only website I encountered was the Egg online bank one. Their insistence that I hadn't got a recognised browser simply means I got a credit card from somewhere else (Sainsburys as it happens).

      Chris

    2. Re:I know I will get flamed for this... by zonix · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Shouldn't that be:

      But many developers (willingly or ignorantly) prefer MS's approach and most users (willingly or ignorantly) use Internet Explorer. It is very expensive for companies to implement Mozzila compatible versions of their webpages for the minority of internet users who don't use IE.

      I'm tired of hearing this argument! If you just adhere to the standards when creating web pages you'll be just fine. In fact, you'd be better off as your pages will be much more easy to maintain, and you'll benefit greatly from all the available features that come with CSS. Try weighing the cost of maintaining a tag soup IE optimized (ugh!) page against a page using strict standards and the latter will win anytime!

      IE is way behind Mozilla and Opera, it doesn't even support application/xhtml+xml, which is (or should be) used for XHTML. And don't get me started on the XML-declaration, IE chokes on this and throws itself into quirks mode when rendering your content.

      z
      --
      What would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
    3. Re:I know I will get flamed for this... by globalar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Why not save everyone a lot of time and money and support Microsoft's version of DHTML?"

      Which is harder? Designing web pages by a common standard or conforming to one application's twisted implementation of said standard? You don't necessarily save money by developing only for IE. You waste time trying to create interesting ways to mimick features that can be trivial to implement in any compliant browser or simply attempting to figure out what IE will let you do. Remember browser compatibility charts that used to tell you what browser's supported what features? These were nightmarish for a simple markup language and a few CSS features. And so the solution is to just give up on compatibility charts and let MS have its way?

      "It is very expensive for companies to implement Mozzila compatible versions"

      No, no, I think you have it backwards. You are familiar with web standards? IE does a half-baked job of implementing them, makes some mistakes, omits things, and then leaves most of these problems for long periods of time. Oh yes, and some features actually might crash the browser.

      Mozilla doesn't try to make web pages conform to some twisted view of a standard. Rather, Mozilla takes said web standards and attempts to comply with them.

      There is also a principle here which is very important and every one seems to give up on. Open standards are important because they accomplish several things at once:

      1) They promote use of the medium - making a given medium more accessible and beneficial to all involve.

      2) They limit unnecessary complexity/redundancy - this saves everyone time and money.

      3) They keep control away from single-minded interest groups who wish to control users of the medium. In essence, they protect the medium and its users. In the best cases they represent the interests of users and those care most about the medium's community.

      Some people refuse to allow IE to dominate the browsable Internet unchallenged because it will only hurt the community and all involved. IE's dominance has brought apathy to its lackings - everyone knows in many ways it sucks, but the majority of its users are either ignorant, don't care, or are (seemingly) powerless. This in turn has actually warped the perception of the Internet into many things it should not be (a circus for advertising, for one). But even worse, IE has forced many developers to forget web standards and focus on IE and its version of things. In effect, IE says what is standard and what is not and we all obey.

    4. Re:I know I will get flamed for this... by zonix · · Score: 4, Informative
      As it is, there is a good compromise already in Mozilla. Web pages that don't appear to be standards conforming are rendered in "sloppy" mode, which generally works for IE targeted stuff.

      Actually both IE and Mozilla/Gecko (don't know about Opera) have this quirks rendering mode.

      They use DOCTYPE - the first line of the source - sniffing to determine which (X)HTML version the web page is written for. If the page indicates the use of a strict version of (X)HTML, these browsers will render the page in a strict standards compliant mode. Everything will be rendered according to the strict standards as proposed by The WWW Consortium. Your pages will look the same both in IE and Mozilla, however don't be fooled by IE's relaxed attitude towards block/inline content - do read up on this in the specs. If you preview your pages in Mozilla first you will save a lot of time, because it's not as forgiving when you make mistakes.

      In quirks mode you can use all the dirty tricks from the old days. Everything will look horrible accros different browsers, and the source will be next to unmaintainable!

      The quirks/strict standards modes are triggered by these doctypes respectively:

      Quiks mode:

      HTML 3.2
      HTML 4.01 Transitional
      HTML 4.01 Frameset
      XHTML 1.0 Transitional
      XHTML 1.0 Frameset

      Strict standards mode:

      HTML 4.01 Strict
      XHTML 1.0 Strict
      XHTML 1.1

      I'd advise everyone to write (X)HTML to the strict versions and make the www a better place to be for all of us.

      z
      --
      What would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
    5. Re:I know I will get flamed for this... by John_Booty · · Score: 4, Informative

      At the end of the day, I cannot think of a single website that uses IE specific DHTML in a way that makes me yearn for support for it in Moz.

      I agree 100%. I've been using Mozilla and Firebird as my primary browsers for several years... never do I hit sites that make me "need" Internet Explorer.

      Occaisionally I'll hit a site with DHTML menus that render a little funky in Mozilla because they weren't coded right, but I never hit any sites that "need" IE.

      If the "compatibility" thing is what's holding anybody back from trying Mozilla or Firebird, then... by all means... you're really not missing anything, guys!

      --

      OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
    6. Re:I know I will get flamed for this... by neocrono · · Score: 5, Informative

      (don't know about Opera)

      Here is Opera's rendering mode "strategy."

      Having recently made an excursion into the world of XHTML 1.1 web design, I have to say, it demands so much of your code, you'll never look at tag soup the same way again. But it's worth it. It took a while, I adjusted, and will never give an (X)HTML document that doesn't validate* to the browsing public again. I strongly urge all of you to put forth the effort to check your pages and read up about web standards (here) as well.

      If only there were some way to get the same from the 8,419,528,073 animated GIF-loaded, Frontpage Express, Geocities-hosted messes elsewhere on the web.

      *: Don't forget to check your CSS for validity as well. :)

    7. Re:I know I will get flamed for this... by mphase · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Everything will be rendered according to the strict standards as proposed by The WWW Consortium [w3.org]. Your pages will look the same both in IE and Mozilla" Not quite true, that is what the strict or standards modes are intended to do (and partially do) but realistically certain things are going to be treated differently even by browsers in standards mode. For example floats are treated much differently by IE then in Mozilla even if both are in rendering an XHTML 1.1 page (personal experience with my own site).

    8. Re:I know I will get flamed for this... by zonix · · Score: 4, Informative
      For example floats are treated much differently by IE then in Mozilla even if both are in rendering an XHTML 1.1 page (personal experience with my own site).

      That's probably because IE's CSS implementation is a wee bit lacking. I've run into that float problem myself, but I got around it.

      There are ways around other IE CSS lackings as well, e.g. IE 5 had problems the w3c's _recommended_ way of centering text by specifying both left and right margins as 'auto'. It's fixed in IE 6, but I believe you could put in extra (well, redundant) rules in your style sheet to satisfy IE 5. However it's a bit ugly and unfortunate that you have to do it.

      If you check out W3c's pages, even they will sometimes present different style sheets depending on your browser. The CSS page itself is a good example. Try IE and Mozilla with this one.

      In any case, these lackings on IE's part will hopefully be fixed in the future, which means if you follow the standard IE will ultimately have to follow you.

      z
      --
      What would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
  17. Most of my friends have never heard of Mozilla by FatAssBastard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I only have a few computer nerd friends. All my other friends' eyes just glaze over when I try to explain the benefits of using Mozilla. So I don't even try any more.

    Hey, if they love popups (they aren't usually even aware of the Google Toolbar, for instance), and enjoy the occasional virus or homepage hijacking, they can help themselves.

    How sad that most people just don't really seem to care. :(

    --
    /.: why the hell am I here?
    1. Re:Most of my friends have never heard of Mozilla by monkeyfinger · · Score: 3, Informative
      Maybe trying to explain things to them isn't the best idea, not every one will grasp something unless they see it. It may be easier for them to comprehend if you actually go round to their place and give them a demo.

      I personally would set people up with firebird. It's a slick looking browser and that will impress a lot of people. If you sit them down and gently guide them through tabbed browsing it will all make sense. Popup blocking can be demonstrated by challenging them to find a website with a popup (if they like to look at porn they will notice a huge improvement).

  18. Re:Ugh, stop wasting time with this already. by jopet · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are many users who prefer MozillaSuite for many good reasons (more features, several components nicely integrated, no need to download countless extensions, ...). Apart from that, FB/TB are still "technology previews" with many problems.

  19. yes you will get flamed for this by logic7 · · Score: 3, Informative

    because your statement is false. I work at a company which develops applications for web browsers, so there is a lot of Javascript/DOM/DHTML etc involved. The current browser generation is not nearly as difficult to handle as it was in the bad old times of Netscape4/IE4. We have a neat little js-framework that handles the differences between IE and Mozilla and most code works on both browsers without heavy modification.

  20. Web Editor by eternal_soul · · Score: 5, Informative

    Am I the only one in here that do not type out my web pages in a text editor? I happen to prefer the WYSIWYG web editing of Mozilla, which is missing from the Firebird releases. I, for one will be very unhappy to see the main branch of Mozilla discontinued just because of this.

    --
    Time flies like an arrow, Fruit flies like a banana.
    1. Re:Web Editor by w_crossman · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is going to be a standalone composer soon, called Nvu. It is based on Composer and will fall under an open source license, and Lindows is footing the bill. I really don't think we have anything to to be worried about! If you're curious, see their website.

  21. NTLM proxy by alien_blueprint · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just a quick comment for those stuck with NTLM at work. I run a local NTLM proxy server so I can run whatever browser or HTTP tool I like on whatever OS I need. I just point my browser at the proxy and it just works.

    The proxy I use is written in Python, is small, and is really easy to install. NTLM Authorization Proxy Server.

    Since you are authenticating with your user name and password, from your machine, and you are still actually going through the company web proxy just like IE would, there's absolutely no logical reason for the local "preventers of information services" to complain. At least, in my case, they haven't been able come up with an actual reason yet that hasn't been easy to dismiss. Not for want of trying, though ...

  22. Re:Firebird 0.8 by showdax · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, if you need to know how far away, you could check out http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/ for a nice summary of the 'nightly' activity. If you want to see 'who changed what in what file and when' in any release, just check http://bonsai.mozilla.org/. Not as easy to summarize that yourself, but when I was into the nightlies, I loved watching that. The rate of progress is phenomenal.

    --
    --- March, milde, march!
  23. Man by Nebajoth · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does anybody else find it frightening that we have web browsers with automatic language translation? I mean, its awesome! But... where the hell was I when the world got all Star Trek?

    1. Re:Man by Haeleth · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's useful for some, perhaps, but I don't speak gobbledygook very well. I'll start getting excited when they release a version that translates into English.

  24. Re:I don't understand by The+Clockwork+Troll · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Does "alpha" mean bug-free? No.

    Does "beta" mean bug-free? No.

    Does "stable" mean bug-free? No.

    These labels have nothing to do with optimizations or improvements; they are reflections of a team's comfort level with a products' defects and limitations.

    --

    There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
  25. Appease and Beat the Rush by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I for one welcome our new Mozilla 1.6 Beta overlords.

  26. Maybe the regressions? Or profile migration? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There were several unfortunate bugs that crept in with 1.5, and as far as I'm aware haven't been fixed yet, e.g.,

    • Mozilla mail pops up asking some people for their password all the time, even if they tell Password Manager to remember it
    • Gecko still renders some page layouts (like Slashdot) badly first time out, IIRC due to some bug with the box layout code
    • they've messed up a couple of things with the CSS code while trying to fix other bugs, e.g., margins around HR tags don't work properly now.

    These are annoyances more than critical faults, but bring down the general quality. Given that the functionality used to work until 1.3 or 1.4 in each case, they're also regressions, which suggest weaknesses in the code introduced inadvertently and best fixed before building on it further for Thunder/Firebird.

    It could also be the issue of profile migration. AFAIK, there are still no solid tools available to move a profile from Moz to the next generation alternatives, nor any easy way to move back if you don't like the change. The Thunderbird download pages are covered in warnings about this. If you're relying on Moz for more than toy use, for example if you have thousands of e-mails filed away that you want to keep, that alone might be enough to prevent you considering an upgrade, and thus to justify continued development of the original Mozilla tools in parallel with the new work.

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
  27. Re:It's because SVG sucks ass by CaptnMArk · · Score: 3, Funny

    And all those clean looking blank pages saying just "skip intro".

  28. Re:DOM performance by Nadir · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually you should check this great page which provides performance data for a few DOM operations. http://www.quirksmode.org/dom/innerhtml.html

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    The world is divided in two categories:
    those with a loaded gun and those who dig. You dig.
  29. Re:It's because SVG sucks ass by horza · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's because SVG sucks ass and designers (myself included) are the ones who bring you vector graphics over the web. They decide. Simple as that. FlashMX is THE standard for vector design - not to mention a complete development environment to make all those nice applications and games.

    SVG appears to be far superior to Flash for Vector graphics, especially the way it's so easy for a scripting language to modify it on the fly. FlashMX isn't the standard for vector design, it's a tiny niche market for web designers like yourself. The vector graphic designers include everybody on the face of the planet that uses an application such as Adobe Illustrator.

    When SVG becomes de facto, we will see small web design firms become far more productive:
    * designer fires up Illustrator (or whatever) and knocks up a pretty design
    * designer points out that his texts COMPANY_NAME_HERE and SLOGAN_HERE need to be dynamic
    * client-side programmer takes 10 seconds writing a script that reads in the file, does a str_replace() with the company details in the database, and spits it out

    Thankfully all the menu buttons can be done this way, which wastes a lot of our designers time and soaks up bandwidth for no practical purpose. The alternative of Flash for buttons is not good as it cuts out those without the plug-in, and people losing or not sending the source means we have maintenance troubles.

    Phillip.

  30. Not the Unix way by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't understand why Mozilla has ANY form of disk caching built in in the first place - that is not the way of Unix.

    Let a seperate program do the disk caching (e.g. Squid). Let Moz and any other program use that program. Thus, everybody benefits from the cache.

    Just like in the latest released of libresolve (the DNS library for *nix systems) now has the "lightweight resolver" which is a small caching resolver library, so that applications that stupidly keep asking to resolve the same address don't load down the nameservers.

    The way of Unix - "small, sharp tools" or "one job, one program" is not just for geeks - it makes for a more robust system as the programs can be optimized to do what they do VERY WELL.

    1. Re:Not the Unix way by Tack · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I don't understand why Mozilla has ANY form of disk caching built in in the first place - that is not the way of Unix.

      You might not know this, but Mozilla doesn't just run on Unices. It also runs on Windows, Mac OS, and god knows what else. Most of what Mozilla does is not the way of Unix, mainly for the sake of being cross-platform.

      Anyway, if you're interested in "small, sharp tools" or "one job, one program," you should look at Firebird and Thunderbird. You might be interested in knowing that this is the direction Mozilla is heading. So the Moz dev team would appear to agree with you there -- don't hold your breath about losing the disk cache, though.

      Jason.

    2. Re:Not the Unix way by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, my point was that by creating a seperate cache program, they could bring the benefits of this to ALL platforms, *nix or not.

      And by the way - MacOS is Unix.

      The biggest single mistake Netscape made back in the day was to NOT realize that by providing a set of small sharp tools to the Windows programmers, they left the market open to Microsoft, who did exactly that. This is something they are trying to correct with Mozilla, by providing things like Gecko and the Netscape portable runtime libraries, but if they were to provide a unified disk caching library they could begin to provide a real benefit to Windows users.

  31. Mozilla is still bad with standards by axxackall · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Two big problems I see with Mozilla's way of implementing protocols: Why Mozilla developers think that Calendar and Chatzilla (which has nothing to do with web-browsing at all, and by the way it's implemented anyway so badly that nobody use it) are more important for web-browsing than a complete implementation of core web-browsing protocols?

    Maybe at early 90s it was ok that that the web-browsing is a one-way communication when you only read and download the content. But it's not true anymore (perhaps since the dot-com bubble?). Today the web-browsing is almost always a two-way communication: people are answering web-forms and uploading files all the way.

    I suggest Mozilla developers to wake-up, to free themselves from old AOL cultural traditions (remember? AOL still tinks that the internet access == dial-up 56K modems!), and to redistribute their resource accordingly to real priorities. Stop wasting your time on developing ChatZilla and Calendar (really useless components). Instead, devote those resources on FTP upload and HTTP WebDAV.

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    Less is more !