Mozilla 1.6 Released

Keep 'em coming... by natron+2.0 · 2004-01-15 15:50 · Score: 4, Informative

More security fixes and the ability to reload the source view...nice.

Re:Keep 'em coming... by iammaxus · 2004-01-15 15:57 · Score: 5, Funny

"...the ability to reload the source view"

Great! Now it's so much easier to read slashdot the Hardcore Way
Re:Keep 'em coming... by ender81b · 2004-01-15 16:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

Shudder. Ancient HTML 3 code... oh the horror.

As an aside, Anybody know when Moz will officially be branched off into firebird/thunderbird components? I thought this was supposed to happen around 1.6 apparently I was wrong.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by typhoonius · 2004-01-15 16:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

Actually, the Eolas "president" (it's a one-man operation) is only going after Microsoft specifically to promote "alternative" browsers such as Mozilla. At least it'll give us an IE patch; it seems like the only way to get Microsoft to update the thing is to come up with a lawsuit. Anyone have patents on a "Faulty DOM Implementation"? Or maybe someone with a patent on "Buffer Overflows" could take out the whole company.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by teamhasnoi · 2004-01-15 16:28 · Score: 5, Funny

HA! I cut the cable to my monitor and I read Slashdot by looking at its VERY ELECTRONS!
Not really. I have a nice old lady read it to me, 'cause I'm scared of the Metal Ones.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by brasten · 2004-01-15 16:36 · Score: 5, Informative

From what I've been reading, more people are interested in the suite over the *birds than originally anticipated, so they'll be keeping it around for a while.

However, most developers working on the suite are focused primarily on the Gecko engine, with very little work being done on the front-end of things. Since the *birds are obviously Gecko-based as well, they are essentially being worked on by most Mozilla developers, even if indirectly. So it's not like the *birds are missing out on much development effort.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by el-spectre · 2004-01-15 16:46 · Score: 4, Funny

Wuss. I hold my hand near the ethernet cable and use induction to surf the web...

--
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by Malc · 2004-01-15 17:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

"From what I've been reading, more people are interested in the suite over the *birds than originally anticipated, so they'll be keeping it around for a while."

Grrrr. This is a pet peeve of mine. Why do so many people find the word "suite" to be synonymous with "monolithic app"? There's absolutely no reason. The suite can consist of the *birds where each component runs in its own process space. There are plenty of other tightly coupled suites out there that do this very well. Why would anybody want to run it all in one process space? It was a fundamental architectural mistake made by Netscape a decade ago, and just pure foolishness when the open source Mozilla team copied it!

As far as most users are concerned, they click an icon on their desktop (or in the app) for whatever they want to do, be it browsing, mail, IRC, calendaring, etc. A window appears and they do their thing. Why does it matter if that window comes from the same process or not? It doesn't. In fact, it's preferable if it doesn't. Crashes, or blocking actions won't tie up or interfere with the other process(es) (which is a major problem with the current suite).

Once the *birds implement the same functionality from a UI and extensions perspective, and the same integration with each of the other components as the current suite, there is no reason to continue with this monolithic monstrousity. I like the Mozilla products. I use the components (mostly mail/news and browser), I want the suite. I don't want a monolithic single process app.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by Oliver+Defacszio · 2004-01-15 17:27 · Score: 5, Funny

That's hardcore? Pff. I just read Slashdot on Monday and know what's going to be posted on Friday.

--

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Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by T-Ranger · 2004-01-15 17:30 · Score: 3, Funny

Thats easy. More SCO stories and dups.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by brasten · 2004-01-15 17:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

"Once the *birds implement the same functionality from a UI and extensions perspective, and the same integration with each of the other components as the current suite, there is no reason to continue with this monolithic monstrousity."

Yes, I happen to agree with you... being a Firebird/Thunderbird user myself. I don't think whether the current suite is a monolithic monstrousity or a multi-process paradise matters to some. There are - apparently - those who desire the integration between components that the suite has to offer.

Hopefully, someday soon, the individual birds can acheive the same level of integration with each other while remaining separate processes... When that happens, the "Suite" will simply be the full collection of *birds. Until then, the single-process application lives on.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by WuphonsReach · 2004-01-15 18:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

Some of us wish that Firebird had multiple processes so that a crash in one window wouldn't wipe out the other 4 windows with half a dozen tabs each....

(A habit that you form once you have a tabbed browser...)

Thunderbird 0.4 has worked well for me for the last month (replaced Moz 1.4). It's finished enough that it's useable for me at least.

--
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
Re:Keep 'em coming... by yomegaman · 2004-01-15 18:29 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm posting this by whistling into the phone!

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...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
Re:Keep 'em coming... by abertoll · 2004-01-15 19:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

Why would anybody want to run it all in one process space? Because... you can keep common parts of the program loaded into memory for faster startup.

--
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
Re:Keep 'em coming... by badmonkey · 2004-01-16 01:58 · Score: 5, Informative

I just read yesterday in the firebird documentation that it has a 250 millisecond pause built in before rendering so as to not have to reflow the page as much as bytes stream in. It can be deactivated as in the instructions here
So that'll make it a little faster I think
Re:Keep 'em coming... by swv3752 · 2004-01-16 02:33 · Score: 3, Informative

I have a win2k machine at work with Moz 1.4 and IE6. I think it is a P3 700mhz 512mb RAM.

Trying the parent's mailing list- Moz -9 secs to load. IE- 15secs. We have a caching web proxy on a fast pipe. I tried Moz first.

Click a message then go back- Moz 2secs, IE 2secs.

IE does start displaying content faster but the complete load is from cache takes nearly identical amount of time. Seems to me that performance is adequate.

--
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Re:Keep 'em coming... by jonadab · 2004-01-16 04:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

> Why do so many people find the word "suite" to be synonymous with
> "monolithic app"?

Because most of the components of the suite are not available as *birds yet.
Navigator (if the browser itself is all you use) can be replaced with Firebird,
and the truly adventurous can replace Messenger with Thunderbird, and Composer
(which to me was never useful anyway) is I *think* available as a Thunderbird
extension, but that's about it. Sunbird last I checked is so far a non-starter,
and then there are the other components... where are they in the *bird series?
They remain... unimplemented. Okay, I think DOM inspector is available as a
Firebird extension, but then you can only use it to inspect Firebird; you
cannot, for example, use it to look at the Thunderbird XUL (for theming
purposes). So, basically, the *birds are still lacking that.

It's not the monolithicity of SeaMonkey that keeps people using it; it's the
fact that it's essentially *complete* (well, except for Messenger, which is
still missing quite a number of critical features, but that's another thread).
The *birds are still very alpha; there are whole *categories* of features
that nobody has even *looked* at implementing in them yet.

If all you want is the browser, Firebird can be used as a replacement for
Navigator (though to get the full functionality of Navigator you have to
install about twenty extensions and a small handful of minor things are
still not up to snuff), but if you use the SeaMonkey whole suite, there is
no non-monolithic replacement available yet from Mozilla.org.

That is why people continue to use SeaMonkey.

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.

Any news on AmiZilla? by Amiga+Lover · 2004-01-15 15:51 · Score: 4, Funny

How are efforts in AmiZilla going? Is the Amiga Mozilla port any closer?

Re:Any news on AmiZilla? by mios · 2004-01-15 15:53 · Score: 5, Funny

Sorry ... the developers moved over the the ComiZilla project ... they figured the port to the Commodore-64 would be more useful.

Where is 2.0?? by smd4985 · 2004-01-15 15:51 · Score: 4, Funny

This is all good and well, but I'm looking forward to Mozilla 2.0, which will integrate the superior FireBird and ThunderBird.

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smd4985

Am I the only one... by revmoo · 2004-01-15 15:52 · Score: 5, Funny

Who has been tempted to do a string replace on the mozilla source, replacing all instances of 'mozilla' with 'mozirra'? :-)

--
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.

Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-15 15:58 · Score: 5, Funny

Well, if you're going to do it, at least get it right...

MOJIRA!!!
Re:Am I the only one... by el-spectre · 2004-01-15 16:49 · Score: 4, Informative

"Godzilla" is a poor translation to english. The original japanese name sounded like "Gojira". It's entirely possible the dude was playing on that.

Ah, the courage and wisdom of AC.

--
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Re:Am I the only one... by Onan · 2004-01-15 17:02 · Score: 4, Informative

Well, to be really pedantic, there isn't a sound that maps directly to either the English R or L, there's a single sound that's about halfway in between the two. Hence the tendency of Japanese speakers to swap them in both directions; to someone who has spoken only Japanese, it seems like an arcane distinction between two tiny variants of the same sound.

Romanji tends to transcribe the sound as R, but they're both equally accurate.
Re:Am I the only one... by jesser · 2004-01-15 23:22 · Score: 3, Funny

http://www.mojira.org/

--
The shareholder is always right.
Re:Am I the only one... by fbg111 · 2004-01-15 23:24 · Score: 3, Informative

There's also no "zi" sound; that's pronounced as "ji" even though it is occasionally written "zi."

Actually there's no "ji" sound either. Again, the Japanese pronunciation doesn't map to any English syllable. In English, we say "ji" with our tongue at the roof of our mouth. In Japanese they say it with their tongue at the very front of their mouth, right behind their front teeth gums. It sounds more like a mix of the English sounds "zi" and "ji". The Hepburn romanization uses the letters "ji" to denote this mora (one beat, roughly equivalent to a syllable), but because of that, every English speaker who learned Japanese under that system is speaking with a gaizin accent.

Newer systems such as the Jordan romanization (Eleanor Harz Jordan) attempt to correct this problem by using the letters "zi" to represent the mora, but with the disclaimer that "zi" is not the correct sound either and is only used to remind learners not to say "ji". The correct sound is actually a combination of "zi" and "ji" pronounced with the tongue at the front of the mouth.

Once you understand that, then it doesn't really matter how you romanize "Mozilla", whether it's "mojira" or "mozira", since you know that in this case neither mora "zi" nor "ji" is a phonetic spelling, but rather a symbolic representation of a sound that doesn't exist in English. The spelling only matters as a reminder for learners who have not yet mastered the new sound.

--
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams

awesome by McAddress · 2004-01-15 15:53 · Score: 3, Funny

I see the browser wars being rekindled. oops, never mind, those are the flames being thrown at me.

Re:awesome by PReDiToR · 2004-01-15 16:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

The browser wars have already been won.

FireBird has beaten IE and we are just waiting for the inertia to bury the old stalwart.

Are you telling me that you aren't waiting with baited breath for tonights nightly 0.8 build that really says 0.7+ in it?
The fact that there are nightly builds and every week a couple of builds optimised for Athlon/P4 or older processors should entice you to at least try it, free of charge, and see if it actually works for you.

Most people that have tried it are still trying it, and a fair number of us have it as default browser.

--

Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
Re:awesome by TechnoPops · 2004-01-15 17:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

Firebird has won the browser wars? That's quite the statement to say, since it seems IE still has a good ~85% chunk of the market. I think it still needs to carve quite a big piece out of Microsoft's share before we can start claiming any victories.

--
"Each time you smile, it'll only last awhile. Life may be scary, but it's only temporary."

Fantastic! by PovRayMan · 2004-01-15 15:53 · Score: 5, Interesting

Another release of Mozilla is a great thing, but I've been personally more interested in Firebird / Thunderbird. As we all know Mozilla will eventually fully break up into the seperate projects, and my interest is completely oriented on the progress of Firebird / Thunderbird.

Firebird is a great browser about to hit 0.8 and stepping closer towards the great 1.0 release that took Mozilla years to obtain. Thunderbird is still in need of lots of work, but the progress is fantastic and I exclusively use it even in its immature state.

For the Mozilla devs who browse /., thanks for all your hard work in making free software that suits my wants and needs. Keep up the great work!

--
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Check out my blackbox styles

Re:Fantastic! by HanzoSpam · 2004-01-15 16:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

Firebird is a great browser about to hit 0.8 and stepping closer towards the great 1.0 release that took Mozilla years to obtain.

Well, yeah, but you have to consider Firebird uses the Gecko rendering engine, the same as Mozilla. Having a pre-written rendering engine wasn't an advantage enjoyed by Mozilla.

Thunderbird is still in need of lots of work, but the progress is fantastic and I exclusively use it even in its immature state.

I've been using it across Linux, Windows, and MacOS X, and I haven't had a single problem with it. I'm not really sure how much more work it needs, since it seems pretty clean of bugs, unless they're planning on adding some more features.

I hope not. Creeping featuritis has been the death of too many fine pieces of software that were fine just the way they were.

--

Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.

Mozilla Growing by lukior · 2004-01-15 15:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

All slashdot readers know about the benefits of Mozilla but I am happy to see some more mainstream magazines giving props to the browser. I noticed it won some magazines comparo of browsers for the end of 2003. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we keep seeing improvements in Mozilla while it seems like IE has been a stagnant product for some time.

--
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.

Re:Mozilla Growing by Joseph+Lam · 2004-01-15 16:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

ya, most ppl out there that I met don't know what's 'Mozilla' nor its relation with Netscape the browser. Most companies still build IE only websites, some better ones build IE+Netscape, but Mozilla still remains to be the 'underground'.

More promotions, either by the press or by us /. readers are important.
Re:Mozilla Growing by bunratty · 2004-01-15 17:09 · Score: 3, Informative

Most companies still build IE only websites, some better ones build IE+Netscape
It's rare for me to visit a web site that doesn't work perfectly or near perfectly in Mozilla. Today I ran across one for the first time in about a year. It uses document.all for navigation, which means that users must be running IE or Opera and also must have JavaScript enabled for links to work. When the developers finally realize that over 20% of visitors can't navigate their site, I think they'll quickly fix it.

--
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.

But No One's mentioned the most important feature by Hal+The+Computer · 2004-01-15 15:58 · Score: 4, Informative

As listed in the Release notes mozilla's greatest feature yet:

One step closer to the kitchen sink, about:about has been implemented. Typing about:about in the address field will give the user a nice list of available about:s.

By the way, if you haven't yet, if you use mozilla, you need to check out about:mozilla

--

int main(void){int x=01232;while(malloc(x));return x;}

Cool.. what about SVG? by Wheaty18 · 2004-01-15 16:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'm currently running the Windows version of Mozilla 1.5 over IE. I recently downloaded the SVG-enabled version of Mozilla, and it's pretty neat. Any ideas when SVG support will be officially merged into the Mozilla stable tree?

Re:Cool.. what about SVG? by khanyisa · 2004-01-15 18:28 · Score: 5, Informative

Have a look at the svg project page (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/) Basically, not for quite a while yet, but feel free to help out!

use the mirrors by a.koepke · 2004-01-15 16:01 · Score: 5, Informative

When downloading this you should have a look at the mirrors list and find one near you.

http://www.mozilla.org/mirrors.html

--

(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread

Who uses the suite? by Trillan · 2004-01-15 16:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

Just curious, who uses the suite instead of Firebird/Thunderbird... and why?

I prefer the individual applications, primarily due to launch speed, but also due to what I think is a superior interface of components in the components-as-apps approach vs. the components-in-suite approach.

Re:Who uses the suite? by Prof.Phreak · 2004-01-15 18:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

I was using Mozilla (the whole package) for a while. Then sometime last summer I switched to using Firebird/Thunderbird, and then about a month ago I switched back to plain Mozilla. Here's why:

Most of the time I have a browser and e-mail open anyway, so why have 2 applications open when you can have one? Also, Mozilla, as it is, is far less buggy than Firebird/Thunderbird. I've encountered some really annoying bugs that just annoyed the hell out of me. Also, does anyone really notice the startup speed? (I haven't. I compile Mozilla with all the optimizations, etc., and I really don't see any `speed' difference between this and Firebird).

Now, on my Windows machine, I do use Firebird, but that's simply because I have no need for e-mail there.

(also, the occasional need for ChatZilla makes one more useful than the other).

So as far as I'm concerned, I hope they still keep the intergrated package alive later.

--
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Re:Who uses the suite? by snake_dad · 2004-01-15 21:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

I like the Mozilla user interface better, and the preferences section too. In Firebird many things are being dumbed down, and to get the same functionality as in Mozilla you need to download and install several extensions, that may or may not work. And then do the same thing with each update :-/ Mozilla gives me one single archive to download, extract, copy plugins over, (make backup of profile directory just in case) and run.

--
karma capped .sig seeking available Slashdot poster for long-term relationship.

Mirrors by DerOle · 2004-01-15 16:07 · Score: 3, Informative

Find a mirror here as the main download server is already dead.

The Mozilla Roadmap? by 110010001000 · 2004-01-15 16:08 · Score: 3, 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 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?

Re:Must... restrain... by mfago · 2004-01-15 16:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

You've forgotten the best part about using Firebird & Thunderbird:

your email program doesn't crash when your browser does.

Moz itself doesn't crash that often, but plugins brought it down several times per day for me. A serious flaw in the design IMHO.

Re:Mozilla and popups by Photon+Ghoul · 2004-01-15 16:14 · Score: 4, Informative

Most people stick with what they are used to. Even when pop-up blocking is given as a feature of Mozilla to users that suffer from excessive pop-up ads, most still seem to prefer using the IE (or Windows?) add-ons that stop them.

Side-thought: I have no experience with IE pop-up blockers, but it would seem like a very effective method for spreading malware. Maybe that's just the old tin-foil hat I'm feeling.

Re:200l 700 by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-15 16:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

I've been toying with XUL for a while now and am cozing up with 'Rapid Application Development with Mozilla'. Fantasic read, but the one thing that really sticks in my craw is the total lack of organized documentation.

The *only* way a 'platform'/language will be widely adopted is by making it accessible to Joe Coder. Just take a look at PHP, it's not always the best language, but has a *huge* user base, primarily because it's well documented.

Yes, there are now thousands of 'developers' writing crappy code, but dammit, at least they're pushing it to their clients, friends, family the neighbour's dog. Evangelism (sic) is the root of success.

Leo

I don't understand their QA process by pterry · 2004-01-15 16:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

On 2003-06-01 I submitted a bug report (see my mirror if bugzilla doesn't let you follow a link from slashdot). I read the bug reporting guidelines and did all the right things. I created a stripped-down test case and attached it, adding the keyword "testcase". I set the Severity to Major since I think it's somewhat serious (see for yourself). The bug got confirmed by a QA person... and then ignored. There have been several releases since then (final, non-beta releases), and my bug has remained.

What I'd like to know is: why are releases made with known Major bugs, and what does it take for a bug to get seen to and not sit in Bugzilla, ignored? It has certainly made me feel that there is little point in reporting any further bugs. Could someone explain Mozilla's QA process to me?

Mozilla is great, but I stopped using it today... by DaedalusLogic · 2004-01-15 16:17 · Score: 4, Informative

Because Firebird plays nicely "out of the box" so to speak with MS Outlook, and my customers want that. I know it's a horrible notion to some the overall goal is to convert folks on using these pieces of OSS has to be gentle and user friendly. Business users get Firebird suggested to them and home users Mozilla. I haven't touched IE for daily browsing in a couple years now thanks to these awesome browsers.

Re:Why the need to uninstall onld versions to upgr by falsification · 2004-01-15 16:17 · Score: 3, Informative

That is not quite right

If you plan to install 1.6 to the same subdirectory in which you have 1.2, yes, you should uninstall 1.2 before installing 1.6.

If you plan to install 1.6 to a brand spanking new subdirectory, you need not uninstall 1.2. You should always use different profiles for different versions of Mozilla.

BTW, you should uninstall 1.2 anyway. It has major bugs. In terms of stability, version 1.4.1, for instance, is to 1.2 as a granite rock is to gray goo.

IE6 users.. by zcat_NZ · 2004-01-15 16:20 · Score: 5, Funny

If you're running Internet Explorer, you can upgrade to Mozilla 1.6 here

(If you're not running IE, you won't see anything. My redirect exploits the ^A bug and uses IE conditional comments to make it look like an official MS page for downloading Mozilla)

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455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2

Re:IE6 users.. by zcat_NZ · 2004-01-15 18:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

I got the idea after seeing (in my inbox) a phishing email for "http://westpack.com.au^A@{some.ip}"

Took me about an hour to edit the microsoft page for Mozilla-1.5 and get it working, and then hack the redirect so my homepage still validates. It took me 2 minutes from noticing Moz1.6 was out, editing the page with the new information, and posting the link here.

If Microsoft sends me a C&D, I'm not sure what I'll do. I don't really have any assets or income worth sueing for but I guess that's never stopped them before.

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455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2

Re:It doesn't work for me by cribb · 2004-01-15 16:21 · Score: 3, Informative

if you,re on linux, tip: delete your ~/.mozilla, make sure you backup your bookmarks and all your other profile stuff, since it's all stored there. that should convince 1.6 to work.

--
Hostes alienigieni me abduxerunt. Qui annus est?

NTLM and Proxy Server by falsification · 2004-01-15 16:23 · Score: 4, Informative

If you have Microsoft Proxy Server or some other NTLM proxy at work or wherever, take a good hard look at 1.6. It's the first Mozilla version to have a built-in NTLM solution.

For the first time, Mozilla will work on many corporate networks.

Top posting is bad by FattMattP · 2004-01-15 16:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

Another frequently requested MailNews feature, a preference for placing the user's signature above the quoted text, has been added.

Nooooo! Argh, this will only encourage top-posting.

--
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y

Re:Top posting is bad by ChaosDiscord · 2004-01-15 18:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not all people think alike, and I came to realize my reasonable, rational arguments mostly just served to control the way other people expressed themselves -- i.e., so that they would express themselves more like myself.

I trust you're equally as accepting of those people who choose to WRITE IN ALL CAPS, or abbrvt lik u r txt mssging, or 3N463 1N 4 B17 0F 1337? (and I've seen all three by email, the first two in business email). Some forms of expression are irritating to receive and just stupid. Where you put quoted text isn't even some deep expression of your personality and life choices. It's just a freaking quotation.
Quoting text for context is an old idea with well understood techniques. Most people were taught how to do it in high school You block quote things inline, much like I've done your text. You trim to the bare minimum so readers don't waste their time with useless junk.
Ultimately it's a matter of being polite to your recipient. You value their time, don't you? So send them a bare minimum. And for those cases where they need lots of context in the form of previous messages, top posting is an amazingly crude and rude solution. I have a powerful, modern email client for a reason. I thread my messages to keep track of context and have powerful searching and filtering capabilities. Putting the entire conversation in a single message throws that entire system away and leaves me with a stupid giant list of text, sorted in reverse historical order with signatures, Yahoo ads, and headers all intermingled. It's a mess. If I need those messages as context, forward the lot of them to me with as little mangling as possible (often called something like "bounce"). Now my powerful email client can do smart things to help keep me sane.
Ultimately not top-posting is about not being rude to your recipients. Top posting says, "I'm lazy, and this is easiest way for me to provide context you may or may not need. I don't care that it's less convient to you, my time is more valuable than yours."

--
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Re:Top posting is bad by groomed · 2004-01-15 18:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

For better or worse, most people don't work the way you describe. I like to spend time writing clear and concise emails, but most people don't. What's more, my effort is completely lost on them, and sometimes it even strikes them as pedantic/weird/irrelevant.
Ultimately not top-posting is about not being rude to your recipients. Top posting says, "I'm lazy, and this is easiest way for me to provide context you may or may not need. I don't care that it's less convient to you, my time is more valuable than yours."
This just underscores my point. You have an elaborate system, and you want people to conform. What you need to understand is that they are under no obligation to do so whatsoever.

Re:But No One's mentioned the most important featu by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-15 16:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

It was just recently updated. Here are two prior quotations from The Book of Mozilla:

And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.
from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31 (Red Letter Edition)

And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.
from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10

It's a running gag type of easter egg.

Re:Not bad by hendridm · 2004-01-15 16:34 · Score: 4, Interesting

You know how in Internet Explorer and Firebird you can type a word (like 'google') and hit Control+Enter, it will convert 'google' to 'http://www.google.com'. I like that feature. Sure, you can just type 'google' and hit enter while it tries to figure out what you mean, but Control+Enter shaves precious seconds off of the load time. In Firebird, there's also Shift+Enter and Ctrl+Shift+Enter too, but I don't use those. IE only has the Control+Enter feature. But Mozilla lacks all of them!

Posting from Firebird/Win2K... by frostman · 2004-01-15 16:39 · Score: 3, Informative

Here I post from Firebird/Win2K, and for what it's worth:

1. Firebird crashes about twice a week, and I have to kill the process before I can relaunch.

2. Sometimes my Bookmarks Toolbar icons mysteriously disappear, only to be regenerated when I revisit the sites.

3. Handling of unknown character sets is a Bad Joke.

4. Plug-in loading is pretty spotty.

5. There is no obvious indicator of Javascript errors on sites; I have to open the JS console when I suspect an error.

6. It's kinda slow to start on my slower computer (TransMeta 800Mhz), though it's snappy on my faster one (Duron 1.2Ghz).

7. It's still the best browser I've ever used, and I would tear out my hair if I had to live without it.

Go Firebird!!

--

This Like That - fun with words!

Firebird.. by xankar · 2004-01-15 16:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

Should be prepackaged with various popular plugins like Flash and Shockwave.

I've reccomended firebird to all of my windows-using, non tech-savvy friends and they love it, but they wouldn't have done it without my encouragement because it was such a pain to redownload so many plugins.

People are lazy. Lazy people buy(in the loose sense of the word, since the software's free) convenience.

--
~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel

Eolas and Mozilla? by Saeed+al-Sahaf · 2004-01-15 16:54 · Score: 5, Informative

I submitted this story today, but as usual, since I am not a friend of the /. Editors, they shot it down big time (within minutes of when I submitted it), but I'm not bitter (that's a joke, OK?)! The guy from Eolas who brought the action against Microsoft about his browser patent, is in talks with "major Linux players." In fact, according to the eWeek story (rejected by /.), he's an Open Source contributor. Read between the lines, because this bodes VERY well for Mozilla. While W3 and Microsoft are hemming and hawing about what this kind of patent meant to them, and it means something very bad for Internet Explorer, I suspect Mozilla will not be a target. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but "what if" this guy is into Open Source, and saw a nice way to screw MS? I know, "so what, he still has a patent for something that is obvious and should not be patented." Well, my position is just the same as with SCO / IMB. Lessor of two evils, and my enemies' enemy is my friend (for now).

--
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck

And any moment now.... by Crypto+Gnome · 2004-01-15 16:56 · Score: 4, Informative

As outlined in the Mozilla project roadmap , the Mozilla Firebird browser will eventually replace the Seamonkey browser as the premiere end-user browser from mozilla.org. As part of the journey towards that goal, from milestone 0.7 onward Firebird 0.x releases will occur at the same time (or approximately the same time). Firebird Roadmap

Yes, you heard it right. This release of Mozilla is significant ALSO in that it heralds an impending release of FireBird.

Of course, Firebird 0.8 was due out December 2003, so we're overdue for that anyways.

--
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.

Re:But No One's mentioned the most important featu by ocelotbob · 2004-01-15 16:57 · Score: 4, Informative

A rough interpretation:

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced.

AOL's killing of the netscape brand as a web browser, and the subsequent laying off of the dev team.

But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them.

The rebirth of the Mozilla project as a non-profit and the rebirth of Mozilla as separate browser and mail components.

For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

Ph33r Mozilla ;3 .

--

Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses

Re:NTLM and Proxy Server by thegrommit · 2004-01-15 17:05 · Score: 4, Informative

If you have Microsoft Proxy Server or some other NTLM proxy at work or wherever, take a good hard look at 1.6. It's the first Mozilla version to have a built-in NTLM solution.

It's been available in Windows builds for quite a while (since at least 1.4). The key difference is that the new method is cross-platform.

Bad for YOU, maybe. by pclminion · 2004-01-15 17:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

Saying "top posting is bad" is like saying "EMACS is better than vi." A matter of opinion ONLY.

Bottom-posting is more useful to outsiders to the discussion, since they can follow the temporal flow of response and reply. However, top-posting is more convenient for those enagaging in the discussion, since they presumably already know who's saying what, and therefore it's better to have the most up-to-date information at the TOP. They can scroll down to get context if necessary.

Please, don't turn top-posting into yet ANOTHER religious issue... We don't need more of them.

Courier IMAP mailbox view finally fixed by iceT · 2004-01-15 17:19 · Score: 3, Informative

I'm so happy, I could just SPIT.

IMAP servers like Courier that store everything under INBOX (INBOX. namespace) FINALLY get displayed as a flat tree structure!

Thank you, Mozilla Team!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

--
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.

Ask Jeeves? by Joff_NZ · 2004-01-15 17:42 · Score: 5, Funny

From the Changelog:

* Ask Jeeves searching has been added to Mozilla 1.6.

WHY? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY??

--
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either

Re:Ask Jeeves? by megabulk3000 · 2004-01-15 19:47 · Score: 5, Funny

From the Changelog:

* Ask Jeeves searching has been added to Mozilla 1.6.

WHY? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY??

Uh, ask Jeeves?

"Mojira" by BitwizeGHC · 2004-01-15 17:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

The name takes on new meaning when you realize that "moji" is a Japanese word for a character or ideograph. So "Mojira" could theoretically be the Japanese name of a "text-monster", which is somehow fitting for the Mozilla browser.

--
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!

My favorite new feature by ahg · 2004-01-15 18:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

From the release notes:

"Remove from server after x days" has been implemented for POP3 mail accounts.

I have been yearning for this feature that I loved in Eudora in KMail. This is the first Linux mail client that I've seen that supports it.

Anyone know if Thunderbird has this option yet?

I'm now very tempted to install Mozilla and switch mail clients but I'd rather just have a stand-alone mail client like Thunderbird, and only have to transition mail clients once to get this feature.

Thanks Mozilla team!

--

--Aaron Greenberg

Re:My favorite new feature by seasleepy · 2004-01-15 18:40 · Score: 3, Informative

Yup, it's in Thunderbird.

From the 0.4 release notes: "POP Accounts now support aging on the server."
At least I'm assuming that's what that refers to. I do know from experience that it is in TB though. Super handy for keeping the mailbox tidy.

Oh great... by Captain_Chaos · 2004-01-15 18:35 · Score: 3, Funny

By the way, if you haven't yet, if you use mozilla, you need to check out about:mozilla

Now it'll be slashdotted in no time...

Does anyone else... by anethema · 2004-01-15 19:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

NOT want to have to install 3-4 seperate programs for all the stuff mozilla has? I occaisionally use mozilla composer for quick stuff, I use mozilla mail for my email, and I use mozilla for my browser.

I like the mozilla preferences digalog, and i like the tools menu that has all the image, popup, and cookie controlls right there in a quick easy to use place.

Also, its quickstart is very nice and its interface has some subtle differences from firebird..most of which I like better.

I'm not saying discontinue firebird, since sometimes you just want a nice browser, and this is great.. But why discontinue the suite?

Kind of like MS office, I dont wanna have to install all the programs seperate..its nice to just have them all together, and select what I want.

Any thoughts?

--

It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

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