Mozilla Firebird gets .8 Release, and New Name

Yage writes "Firebird, the lightweight version of Mozilla gets release 0.8 and changes its name again (remember Phoenix?) to avoid confusion with another OSS project. The new name is Firefox. There's a press release out about the name change and new version. And, as usual, download it from mozilla.org." Worth noting that ThunderBird .5 has been released as well. Update: 02/09 14:55 GMT by H : Thanks to Steve Garrity for pointing out the name change FAQ.

Comments

Totally brutal...

[danielrm26]

I can overlook their game of musical names; the browser is just phenomenal. I seldom even go to IE anymore, and when I do have to, I blame the guy who coded the site, not Firebird -- I mean Firefox.

Re:Totally brutal...

[sweeney37]

let's just hope this stays permanent. it's hard now to have a conversation with someone about the browser and/or the email client.

Person 1: "Hey I just started using Mozilla!"
Person 2: "Oh yeah? 1.5?"
Person 1: "No, .8"
Person 2: "Oh you mean Firebird."
Person 1: "No, I think it's Firefox."
Person 3: "I loved that show on Fox, it's a shame they canceled it."
Person 2: "You're thinking of Firefly."
Person 1: "Wait, was that the one with the marionettes?"
Person 3: "No, I think that's an email client."

Mike

Re:Totally brutal...

[JCCyC]

I hope Clint Eastwood doesn't sue them.

Re:Totally brutal...

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict in 18 months time, after another 2 name changes, the developers get sick of all the crap related to name changes and we have two very good, quality products from the mozilla team.

Browser 1.0
and
Mail 1.0

And all will be done, and there shall be no confusion, and they then proceed to take over the world like Word, Excel and Office did.

Re:Totally brutal...

[goates]

The real MIG-31 is the Foxhound. In the Clint Eastwood movie it's the Firefox.

goates

Re:Totally brutal...

[IpalindromeI]

Yes, it's standards compliant, but the new Opera7 is a huge memory hog and the UI is slow and glitchy. I liked version 6 a lot, but after getting fed up with 7, I switched to Mozilla and am much happier. Plus, Fire(bird/fox) has a much better extension architecture that allows you to do almost anything in terms of look and behavior.

Re:Totally brutal...

[ndogg]

G**-F&$!ING-DAMN! Every good name out there is taking, almost. I propose the name Hbleghtek. I'm fairly certain that one isn't used.

Re:Totally brutal...

[FLEB]

What about the H.B. Legh Corporation, makers of the noted business growth and growth-business management software "HBLeghTek"?

Mirror

[Patik]

Be sure to use a mirror, it's getting slow already.

Re:Mirror

[afree87]

BitTorrent

Re:Mirror

[Julius X]

With something this small, I don't see how BitTorrent could possibly do any good. I pulled down Firebird from one of the mirrors in about 15 seconds. I understand supporting an open source cause, but isn't there a point where it just becomes useless?

Were I to use BT, it would take 5seconds to check the torrent, another 20 to start running and to find seeds and peers. Hell, I've had the .torrent running for over 2min now and I still don't have even 1%. Doesn't this kind of defeat the purpose? Torrent just isn't suited to small downloads, so why even bother?

Re:Mirror

[mrdaveb]

If the conventional download sites are so crushed under the load that you can't get the file at all then bittorrent makes perfect sense, even for just a small download.

If you find a working mirror, then of course just use that. I tried a mirror and it was overloaded. Then I tried bittorrent and it worked. Simple.

Re:Mirror

[Judas-Priest]

USA:
California
Georgia
Indiana
Oregon
Europe:
Spain

The full list may be found on the google cache

Re:Mirror

[philthedrill]

Since mozilla.org is slashdotted, here are the primary mirrors:

ISC (FTP)
ISC (HTTP)
Georgia (FTP)
Georgia (HTTP)
Indiana (FTP)
Indiana (HTTP)
Oregon (FTP)
Oregon (HTTP)

And the google cache for more mirrors.

Re:Mirror

[sepluv]

Does anyone have a mirror of the MSWindows binary that does not end in .exe for those of use who cannot download *.exe's?

Re:Mirror

[Lord Ender]

Try this: http://whatever/downloads/mozilla.exe.tgz

The Apache web server will automatically zip files or directories and send them to you if you ask for the download with a .tgz. I am not sure if this feature is turned on by default, though. Should get you around having to get a .exe if you find a server that does it.

With the way these guys get into name disputes...

[Jerk City Troll]

...it's surprising they didn't name it "Starfox".

(Apologies to Eli. :)

Dammit.

[Tyler Eaves]

Stop playing name games. That's the sort of thing that can really hurt adoption.

Re:Dammit.

[squiggleslash]

Phoen doesn't sound a bit like Fir ;)

I'm glad they've changed the name. It took astonishing arrogance to swipe the name of an existing FOSS project, knowing full-well that any name they used would, by virtue of Mozilla's mindshare, end up damaging any group already using the name. It shows a willingness to be reasonable that they've changed it and the only grouse I have is the length of time it's taken them to do so.

Re:Dammit.

[Gyan]

The permanent cname change should be to "The Browser Formerly Known as Something Else".

Re:Dammit.

[4of12]

Stop playing name games. That's the sort of thing that can really hurt adoption.

You're right, that valuable brand recognition is damaged by name changes.

But there were enough problems with the Firebird moniker to justify the name change. And, arguably, with bare single digit percentage market penetration, it's still early in the game; name changes aren't as such a big deal to the party faithful.

A really important step to promote the growth of firefox might be overlooked: their little button logos available for you to put on your web site.

As a responsible web site maintainer, these buttons can go alongside some previously collected good button merit badges such as

1. W3C complaince with standards HTML 4, CSS, XHTML 1, MathML, SVG, etc.
2. works best with any browser

including text only.

Re:Dammit.

[Jugalator]

It's just in beta / technology preview stage yet. I think geeks are using it now, mostly. You often don't want to install 0.x software in corporate environments. They probably use Mozilla 1.x / Seamonkey, which isn't getting any name changes. From what I've seen, it serves mostly as a code name now, and will probably not cause more confusion than Windows Cairo did before it was named Windows 2000. Eventually, Firefox should replace Seamonkey.

Re:Dammit.

[hendridm]

> Stop playing name games. That's the sort of thing that can really hurt adoption.

In their defense, it's still in beta. I don't think they intend it for widespread adoption yet except among developers and enthusiasts. Besides, I think they were stuck between a rock and a hard place with their lack of research over their last name.

I still think 'Firefox' stinks. Doesn't roll off the tongue like Mozilla, Firebird, or Phoenix, but I'm sure choosing a name that isn't already taken isn't easy.

More Information

[dryan]

A FAQ about the name change can be found here.

There's also a thread on the mozillazine forums about the name change here

Re:More Information

[Johnathon Walls]

From the FAQ:

Won't this confuse people?

Yes, but if the WWF can pull it off, so can we. Besides, in six months you'll forget there ever was any other name.

This is amusing.

Do they mean the WWF (conservation group) that originally had the name, and so took the WWF (the wrestling group) to court to force them to change their name? Or do they mean the WWF that either settled or lost the case, and agreed to change their name to WWE?

In either case, it involves lawsuits!

Re:More Information

[Galvatron]

Well, it was WWE's own fault. They agreed to a legal settlement back in the day where they got the rights to use WWF in the USA only. Once they made a website (wwf.com), the wildlife people sued saying that the Internet is an international forum, and hence in violation of the agreement. Kind of like Apple Computer's ongoing fights with Apple Music, there wouldn't have been a problem if the original settlements hadn't been so shortsighted.

Avoiding Confusion?

[Gudlyf]

What about now, with Craig Thomas's book? I can hear it now:

"What's wrong with your browser, dude?"
"Firefox down, man. Firefox down."

How creative

[DeadSea]

If you rename something to prevent confusion with other products don't you think you should avoid something that is already a

1. Book series
2. Wire mesh manufacturer
3. Movie with Clint Eastwood
4. Atari game
5. Web design company specializing in horses
6. A game controller
7. A safety technology company
8. An all-girl hard rockin' poppin' pounding band from Tacoma, Washingto
9. A model airplane
10. A slashdot user who posted twice in 1999

The good things about the name:

1. It doesn't sound like another similar product (eg Lindows)
2. It doesn't have the name of the OS it was originally designed to run on in it. (eg WinZip)
3. It doesn't have the name of the programming language used to create it in it (eg JavaInvaders)
4. It is unlikely to cause confusion with another software product (except maybe the video game), unlike Firebird.
5. It doesn't use a famous trademark (at least they didn't name it Nike)

I've said this in the past, and I will say it again. If you are naming your open source software, make it something unique. Why would you want to compete for search terms with all these other people, products, corporations, and organizations. If your product has merit, then people will recognize the name that you give it and you will get brand loyalty. There is no need show your similarity to other products or your system requirements in your name.

Re:How creative

[SenorCitizen]

...or the Amiga scene musician Firefox/Phenomena: http://www.modarchive.com/artists/firefox/

Re:How creative

[Jon Abbott]

I think one thing can be said about Slashdot users... We do it using brute force. :^)

Re:How creative

[Jugalator]

... and the major reason to why it was picked:

They had no conflicts with existing software trademarks. I noticed the About dialog showed a TM sign too, so I have a feeling they now actually got a registration through.

Who cares if a game controller is called Firefox or a movie with Clint Eastwood is? The thing that can cause confusion to the point it becomes a problem is if there already is a software called Firefox.

Also, what we're all discussing now is only a code name for a software being a technology preview, that will likely disappear in the future anyway.

Re:How creative

[DeadSea]

Buikoler is unique, but you are correct, a good name has to make a good brand.

• It has to be easy to remember
• It has to be easy to pronounce
• It has to be easy to spell
• It can't sound like something nasty
• It can't mean something nasty in some other language
• Should actually remind people of something pleasant

Buikoler:

• To many syllables to remember easily
• Not pronouncable
• Hard to spell. There could be multiple spellings. Even worse, there would be easier ways to spell it and have it sound the same.
• Sounds too much like "buccaneer", "bukkake", or even "butt"

A good name is chosen through a brainstorming and making sure that everything coming out meets these criteria. An example of a good name that was chosen this way would be "Expedia" (the travel company):

• It is part of "expediate" (to make easier) giving it posative connotation
• Easy to remember for the same reason
• Totally unique
• Easy to spell (at least in English) because all the vowel combination are common and not easily mistaken.

Re:How creative

[Asprin]

5. It doesn't use a famous trademark (at least they didn't name it Nike)

Just picking nits here, but I would remind everyone that Nike didn't come up with that name on their own, Athena's been using it for just a little while longer.

I doubt that even if they *HAD* called it "Nike", Nike would have been able to do anything about it unless the Mozilla Nike project was also about manufacturing and selling tennis shoes. After all, Nike, Inc. aren't the only ones to use the name of the popular Greek goddess for their company or organizations -- the US government even used it for a ground-to air missle program.

This whole discussion is giving me a hankerin' to go try and DL some old FireFox roms for my atari emulator.

Re:How creative

[verrucagnome]

The only good names that are left are 'placenta' and 'phlegm'.

Theme

[gngulrajani]

Be sure to set your theme to default --

i lost my scrollbars and some buttons when i used
the "Orbit Green" theme.

otherwise the aa'ed fonts look great under linux and copy/paste seems is improved.

-greg

Dang it

[AbbyNormal]

You know, I wish they would stop changing their name. I use Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox as my sole browser and absolutely enjoy it. The problem is, I am trying to get my family to use it as well, but trying to keep them straight on what it is called is getting a little ridiculous.
Conversation with family: "You know that browser I gave you a link on...No, not Mozilla. Yeah, it was Firebird. No now its called Firefox. I don't know why, just use it"

Re:Dang it

[jfruhlinger]

If you are doing the installation yourself, do what I do on my computer: just put a shortcut on the desktop labeled "Internet". People just click on it without a second thought.

jf

Re:Dang it

[Eil]

All of the computer systems that I set up for my friends and family generally have the following two desktop icons in addition to the standard Windows cruft:

* Email
* Web Browser

That's it. Sometimes the icons change and that throws them off for a bit, but this, in general, Just Works. Every once in awhile, I've had the temptation to change "Web Browser" to "The Internet" for the less gifted users but I could never quite bring myself to go quite that low.

However, I would also assert that you shouldn't really be using the alpha-quality Firefox on family or production systems when there's a perfectly good and stable (even in respect to naming) Mozilla 1.x available.

Trademarked by Mozilla. Good thing!

[simpleguy]

Word Mark:FIREFOX

Goods and Services:
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Browsers, namely, software for browsing and interacting with data on the global computer network and secure private networks, and software programs to connect computers to the global computer network and to secure private networks

Owner(APPLICANT):
Mozilla Foundation NON-PROFIT CORPORATION CALIFORNIA 1350 Villa Street, Suite C Mountain View CALIFORNIA 940411126

Filing Date:
December 22, 2003

Information found with a search on uspto.gov

The name change was done for a reason

[The One KEA]

Ben Goodger made a blog entry where he explained the entire rationale behind the name change to Firefox: http://www.bengoodger.com/weblog/archives/cat_mozb log.shtml

Some of the MozillaZine forum members share the dismay of earlier posters over how this may damage evangelism efforts, because of the effort required in explaining the similarities and differences between Firebird and Firefox. Either way, because Firebird is beta software, these types of name changes can happen with minimal disruption. Imagine what would have happened if this was Firefox 1.0, not Firefox 0.8.

Re:The name change was done for a reason

[CGP314]

Imagine what would have happened if this was Firefox 1.0, not Firefox 0.8.

[SARCASM]

Oh the horror!

[/SARCASM]

-Colin

Re:firefox

[blackcat]

As stated in the press release, "[t]o avoid overlap with another open source project". That would be the Firebird database.

Screw it.

[DarkHelmet]

I'm just gonna call it "The Browser Formerly Known as Firebird" until they can consistently keep the same name for about two years.

Then they'll change the project name to "MozillaSoft Internet Explorer" just to confuse a few chaps.

How about Einei..

[Anonymous Coward]

...for EI is Not IE of course

Movie with Clint Eastwood

[dpilot]

Does this mean that Firefox will have thought-controlled anti-spam and popup suppression?

Re:Movie with Clint Eastwood

[Chris Mattern]

Yes, but you have to think at it in Russian.

Chris Mattern

Re:Movie with Clint Eastwood

[Anonymous Coward]

No. In Soviet Russia, Firefox thinks at you!

missed the Bird

[mirko]

I am still using Phoenix 0.5 from which I am currently typing this reply.
I almost switched to Firebird 0.6 but proxy incompatibilities just made me revert to Phoenix.

It is actually damn fast and compatible with 100% of the sites I visit, hence my question :
What do I miss ?

Re:missed the Bird

[The One KEA]

A new download manager.
Bugfixes.
Improvements in tabbed browsing.
Bugfixes.
A new Help dialog.
More bugfixes.
Changes in the Gecko rendering engine.
Even more bugfixes.

Seriously, I'd upgrade.

I saw, I downloaded, I'm using it now

[Schwartzboy]

Though I have to admit, for my typical browsing experience I don't see a whole lot of difference between Firebird's latest 0.7 release and Firefox. I'll explore the new tweaks and nifties sooner or later, I suppose.

Now, somebody tell me at what point the name's going to change again and I can run Firefly 0.9 as my browser of choice? That would be sweet, the icon could be a tiny image of the Serenity...for the current icon, has anyone else wondered if that fox is having a little too much fun with the globe?

But I digress. I'm looking forward to the 1.0 release, whatever the name ends up being. I'd be interested in knowing what the official marketshare (as far as these things can be determined) is for Fire-[$animal_name]/Mozilla browsers. I know that I've had more stability/popup-blocking goodness out of Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox than I usually get out of IE, and far fewer crashes (Firebird crashed on me once on my XP Pro box. Once in how many months? Let's not even think about IE's crash frequency...)

Stupid quote of the day: "That browser sucks...it doesn't even support VBScript!"

slashdotted

[Lost Dragon]

Firefox 0.8 Our next generation browser is lightning fast in every way. Unless you're trying to download it right now.

needs to integrate better

[crayz]

(this is on XP): I open up FireFox and have no bookmarks, even though I have hundreds in Mozilla. Oh, I mean I don't have none. I have some basic ones they give you to start with. And my imported IE bookmarks, of which there are none, because I don't use IE. But no Mozilla bookmarks.

So I close Firebird, go into my Mozilla profile, copy the "bookmarks.html" file from it to the FireFox profile(still in a folder called "Phoenix"), and bam, there's all my bookmarks. Why the damn browser can't do that for me is beyond comprehension.

Same with all my preferences. No option to inherit these things from Mozilla.

Overall it is quite a nice browser, and I'd recommend it to people whose computers are too slow/low on memory for the real thing. I still prefer Mozilla, mainly because I think the Modern theme looks better than FireFox's default, because I can't see an easy way to keep FireFox in memory like I do with Mozilla, and because FireFox lacks the wonderful Mozilla ability to simply type text into the URL bar, hit the up key and then enter, and run a Google search. I find the separate Google search field an annoying complication of Mozilla's search ability.

Re:needs to integrate better

[Seahawk]

Because its a beta product?

Lets first iron out the bugs and establish features, and then lets worry about integration! :)

Re:needs to integrate better

[Microlith]

What they need is to include a check for an existing Mozilla installation and offer to run a migration tool, with some interactivity in case some options need user-triage. This goes for thunderbird as well.

I had no end of trouble trying to migrate to Thunderbird and Firebird^C^C^C^Cfox, and when I did get there, the migration left so many little flaws and fuckups in the programs (like I download a .torrent and no matter what the OK button is disabled.) that I just moved back to mozilla 1.6. What a BREEZE that was!

So, in summary, if they're going to replace the suite with a pair of seperate programs, they need to:

a) offer a "suite package" that includes both programs and
b) make sure that all 3 installers (which both apps need, especially on windows) include a proper migration tool. I will not leave the Moz suite until this is done.

Re:needs to integrate better

[docwardo]

Because some people (like myself) run multiple copies of the different browsers for testing purposes. and I wouldn't want my bookmarks overwritten every time I installed a new copy. and it sould have to ask which mozilla profile to copy as well.

not that it shouldn't be an option, but it shouldn't be the default.

Re:needs to integrate better

[dwhitman]

I just installed Firefox, and all my Firebird bookmarks came across fine.

Most of my extensions were there too, but for some reason, TabBrowser Extensions disappeared. And texturizer.net is slashdotted.

Re:needs to integrate better

[mst76]

> ... because I can't see an easy way to keep FireFox in memory like I do with Mozilla

I just never close it, just minimize :)

> ... because FireFox lacks the wonderful Mozilla ability to simply type text into the URL bar, hit the up key and then enter, and run a Google search.

For newbies, Firefox is much better, because there is a constant reminder. When I started using Mozilla, I forgot to use the up-button half of the time. Now that I'm used to it, on Firefox I just press ctrl-k to search (or hit tab if I happen to be in the url-box).

Re:needs to integrate better

[Max Romantschuk]

FireFox lacks the wonderful Mozilla ability to simply type text into the URL bar, hit the up key and then enter, and run a Google search. I find the separate Google search field an annoying complication of Mozilla's search ability.

Actually, typing directly into the Address bar does an I'm feelin lucky -search, which I've found darn convenient. Granted, the search box uses space, but usually so little it's not a problem. The ability to add alternate searches to the search box is great as well.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd still say the Firefox aproach has it's benefits.

Re:needs to integrate better

[Anonymous Coward]

The migration of mozilla settings is scheduled for 0.9. Remember, in spite of appearances, Fire(bird|fox) is still beta software, and it's not feature complete. The plan is to make 0.9 feature complete and then work on polish in the run up to 1.0.

I'd agree that the mozilla search functionality is easier for advanced users than the corresponding functionality in Firefox. However, the FF functionality is more obvious to less advanced users and more consistent with the behaviour of other programs. Personally, I find that Custom Keywords make for a better search interface than Seamonkey or Firefox. In fact I believe that FF now comes with some custom keywords built in - although you've probably just deleted those by overwriting the bookmarks. See How Cool are Custom Keywords for more information.

Re:needs to integrate better

[DeadSea]

I switched to Firebird some time ago from Mozilla and I noticed these things as well. I was upset about the lack of migration from Mozilla ind the need for two text areas at the top - one for urls and one for search.

There are several things that I have found that I love about it that mozilla didnt have:

• The ability to move the toolbar elements around with drag and drop. Using this I have put my buttons for back, reload, stop etc, up next to the File menu and the search box on the other side of the menus. This means that my bookmarks have a whole line to themselves and the url bar has a whole line to itself. Much better use of space.
• You can manage bookmarks in bookmark folders by right clicking on them. (I don't know why this never worked in Mozilla, but I always had to use the bookmark manager.
• The "live headers" plugin that allows me to see post queries and cookies that get sent to the server.
• Some plugin allows me to put a checkbox to enable/disable javascript right on the bookmark bar

Re:needs to integrate better

[yoz]

Lets first iron out the bugs and establish features, and then lets worry about integration! :)

I'd say seamless migration from the previous version is a pretty important feature, wouldn't you?

BTW, I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but Firefox seems to be pretty unreliable for me - it's freezing during certain parts of the page-load process, the download manager thinks it's open when it isn't, the new XPI interface gives no progress indication at any stage (which is quite a retrograde step) and generally the whole thing seems to be less persuasively stable than 0.7. Mind you, that was only in 10 minutes' usage, so perhaps I didn't give it enough of a chance, but now I'm back on 0.7 because I have work to do.

-- Yoz

Re:needs to integrate better

[CeZa]

For the longest time you could type 'google $searchString' and 'dict $word' where $searchString and $word were what you were trying to find, into the address bar. I liked the feature and started to rely on it. It has been in all the nightly builds except the most recent one. Downloading now, hoping it's back.

Note: I found out the reason why and if you don't trash your default bookmarks you will be able to do it. See http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2002/bookma rks/. There is a google bookmark that has a keyword that allows you to search by typing 'google' in the address bar.

Re:needs to integrate better

[dwhitman]

Managed to get through and found new TBE version 1.10, which that seems to be Foxfire friendly. Nice turnaround on Hiroshi's part; I was missing TBE badly after only 30 minutes with Foxfire.

Re:needs to integrate better

[Gerv]

You can create fake bookmarks that have some smarts to them

Er, this feature is called Custom Keywords and it's been in Mozilla for several years.

Gerv

This is because of an API change

[The One KEA]

This is because the authors of the themes have not updated their themes to support Firefox 0.8. In between Firebird 0.7 and Firefox 0.8 there were several changes made to the internal APIs which broke many themes. Because the theme authors do not want to waste time on a moving target, they collectively decided to wait until Firefox 0.8 was released. As a result, you will either have to wait for your theme to be updated or bug the theme author to fix their theme.

Re:This is because of an API change

[Perl-Pusher]

On Mac OSX 10.3.2 (Panther) the tabs no longer work in .8, they worked great before. In linux, I had to blow away the .phoenix directory to get my buttons back even with the default theme. I did save my bookmarks!

Re:I'm just thinking...

[azzy]

Wasn't it a book before being a film? Anyway, Mozilla have consulted lawyers, and trademarked/copyrighted/whatever this name in the US and Europe, so I think we can assume no legal probs with the name.

Future name changes we can look forward to..

[Channard]

.. on the project are..

'Kung-Browser'
'Browse-Me-Do'
'Sparrow'
'Mech a-Mozilla'

And in other news, Konami today announced the release of the cut down version of Metal Gear Solid 2 to feature Solid Snake's cousin, Trouser.

*sign* I mean, whatever name you pick, there's going to be some product already out there with a similar name. It's like that Dilbert strip where the only remaining product names were diseases.

Names

[CGP314]

Worth noting that ThunderBird .5 has been released as well.

Don't you mean ThunderFox?

-Colin

Re:Names

[glassesmonkey]

No, to match FireFox, they are planning to keep with the "Fire" theme and will rename ThunderBird to FireBird

FAQ on the naming available...

[Xpilot]

...here. The other open source project in question is a database (obviously) called Firebird.

The mail client is still called "Thunderbird", which IMHO introduces and incongruity in the naming schemes. But then again, what's in a name, eh? Besides, "Thunderfox" would sound dumb.

marketing school

[glassesmonkey]

Why can't they figure out these names are all dumb and poor for brand recognition.

Is Mozilla Lite just too obvious for them?! How about Mozilla Jr. and then you could make yet another cute dinosaur! You could even make a family photo out of the whole suite..

Re:marketing school

[big-magic]

Why can't they figure out these names are all dumb and poor for brand recognition.

Actually, I think the Mozilla project has done much better PR than most of the other large, open source projects. The project always comes across as much better organized than most of the other projects I follow. I think the name change was a smart move.

Re:marketing school

[ozbird]

Is Mozilla Lite just too obvious for them?!

Apparently. Rumour has it the next release will be called "iMozilla-NG Xtreme" - something for everyone, I guess.

Re:marketing school

[GWTPict]

AAAAGHHH. It's spelt light, lite is the creation of some semi literate PR bunny and we hates it, we hates it. Don't we Precious?

Re:marketing school

[PierceLabs]

Or since its supposed to be a next generation Mozilla, just call it Mozilla Next :) Since its all Mozilla anyways, they need to stick to the Mozilla brand.

Re:marketing school

[Planesdragon]

It's spelt light, lite is the creation of some semi literate PR bunny--

--and now it's an accepted spelling of a hononyom of "light" that means smaller and airy, as opposed to the object of luminescence.

Deal with it, or go jump in a volcano. ;)

Re:marketing school

[Planesdragon]

It's a common unword used in product names, and that's the only place it's ever used. And, like most such terms it's an abomination.

You're one of those people that still maintains that "ain't" is not a proper word, aren't you?

Lite is as proper a word as any other. Heck, two hundred years ago we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Now, I'll grant that L-I-T-E isn't a preferred or formal spelling of "light", but it's an accepted one. (You could even go so far as to say that "lite" is really a suffix, and needs to be appended to an existing word for its spelling to be acceptable. I.e., "This isn't really a full burrito; it's more of a burrito-lite.")

Explaining it to the parents...

[no longer myself]

Mother already has enough trouble with the computer I set up for her, now I have to go through another round of "Will I still be able to get Yahoo with Mozoolah foxfur?"

Sometimes (every waking moment of my day) I regret every trying to get them interested in computers... But I was young and excited back then... Now I cringe when they try to pronounce computer related terms.

The best of Open Source....

[SenorCitizen]

....it really is. If every OSS would work as well, be as easy to use and look as good we wouldn't have a single Windows installation in the World.

That said, I hope they *finally* fixed the bug with going back a page and finding yourself at the top of the page. That one hasn't been around in Mozilla for a while.

And, they should f'n register a trademark...

Lightweight?

[Bazman]

Not light enough for our admins to be happy about me sticking it on the Sun E450 that we use for undergraduate teaching. Stuck in an X-terminal lab with only login access to the E450? You're stuck with Netscape 4. They fear 25 firebirds will bring the system to a crawl.

Anybody know of an even _lighter_ browser, preferably gecko-based, that will work on Solaris? Binaries would be nice :)

Baz

Re:Lightweight?

[MrHanky]

Anybody know of an even _lighter_ browser, preferably gecko-based, that will work on Solaris? Binaries would be nice :)

Opera for Solaris does exist. Never tried the Solaris version, and it's not based on Gecko. And it's binary only. But still a nice, lightweight, modern browser. Yes, it's at version 7.23, the same as the Windows version. Should be worth a try.

Re:Lightweight?

[Bazman]

Here's some comparison memory usages for opera, firebird , and NS4, on our solaris box, looking at www.plone.org:

SIZE,RSS, name
33M, 29M, opera
38M, 31M, firebird
17M, 15M, netscape 4

opera isn't much lighter than firebird in this metric.

See the small footprint of netscape 4? Shame it can't render the plone page properly because it really doesn't do CSS properly. Gah.

Baz

Re:Lightweight?

[MrHanky]

But Netscape 4 leaks memory worse than my grandmother, so that might change after some hours of use. YMMV and all that.

NOT mozilla-lite

[levell]

The point is that Firefox is NOT supposed to be mozilla-lite or Mozilla-Jnr; it may replace Mozilla in the long term (although the suite has a stay of execution for now). It's supposed to be a powerful browser, not what would be implied by your (already discussed) Mozilla-lite tag.

Re:NOT mozilla-lite

[eraserewind]

How about Browzilla?

Re:NOT mozilla-lite

[Anonymous Coward]

therefore calling it "the broswer" would have been the absolute best choice...

Internet explorer, windows, word..... all of those are horribly generic names that have enjoyed great marketability... why is it that OSS projects almost always have to choose nerdy,dorky names??

Re:NOT mozilla-lite

[smack_attack]

The Japanese name was Gojira. You really think they would be able to pronounce the L?

Re:NOT mozilla-lite

[Joe U]

We shall call it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday!

Re:NOT mozilla-lite

[sharkey]

How about Browzilla?

A giant lizard with eyebrows like Eugene Levy?

Another way IE is a little better

[millahtime]

Is with Java applications. The sun java setup uses more resources than the one integrated into IE. If you are on a slightly older setup (like my mom) and you want to play yahoo games (as so many do) then it's faster in IE. Hate to say it but that is one place IE has a one up on the others.

Re:Another way IE is a little better

[Nadir]

Obviously it doesn't really matter that Microsoft's VM is broken in many ways and ancient. I'm sorry, but Mozilla's decision not to bundle a VM and have that provided directly by a real JVM vendor (sun) is the proper way to go.

Re:With the way these guys get into name disputes.

[spoodie]

If they did it would have to be renamed Lylat Browser for the European market.

the names used to be so much cooler

[crayz]

Think about it:

Phoenix, Chimera, and Minotaur

are now

Firefox, Camino, and Thunderbird :(

FireFox?

[Futurepower(R)]

Finally a name no one else is using! Wait, Firefox.

Picking a name for a product, especially an extremely valuable internationally famous product such as this one, is far more difficult than it appears. Those who have never had any experience writing advertising often don't realize how difficult.

Also, consider the connotations of the name. Where is the burning that would cause the product to be named "fire"? Where is the cleverness that would cause the product to be called "fox"? Maybe the name FireFox is not right for a standard household product meant to be used by the entire family as a way to communicate with the world. Yes, writing the product required an enormous amount of cleverness, but using it doesn't. Also, the name FireFox is made of English words, and most of the world does not speak English.

The name is IMPORTANT. A good name will ease acceptance. A name that people find difficult can kill acceptance. There is a huge amount of importance in this one word.

Maybe a made-up word is better. Drug companies use made-up words like Claritin or Cialis to name just two. That has the benefit that the domain name is not taken.

Just stop

[SushiFugu]

I can see the trend already today with people posting all the different things that the new name conflicts with. The whole point is that the new name (atleast as far as I know/have heard) doesn't conflict in any way with other software products/open source projects, whereas Firebird did.

FireChick

[Phoinix]

I do not like the new name. May I suggest the name "FireChick" in reference to a "smaller" bird?

Would make a good movie

[RDW]

I can see it now - Mitchell Gates (Clint Eastwood), elite Microsoft coder and flashback-impaired veteran of the Browser Wars, is sent behind enemy lines to steal the only production prototype of the Firefox, with its revolutionary thought-controlled toolbar technology ("but remember, Mr Gates, you have to _think in XML_!"). The film ends rather abruptly when someone tells him he can download it for free.

Re:Its too bad the names are all unrelated

[krumms]

MozBird, MozFox MozCam sound good too me.

Thank you, because of your horrible suggestions I now feel less irksome about the name "Firefox" ;)

Firefox is a registered trademark in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox was registered as a multinational trademark in Germany in 1995.

According to the entry, the trademark covers among others the following areas:
-licensing and lending of computer software
-creation and development of computer software
-support, installation and updating of computer programs and computer software

Microsoft thanks you

[m00nun1t]

While I have trouble telling the difference between mozilla, thunderbird, firefox and phoenix, what chance does the proverbial Mom & Pop user stand?

Microsoft thanks you for helping continue the IE dominance.

Re:Microsoft thanks you

[I confirm I'm not a]

The proverbial mom & pop user shouldn't, repeat shouldn't, be using Firefox. It's a technology preview, which means that it's effectively in Beta at the moment. Sure, it's a great browser, sure I wouldn't switch back to IE or even Mozilla Suite, but it is not ready for Joe Public.

Precisely because the technology is changing, precisely because the name is changing, precisely because they're only now looking at an integrated installer.

Get mom & pop to wait until Firefox 1.0. I trust the good folks at Mozilla to not release 1.0 until it's ready for mom & pop.

C'mon! Give the guys a break! They even label it 0.8 to provide a big red flag to non-geeks!

"Official market share"

[levell]

Well I'm not sure about official but you can see what fraction of Google hits come from each browser at the Google Zeitgeist. For some reason they don't have browser figures in there year end summary so for the moment the latest figures are for November. The numbers for gecko based engines are depressing.

Re:"Official market share"

[DeadSea]

1.8% Gecko users: My employer, major travel website.
12% Gecko users: My personal site (1500 uniq a day, tech oriented)
20% Gecko users: Slashdot (at least the ones that slashdotted me)

Re:"Official market share"

[Tom]

Depends a lot on what kind of site you run. Here's my online game:

1 904331 58.75% MSIE 6.0
2 449632 29.21% Mozilla/5.0
3 58935 3.83% MSIE 5.0
4 58058 3.77% Opera/7.2
5 33532 2.18% MSIE 5.5

Which is pretty impressive, given that it's not a Linux-newssite, nor a Free Software project page or anything else Linux/FOSS specific.

My personal site:

1 24642 62.16% MSIE 6.0
2 6832 17.24% Mozilla/5.0
3 1655 4.18% MSIE 5.0
4 1149 2.90% MSIE 5.5
5 620 1.56% Wget/1.8.1

Different numbers. This site has all kinds of weird stuff on it, some Linux-specific.

My SELinux site:

1 2173 53.33% Mozilla/5.0
2 1045 25.64% MSIE 6.0
3 308 7.56% Debian APT-HTTP/1.3
4 160 3.93% Konqueror/3.1
5 114 2.80% MSIE 5.5

Pretty obvious. Yes, part of it is a debian mirror for the SELinux packages, that's how apt-get gets in there.

All these numbers are from February, i.e. as fresh as they can be.

What do they show? At least as far as I am concerned, the "95% of the people use IE" is a myth, a lie, a marketing gimmick, whatever you want to call it.

Re:Asking for trouble

[real_smiff]

they seem to not know what their slogan is - their (new) button page lists all of the following:

1. The browser, reloaded
2. Take back the web
3. Web browsing redefined

With web sites free to pick & choose! Now I love the browser but settling on one slogan might be a good idea no? I suggest "Take back the web", or something i haven't thought of yet :)

My Idea for a new Name:

[His name cannot be s]

Wait for it...

Internet Navigator

TADA!

All is solved. Everyone happy. Best Name Ever. Service While you wait. Operators are standing by. ;P

Re:My Idea for a new Name:

[slide-rule]

> Wait for it...
>
>Internet Navigator

Seriously, since at this point the whole naming scheme is fscked anyway, I wonder why they couldn't go back to the old netscape naming conventions:
Mozilla Navigator (browser only)
Mozilla Communicator (including Mozilla Mail, etc.)

Heck, even my family and/or co-workers would be able to know what is going on then, as this would build upon what we finally got them trained on years ago.

Re:My Idea for a new Name:

[jason0000042]

AFAIK that's the plan. It will actually be Mozilla Browser and Mozilla Mail. All this naming stuff is just about the beta codenames. At least, that was the plan a few months ago. Since mozilla.org is /.ed I can't double check right now.

Re:My Idea for a new Name:

[JahToasted]

I realise you're joking, but that is a better name than PhoenixBird or Mozilla or whatever.

I remember working at a community computer centre back a few years ago when netscape and internet explorer were roughly equivalent (if anything netscape was better then). So I had both browsers installed on all the computers with icons on the desktop for each of them side by side.

Every single new user used IE. Why? "because I wanted to go on the internet so I clicked on internet".

Now think about how microsoft names its products. Office, Word, Windows, etc. Now think about how popular their products are.

So now when I install phoenix/firebird/fox on people's computers I make a shortcut on the desktop that simply says "Internet Browser" (then sometimes remove the IE icon). You know what? People use it.

The best name for software indicates what the software is for right in the name.

Bit Torrent Download

[ed_g2s]

A Torrent seeing as they've been slashdotted, which I supposed is a Good Thing for them.

Problem with themes?

[eraserewind]

It didn't display any scrollbars on any pages when I installed it, and it picked up the seamonkey theme from my previous firebird install. Once that theme was uninstalled, it worked fine though.

Hopefully I can re-install it again though, since the default theme is not nice. Unfortunately the themes site seems to be down.

Yeay!

[tttonyyy]

I have to say that I totally love Fire(bird/fox)'s tabbed browsing capabilities (I'd really miss it now if I had to do without it). The popup management and password management are features I've come to take for granted. IE has yet to integrate them in a usable way.

Also, Thunderbird answered so many of my mail problems - anyone else that's tried to find a client that works under Windows and Linux AND allows seperate POP3 accounts to be managed properly will appreciate what a boon Thunderbird is. The mailbox files can be copied straight from a Windows system into a Linux system, and with a bit of fiddling it's up and working in no time. This makes it very easy to move people from Windows to Linux and vice-verse.

Way to go mozilla.org. :)

straight from the ftp directory

[glassesmonkey]

You couldn't make up this kinda of confusion (from FTP directory)..

chimera 06/01/2002 12:00:00 AM
camino 03/06/2003 12:00:00 AM
thunderbird 02/08/2004 06:38:00 AM
phoenix 09/23/2002 12:00:00 AM
firebird 05/16/2003 12:00:00 AM
firefox 02/09/2004 05:58:00 AM
grendel 08/07/1999 12:00:00 AM
minimo 08/28/2003 08:21:00 PM
mozilla 10/21/2003 01:01:00 PM

Re:straight from the ftp directory

[NiteHaqr]

Grendel - wonder who that runs on a Beowulf cluster........

Reasons to use Mozilla Firebird/fox

[e03179]

Here's a great article from Kuro5hin that tells (Internet Explorer) users the advantages of using Firebird/fox. Check it out http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/1/31/125914/125

Re:With the way these guys get into name disputes.

[rixstep]

'Samantha Fox' would also have been appropriate. After all, the Gecko engine makes it a bit top-heavy.

Firefox under Mac OS X

[ivarneli]

I love the Firebird/Firefox lines of browsers under Linux and Windows. I would also love to use Firefox on my new G5 under OS X, but there are three really annoying problems:

1. Scrolling with the mouse scroll wheel goes WAY too fast, making it almost unusable
2. Middle-clicking on a link does not open a new tab (or do anything for that matter)
3. Middle-clicking to scroll (autoscroll) also does not work.

Do other people see this same behavior? Are there any fixes?

Firefox Ad Campaign

[GarfBond]

Now that a brand name has finally settled, get the Firefox ad campaign buttons! Stick em on your website!

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/buttons. ht ml

zip file distribution

[Spetiam]

i wish they would still distribute it as a zip file. with the installer, i can't take it around on a pen drive and install on the computer labs at school.

Re:zip file distribution

[mr_sas]

the .zip will be up within the week according to ben goodger (one of the main developer guys)
there's an unoffical build (based on the installer build) here

Do you understand what Jr means?

[njchick]

It's not unusual for Mr. Foo Jr. to replace Mr. Foo in the long term. In fact, Mozilla Jr. is an excellent idea.

Re:Do you understand what Jr means?

[Fembot]

Junior implies younger, and less mature, neither of which are good connotations for a webbrowser really

Re:Do you understand what Jr means?

[Peter La Casse]

Firefox *is* younger and less mature. For now. When he reaches adulthood he'll undoubtedly prefer the more snooty "II".

WOW.

[Viduliya]

I am using firefox to post this message.. WOW.. I don't know what they did.. but it seems alot faster than firebird 0.7

Is it too early to say R.I.P to IE?

Re:Help with name change

[adamjaskie]

AHH!! A Phoenix! A Phoenix!! Ahhhh, its a Phoenix!!!

Firebird Firebird Firebird...

sorry...

Nice improvements

[archen]

There have been huge improvements on Mac OSX. I've been using Firebird on my laptop for quite a while, and while it's been a decent browser I've had a few problems with it - bookmarks stop working, browser locks up, etc. Eventually it got to be too much, and I installed a nightly build a week ago. Stability seems to have improved a lot, and it seems to be slightly smoother and possibly faster.

The one biggest improvement I've seen is the UI, which I must say is probably the best I've seen out of any browser I've used (IE, Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, Safari, among many others). It's clean, and simple, yet still aesthetically pleasing. I found it a bit disapointing that the windows version still used the same theme since I was hoping that I could maybe take the Mac theme and use it there too. If you use Fire{bird | fox} on Mac OSX, then this certainly a must have upgrade.

Re:We can just say...

[sepluv]

No..no! Firefox(TM) did not used to be Firebird (at least not directly)!

It is canonically tbfkaMFtwgtbkaM(B)twfkaM(T)FiUAs&ctwfkfafhaFBbotFD BpctwfkaFbPTIttstwfkaP -- the browser formerly known as Mozilla Firebird that was going to be known as Mozilla (Browser) that was formerly known as Mozilla(TM) Firebird in UA strings &c that was formerly known for a few hours as Firebird Browser, because of the FirebirdDB peeps complaining, that was formerly known as Firebird, because Phoenix Technologies Inc. threatened to sue, that was formerly known as Phoenix.

As someone who has loved the browser since 0.1, they can call it DogCrap(TM) for all I care (and I'm sure most other users agree).

Seriously though, I really think the new Firefox name is very clear, strong, easy-to-say, unique and the logo is really cool as well as red pandas being sooo cute. I can also see that it was probably a good idea to get a totally unique short strong brand name before starting the pre-1.0 marketing campaign and definitely before realeasing 1.0.

Torrent for firebird

[mishac]

For those look for a torrent to download the windows version, there is one here

What about SVG?

[Queuetue]

I'd really like native SVG support to start appearing in the builds - last I checked the old code is still in the tree. Are there still political/licensing issues preventing it from being in the default builds?

Re:What about SVG?

[Drathos]

They've been rewriting the SVG backend.

This was marked as fixed on Feb 7, so now they're probably working on getting more of the bugs it blocked fixed. Once they major ones (there's at least 2 that caused crashes) are fixed, it should start showing up in nightly trunk builds.

Re:OS X

[MinutiaeMan]

Yeah, but some Mac users generally refer to it as "Mail dot app" or "Mail-app", because it's good to have a distinction.

"Do you use Mail?" "Yeah, I get mail all the time." "No no, do you use Mail?" "Well, if I get it, then I must use it, right?" "No, I mean do you use Apple's-OS-X-Mail-Application?" "Oh! Well, yeah." -- I've had this type of conversation more than once over the years.

Sometimes I wish Apple had come up with some different name for their client -- after all, they came up with the colorful name "Safari" for their web browser...

Ummm.

[npcole]

I would have thought that calling the browser "Mozilla Firebird" solved any name-clash issues.

The new name makes no sense at all. "Firebird" at least reminded one of "Phoenix", ie: a browser rising from the ashes. But Firefox? What's that? Other than a bunch of potential trademark infringements as another poster has pointed out.

Re:firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

The same people who would confuse a bios with a web browser.

fireBIRD and thunderBIRD

[bstil]

They should definitely keep "Mozilla" in the name, for non-/. general public recognition. And before they changed "Firebird" to "Firefox", they had a nice symmetry with "FireBIRD" and "ThunderBIRD". I vote they change the name back to "Mozilla Firebird" and "Mozilla Thunderbird".

Why bother with the numbers...

[ZipR]

when they change the name with every release?

Super sweet

[CausticWindow]

It's getting better all the time. The only thing I miss from Opera and IE in Firefox is the ability so smoothly scroll while pressing my mousewheel.

Anybody know why they insist on scrolling at least one line at a time?

Re:Super sweet

[CausticWindow]

Yep, that's not what I want. But I want the scrolling to be smooth, so that I can read while scrolling. Scrolling a discrete number of lines makes the scrolling jerky and unreadable. Just compare scrolling in IE and Mozilla.

Re:With the way these guys get into name disputes.

[WWWWolf]

When asked about his favorite browser for the PowerBook he uses aboard Great Fox, Fox McCloud only said "Hi-yah!!!" and jumped a couple of dozen meters on the air with a nice fire effect.

Fox McCloud rules. Mozilla Firebird rules. Therefore, Mozilla Firefox rules absolutely. =) I was already worried that Nintendo was going to take Firebird/Thunderbird/Icebird(?) and do something Pokemon-themed out of them (Moltres/Zapdos/Articuno), but now, they can focus on games that matter more. Thank God Nintendo hasn't trademarked the names of the moves or anything. Now excuse me, I need more coffee. =)

Re:mozilla upgrade path is getting ridiculous

[Queuetue]

Both mozilla and firebird (now firefox) are developer tools. Firefox is actually an early beta of a developer tool.

If you want a stable platform with seamless upgrades and well-tested istallers, you should use the Netscape suite, and expect to be behind in development. Otherwise, expect everything to break every release, because you're on the bleeding edge. The focuses of the two groups are very different.

Re:firefox

[orthogonal]

Yes, but who was going to confuse a database with a web browser?

Google is changing the way we live.

Well, it started earlier than Google. I remember trying to search for pages with AltaVista. AltaVista didn't (at some point in its development) like single letters, like "C", so searching for pages about the "C Programming Language" was difficult. AltaVista used the prefix "+" operator to mean "require this word", so AltaVista was especially annoyed at searches for "C++"

The point is, even though you and I know that a database and a web browser are two different things, Google doesn't. Indeed, because you and "just know" that a Firebird is a browser or a database or a Pontiac, we don't tend to qualify any of them as such: we don't say "Firebird the browser" or "Firebird (database)" or "Pontiac Firebird", because we know that other humans will infer the correct Firebird from nearby words like "site", "select" or "gear shift". But Google won't, and we can't pile every possible nearby word into our queries.

And since we rely more and more on Google to find anything (hell, we even use it to verify spellings when perfectly good dictionaries are just as handy), people with an interest in Firebird the database are legitimately annoyed when an 800 pound gorilla of a browser invades their namespace. They don't want to have to trouble to weed out references to the browser every time they do the search.

Re:mozilla upgrade path is getting ridiculous

[tr0llb4rt0]

I had no problems at all.

Firefox found my existing Firebird 0.7 and imported all favs. address history, etc seemingly perfectly.

Did you install your firebird into a different directory from the default .zip archives directory?

If this is the case then the creators of the firefox installer should include and option to ask you where you unzipped firebird to.

ps Anyone remember the crappy Clint Eastwood film *FireFox*? That's the first thing that sprang to mind when I saw the name!! :-(

How about.. Xine for

[Anonymous Coward]

"Xtreme iKozilla is NOT IE"

More info

[sepluv]

It looks like this name change (mainly to satisfy complaints from the Firebird DB guys) will be the last one.

The name is being filed as a trademark and is apparently pretty unique. I was at first leery of another name change, but this should hopefully sort things out once and for all. Also the new fiery-fox-on-globe logo is really cool and firefoxes (aka red pandas) are just soooo cute.

BTW, the long delay in the new 0.8 release -- which adds a MSWindows installer, a new default theme for MacOS X and improved filetype, XPI and download management and other stuff -- is explained by the time taken to verify that the new name was unique and to file the trademark.

There is more info about the name change in the official FAQ and a lot of unofficial detail on Ben Goodger's blog

Why?

[Mawbid]

I still don't remember reading a good explanation of why Firebird-the-database was any reason not to have a Firebird-the-browser. Browser. Database. Database. Browser. I'm not the least bit confused myself.

Re:Any Mirrors?

[ObNoX]

Thank god for google cache!:

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:_PnqbgP1GpI J: www.mozilla.org/mirrors.html+&hl=en&ie=UTF -8

Re:To mantain browser in memory...

[Jisakiel]

about:config

Find "turbo"

enable it :)

One working mirror:

[s88]

Oregon State FTP

Yet another vote for Monster Island

[frankie]

As I said last time, the correct name for Mozilla Jr/Lite, aka Phoenix, etc, is obvious once you go back to etymological roots: Mozooki !!!

C'mon Gerv, get with the program already

A button campaign! Woohoo!

[WWWWolf]

So now there's a button campaign! Back in the day, we had Netscape Now!, then there was a MSIE Now!, and then there was a loooong silence. Way too long. Way way WAY too long.

Party like it's 1996!

In case you still have that personal homepage thing gathering dust in some corner of the web, or a blog that you think no one reads but several people actually do - DO the button thing! RELIVE the nostalgy! HEAR the whining from standards-brandishing people (who, gritting their teeth, will admit Firefox supports W3C standards well, unlike that other browser)!

I'll try that page as soon as the mozilla site isn't completely slashdotted. I had to make my own stupid "Mozilla Now" button several months ago, glad Mozilla folks have finally done them themselves =)

Mozilla Thunderbird release notes

[MagicFab]

(from http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/releas e-notes.html )

Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5

Release Notes

Mozilla Thunderbird is a redesign of the integrated Mozilla App-Suite mail component. Our goal is to leverage much of the existing functionality of that product to produce a stand-alone mail application that is simple and extensible. The Thunderbird Mail Product page has more information.

Owing to the maturity of the foundational code of the app-suite, Thunderbird is very usable; however, it is considered a Preview Release, and as such is assumed to have defects. To help find the defects, the developers happily receive user feedback (via comments in the Mozilla Thunderbird Support forum kindly hosted by MozillaZine, or via bugs filed in Bugzilla.) Please carefully read these release notes before filing any bugs in Bugzilla.

The focus of this fifth milestone release was on stability and bug fixing. This milestone is based on the recently released Mozilla 1.6 Application suite. Read the Thunderbird Roadmap about the goals of this release. While there is much more work yet to do, the developers are excited about recent progress and are anxious to share their latest efforts with the community. Enjoy!

This document covers the following topics for the Thunderbird 0.5 milestone release:

What's New

Here are the highlights for this Thunderbird release:

* New Features

We now support the notion of multiple identities per mail account. This makes it easy to have several email addresses which end up going into the same account. Read More about how to hook this up.

Thunderbird 0.5 includes Secure Password Authentication using a new cross-platform NTLM authentication mechanism for POP3 and SMTP.

Option to turn on the Mozilla 1.x style folder columns in Thunderbird (Tools / Options / Advanced / General Settings).

A new Palm Sync Address book conduit is now available for 0.5. You can now do a one way sync, PC -> Palm or Palm -> PC, by changing the hot sync conduit setup. We now prevent duplicate cards in Thunderbird address books when syncing with Palm categories. Numerous improvements with the initial sync.

A new, improved version of the offline extension is now available for 0.5. Please read the installation notes in this document about how to first uninstall old extensions.

Improved Spell Checker including a new US dictionary.

Ability to paste names or addresses from a spreadsheet directly into the addressing widget of a new compose window.

Improved profile migration from Netscape 4.x.

* Recently Fixed Bugs

If a new message arrives while you are reading a message, we no longer scroll the message body back to the top.

When saving an IMAP attachment, we no longer re-download the attachment from the server.

Saving an attachment now brings up a standalone progress window.

Copying a message to a Sent Folder now shows progress in the progress window.

When saving or opening an attachment, the progress dialog now reports accurate progress information.

We now mark IMAP messages read in a folder if they are deleted or moved to another folder. This fixes incorrect unread counts when checking folders other than the Inbox for new messages.

LDAP searches now honor the directory search filter property.

Ability to paste a single cell of data from Microsoft Excel into the compose window body.

Problems with IMAP folders three levels deep not showing up when you are not using the IMAP subscription model.

Tools / Options / Attachments / Attachment Folder setting is now remembered.

Linux builds no longer crash when viewing HTML messages requiring a JAVA plugin.

Improved handling of apple double encoded attachments from OSX clients.

No more

Mirrors

[The_Systech]

A few mirrors that aren't (yet) saturated... http://ftp.iasi.roedu.net/mirrors/ftp.mozilla.org/ pub/firefox/ ftp://mozilla.mirror.pacific.net.au/mozilla/firefo x/ ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/mirror /ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox

Firefox technology secret orgins unveiled.

[rafael_es_son]

I bet you didn't know the technologies underlying Firefox (or .8) were initially developed by the soviet military during the early 1980's. "A prototype jet fighter that can be partially controlled by a hyperlink."

Re:firefox

[nolife]

people with an interest in Firebird the database are legitimately annoyed when an 800 pound gorilla of a browser invades their namespace. They don't want to have to trouble to weed out references to the browser every time they do the search.

Too bad..

A person should not EXPECT a search engine to magically know what they are looking for. If you only enter a single word in a search engine, you are going to get a wide range of results. That is not a fault or limit of the search engine but a limit of the person searching. Have you ever looked for a headlight for your car? Would any reasonable person simply grab the first thing they saw and hoped it worked? I assume they would break it down to headlight, low beam, 1995 Ford Mustang. Searching the internet is no different.

so, after...

[neko9]

ten name changes we will just call it Fire!Fire!Fire! eheheheeeheeheheeeeehhhh

Re:I tried Firebird 1.5 on slack...

[AKnightCowboy]

Maybe he's talking about the database, hence the name change due to confusion. :-)

Re:What a shame

[Queuetue]

It's possible that instead of going belly up or losing thier backbone, they were instead trying to be considerate.

Is consideration for others really such a strange concept?

Re:Confused about names

[perdelucena]

Correction. It was a theme bug. When I changed theme to default logo became OK. And the scrollbars are back too...

Updated FTP, HTTP, RSYNC mirror

[David McBride]

We updated our mozilla.org mirror this morning in anticipation of a slashdotting.

http://www.sunsite.org.uk/package/mozilla.

Hmm, I'll have to update our summary...

They ARE registering it as a trademark

[marnanel]

And, they should f'n register a trademark...

They are indeed registering it as a trademark.

They STOLE the name

[mnmn]

I had a go-kart for racing that I named firefox and applied for trademark protection. I thought firefox was unique enough and I believe the courts will stand with me on this one.

So I will have to sue these guys, in case my friends confuse a browser with my kart.

Mozilla Mail / Thunderbird on Windows

[Daath]

Be warned that if you use Mozilla Thunderbird on windows that there is a very serious bug! More on in here...

Some spam/virus mails has mangled invalid headers that Mozilla Mail/Thunderbird chokes on. When receiving mails, it simply stops when it encounters the bad mail, but it doesn't mark the previous mails as received or anything. So next time you check mail, you get every mail again until the bad mail, and so on...

Mandrake packages available

[G�tz]

I've uploaded a package named mozilla-firefox for Mandrake Cooker, if you have Mandrake 9.2, you can get a version from my page:

9.2 packages.

Re:firefox

[Captain Zion]

The point is, even though you and I know that a database and a web browser are two different things, Google doesn't.

Maybe google doesn't know the difference, but Vivissimo does. It clusters the results into categories like Mozilla, Pontiac, Database, and Paragliding, among others.

Explanation

[tepples]

Only three of those folders are the result of name changes. "Chimera" is now Camino(tm). "Phoenix" and "Firebird" are now Firefox(tm). Because I can't seem to connect to Mozilla.org as I write this (congestion?), I had to look in Google's cache for a couple of them: Minimo is apparently something like Firefox optimized for size for handheld devices. "Grendel" is a mail/news user agent for the Java platform, apparently completely unconnected to the Gecko underpinnings.

Changes since Firebird 0.7 (new stuff in 0.8)

[Jack Zombie]

(from Burning Edge)

New features

* Windows installer
* New download manager
* Work Offline
* Add Bookmark dialog: recent-folders dropdown and folder-selection tree (replacing a single dropdown listing all folders)
* DOM Inspector is now included in zip builds
* IDN support
* IPv6 support on Windows 2000/XP/2003

Major improvements

* 220807 - prompt user about invalid text/plain content. (Solves most problems like "Firebird tries to display some .rar files instead of downloading them.")
* 214266 - Find should wrap by default
* 217286 - Cookie whitelist should override session cookie option.
* 142459(?) - Shift+click and middle-click on scroll bar should jump to that location
* 214260 - XPInstall UI improvements
* 33282 - enable external scheme handlers (like aim: and telnet:) in Linux
* 6% faster page loading (comparing December to September on a Tp (pageloader time) graph)

Important bug fixes

* 210910 - Right-clicking a file within a bookmarks folder in the bookmarks menu or toolbar makes that folder inaccessible.
* 203102 - URL typed into address bar lost after switching tabs; "Open in new tab" should prefill URI in address bar.
* 222157 - View Source: Find and Save don't work.
* 213250 - Autoscroll prevents middle clicking on links in XML (XHTML) documents.
* 224416 - Tabs don't remember focused element.
* 216170 - Send Page (as Link) omits query string
* 98564 - caret overlaps the last character in textfield (if positioned after the last char).
* 212366 - Make -moz-opacity apply to descendants as a group, as required by CSS3 opacity
* 219705 - Linux: Blackdown Java crashes, saying "Internal error on browser end".
* 102578 - Linux: Clicking wrongfully fires onmouseout (breaks some dhtml menus, css/edge menus)
* 201209 - GTK2: -moz-opacity makes things invisible.

... and much more!
You can also download a non-installer (.zip) build based on official installer build here and if you look around in the MozillaZine Firefox Builds Forum there's some Windows/Linux Firefox 0.8 builds optimized for AthlonXP/P4/P3/P2/whatever you have.

firefox icon scandal

[tippergore]

Has anybody noticed that the new icon for the file extensions that firefox takes over (like .html, .gif, etc) is basically a gigantic fox humping the earth?

Awesome. I see a slogan somewhere in there.

Re:To mantain browser in memory...

[Anthracks]

This has absolutely no effect in Firefox to my knowledge, I'm pretty sure the -turbo option has been deprecated.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

100mbit Firefox server

[aldoman]

http://www.tekwar.net/FirefoxSetup-0.8.exe

Mozilla.org is down as I write this

[bonch]

I can't access the list of mirrors. However, I just now clicked the torrent, and I'm downloading at 160kb/s!

BitTorrent is a good thing.

don't forget the laserdisc game 'Firefox' by Atari

[Matt Ownby]

Firefox!

The large crowd of laserdisc arcade collectors will surely be confused over a browser named after this famous game :)

Doesn't a FireFox kinda look like a...

[CritterNYC]

Is it just me? Or does a FireFox kinda look like a badger?

Maybe they should have named it Mozilla Badger. They'd have an instant theme song.

Re:Holy Volkswagen!

[CuratorTom]

Obviously none of you have even driven a VW Fox. It's not a sports car by any means but it'll keep up with any similarly priced sub-compact, and blow it away on the turns. Roomier inside, too.

(Best $7200 I ever spent. 14 years and 160,000 miles ago. Spent about $200 on maintenance total last year.)

Now, the Audi Fox, THAT was a crappy car.

Name NOT changed

[The_Systech]

You know the one thing that bothers me about this name change?.. Why is it that two name changes later the profile directory is still created as ~/.phoenix. I mean I can understand the whole "backwards compatability" thing, but AFAIK it's always been recommended to wipe your profile and start over with a new milestone of phoenix/firebird/firefox anyway, and even barring that how hard would be to if ( dir_exists( ~/.firefox ) ) { // Use ~/.firefox } elseif ( dir_exists( ~/.phoenix) ) { // Migrate ~/.phoenix to ~/.firefox } else { // Create a new profile directory in ~/.firefox }

Re:With the way these guys get into name disputes.

[TheTomcat]

NSFW warning!

S

Never underestimate the general public!

[djkitsch]

A person should not EXPECT a search engine to magically know what they are looking for.

You say that, but then again the vast majority of Web users (and I include home users here) think that either AOL or Yahoo! is the Internet.
We might know the difference, but there are enough people who don't to make a difference.

Bleh. Stupid default.

[Snowspinner]

Why the hell did they default Firefox to dump downloads on the desktop, instead of defaulting it to letting you pick a directory?

Other than that, shiny, but wow... what a stupid default.

My review of Mozilla Firefox

[NXprime]

Mozilla Firefox 0.8 Review

Some of the best things I like about Mozilla Firefox 0.8:

1. Two words - Bookmark Management

Wow! I was able to modify/delete/rename/move 450 bookmarks in a few short hours. It was a combination of being able to edit bookmarks off the menu bar easily and opening a whole folder of websites in seconds. It makes Internet Explorer's 'Organize Favorites' look like a sick joke. Actually it is and I consider it one of the very weak things about Internet Explorer (lets call it IE for short). I simply cannot check all 450 bookmarks to see if the website still exists while using IE. With Mozilla Firefox, it only took like a half hour to get that part done. Tabbed browsing works. Big time. I used to use Tabbrowser Extensions to add some additional tweaks but found it hindered things more than helped. I'll mention what those are in my what I dislike about Mozilla Firefox section.

2. It doesn't crash

Oh Mozilla Firefox can still crash if there's bad code written for a web page, make no mistake about that. Still, it's very very rare and it's so much more stable than any Mozilla 1.x Application Suite release. Perhaps its because I have more confidence in Mozilla Firefox than with the Mozilla Application Suite (call it App. Suite for short), due to some previously bad experiences doing real web development with Composer with the 1.5 release. However, this whole crash issue is more of a release-by-release kind of thing. It's my hope that the Mozilla development team continues to focus on making Mozilla Firefox as crash proof as possible. Keep up the good work!

3. Mozilla Firefox loads up fast

It is way faster than the App. Suite due to it not preloading several applications I don't use at all. I have no confidence in using Mozilla Mail, nor do I use an email account with POP access. I've tried Composer and it crashed on a regular basis that it was a totally useless program. I also have no clue on how to use ChatZilla, and I keep my small address book in a text file. So my main focus has always been on how well the Mozilla web browser was. Now with Mozilla Firefox I have a web browser that loads almost as fast as IE and to me it's important that it loads fast because it greatly hindered me from switching over for good.

4. Properly displayed webpages

There's always going to be one minor annoyance per website since it was built with IE in mind, but all in all, Mozilla developer team finally nailed it. It's good enough for most webpages and when I can't view a webpage properly in Mozilla Firefox , I switch over to IE quickly. There's an extension called 'IE View' that adds a right-click menu option that'll open IE for whatever webpage you are currently on at the moment. Very handy feature and its something I use every now and then. Certain webpages that just don't work well include any Microsoft/MSN website, pages like this http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime .php?id=1825 (try to click on the details link in the middle where they rate the anime, note the website seems down at the moment). MBNA payment page won't work anymore.. ect. Little things like this.

5. Options dialogue box

This was one of the things I always thought were desperately needed for a Mozilla web browser. The Application Suite way only shows a directory name (which is sometimes truncated), and you have to double click to see more directories underneath it in order to get to the specific preferences you wanted to change. First of all, you can't at a quick glance get to the section you want right away. There needed to be a visual aid to help guide you to the section you wanted. I always thought the most *ideal* way was a combination of icons and a word or two to describe the general section of preferences. I couldn't believe what I was seeing with the first release of Mozilla Firefox that I tested. Icons plus a short word or two that's not truncated plus I didn't need to do anymo

Re:My review of Mozilla Firefox

[jsebrech]

With regards to your dislikes:

5. Some plug-ins/extensions need to be added to the Mozilla Firefox setup file

Bundled extensions is planned for the next release (0.9), as demonstrated in the firefox roadmap.

7. Download manager clutter

In options, go to "Privacy", then "Download manager history". You can set it to erase download entries on completion, which is the setting I prefer.

8. Exporting bookmarks problems

Actually, replacing & with & is the correct behaviour, since html 4 does not allow & in url's. Firefox stores its bookmarks as html, so I expect that this doesn't happen on export, but on import. If you link to a url containing an ampersand, you need to escape it, always. Yes, it's sort of annoying, but I expect there are good technical reasons (which I'm too lazy to look up). Besides, every browser out there opens url's with & in them correctly. What exactly is the problem?

9. Default sorting of bookmarks.

Strange, it sorts them the way you want it in my install. Don't understand why you're seeing this.

10. Auto-update

It's called smartupdate, and it's planned for firefox 0.9. See the roadmap again.

11. Uninstall plug-ins/extensions

Firefox 0.9. Yeah, I know, they're keeping all the cool stuff for the next version. But believe me, they know.

12. Autoscroll problem.

This is only a problem for you, due to your dependancy on autoscroll. I use a scrollwheel, and disable autoscroll. This is actually a fixed bug. In previous versions middleclicking a link would sometimes activate autoscroll instead of opening the link. Firefox doesn't do that anymore. I believe the current behaviour is the correct behaviour, since it doesn't neuter the middle mouse button's ability to open new webpages.

2. Major issue with the Flash Click to view extension

This is annoying indeed, but it is predictable. Any other implementation would either require micromanagement or trigger flash displaying when you don't want it. And besides, anyone using flash for website navigation is a callous retard and deserves to have their site break in real browsers. (To anyone doubting this: think about what happens when a blind person tries to visit a website that depends on flash for navigation.)

The flash blocking code has been updated by the way, but it hasn't trickled back to the extension. See jesse rudderman's xbl flash binding page.

Re:My review of Mozilla Firefox

[jacobito]

And after you've set browser.xul.error_pages.enabled to "true," you should install the Show Failed URL extension so that the URL for the failed page will show in the address bar.

I really do wish this behavior would become default behavior soon, and I also wish that error page would get a makeover. This seems like a pretty big usability issue to me; I'm not sure why it hasn't received much attention from the developers.

That said, I'm very happy with the 0.8 release!

Re:My review of Mozilla Firefox

[jesser]

This is annoying indeed, but it is predictable. Any other implementation would either require micromanagement or trigger flash displaying when you don't want it.

Not really. I could make it so shift+clicking a placeholder acts like clicking all of the placeholders on the page.

You're actually right

[jeti]

AFAIK it's still planned to name version 1.0 of Firefox "Mozilla Browser". Thunderbird will become "Mozilla Mail".

Re:You're actually right

[niker]

From the Firefox brand name FAQ, concerning their current name:

Will this name be permanent?

We sure hope so. We've learned a lot about choosing names in the past year (more than we would have liked to). We have been very careful in researching the name to ensure that we will not have any problems down the road. We have begun the process of registering our new trademark with the US Patent and Trademark office.

I suppose they changed their minds

Re:You think you've got problems

[davetrainer]

You're proposing a browser that's not even out of beta for corporate use? I wouldn't consider that a particularly good idea

Oh really.

Why You Should Switch to FireFox

"Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS"

Secunia Internet Explorer System Compromise Vulnerabilities. Solution: "Use another product"

The Twenty Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities IE: Number four.

"we are not aware of any vendor-supplied patches for this issue"

Patch for 'critical' IE vulnerability doesn't work

IE full of holes, unsafe: Security experts

AMS Vice President and CTO: Mozilla Firebird is a Tier 1, Best of Breed Open Source Application

I don't care if it's a beta. Firebird/FireFox/Whatever is simply a better product than IE in every conceivable way - with the pertinent exception of branding, but including stability and security. So what exactly makes its use at a corporate level a "bad idea?"

mirrors that have builds

[dbaron]

The following is a full list of the primary and secondary mirrors that have Firefox 0.8 builds. This list will also be maintained and updated.

Apologies for not listing one per line, but slashdot rejects posts with "too few characters per line".

North America: mozilla.isc.org (http) mozilla.isc.org (ftp) trillian.cc.gatech.edu (http) trillian.cc.gatech.edu (ftp) mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu (http) mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu (ftp) mozilla.oregonstate.edu (http) mozilla.oregonstate.edu (ftp) mozilla.gnusoft.net (http)

Europe: sunsite.rediris.es (http) sunsite.rediris.es (ftp) sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch (ftp) ftp.cvut.cz (ftp) www.artfiles.org (http) ftp.rediris.es (ftp) ftp.rediris.es (http) ftp.task.gda.pl (ftp) ftp.task.gda.pl (http) sunsite.icm.edu.pl (ftp) (Windows only) sunsite.icm.edu.pl (http) (Windows only) ftp.mirror.ac.uk (ftp)

Asia/Australia: ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp (ftp) ftp.kaist.ac.kr (http) ftp.kaist.ac.kr (ftp) ftp.nctu.edu.tw (ftp) mozilla.mirror.pacific.net.au (ftp) mozilla.mirror.pacific.net.au (http)