Mozilla 1.7 Beta Is Faster And Smaller

ccady writes "Mozilla 1.7 beta is out. Not too many new features, but "Mozilla 1.7 size and performance have improved dramatically with this release. When compared to Mozilla 1.6, Mozilla 1.7 Beta is 7% faster at startup, is 8% faster at window open time, has 9% faster pageloading times, and is 5% smaller in binary size." I'll be downloading it."

Comments

This is why I dropped Netscape

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I stopped using Netscape: each version was much larger, much slower, and much less reliable.

How can something with the same kernel, and the same ancestry go the other way: Mozilla actually improves as it evolves.

On the one hand, the dodo. On the other hand, the road-runner.

Re:This is why I dropped Netscape

[colinramsay]

I think Mozilla has reached the point where it can't really get much more advanced feature-wise until other issues are addressed - such as size and performance. There is so much crammed into the suite that reorganisation is going to take a while, and I think that influence from Firefox has made some people sit up and take notice.

Yes, it is smaller and better

[ericdano]

Yes, Mozilla is developing quite nicely. It's my browser and email of choice. No more IE for me on my Windows XP system. And, of course, Mozilla runs on other systems as well, such as Mac OS X.

When was the last time IE was updated????

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[lukewarmfusion]

When was the last time Mozilla had a 90%+ market share.

I use Mozilla, Firefox, and Thunderbird too - they're my favorites. But I can't build for Mozilla. I have to build for IE. My clients use IE, the visitors use IE and that makes it the standard (even though it doesn't follow the "standards").

It's an uphill battle, I'm afraid. That said, I'll be downloading this new version ASAP.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[ericdano]

Sad, but true. However, once one tries Mozilla, IE looks old and lame in comparison. I mean, Tabbed browsing is the best. Plus, you don't have VB tied into Mozilla like it is with IE, so, the virus issue is limited somewhat...

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[Anonymous Coward]

But I can't build for Mozilla. I have to build for IE.

Why can't you build for both?

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[walter_kovacs]

It's a never ending circle - designers who don't know anything about web standards and have only ever used IE make sites that only work in IE - people try a new browser like Mozilla, and see that their favourite sites are "broken" in the new browser (when really it's because the sites were built to work around the non-compliant IE) - so they go back to IE... That said I've found Firefox does a pretty good job of rendering most pages well.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[MikeFM]

I code to the standards first and then verify it looks right with both IE and Mozilla (and Opera, and Lynx, and Konquerer). If something doesn't work with both I either remove it, tweak it until it's right, or use something like XSLT to generate the proper HTML for the given browser. It's more effort but it generally results in better code all around. If it's just CSS that is the problem I just have the site choose the desired stylesheet based on the browser used or let the user choose their own stylesheet from a list.

IE's CSS support has gotten better in recent releases but it's still not on par with Mozilla's support. For most things though it seems good enough to just use standard HTML/CSS without any IEisms. IE still isn't very PNG friendly though which is an ongoing annoyance for me.

Overall though it's not really a problem to just code to the standard. Coding to IE is problematic because it's a standard that changes with each release.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, W3C sets the standard and their browser is the standard. You do not have to use superstandard methods like activeX to make a working webpage, so don't.
IE is not a standard, and won't be unless Microsoft buys it's way into being a standards organization.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[phliar]

But I can't build for Mozilla. I have to build for IE.

Here's a revolutionary thought: build for standards, so everyone can see your pages.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[ljavelin]

But I can't build for Mozilla. I have to build for IE. My clients use IE, the visitors use IE and that makes it the standard (even though it doesn't follow the "standards").

Ya know, I find that a funny statement.

I manage a software development group, and we have to build for IE too. But we also have to make sure our software works with Mozilla. And for Opera, and Mac, and everything else. We support all "modern" browsers (basicly, verions >=5)

You see, we can't really dictate a browser, and we're not interested in getting locked into one vendor product. We want to remain flexible for the future, and we want to remain reliable when a new browser hits the market.

So we support all browsers.

Happily, this is a very minor expense. In fact, as project manager, I can say with confidence that it costs us well under 1/1000th of our development budget. The only difficulty is to get contractors and new employees to use web standards.

In the end, our maintenance costs are lower, and our user satisfaction is sky high. We never ever get complaints about browser compatibility.... not even once in over 4 years of high-volume operation.

Oh yeah, and our apps look and work damned good too.

So what's the deal? What is wrong with organizations that can't support regular browsers without undo expense and difficulty???

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[lukewarmfusion]

No, they don't agree. I enjoy a good looking site. Not only do such sites (as you describe) usually look boring, but they tend to lack rich functionality. I want a site that is usable, rich in content, functionality and looks good. You can do that and still support other browsers, but if it's a choice between supporting some random browser or having a great site - then screw the random browser.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[colinramsay]

That's fine. But I bet it looks like ass. The web - not the Internet as a while - the web - is a visual medium. Sites like www.mezzoblue.com or those featured at www.webstandardsawards.com are accessible and stylish. You can still view them if you want to disable images, CSS and JS, but for those of us in the modern, broadband enabled age, we can have an interesting visual experience and still be entertained by good content.

You're letting your visitors down by not making the effort.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[Curtman]

I made the mistake of installing the ActiveX plugin with mozilla at a friends place once. What a great plugin, you can make Mozilla just as susceptible to popups and adware as IE. Sheesh.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[Anonymous Coward]

The pop-ups BS has nothing to do with ActiveX. By default, IE asks you if you want to download and install an ActiveX plug-in and show you who digitally signed it. It will never install an ActiveX behind your back. The pop-ups are the result of standards-compliant ECMA script code (JavaScript or JScript in IE jargon).

ActiveX can be very useful in IE-based Intranets and in the right hands, such as dowloading a plug-in from a trusted site to scan your computer for viruses, or using the Windows Update service to patch your computer with the latest OI updates.

I've been using IE for six years and I've never had any spyware, spoofware, adware, worms, viruses, etc. These are all the results of ignorant users given too much power by IE. All of these malicious programs are installed by your own action, like willingly opening up an executable attachement, pressing "Yes" to a Gator ActiveX prompt, or opting in to file download services like Kazaa.

People are responsible for their choices. If you're clueless, no program on Earth will protect you.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[hey!]

I have to say I agree.

But I also understand where MikeFM is comfing from.

The problem is everybody is laboring under the delusion that they're a fricken designer because they can recognize a nice site when they see one. Sometimes its the designer and sometimes its the client and often its both.

There's a huge gulf between being able to see that a site is good and bad and being able to produce a good site oneself. Unfortunately, once a non-pro gets his ego invested in something, he can't be objective anymore. A real pro can walk away from something he thought was great because, (a) he's there to accomplish somethign for the customer, no t just feeding his ego, (b) he knows there's plenty more where that came from and (c) he'll have a chance to try his brilliant design on the next customer.

MikeFM goes to far. There's a big differnce between realizing that most designs suck and thinking design itself sucks. Since I am not a graphic artist, when I have to design a web interface I follow three rules: (1) keep it simple (2)steal from clean designs I admire to the greatest degree compatible with [1] (3) Put as muc of the design into CSS as I can, consistent with my understandign of CSS. It pretty much guarantees acceptable mediocrity, which is pretty good for a non artist.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[SlimFastForYou]

Mozilla 1.6 renered that site like crap.

Strangely, Konqueror 3.2.0 rendered the site perfectly. And I thought they supposedly used the same rendering engine.

Ah well

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[cbiltcliffe]

Moz is the one that ends up looking lame when banking sites stop working, personal pages no longer render and etc.

If a bank site doesn't work properly in anything other than IE, I usually send them an email linking to articles about serious security holes in IE, usually including the SSL certificate one, and tell them they should tune their site to run in all browsers, as some of us are too knowledgeable to want to use something as crappy as IE for online banking.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[antic]

Oh, so tough you are writing them a "nastygram" from afar!

Chances are that they didn't develop their site, and contracted developers did it for them. You'd be better off sending your nastygrams to their web contacts, or emailing the sporting company *politely*, outlining the situation, and have them either find new developers, or talk to those they're already using.

It's nicer and you'll probably get the result you were after (or a voucher!). ;)

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[0x0d0a]

The problem is that the "in theory Flash could be useful" argument is used to justify a huge range of websites that, frankly, are a pain in the ass to use, load slowly, are uncomfortable for users of older computers, and exclude the disabled and users of alternate browsers or people that disable plugins for security reasons.

In my entire life, I have seen *one* website that used Flash in what I could consider a significantly beneficial manner, and I have seen many, many websites in my life. The website was for an MP3 player, and one could try out the interface in an embedded Flash object. The rest of the site did not use Flash. There was no equally effective way to reproduce this functionality without Flash, the functionality was clearly important to the product (the product was partly being sold based on having a good interface), and a user without Flash still had the ability to work with the rest of the website.

On the whole, I have seen so little effective use of Flash, and taking into consideration the significant drawbacks of it, that if someone asked me whether to use Flash on their site, I would feel comfortable simply saying "no". The odds of it being a good idea are so phenomenally low that it's just not worth trying.

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[Curtman]

The Microsoft mantra:

Once <insert upcoming release here> comes out, malware will be a thing of the past!

Funny how it never gets any better though. Wasn't that the big promise about XP to begin with?

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[RaymondRuptime]

Well, you kind of had me agreeing, up until that last line. See, that's the just the parochial viewpoint that makes many members of the general public loathe us geekfolk. When much of the world is still on NS 4 and IE 4 and still (yes, heaven help us) on Win9x, saying 'screw them' just reinforces their stereotypical view of us, and engenders little good will. And telling customers they have to buy a new computer to use your web site seems like a bad business plan.

[Rant on] I, for one, am sick of websites that vomit whenever I go there from my Linux or Solaris box because some lazy-ass coder felt that not enough people use those as their primary box to make it worth his lazy while to do his job. Some of them, especially the ones done by the MS/IE chauvinists, I just refuse to patronize--even when I'm on my Win box. [Rant off]

Some people are still stuck on old equipment for a wide variety of reasons. Some don't have a choice because they're not the IT manager. Some still actually use 33K modems to connect. Some are blind, and use adaptive equipment that is only rated for a given platform. All taken together, all these minorities (who don't deserve to be discriminated against) amount to a very large proportion of the would-be users of many sites. How about we all cut them some slack?

Re:Yes, it is smaller and better

[stor]

You can develop for both.. my point is that sometimes you come down to a choice between having something (IE only) or not (everything else). In those cases, I do what I can to make sure that the "everything else" will work and display. Then, the IE version (usually Windows only) gets the full functionality. It's not right - but it's reality.

No it's not: it's pathetic.

If you can't cope with targetting a wide range of browsers you should rethink whether your capable to play in this game. Sometimes the client does not have a choice of browser or platform. What do you tell these people? "Sorry but you must use Browser X with this site" ?

Even different versions of IE have different quirks and that's harder to test because you can't install any version of IE alongside IE6. So to test this you need multiple OS installations. It sucks. That's life. That's why you get paid.

I work for a webdev company, 95% Linux-based. We find that practically all of our stuff renders in Gecko flawlessly, but IE screws it up due to not complying with standards. We employ various techniques including vbscript hacks and "catering to the lowest common denominator for a specific thing", etc. It's annoying yes but that's our job.

Cheers
Stor

Re:Who fucking cares

[MikeCapone]

Mozilla has a small marketshare, practically no one uses it, and finally Long Live IE!

True.

Intelligence also has a small marketshare...

noticeable?

[davids-world.com]

I seriously doubt that a performance improvement 10% is even noticeable to the user. It's great that Mozilla is trying to catch up with fast browse-only alternatives like Safari, Konqueror and also the Gecko-based browsers, but you can't seriously speak of 'dramatic' improvements.

Re:noticeable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. A performace improvement of 10% is probably totally unnoticable to the user. The real point that the article fails to make is that Mozilla has been getting *consistently* smaller and faster since the 1.0 release. Subjectivley, it's pretty obvious if you use an older release that it's slower. But if that isn't good enough, there are graphs on tinderbox which show the measured codesize, pageload time, new window time and various other metrics (no link, because it would be irresponsible of me to launch an accidental ddos attack on tinderbox) - if you're interested the address is pretty easy to guess/find. Looking at the btek pageload time, I see that in June 2002 pageload was around 1210ms, now it's around 860ms and still decreasing. That's an improvment of around 30%, without cutting any features or degrading the standards support. That means that Mozilla is now competative with so called "lightweight" browsers such as Opera (I don't have comparisons avaliable because such things are hard to do).

Re:noticeable?

[juhaz]

I seriously doubt that a performance improvement 10% is even noticeable to the user.

Maybe it isn't. But if few releases in a row could each make 10% improvements, the cumulative 50% improvement damn certainly is noticeable.

Thanks Moz Team.

[pararox]

I'm really impressed, and very much appreciative, of the amount of effort the Mozilla team has put forth over the years. I switched to Mozilla some 4 or 5 years ago, and haven't looked back since. The rapidity of development is truly astounding -- thanks girls and guys!

That having been said, I've been dissapointed with the latest iteration of the Mozilla browser. I've found 1.6 to be rather slow (autocomplete lags, for example), bug prone and (if I'm correct) java support is still on the fritz.

I'm liable to switch over to FireFox (or whatever it's called this week), except the Preference Toolbar (on which I'm hooked like a crack addiction) still does not function in this stripped down version of the Moz browser.

Anyway, I look forward to this newest version; really, I just wanted to express, in this post, my thanks for the effort put forth by the whole Moz team.

Regards,

=pararox=

Re:Mozilla 1.6

[Anonymous Coward]

could you please stop spamming /. with your polls?

Mozilla is good...

[Lakedemon]

I just love it and tab-browsing but there is still room for improvement:
A resume feature in the download manager would be a nice start...

5% faster than 1.6, but..

[edxwelch]

How much faster in comparision to other releases? What I want to know is if Mozilla is progressively getting faster, or is this just to compensate for performance regressions when they went from 1.4 - 1.5, etc.

5% 8% 9%??

[greppling]

Oh my god. An old rule of thumb is that the user experience is noticeably better if the performance doubles. That may be an overstatement, but how on earth should 7% faster startup make a difference for daily work?

Of course, it's nice to see they are going in the right direction, but I suppose it will take me a while until I have made up for the time following the link and downloading it (not to speak of the time it cost to post this comment :P) by the increased productivity...

Re:Dramatically faster??

[B.D.Mills]

This is obviously some new use of the word "dramatically" that I am not familiar with.

When compared to Mozilla 1.6, Mozilla 1.7 Beta is 7% faster at startup, is 8% faster at window open time, has 9% faster pageloading times, and is 5% smaller in binary size.

It might be just you and me, but single-digit percentage increases in performance isn't "dramatic". It's more like "scarcely noticeable".

improvement is good, but NOT dramatic

[dh003i]

No-one is going to notice a 10% improvement. It is a non-factor. You need to double performance to make a noticeable difference. Granted, if they keep on improving by 10% each release, it will eventually be really good, but don't call a 10% improvement "dramatic" (or whatever the original author called it).

Personally, I like Galeon and Firefox. I just need a web-browser.

Re:improvement is good, but NOT dramatic

[saynte]

I don't think it's fair to say that a 10% improvement isn't significant. For a reasonably mature project such as mozilla to be able to still get 10% more performance is pretty damn good, and either a sign of poor programming to begin with, or very good programming now. Basically, just because the improvement isn't noticeable perceptable while you use it doesn't mean it's not significant.

Re:Dramatically faster??

[robbyjo]

but single-digit percentage increases in performance isn't "dramatic". It's more like "scarcely noticeable".

In that case, maybe... But if you follow some compiler conference papers, single digit percentage of improvement *is* a dramatic improvement.

More than that single digit, we need to either change the underlying algorithm, or do a more dramatic overhaul, or correct a resource hogging mistakes. Well, we all know that Mozilla coders aren't that sloppy, so I guess that single digit improvements are really good because they usually involve quite a lot of cutting corners squeezing out more improvements over the already tight code.

Re:Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

And Firefox is many percentage points faster than Mozilla. Many many many.

Sorry, but that's bullshit. It starts up a bit faster, but that's it.

And renders better.

Bullshit again. They both use the same frickin' rendering engine and RENDER JUST THE SAME.

And has a cooler download manager.

I'll grant you this one.

Oh, did I mention it's faster?

Did I mention you talk a lot of shit?

5% to 9% is "dramatic"?

[shodson]

OK, I'm glad there's a new Mozilla release, and I'm glad it's a little faster, but calling the 5% - 9% increases "dramatic" is a little much, don't ya think?

"dramatic"

[sacrilicious]

"Mozilla 1.7 size and performance have improved dramatically with this release. When compared to Mozilla 1.6, Mozilla 1.7 Beta is 7% faster at startup, is 8% faster at window open time, has 9% faster pageloading times, and is 5% smaller in binary size."

It would seem that the definition of "dramatic" just got marginalized. Personally I'd think of a 2x performance increase as dramatic. 1.1x is what I'd term "laudable".

Firefox

[miketang16]

I assume these speed changes will be transferred over to Firefox as well, since it uses the Mozilla code base. That will likely make Firefox amazingly fast, since it's already faster than the stock Mozilla.

Re:Firefox

[foonf]

Every time I use a different web browser, whether its Mozilla/Seamonkey, Firefox, Opera, or even IE on Windows, I'm sure it feels faster than whatever I was using before. It doesn't matter what it is or how slow it is (unless it is really, really slow, like old Mozilla versions -- but even with them, I had myself convinced that some versons were dramatically improved from the last one, when they really weren't).

This was bothering me the last time I was playing around with Firefox. There is no reason for there to be any difference in rendering performance at all between any Gecko browsers using the same version of the rendering engine. A different user interface will not change that.

I decided to test this for certain. I got Seamonkey, Firefox, Galeon, and Epiphany, all running of of the same Mozilla version (okay, Firefox was actually a somewhat newer trunk snapshot, and had some optimizations, so if anything it should have been faster). I opened them at the same time, and in sequence, went to the same sites and watched them render. I loaded sites repeatedly from cache, and tried other sites I knew weren't cached. There was no difference at all. Every time I thought I noticed a difference, I went back to the other browser and loaded the same thing. It took the same amount of time.

I didn't see a "many percentage point" difference. All of the percentage points of difference were within the margin of error of my ability to distinguish differences in time, and while that could be a problem, all of the things I checked took long enough on my computer that if there were a significant proportional difference between browsers, it would manifest itself as a subjectively perceptible slowdown.

As for rendering, if you see any rendering quality differences between gecko browsers you need to check your font/screen dpi settings, because they ought to be exactly alike.

Firefox might be a nice browser, and it has its merits in terms of UI feel and features, but it won't succeed by being faster than Mozilla/Seamonkey, because it isn't.

Why Thunderbird at all?

[mbourgon]

Okay - Firefox I understand. Lots of people just need a browser at work, for instance. But to be honest, if I need an email program I probably need a browser. What's the advantage of a standalone email client?

Faster?

[crashnbur]

In only a matter of seconds, I'm not going to notice less than a 10% improvement on an application's speed. With something like Photoshop, maybe that would matter.

Of course, I'll download it anyway, because I always update my browsers upon full (non-beta) releases. Just waiting on the full 1.7 release...

From whence the numbers?

[beforewisdom]

I followed the link to the article.

I couldn't find anything about what those percents mean.......ie how many seconds faster on what kind of hardware.

Its a step in the right direction though

Re:Who fucking cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla today is a different beast from the early days: The most stable (modern) browser I've used (links is the most stable ever) Best standards support Getting faster by every release Getting less resource hungry by every release The most extendable browser around.

The browser in it's present form seems to be a mature technology, and the improvements you mention increasingly marginalized, a smaller footprint is interesting technically, but rendering a page miliseconds faster than the competition won't set anyone's heart to pounding.

who closes Mozilla?

[victorvodka]

Wait - what sort of person quits Mozilla after firing it up? I usually have at least five Mozilla windows open. The only time I have no Mozilla window open is immediately after a reboot. I suspect that for most users, Mozilla's absolute paging behavior (what happens when you quit it entirely) is a non-issue except how it handles the creation and destruction of additional windows beyond a certain low number.

Re:Mozilla 1.6

[gabec]

As much as I hate to point out the obvious, it has nothing to do with "geekiness" that an arbitrary BS browser poll in the comments of a *mozilla* thread has *mozilla* winning.

Doesn't it stand to reason that Mozilla users are the ones that will be the most interested in reading the thread? Right-o...

Re:Building for Both - Lacks features

[0x0d0a]

Every time I've run into a web page designer that tried to make his page "feature rich", I've been disappointed with the actual usability of the page.

I don't *want* rollover menus, thank you very much.

That's because KDE = Windows

[bonch]

...and everyone knows it. :) KDE is obsessed with becoming Windows. They even integrated the HTML browser and file browser--there is *absolutely no point* in doing that, and now I have to wait through seconds of lag time to open simple folders.

All the volunteer effort in the world and what do we do? We make another UNIX. Then we make another Windows on top of it!

"stylish" != "good"

[0x0d0a]

I disagree. I've yet to find one person who raves about how "stylish" and "good-looking" a web site is an then points to a website that isn't a pain in the ass to use.

Let's take a look at your mezzoblue.com example:

* Uses inconsistent highlighting -- background rollovers (ugh) on part of the text like the "also available" websites, underline rollovers on other parts like the "Designing with Web Standards" link.

* It uses images for text in its heading. At the moment, I am sitting back fram my computer and leaning on a recliner. My face is about 1.5 to 2 times my normal viewing distance, and I use 1152x864 on a 17" monitor, which is already a high resolution. Normally, I just bump up the text size and have no problem reading a website (as do disabled people). This website's topic entries are unreadable to me, and I had to lean forward plop my face right next to the screen to read the "also available" heading. Heck, that's damned small text even for a lot of glasses-wearing older folks that I know of, with no way to work around it.

* The site uses rollover menus. I don't think I know *anyone* that likes using rollover menus -- I *really* hate it. It doesn't even use your typical old annoying rollover menu -- this has an image background or something. It took ten seconds or so for the image to load, so I had floating white text on a light blue background for a bit. It was pretty unusable.

* Widget functionality is unclear to a viewer. Once again, the analysis I've heard of rollovers holds true -- they're used by designers that have such an unintuitive design that they require the user to wave the mouse around over the interface to figure out how it works. There are rollover menus in the upper top corner. There's no visual indication that these little dinky images are, in fact, rollover menus. It wasn't until I started scanning the page with my mouse cursor that I figured it out.

* Confusingly chosen and similar visual indicators. The mezzoblue.com site uses a diagonally-upward-aiming triangle to indicate a menu (*most* of the time). For starters, this indicator is inconsistent with the common desktop use of a downward-aiming triangle to indicate a popup menu. It is also almost identical to the diagonally-downward-aiming triangle that is used to indicate a section header *on the same site*. Not only that, diagonal triangles most common use in current HCI is for a half-open expandable section of data, a convention from Mac OS. The sections look like they *might* roll up when clicked, but do not in fact do so.

* Dissimilar widgets are visually identical. If this designer *had* to make rollover menus and grokked HCI (a dubious pair of bedfellows to begin with), he'd know that one does not make widgets that operate differently but appear identical to the user. Up at the top, we have three blocks of text that appear the same (upward-diagonal triangle, text). The first two ("about", "weblog") are rollover menus. The third, "contact", is a link. When I started rolling my cursor over them, I sat and waited on this link, assuming that my browser was just slow to pop up the associated menu.

* Text colors poorly chosen for readability. Much of the text/background combinations involve two very similar shades of blue. Most of this is readable to me at my current viewing distance if I increase the size, but I know many people that would *not* be able to comfortably read such text.

Honestly, mezzoblue.com seems an excellent example of why sites should *not* be "stylish" -- when designers use "stylish" as an excuse, they're frequently making websites that are simply poorly built from an interface point of view.

Finally, as I've argued before, a lot of people making "stylish" websites with "extra zazz" are people that are familiar with the conventional way products are sold. Most products need to appear flashy, interesting, and novel just long enough for a person to impulsively choose to buy them. For conventional products, "flash" h

Resume.

[zonix]

A resume feature in the download manager would be a nice start...

If you double-click on each download in the Download Manager, you'll get access to pause/resume features. That feature has been there for while. Of course, in the Firefox Download Manager these features are shown up front.

z

Re:Mozilla 1.6

[ChunderDownunder]

Perhaps it's just that most hits are from work where IE is the corporate policy.