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A Look at the Newly Released Mozilla Firefox 0.9

Posted by simoniker on from the detonate-the-samantha dept.

SilentBob4 writes "Mad Penguin is one of the first to review the latest Mozilla Firefox release, numbered 0.9. According to the reviewer, there's a lot to be thankful for, as this release is far more stable than its earlier versions and sports some new features along with a new interface. My new all-time-favorite line: 'Look out Internet Explorer... your days have been numbered for some time now, but Firefox 1.0 will surely leave you shaking on your already shaky foundations and standing in a small warm puddle'. Nicely put."

49 of 799 comments (clear)

  1. Great browser, but... by SIGALRM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'Look out Internet Explorer... your days have been numbered for some time now, but Firefox 1.0 will surely leave you shaking on your already shaky foundations and standing in a small warm puddle'

    Unfortunately, the most feature-rich products do not always get to be standard-setters. <thinking>countless examples</thinking> It often takes loads of marketing hype and product leverage to leap over the competition, something that Firefox doesn't have in spades.

    I love Firefox. The best it can do--at least IMO--is raise the bar for commercial browsers. I do hope I'm wrong on this point, however.

    --
    Sigs cause cancer.
    1. Re:Great browser, but... by hackstraw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It often takes loads of marketing hype and product leverage to leap over the competition, something that Firefox doesn't have in spades.

      Or including the browser with the OS. Hell, even I know better than most users, and I use Safari on my mac because a) it came with it b) has the best OS integration and c) it pretty much works.

      Camino is a close second, it might be better with future releases. I'm not sure if I have the newest Firefox on my mac, but the one I have doesn't even create a window. Mozilla isn't that pretty on osx either.

    2. Re:Great browser, but... by jamonterrell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you fucking kidding me? Pick any web developer and ask them whether they have more problems making websites work with IE or making them work with Mozilla. They'll ALL tell you that IE is a pain in the ass and doesn't comply to standards. I, personally have given up on making my own webpages work with IE, it's not worth the effort...

      --
      I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
    3. Re:Great browser, but... by Pieroxy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have three things to say:
      1. I installed Firsfox 0.9RC on three computers. None of the install went smooth. One crashed at the end leaving me with no browser. One crashes unsexpectedly every so often, the last one crashes every time I try to select some text.
      Of course, I reported all of these. I'm just not sure it is ready for "Prime Time" yet. And I'm posting that with IE ;-(
      2. Slashdot and numerous other websites looks quite bad 10% of the time and refresh fixes it. This is here since Mozilla 1.2. Again, for an "IE Killer" it is a little worrysome.
      3. In agreement with the parent, I'd say that if you guys think that having a technically better product is sufficient to kill IE, then you didn't learn anything from the history of software. Almost never has the technically superior product won a battle. In fact, even during the v3 browsers (NS3 vs IE3), IE was gaining ground, even though it was being a much worse browser.

      Anyways, I don't think the days of IE are counted yet. Although I am glad to have a better browser.

      --
      Write boring code, not shiny code!
    4. Re:Great browser, but... by Guru1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Perhaps when you're making your own personal webpages, you can feel free to ignore IE, but if you're working for a corporation, you don't have a choice.

      My company works in the financial industry, and has the normal people you would expect visiting their websites. Bankers, high level management, marketing, etc. Over 90% of our browsers are IE. The only browser we are forced to support on every single page is IE. Once in awhile we can let slip a feature that will display oddly in Mozilla or Safari, but IE we're forced to have 100% compliance with. We therefore all have many versions of IE installed on our machines and do our day to day development using IE. While I wouldn't mind having another browser compete with IE once again, I don't see Mozilla or any other browser competing any time soon for the standard population.

      Technies maybe, but Bankers? No chance.

    5. Re:Great browser, but... by B'Trey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's certainly true that Firefox is more standards complaint. Unfortunately, it's also irrelevant, since way too many web authors don't care about standards.

      There are many, many web pages that are authored in Front Page, run on IIS and look great on IE and like crap on everything else. Giving up and refusing to run alternate browsers in order to reduce headaches is in many ways a cop out. It makes the problem worse, since no one is slamming the webmasters for non-working pages. But it's easier, and when it comes to standing on principles or putting bread on the table, principles all too often take a back seat.

      --

      "The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.

    6. Re:Great browser, but... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1. and 2.

      You must have something seriously weird on your systems. I've been using Mozilla and/or Firefox for over a year now on several machines on XP and 2000, and while I have an occasional problem with Firefox (fewer problems than with IE, though), I never had any installation go bad.

      3. You're absolutely right here. The thing about IE though, is that it's got nowhere to go but down. MS has no plans to do anything more with IE beyond the fixes in XP SP 2, while the Mozilla projects just keep getting better and better. Of course, Microsoft just has to flex some of their monopoly power to put a hurtin' on any competitor, but in this case Mozilla has everything to gain and MS has everything to lose.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    7. Re:Great browser, but... by mr3038 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Pick any web developer and ask them whether they have more problems making websites work with IE or making them work with Mozilla.

      Any web developer won't do. To get results like that, the web developer you ask about it, should have some clue. Most of the "web developers" and especially "web designers" I've met use software from Macromedia/Microsoft/Adobe and don't have a clue how web pages are supposed to work. They just author the web pages just like they would author a fixed sized paper. They consider the fact that MSIE doesn't allow changing the size of the fonts that use "px" size to be a feature, not a bug.

      Remember that somebody being a "professional" doesn't mean that he knows how to do the thing, it just means that he does something related to the thing for living...

      --
      _________________________
      Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
    8. Re:Great browser, but... by Corbets · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No offense, but if you want people to take you seriously, you need to present your argument clearly, and preferably with relatively few cusswords.

      That aside, SIGALARM was right. IE is, in essence, its own standard. What matter if 6.0 supports different features (or the same features differently) than 5.5? Guess you'd better upgrade your browser by purchasing a new computer and getting the latest MS OS.

      I'm sorry, but MS really does dictate the market standards at this point. Trust me, I work for a fortune 100 company, and I can tell you that our websites are designed around IE. Our internal sites contain code to prevent viewing in any other browser in an attempt to minimize incompatibility. Nobody (at least, I think nobody) is arguing that IE is pretty horrible browser implementation; however, it's also the standard to which one must comply. Such is life.

      (Yes, I run FireFox .8)

    9. Re:Great browser, but... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful
      It's like this. "We've detected you're not using a standards-compliant browser. While some features of this website will be available, we suggest you upgrade to one of the following browsers: .

      But, as this week's Slashdot saying goes, there's the rub: people don't want to be told they're wrong, and web sites that patronise their audience get their window closed. Any commercial organisation's web site is likely to be focused primarily on one thing, and one thing only: sales. Achieving those sales is incompatible with trying to "educate" their users, and very unlikely to achieve a better return in terms of boosting sales from the five vistors a week who use non-IE browsers. Ergo, as much as we all hate it, their management has entirely the right mentality.

      If you were going to do that, I'd suggest going back to the old-fashioned "Designed for..." logos at the bottom of the page, since at least a few people might remember them. Then again, those people are probably using non-IE browsers already anyway, and everyone else will probably go "What's Mozilla?" Sad as it is, you're never going to win this one by out-PRing Microsoft.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    10. Re:Great browser, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The fact is, all the IE moaning is a BIG MYTH.

      Well, consider this.
      I buy a lot of things on the web.
      If I go to your website which requires the
      non-standards-compliant IE browser, I don't
      change browsers, I just google up one of your competitors who knows how to write a page that works on Firefox, Mozilla, or whatever good browser I am using.

      And that's not a myth.

    11. Re:Great browser, but... by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Insightful
      IE's second biggest quirk is it's (semi) lack of PNG alpha. Yet, why exactly do you need to be using 32-bit images on your page? It's quite easy (and beneficial for download speeds) to get by with 8-bit images. JPEG does better for photographs, anyway.

      I mostly agree with you - I've developed, or caused to be developed, lots of web pages. They work fine in Opera, IE and Firefox/mozilla.

      PNG, however, supports 8-bit transparency on 8-bit images (technically resulting in a 16-bit image file, of course.) Not just for 24-bit images.

      The advantage is huge - you can lay an image with all manner of nice features (shadows, antialiased edges, feathered cameos, just as a few for-instances) over any backdrop. As a result, there are lots of graphics instances where PNG is a much better choice (feature-wise) than GIF, likewise better than JPEG. For some things - like antialiased edges on typical objects - the nature of the transparency information results in very high compression, and there is almost no transfer overhead for the extra 8-bit plane. Transparency doesn't cost like byteplane data does, at least, not typically.

      However, IE is the big dog. Until/unless PNG works correctly right out of the gate with IE, the typical business sites you see it on will be *nix business sites.

      Case in point: I am a big Linux fan, and I also head a company that makes a product for Windows on the order of Photoshop. We've got a huge number of web pages; there are absolutely no PNGs on them (despite the fact that our software broadly supports PNG, and can even create MNG animations.) Why would I allow our web folk to put an image format on a page that will make the page look bad??? We're trying to sell a graphics product!

      I won't allow the use of anything but JPG, GIF, HTML, CGI form elements, and server-side scripting (previously perl, now python) on a web page. Solves all manner of problems. No Flash, no PDF, no JAVA, no Director, no ACTIVEX, no CSS - no nothing but the basics. And you know what? It hasn't interfered in the least with our ability to get what we want on a web page. Almost every browser on the planet can read our pages, and no one ever has to go rooting around for a plug-in or otherwise have their browsing experience interrupted.

      For PNG, I would extend the allowed image set to include it if IE supported it. Because there are advantages to be had there for us as page designers that cannot be easily achieved otherwise.

      PNG's greatest misfeature is that it does not support animation. For that, we have the latecoming, and much more narrowly supported, MNG. That'd be awesome to have too, but if MS can't even support PNG in IE, I don't have much hope for MNG.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    12. Re:Great browser, but... by Max+Threshold · · Score: 2, Insightful
      It's certainly true that Firefox is more standards complaint. Unfortunately, it's also irrelevant, since way too many web authors don't care about standards.

      Irrelevant nothing. It's not that Web designers don't care, it's that they have to accomodate the majority who are still stuck in IE hell. But at the same time Web authors are getting fed up, Firefox is growing in popularity, not just for its standards compliance but for its relative security. Even dumb users and PHBs are starting to catch on to how bad IE really is. At some point in the near future, market penetration of Firefox and Mozilla and the rest will reach some critical mass, and IE will be trampled and left in the dust. Good riddance!

    13. Re:Great browser, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      The fact is, all the IE moaning is a BIG MYTH.

      Sure, IE has some quirks (did you know that you can turn most of these off using the proper DOCTYPE?). But it's not a "pain in the ass" to develop for.

      The biggest quirk is that IE (when not in standards-compliant mode - see above) calculates "size" differently than other browsers (and the standard).

      You so absolutely do not have a clue what you're talking about.

      Box-sizing differences are easy; it's well known, well defined, and very easy to take into account in advance.
      No, the real problems with IE are that every single new largescale design runs into more and more really obscure problems, all interacting with each other. If you clear: left and don't want to run into the IE bug where that effects too much, in various situations you need to prevent that by (for example) setting height: 1%. Fairly straightforward still, and one of the common hacks. However, if this is happening in a document where you have _any_ relatively positioned and or z-indexed content, plus some other factor which I haven't yet been able to narrow down (lack of time), then suddenly completely unrelated content disappears and/or becomes unclickable.
      If line-boxes touch a floated element, they get a 3 pixel "jog". The workaround for this involves setting a width or height - but hey, that leads to problems with the previous fix and/or the box-sizing which wasn't much trouble before.

      And this is but a very minor and limited view of the problems I'm running into daily. And don't even get me started on weird interactions with DOM manipulation, selectors which _should_ work even in IE, but refuse to be utilizable for changing some css properties (but not others), etc, etc.

      How about absolutely positioned content utilizing percentages not being reflowed upon resize? Yes, we've reached the stage where we're writing onresize scripts again - I so was thinking we'd reached the end of _that_ with the demise of N4.x

      It's called The IE Factor, and any competent web designer will need to calculate in days of frustration for any larger than average project.

    14. Re:Great browser, but... by aonaran · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's what I get all too often browsing Bank websites. Banks are the worst for insisting you use whatever their webdeveloper's favorite version of IE is.

      My bank (CIBC) recently (in the last 8 months or so...) overhauled their site. and now says:
      "Important: CIBC Online Banking supports the following browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x or better, Netscape Navigator 6.x or better and Safari 1.0. If your browser doesn't meet the above-mentioned requirements, please select the "Browser security and cookie information" link below to find out the benefits of upgrading your browser."

      Before it said something akin to "IE4.0 or Netscape 4.0 or better", but if you tried to use IE6, Netscape6, or Mozilla (any version) you were directed to the "you must upgrade to IE4.0 or Netscape 4.0 or better" page. ...then if you call to complain they say they haven't tested the page for security flaws in the new browsers yet. (which I could under stand in the first few weeks of a new browser's life, but when it's getting to the point where it's impossible to download a browser that still works with it...

      Most banks I've dealt with are bastards about browsers.

    15. Re:Great browser, but... by markbo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But just because a browser is identifying itself as IE doesn't mean it is IE. If you don't identify as IE every so often a site will return a "You can only view this site with IE version 6.0 or above." or some such nonsense. Spoofing your browser to identify as IE is a standard response to getting on with life.

    16. Re:Great browser, but... by killjoe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You are under a false impression that it's impossible to write a web page that supports both IE and mozilla. I can assure you that such a thing is possible despite what MS hype machine tells you.

      --
      evil is as evil does
    17. Re:Great browser, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      > I love Firefox. The best it can do--at least
      > IMO--is raise the bar for commercial browsers.
      > I do hope I'm wrong on this point, however.

      Firefox can also do a lot in embedded applications. Net appliances will eventually make a comeback and the need for a small but functional embedded brower has a lot of potential.

    18. Re:Great browser, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      > Once Firefox is set up as the browser default it's just as "integrated" with the OS as Safari is.

      *cough* not even close.

      try dragging things from safari, and compare it w/ ff. try using cmd-. in places. there are all sorts of things that gecko apps do not get right.

      some things gecko apps choose not to do for security concerns, but it definitely makes them feel like they are not integrated with the os.

    19. Re:Great browser, but... by ViolentGreen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I also like how if you open a bunch of tabs it reports all the dead tabs one after the other instead of having to go to each dead tab to OK the error message. And it is very nice to have the "Open in Tabs" in each bookmark folder instead of as a toggle in the bookmarks manager.

      Speaking of dead tabs.... One thing that keeps safari in there for me is the fact that it doesn't clear the address bar for dead tabs. If I do a search and open a bunch of tabs in Firefox and several don't load for one reason or another, I can't go back and see what the addresses are.

      --
      Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
  2. Nice? no by acxr+is+wasted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    'Look out Internet Explorer... your days have been numbered for some time now, but Firefox 1.0 will surely leave you shaking on your already shaky foundations and standing in a small warm puddle'. Nicely put.

    Nicely put? Whatever. The writer seems so excited about his pun about Microsoft wetting itself that he ignored how awkward it sounds using the root word "shake" twice so quickly. He could have said "precarious position" instead of "shaky foundations," or even "trembling" instead of "shaking."

    On topic: Microsoft has nothing to worry about from Firefox. Until Microsoft is forced to package Firefox along with Windows, as well as make it the default browser, the Mozilla crew will never catch up.

    --
    "Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
    1. Re:Nice? no by gyratedotorg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      that graph is exactly why i think everyone here with their own website/blog/whatever should pick a firefox button and put it where everyone will see it. firefox is probably the best browser in the world right now, but what good is it if nobody knows about it?

      --
      Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
  3. Superior Quality != Market Dominance by Alphanos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If superior quality software always beat out the competition, Microsoft would not have their current market dominance. Sadly, they do.

    --
    Alphanos
    1. Re:Superior Quality != Market Dominance by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If superior quality software always beat out the competition, Microsoft would not have their current market dominance. Sadly, they do.

      I think that superior quality and price does always win, but it may take a long time. Fortunately, there is no Mozilla corporation to go out of business in the meantime. There is nothing that can save the Microsoft empire in the long term, apart from moving out of open-source commoditized product areas, though it has had very little luck with that. Ten years from now, Microsoft OSes/browsers/office programs will be quaint relics from an era when people paid money for such things.

    2. Re:Superior Quality != Market Dominance by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't forget that once MS perceives a threat, they'll throw resources at it. If they think FireFox is a legitimate threat, expect some significant work on IE.

  4. Is it just me.. by AirLace · · Score: 4, Insightful

    or has 0.9 not yet been released? How can you review software that isn't yet available?

    1. Re:Is it just me.. by AirLace · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, it's a testing candidate and not 0.9 at all. 0.9 is not out. Claiming to have reviewed 0.9 is misleading. From the page:


      Firefox 0.9 RC now available

      A testing candidate for the newest and best preview release of Mozilla's next generation browser is available for download - featuring a new theme for Windows and Linux and much more!

  5. Mozilla Blues by CommanderData · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The work that the Mozilla team is doing is great, and we are all aware that Interent Explorer is worthless right now. Unfortunately they may be winning the battle but losing the war so to speak. Microsoft is sitting out this round because they can afford to.

    Microsoft is NOT an innovator, so they need to get their ideas somewhere. I'd be willing to bet that they're biding their time, letting open source do free research and development for them. Then hand pick the best ideas for plugins, tabbed interfaces, etc and incorporate them into IE for Longhorn, which will then be shoved down the throats of the masses in 2006.

    --
    Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
    1. Re:Mozilla Blues by Urkki · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't agree that MS can afford to sit this out. If non-IE browsers gain too much market share, more and more web sites will make pages that are standards-compliant (as opposed to IE-compliant). And that' quite a "battle" to lose, even for MS.

    2. Re:Mozilla Blues by gtaluvit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, but thats not for 2 years. And thats only for a NEW version of windows, not the existing. The key to gainging back dominance is to get Firefox on any PC you can find. Word of mouth means alot.

      --
      - gtaluvit (prnc. GOT-tuh-LUV-it)
    3. Re:Mozilla Blues by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And this is a bad thing because?

      I use Firefox and probably always will. My family use Firefox because I installed it on the home computers and they find it just as easy as IE but without the spyware and popups. You probably use Firefox and put your friends and family on it because, like me, you're a Slashdot reading geek who knows it exists and knows it's superior.

      The rest of the world uses IE. They will not leave IE either because (and this is the case 90% of the time) it is the internet to them - they know nothing else or because they don't think it's worth the effort. If the IE using public get a better version of IE pressed onto them by MS and we get to keep our Firefox I'd say everyone wins. It's not the perfect scenario but it's better than it could be.

  6. You most certainly are (wrong) by jamonterrell · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's pretty much decided that our 150+ employee company will be running mozilla firefox. Now, I understand that our little 150 employee company doesn't mean all that much in the big scheme of things, but if we're doing it, there has to be lots more that are also considering and/or doing it.

    --
    I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
  7. Well... by jonfromspace · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a recently converted and quite happy Firefox user, First off, yay!

    However, I just don't see IE going anywhere, ever. Not while Windows is on 90+% of mainstream desktops. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but just because a product is better, does not mean it will be successful.

    I am all for Mozilla/Firefox, but I just can't see it ever landing on my fathers Dell, or my aunt's HP.

    unless, of course, I put it there, but they call me enough already with stupid user questions... I ain't giving them a new piece of software.

    --
    I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
    1. Re:Well... by chuonthis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      unless, of course, I put it there, but they call me enough already with stupid user questions... I ain't giving them a new piece of software.

      Firefox might actually be a solution to your problems. Think of all the adware/spyware/popup issues that could be resolved by getting them to switch from IE.

  8. Re:Good lines :) by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's simply becaues IE comes with Windows, and no smallwited user would know that there's alternatives, at all.

    Sigh. I've noticed this. People don't even realise it's separate from Windows (come to think of it, a lot of them think Word and Windows are the same thing).

    Even some of my friends who are aware that you can have another browser seem reluctant to change for bizarre, and really quite stupid reasons. It's difficult to convince them of the delights of tabbed browsing and gestures.

  9. Visceral Emotion Plug by 4of12 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but Firefox 1.0 will surely leave you shaking on your already shaky foundations and standing in a small warm puddle'

    Firefox is an excellent browser; I've been using it happily since 0.6.

    But while IE can claim that it "came with My Computer" Firefox cannot overcome it but very slowly and only among those who appreciate its superiority and have enough patience to download and install it.

    AOL was the last distributor of millions of CDs who were in a position to bundle Mozilla and deliver it to the majority audience that will just take what they get.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  10. more stable by phalse+phace · · Score: 2, Insightful
    "According to the reviewer, there's a lot to be thankful for, as this release is far more stable than its earlier versions..."

    Isn't that the way things are usually done, to try to improve a product?

    1. Re:more stable by thebatlab · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're confusing "are usually" with "should be" ;)

  11. Security... by dinodrac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To me, the biggest point in Firefox's favor its its security settings, and complete lack of support for activex (you can disable activex in IE, but it will keep bugging you every time an activex control tries to load - either in the form of confirmation dialogs or "this page may not be displayed properly" warning popups - really fun when some spyware ridden pages put themselves into a redirect loop if they detect that you rejected their crap, hoping that the user will get tired of the flood of confirmation dialogs and accidently click yes.)

    I guess the best way to describe the difference between Firefox and IE is this:
    - With IE, web pages control the browser. They can open windows, close windows, hide your menu and toolbars, hide your status bar, and do god only knows what else.
    - With Firefox, the user in in control, including JavaScript security policies and popup controls that define EXACTLY what web pages can and can't do. And the cookie controls are second only to lynx (which had fine-grained control on cookies from the moment they added persistant cookie support ;)

    And don't get me started on IE's security record and how long IE bugs are public before M$ even admits they exist, much less fixes them...

  12. Consider the source... by sterno · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm going to guess that anybody named "The Mad Penguin" is probably not going to give us an unbiased review of MS products. Furthermore, the review has a clear fascination with lots of technical gadgetry that an average user could care less about.

    Anybody who thinks Firefox should cause Microsoft to fear doesn't understand why Microsoft won the browser war. It's not because they were better, but rather because they were good enough and it came with the OS.

    --
    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
  13. Browser innovation hasn't stopped. by Baseclass · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If I were an IE user my task bar would be filled with IE instances right now. Once you go tabbed you'll never go back.

    Since Microsoft successfully drove Netscape from our desktops by shoving IE down our throats they've stopped innovating (unless you consider tighter integration into the OS an innovation). In the long run this will seal their doom.

    Windows will lose steam (the movement is underway) Their proprietary options may suit your average PC user but in the ever-changing world of computing cross-platform is the wave of the future. Linux will continue to gain market share as will Apple. This may not be apparent to the media but I can tell you that among power users, at least in my circle, we welcome innovation, interoperability, and most of all options. Anti-Microsoft sentiment has never been higher. Microsoft's focus on marketing (and intellectual theft) over innovation can only carry them so far.

    The open source movement is simply not something that M$ can buy themselves out of.

    With that said I'm a very happy Mozilla user.

    --
    ^^vv<><>BA
  14. Favorite Line by nberardi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'Look out Internet Explorer... your days have been numbered for some time now, but Firefox 1.0 will surely leave you shaking on your already shaky foundations and standing in a small warm puddle'.

    This is my favorite line, because it demonstrates how little open source people know about what the average joe wants. The average joe is never going to use FireFox unless some "nerdy" friend comes along and shows it to him/her. First of all you know how many people call the browsers "The Internet", in addition do you know how many people are just happy using what they have, because they may not care or know any better to use another browser.

    The days may be numbered for IE in that there is a perceived better browser out there, but the days are not numbered for IE being used as the number one browser. Because most of the people using computers/internet today don't know much more than how to turn on their computer and use some familure applications. Also I love the guys that are using Linux and talking about how the days are numbered for IE.

    My question is "How did you get IE installed on Linux?", since you seem to feel the days are numbered and you are running FireBird/Linux. Note I am not talking to the Windows guys that love FireBird, just the *nix guys that claim IE is numbered. It really shows how biased they are.

  15. Ah, you're one of those... by r_cerq · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Keep IE, then. Mozilla/Firefox are browsers, not VMs. They're not intended to run programs, only to download them.

  16. I hate to be the bearer of bad news by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but:

    Mozilla/Firefox will not have "won" the war until the majority of programmers under MS Windows, upon needing to add an HTML render widget, or HTTP downloader, or FTP downloader to their app, do so by invoking the appropriate DLL from Mozilla rather than the IE/Windows DLL.

    Until that day - until the day when one CAN remove IE and all of its component DLLs from Windows and replace them with Mozilla, MS will be the winners of the war.

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  17. Is there a way to escape Flash annoyance-popups? by timothy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    OK, Flash has its purposes. maybe I'll re-install it sometime. But when I don't have it installed, I'd like to stop being pestered by every Flash-containing site about it. Is there a simple way in Mozilla / Firebird / anything to preemptively ignore the [Install Flash Now / Cancel] dialogs?

    Oh, and site designers: most sites' use of Flash is silly and wasteful. Just think what hell will be like, and enjoy the animation down there.

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  18. memory footprint by knukkle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Am I the only one to be exhausted by the footprint of Firefox? I've used FF 0.8 as my primary browser on my Win and Lin platforms and it seems that it even has more memory leaks than IE. And I don't know how it handleds cache, but it is all too fat.

    Please, no more feature before a decent memory footprint!... then it will be THE browser

    Just wrote this for you to urge FF developers to go that way.

  19. Cool! I couldn't express my feelings better... by rolling_bits · · Score: 3, Insightful

    After 2 days using Firefox 0.9 RC on Windows, I wanted to say thanks for it by adding links to its page from my sites, but I had mixed feelings about that. My only worry is that some sites still work only with IE.

    Seeing your 150 switch to Firefox gave me a warm feeling that some day, things may change.

    To have an option is good. To actually have the better option is great. To make the switch is fantastic.

    I've been happily using Mozilla flavored web browsers since 1999, and this is the first time that I wanted that everybody make the switch.

    Once I installed the latest Firefox 0.9 RC, I kind of wanted the old theme back. But after using it for 5 or 6 hours, I was sold.

    In the hope that someone from the Mozilla team will see this post: thank you so much for a wonderful web browser!

    Cheers.

  20. "Far more stable"? by dustmite · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hmm .. I use Firefox every single day, and I think it's crashed about twice in six months. How do you make something already that stable "far more stable"?

  21. Re:Did they fix the bug? by blair1q · · Score: 2, Insightful

    (a) You might need to use harder.
    (b) Yup. But that was a few weeks ago, and they don't seem to intent on caring. So I decided to bitch, because I have bigger problems I'm procrastinating on (like wedging locked TLBs into an RTOS on PPC440GX that already has a page-table system overlaying its MMS...the problem is in the blocksize bits, and how the block growth is unmanageably saltatory...and you never know how big they'll be because some depend on the size of your .text and .data areas, which of course might as well be a runtime variable, which the low-end hardware designers are gonna fucking hate...so you can see how it would be like a day off to repeat-bitch about an OSS mailer bug online wherever it's the slightest bit apropos...)