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A Look at the Newly Released Mozilla Firefox 0.9
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."
'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.
'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."
or has 0.9 not yet been released? How can you review software that isn't yet available?
0.8, 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, 0.9999... Man, we are so close to 1.0!
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.
First Look at Mozilla Firefox 0.9
. .
Last update: 06-14-2004
Submitted by Adam Doxtater
The last time we looked at Mozilla Firefox , it was still called Mozilla Firebird and then only in version 0.6. Times have changed. Oh how they've changed. Today, The browser with the identity crisis has a sleek new interface, modern features, and is blowing the doors off its competition... and this is putting it mildly.
Mozilla Firefox ( release notes | roadmap ) is a completely modular browser consisting of a basic, streamlined framework upon which users can add ' extensions ', which (just as the name implies) are essentially plugins for the browser. The idea of less is more has been taken to the next level with this browser. With the default browser, you have just enough browser to do pretty much anything you can on the Internet, while more advanced, custom functionality is reserved to the extensions. For instance, you can load extra functionality such as more precise ad blocking, mouse gestures, website registration bypassing, dictionary, user agent switching, complete page and listbox/textbox searching, text zooming, UI tweaks, and the list goes on. There are so many possibilities I can't go into them all here.
When compared to browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox is light years ahead. Microsoft will need to do some serious footwork to catch up to the usability and functionality of this browser. Seriously. The only browsers that come close are Mozilla (of course), Opera , and Konqueror . Safari is also coming along nicely on OS X . The beauty of this browser is not only its functionality... it also lies in its portability. Firefox is currently supported under Linux (GTK+-Xft), Mac OSX, Sun Solaris SPARC/x86, Sun JDS 2003, Microsoft Windows (all versions), and IBM OS/2 , so you can drop it onto almost anything with a modern CPU ( system requirements )
The Mozilla Firefox 0.9 browser
What's new in version 0.9?
This is the last preview release before Firefox comes of age at milestone version 1.0, so what new features have been implemented? Well, at first glance all you will notice is the interface has been redesigned with an updated theme. At first I didn't quite know how to take it, but now that I've used it for a while it's grown on me. The new look is very minimalistic, clinging tightly to the focus of the browser itself. Anyway, here's a more complete listing for those of you who are skimming:
* New default theme - Like I said, it sports a new sleek skin (seen in the screenshots of this review).
* Redesigned theme/extension managers & SmartUpdate - Newly redesigned interfaces make it even easier to manage your browser, as well as keeping it up to date with smart notifications
* Installer updates - Linux now has an installer for GTK2, and the Windows package has gotten smaller - to the tune of 4.6MB.
* Easier migration - Migrating your important information and settings from other browsers has never been easier. Firefox can now import settings from previous versions, Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera. This includes favorites, settings, cookies, history and saved passwords.
* Help - An updated online help system is now available. This is in addition to the wonderful Firefox Forums and existing help material
* Linux look and feel - Much work has gone into the UI, making it adhere better to GTK2 themes. Menus now look like they belong in the desktop scheme like they were meant to be.
Not only were new features added to this release, work continues to keep bugs squashed, past and present, so the browser feels far more stable than it has in the past. Don't get me wrong, this browser has always been ahead of its time in terms of vision and scope, but it has had its fair share of bugs, but so far as I can tell by running this release constantly for the past week or so it looks pretty solid. It hasn't crashed once, and let me tell you this is a definite improveme
John Kerry is a Joke!
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.
'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'
What about:
Internet Explorer, your pitiful life is soon to be ended by my completion. My mercy will allow you to die quickly and rot away. Your miserable "browser" functions is a thread against the race of the free, and you deserve the greatest and most horrible deseases known to man.
Anyway, Firefox cannot beat IE off the top rank. It's simply becaues IE comes with Windows, and no smallwited user would know that there's alternatives, at all.
On the Mozilla main page, there are links to download Firefox 0.9 RC.
...take a look at Jesse's more detailed and informative list
Firefox is Mozilla without the email client, right? It can accept the same modules/plugins and everything, right? Or am I way off?
Firefox is based on mozilla code. They created a stand alone browser that was better, smaller, faster than the mozilla one. They also want to redo the concept of mozilla proper where all the components can either be stand alone application or extensions to FireFox. Chec out the roadmap for a better explanation.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
From the release notes:
7. Is Firefox just Mozilla with a couple UI tweaks?
Firefox is substantially different, featuring a number of exclusive features and countless refinements. Well over 120,000 lines of code have been added or changed in the browser and toolkit CVS directories since the project began.
Firefox is a web browser and does not do email. For email, use Thunderbird. Plugins for Mozilla generally work with Firefox but the extensions are usually not compatible with each other.
I have been using the 0.9rc since the day it came out. It's ok, maybe a bit better than 0.8, but hardly this amazing new day for Internet browsing. They squashed some bugs, but some long term bugs and annoyances still remain, and unfortunately it appears they have added one or two. Pesonally, it does not seem any more or less stable, but about the same. Regardless of all that, like 0.8 before it, it is still a hell of a lot better than IE.
After a miss-typed URL sent me to one of those wonderful cyber-squatting "search" sites, which then proceeded to automatically install all sorts of nasty spyware and SMTP zombie malware, I banned IE from my house and removed all shortcuts and Program Menu options from all PCs. I made the decision to go with Firefox, and I can honestly tell you I haven't missed IE one bit, and there's not been one reason that I've had to open up IE again. My wife's been happy with it as well. It's clean, fast, renders pages great, much more informative about page loading status, and best of all it doesn't attempt to install software without my permission. I've encouraged everyone I know to give it a try.
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.
I used to use Netscape all of the time. Not because it was a good browser, it actually felt too big, but because it wasn't IE. When firefox came out, I rejoiced at a small browser that didn't have all the crap that Netscape had built in. Firefox is the answer that I think many of us had been waiting for. Once it becomes more stable, more and more people will be switching over to it.
So... no, Mozilla is not dead.
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."
I tried these changes, and Firefox is noticeably faster:
1 73568&highlight=pipelining
There is an interesting post on WebMasterWorld, on how to decrease the loading/rendering time of Firefox. I have tried the settings, and have noticed a mild improvement. Just wanted to share the information.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/8007.htm
Edit: Updated Instructions:
open about_:config (without the underscore).
1.) network.http.pipelining = true
2.) network.http.pipelining.firstrequest = true
3.) network.http.pipelining.maxrequests = (the poster says 32, but suggest 8 is the limit)
4.) network.http.proxy.pipelining = true
Don't do number #5.
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=
John Kerry is a Joke!
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.
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...
Firefox Makes me have to do twice as much work. Let me explain.
Firefox is by far the best browser ever. It is fast, standards compliant, and runs on every platform i support.
The problem is when i develop in firefox. I do some web development, often on a dealine. If i make a stylesheet that looks awesome in firefox, 90% of the time it does not work in internet explorer, which, unfortunatly, is what 90% of my clients use.
So, after i think i'm done, and i test in ie, i know have to go back and fix it, which takes a while as IE is really borked. Therefore, i have to charge more, and my clients are not as happy.
I tell them to switch to firefox, but for some reason, they dont.It's to the point now that i've installed IE5.5 under wine, and i use that as my main development browser. sad but true. I use phoe^H^H^H^Hfirefox for my daily browsing, for sure, but IE to develop.
Strangely, if i make a site that works in IE, it'll usually work in ff and safari/khtml.
of course, this is all IE's fault.. my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek... but it is something that drives me nuts.
Remember, friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer.
Drew Crampsie - Software Developer
Open Source Business : The Tec
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
Tabbrowser Extensions is a great add-on to Mozilla/Firefox but it's just that--an add-on. When Firebird 0.7 was released, people were misled to believe that Firebird did not have tabbed browsing capabilities built into the browser and had to install TBE. TBE attaches itself deeply into the browser and as a result, it was often unstable when changes were made to the core of the browser. When Firefox 0.8 came out and people were still running their outdated versions of TBE that weren't updated for Fx0.8, they encountered the "No XBL Binding" error. The developers are avoiding this problem with 0.9 by automatically disabling all extensions and themes on the first run, requiring users to redownload and install compatible versions of their extensions/themes.
Firefox is a great browser and is constantly improving. Although the developers aren't implementing all of TBE's features due to fear of bloat, they are listening. We got the confirmation dialog for closing a window with multiple tabs and we may just see a single tabbed window option one day (first step = open external links in tabs, bug 172962 recently marked blocking1.0+ by Ben Goodger).
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
'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.
At my work with 250+ users, we are coming very close to making that decision. Part of the reason is that we have a number of users out in the field for long periods of time using laptops in the middle of nowhere. For the most part, any internet connections are dial-up.
So, part of our reason for seriously considering moving is that we've had a number of trojans on those machines exploiting IE holes. This combined with the pain of downloading MS patches on dial-ups is leading the IT department to lean toward a FireFox standard. One of the things that had been holding us back was problems with the iNotes client in FireFox 0.8. It works in 0.6, not 0.8. Well, it is working again in 0.9.
The RC *is* major feature complete, but (as evident with the new theme and extension work) is still needing a fair bit of work before release. 0.9 final is expected in July, 1.0 final is expected in September (at which point I'm more than happy to shove it on everybody and anybody :) ) See the Roadmap for details.
In a build I downloaded today, I even noticed that the profile importer now finally gives you the option of which profile to import from (eg IE, Netscape 4, Mozilla 1.x, etc) before actually doing the dirty work. That wasn't present in 0.9rc IIRC.
In other words, I'd wait a little bit longer before pushing 0.9RC on your friends and family. This one's for the testing folks. Of course, anything pre-1.0 is really meant for testing, but this one more so :)
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.