Firefox 1.0.3 and Mozilla Suite 1.7 Released

ESqVIP writes "Not long after Firefox 1.0.2 is out, there's a new public release. Just like the other 1.0.x releases, this is mostly a security fix. The release should hold for a few more days and we could also get bug 171349 (wrong icon displayed on Win9x) fixed. Mozilla Suite, on the other hand, has quite significant changes, some of them "imported" from Firefox. As announced before, this might be the Suite's last major release from the Mozilla Foundation."

Comments

1.7

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

Could you be more specific in your summaries please? I am already running 1.7.6. Just saying 1.7 implies (to me) 1.7.0, which would not really be news...

Re:1.7

[phalse phace]

" Could you be more specific in your summaries please?"

Are you serious? That's like asking the /. editors to proof read, check for grammar/spelling errors, and to check to make sure the post isn't a dup.

Re:1.7

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

You can't take away my ability to dream...

Re:1.7

[rookworm]

Could you be more specific in your summaries please?

FYI, 1.7.7

Re:1.7

[Anonymous Coward]

unless we keep you awake...

Re:1.7

[chill]

Unfortunately, the Mozilla Summary page says "1.7" a dozen times or so. It makes no reference to which minor version and you have to go to the download page to figure out it is 1.7.7.

You're right, it is confusing, but it was Mozilla.org's fault and not -- as incredible as this may seem -- /.'s.

-Charles

Re:1.7

[ESqVIP]

chill answered it for me. I'm not into the suite, so I didn't know for sure what version it would be. Though I suspected there was some revision number missing, I couldn't find anything anywhere in the mozilla.org website, so I assumed it was really version "1.7".

I agree: MoFo should be more specific, just like they are on Firefox pages.

Re:1.7

[Anonymous Coward]

to check your browser header go to http://phlak.freeunixhost.com/ and look at the bottom of the page. this will tell you near enough exactly what browser version you have. enjoy people.

Re:1.7

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another redundant first post?

Re:1.7

[swimin]

Or like asking you to proofread, and check to make sure you spelled dupe correctly?

How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone says how buggy IE is, but with fix after fix for Firefox, is it really less buggy?

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Cruithne]

Personally, FF crashes on me what seems like 2 or 3 times more often than IE crashes, usually when using PDFs, but also a LOT when coming out of hibernation.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[croddy]

since Firefox does not have any code related to hibernation or PDF rendering, it is obvious that external applications or OS subsystems are responsible for the problems you're experiencing.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[NanoGator]

"since Firefox does not have any code related to hibernation or PDF rendering, it is obvious that external applications or OS subsystems are responsible for the problems you're experiencing."

If IE works and FireFox doesn't, then it's obvious that something could (and should) be done on FireFox's end to fix it.

Lord knows, MS ain't gonna do it.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Cruithne]

since Firefox does not have any code related to hibernation or PDF rendering, it is obvious that external applications or OS subsystems are responsible for the problems you're experiencing.

Actually, it is entirely possible that, while code may not specifically be written FOR hibernationg purposes, it could affect it. That argument is equivalent to claiming there have never been arbitrary incompatability issues in information systems of any kind.

As for the PDF problem, I'm guessing it has something to do with how the acrobat plugin and FF interact, as the issue doesnt exist with IE. The bottom line is these issues exist with FF for me and not IE, on multiple computers.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[DuckofDeath87]

I am not surprised about it crashing when coming out of hibernation. FF is a cross-platform app and I am fairly certain that Linux does not have hibernation at all. So there may not be a lot of testing in that area.
You might want to sumbit a bug.
I don't see it on the buglist.

However, I think hibernate is a bit buggy. I know that the 1st time I used it, I could not get windows resume it. It just crashed, then booted normally. I have never used it since though.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[peeon]

They need IBM to hire some FF developers...to create a OS/2 version. Then you can view your PDFs with ease!

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[meehray]

FF also crashes on me when coming out of Standby mode all the time. End up doing a hardboot sometimes. =(

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[esbjorn]

Linux has had hibernation for a long time.
It is included in the main kernel, and I use it every day. Works flawlessly.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[prandal]

I expect a lot better from Slashdotters than this "naive user" style bug report. Which operating system? Which patch level, which version of Adobe Reader? Adobe Reader 7.01 and Firefox 1.0.3 on a fully patched Windows XP work flawlessly together for me.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

but with fix after fix for Firefox, is it really less buggy?

This is easy to explain. Frequent oss fixes is good,frequent MS fixes is bad. just is ;)

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[onosendai]

There's a simple fact about software development, bugs are guaranteed, especially on a projects as complex as Mozilla, heightened by the multi-platform delivery platform that's expected of Mozilla & Gecko.

Given that, imho, it's much better to see many bug fix releases in a vibrant and alert software project rather than minor patches every year and major releases years apart.

'Being less buggy' isn't the measurement here, identifying and resolving the bugs is. I know it's a half full/half empty argument, but software testing should never be approached with the 'be less buggy' attitude, it should always be approached with the 'find the bugs' attitude.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[cHiphead]

Just for the record, I have never, ever had firefox crash after return from hibernation. Occasionally I have to wait 10 seconds for the memory cache to catch up directly after bringing my laptop out of hibernate. I boot like this 4+ times per day with firefox open, been doing it since FF 1.0 to current, with no crash issues. Sounds like its your machine, not firefox. As for pdf, the plugin from adobe seems less than optimal and sometimes I get impatient with the long load time.

Cheers.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[GregWebb]

DR DOS didn't work with Windows 3.1 betas. What could DR have done to fix it? Nothing. MS were sensing for it.

ATI graphics cards were lots faster on Quake 3 benchmarks than competitors. Competitors slipped behind? No, ATI were sensing for Q3's filename and disabling some visual effects to give a false benchmarking boost.

It doesn't always follow that it's the fault of the party with the perceived problem.

Now, in this case I reckon it's Moz's fault. There's definitely a known issue related to very slow wakeup from hibernation with the main suite and I've regularly had it freeze if I change focus while a PDF is opening, but it's perfectly possible that other applications are sensing the browser and deliberately behaving differently.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[cHiphead]

adobe 7 no updates, ff 1.0.3 and xp with most patches works flawlessly for me. with the 'on multiple machines' comment in a subcomment from the parent poster, seems like he might be over b-sing with his/her personal bias for IE (not that its "wrong" per se, but I get into the same loop somtimes).

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we do FF a disservice by some of the blanket claims flying around.

FF is a nice browser, and some like its UI and plugins and (for now at least) less actual security risk.

But it is not perfect, and not better than IE in every regard. _Many_ people experience that it crashes too often in different situations. More than IE.

It isn't immune to security problems, in fact it is increasingly targeted and the list of security vulnerabilities and fixes is growing fast. This need for fixes we often used against IE...

And, not that it is terrible important but still the opposite is often claimed: mosts tests so far (at least until this version) show that on most counts it isn't faster than IE but slower (but Opera is), even referenced in /. recently.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Mant]

All software has bugs, with something like a browser that is a potential vector for viruses, malware and the like the important thing is how quickly they are fixed.

So far the Mozilla seems to be getting stuff fixed pretty quickly.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[madscientist003]

It's not the number of updates that either browser releases that determines how "buggy" it is. In fact, I might be happy seeing a release per day from each of them, because then you know that each is being developed continuously, and the browser you are using today is quite likely improved relative to the one you were using yesterday.

What is much more scary than having frequent product updates is having no updates at all. Just ignoring bugs because they're easier to ignore than fix. I'm not sure why the mindset of some folks is that if an upgrade is being released the program must be garbage. People do not complain about the security (or lack thereof) of Windows because of the number or frequency of updates being made available on the Microsoft website. It's the bugs that aren't being fixed that are the problem.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[bcmm]

With fix after fix IE could become as bug free as Fx. Your looking at it the wrong way round. Also, MS would consider many of the Mozilla Foundation's fixes too trivial to be worth doing in IE.

So it's probably not more problems, more like more problems being fixed.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[BWGames]

It might just be me, but Firefox has a massive memory leak on my system - I don't close it down, but having it consume 150meg after a day of being run, is worrying.
I don't want to go back to IE but...

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[jumbo008]

It's more secure: IE in 2004 and Mozilla in 2004.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, I just view all my PDFs with XPF. Who cares if it's in the same window. It loads about 20x faster than then plugin.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[ssj_195]

This is very common, and happens on both Windows and Firefox. It's a very well known and long standing bug (sorry, I don't have bugtraq numbers, but there are many of them). Apparently, it has recently been fixed in the development version (or at least, greatly alleviated), but the fixes won't be part of a "proper" release until Firefox 1.1.

In the meantime, just do what I do - install SessionSaver, and close Firefox down and re-open when memory consumption gets too large.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? Not crashing every 2-3 hours was the selling point for me. Especially since when IE crashes, it usually takes Windows with it. Firefox crashes maybe once every week or two... and it doesn't kill the OS when it does.

While we're on the subject of OSS and crashes... Not crashing every time I print is the best feature of OpenOffice.org :)

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[88NoSoup4U88]

I remember some previous version(s) of Firefox having an auto-update ability : Back then it told me when there was a new update, and gave me the option to (automatically) update my version, without reinstalling.

What happened to this ? My less computer savvy friends who I've finally converted would like that ease of use back.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[MarkByers]

Lord knows, MS ain't gonna do it.

If your vendor isn't fixing the problems with your operating system, maybe you should complain to your vendor, switch to another, or just live with the problems.

I know one thing: whining on Slashdot certainly is *not* going to help fix the problem :).

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[remmelt]

PDF's are a nuisance when viewed within a browser, mostly because it takes my computer (athlon 3K+, come ON!) a LONG time to open the viewer plugin, all the while freezing the entire FF app so I can't even look at any of the other tabs.

Luckily, someone made this, a freeware app that speeds up the acrobat startup because it strips a lot of libraries from it (second down on the page). What remains is a fully functional and very quick PDF viewer. Highly recommended.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Budrick]

Automatic updates tend to be staggered these days. I've no idea why but they seem to need a bit of extra time to work out problems when auto-updating. It'll probably be along in a couple of days.

I think the point is moot for most people here though. You can just download the installer and install over the top of existing versions - the installer's finally been fixed to remove duplicate entries in Add/Remove Programs under Windows.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[88NoSoup4U88]

the installer's finally been fixed to remove duplicate entries in Add/Remove Programs under Windows

Hehe, great. I have three Firefox entries there :D

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[ptlis]

Start > Run Type in regedit, hit enter. Browse to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Uninstall\ Delete the Mozilla Firefox (1.0.x) key, and the other random garbage that accumulates in there. Now you've got a nice, clean Add/Remove programs window.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[shokk]

Can you point me to where in the NYT advertisement this was mentioned? Because front and center on the second page it said

"I was tired of my browser crashing every day so I tried Firefox."

By this philosophy a lot of us should be going back to IE. I call bullshit on "vibrant and alert" - that's just contentless filler. We've seen plenty of patches and no centralized way to manage the browsers in a non-home environment.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

simple solution: use Linux!

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. This is the third point release for Firefox. It's doing about the same as Internet Explorer at the moment. That sounds bad, right? Nope. Internet Explorer hasn't had any changes to the rendering engine since 2001, and it still has regular security fixes. What does that tell you about the relative sanity of the two codebases?

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone says how buggy IE is, but with fix after fix for Firefox, is it really less buggy?

Relative bugginess is a factor of severity as well as quantity.

"Bug" in IE language: critical security flaw simulaneously wiping your hard disk and mailing lesbian porn to your grandmother and your credit card details to the Russian mafia, or major deficiency in rendering routines preventing you from doing anything remotely interesting with JavaScript or transparent PNGs.

"Bug" in Firefox language: minor glitch in uninstaller routine that sometimes leaves previous versions in the "Add/Remove Programs" list, or minor glitch in rendering routines that occasionally causes text on Slashdot not to line up properly.

I think I'll stick with Firefox, thanks.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[xshariq]

"Everyone says how buggy IE is, but with fix after fix for Firefox, is it really less buggy?"
Yes it is, you know why? They are actually fixing problems/holes!

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Duck1123]

Has anyone written an extension that would hit Mozilla's ftp servers, find the latest nightly build, and download and install it for you yet? That might be a good idea for those that feel like doing something as silly as that.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[88NoSoup4U88]

As far as I understood from the previous poster, updating to 1.0.3 will delete those entries automatically.

Thanks anyways.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

well, firefox is getting fixed atleast.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

When opening a PDF, does it freeze or simply ignore you? Since Mozilla runs single-threaded, the application stops responding completely while loading a PDF, but it usually resumes responsiveness once the PDF is loaded.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Budrick]

The big deal is less the fact that you can clean it out anyway, but more that the problem won't be there in future. :)

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[ptlis]

Ah, I may have misunderstood, I assumed that when the grandparent said that the installer has been fixed (s)he meant that it would remove the Fx entry for 1.0.2, but not previous versions & because in the past i'd manually removed the entries from the registry using the above method I had no way of knowing either way.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[GregWebb]

Freezes, but if you switch to another app you can't switch back again - it's frozen solid.

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Dinjay]

I had Firefox installed on my XP PC since 1 and looks like all of those entries are gone from my registry.

On a separate note, Ctrl+N and File->New Window in FF has stopped working. I'm pretty sure this happed after I installed 1.0.3. Has anyone else experienced this?

Re:How does this stack up to IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

My three line Hello World! software has no bugs. Like the man said, Absolute statements are Always wrong.

Mozilla 1.7.*7*

[Jack Comics]

Just a correction to the original story, Firefox 1.0.3 and Mozilla Suite 1.7.*7* was released today, not 1.7.

Re:Mozilla 1.7.*7*

[Anonymous Coward]

And here's a link to the correct readme file for Mozilla 1.7.7 .

Re:Mozilla 1.7.*7*

[alonsoac]

Right, and the correct link to the new features is here. As you can see there is not much new in there. Except for the security fixes which do seem important.

Re:Mozilla 1.7.*7*

[clambake]

ust a correction to the original story, Firefox 1.0.3 and Mozilla Suite 1.7.*7* was released today, not 1.7.

Ironically, the regexp 1.7.*7* matches 1.7 just fine.

A good sign

[Anonymous Coward]

The great thing about open source is that security flaws are found and rapidly fixed.

We all know people who argue that the large number of Firefox security fixes is bad -- but in fact, it is the mark of healthy and vibrant software.

Re:A good sign

[nacturation]

We all know people who argue that the large number of Firefox security fixes is bad -- but in fact, it is the mark of healthy and vibrant software.

So with Windows and IE having numerous bug fixes, does this mean that Microsoft software is healthy and vibrant?

Re:A good sign

[BackInIraq]

With regards to security fixes, there is an additional stipulation: large numbers of security fixes are the mark of healthy and vibrant software if and only if they come out before hordes of machines running your software are converted into zombie boxes spewing spam, DOS attacks, etc. across the internet.

So Microsoft still loses. :)

Re:A good sign

[AmberBlackCat]

I guess there's no need to go on long about how it's a bad thing when IE has a lot of security fixes but it's a good thing when Firefox has a lot of security fixes. I just think they should fix the updater so the Add/Remove programs menu doesn't have 1.01, 1.02, and 1.03 and everything else in it every time there's an upgrade. And they really need to look into "incremental updates". The Firefox updates are bigger than the Windows updates lately.

Re:A good sign

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft security patches = scheduled monthly releases for *critical* bugs like remote code execution via the TCP stack.
Open source security patches = fixed when found, released when fixed.

At least 1 fix

[Pmkool1]

This should fix the Add/Remove Programs bug where installing a new version over the old version leaves the both entries in the Add/Remove list.

Other than that, mostly just security issues.

Re:At least 1 fix

[Tim_F]

All installing 1.0.3 did for me was leave 1.0.2 as the removable option. This hasn't really fixed anything it seems.

Re:At least 1 fix

[Tim_F]

Scratch that. All is now well in the world of Add/Remove programs.

So what else did they fix?

Re:At least 1 fix

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not even security issues, running arbitrary javascript is the security issue and anybody who cares about security disabled that years ago and never looked back.

If a site needs client-side script, it doesn't need me.

Re:At least 1 fix

[klui]

And so it is.

But
HKLM\software\Mozilla\Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2 is still there
HKCU\software\Mozilla\Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2 is still there

Still
HKLM\software\Mozilla\Mozilla Firefox\1.0.2 (en-US) is gone
HKCU\software\Mozilla\Mozilla Firefox\1.0.2 (en-US) is gone

Two out of 3 ain't bad.

Re:At least 1 fix

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you're not a fan of Google's latest services?

Re:At least 1 fix

[bcmm]

I thought they advised you to uninstall the old one first?

(Or did they stop doing that when it left beta? I've lost track of the Windows version a bit...)

Re:At least 1 fix

[Threni]

Shame it loses your homepage though, replacing it with a terrible search engine page or something. Wouldn't it be better if it left your homepage alone unless you're installing for the first time. Also, it complains twice that Firefox is running. Well, of course it is - how did it think I downloaded it?

Re:At least 1 fix

[jvj24601]

I just use the zip'ed version.

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=2503 82
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nig htly/2005-04-15-05-aviary1.0.1/

I never use installer versions of software if I don't have to.

Re:At least 1 fix

[Tim C]

If that's the case, then they shoud stop offering it as an update through Firefox's update feature. Firefox tells me there's an update available, and when I click on the little icon, downloads and launches the installer.

If I'm supposed to uninstall the existing version first, then either it shouldn't do that, or the installer should do the uninstall for me. The alternative is to download the installer using the update feature, cancel the installation, uninstall Firefox, find the installer (wherever it is) and run it myself - not the sort of thing an enduser would expect to have to do (or potentially be able to do, depending on where the installer is downloaded to)

Re:At least 1 fix

[bcmm]

I have looked at this, and I think they have stopped asking you to do that. My mistake for commenting on how it integrates with an OS I don't use much anymore...

Re:At least 1 fix

[Bluey]

Believe it or not, this is still a requirement. It's just down in the middle of the release notes under "Known Issues -> All Systems" (that is, not just Windows OS):

"Prior to installing Firefox 1.0.3, please ensure that the directory you've chosen to install into is clean and doesn't contain any previous Firefox installations."

Re:At least 1 fix

[Bluey]

The installer (at least the Windows one) will only replace your homepage if you leave the "Use Firefox Start as my home page" option checked on the last page of the installer. It's unfortunate that this is checked by default, regardless of whether you've already specified a home page in the instance you're upgrading.

Re:At least 1 fix

[edwdig]

That bug has existed since the Netscape days, so they don't exactly consider it a priority.

Re:At least 1 fix

[Anonymous Coward]

oh darn.. you have to uncheck a box to make sure your homepage isn't changed. Geez. What a hassle. Why, they should write some code to check whether or not you have a homepage you like already, then give you the option to change it to theirs if you want to. Puhlease. As far as the installer is concerned, it thinks you've never installed firefox before and has probably imported your IE homepage, so it tries to default to its homepage so you can learn more about the browser and get to updates and extensions faster. This is so trivial it's like complaining they added links into your bookmarks you didn't want to help you find extensions.

Re:At least 1 fix

[bcmm]

Why can't the installer do an "rm -rf" first?

All the more reason to have a package manager and get some developer to work it out for you ;-)

Re:At least 1 fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Copy and paste this url...

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=263 59 5

Re:At least 1 fix

[starwed]

I believe this refers to Firefox prior to 1.0. It shouldn't be necessary when upgrading from 1.0->1.0.x.

However, anytime you ask for support in the forums, after a new profile is tried people will reccomend that you do a clean reinstall. This often isn't necessary, but almost always works, and so is a popular solution.

Re:At least 1 fix

[iminplaya]

Too bad they don't have a zip file version that doesn't require any installation. It's one reason I stick with the Mozilla suite. No installation required. Just unzip and use. Works perfectly every time(almost), and I can simply toss it out when I upgrade. Or just toss it out if I decide not to use it at all. But that would be highly illogical.

Re:At least 1 fix

[DMUTPeregrine]

No zip file? Yes, there is a zip file.

Re:At least 1 fix

[iminplaya]

Guess you're right. Looks like pain though. Besides, it doesn't matter really. I just like the suite anyway.

Re:At least 1 fix

[bobbyjack]

Or of any kind of optimization.

Re:At least 1 fix

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a crock of shit! I don't use googles latest 'services', I already had access to email and maps before google existed, thanks but no thanks. Since when has optimiztion consisted of serving everything over a stateless protocol designed for text documents? If a web app needs to be 'optimized' using javascript then perhaps it was better suited to a dedicated client to begin with!

Save your "but the intarweb is powered by javascript" bullshit for others lacking in cluefullness.

Re:At least 1 fix

[Threni]

I'm upgrading, so of course I have my own homepage. When would you want to use their homepage? Only if you've not changed the default. But if you've not changed the default, you'll have that webpage as your homepage anyway! That's got to be either rude, or a bug!

D'OH

[ReverendRyan]

Now if the update system would just not require a reinstall.

Most of the people I've converted aren't great at installing software, no matter how simple it may be.

Re:D'OH

[blowdart]

Or if they stuck (on windows) to the guidelines, and updated the application keeping the same application GUID so you don't end up with Control Panel listing Firefox 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 at the same time. That's not exactly difficult.

Re:D'OH

[MoonFog]

That's fixed with this release.

Re:D'OH

[blowdart]

My god, so it is! Damn, one less thing to moan about :)

Re:D'OH

[prandal]

One of the things I've always loved about open source software is the availability of complete new builds every time a product is patched. If you've been a sysadmin in the Windows world you'd appreciate not having to deal with product X plus Service pack plus numerous hotfixes (I'm talking about applications, not just operating systems). Give us complete new builds every time, please.

Re:D'OH

[fvbommel]

For new installs, I agree with you.
However, the GP was talking about upgrades. I would definitely prefer a small patch to a complete reinstall if I already had the previous version installed.
So I would guess the best solution would be to provide both a patch and a complete new build.

Re:D'OH

[MrNonchalant]

Now if the update system would just not require a reinstall.

According to the devs this is scheduled for 1.1.

Re:D'OH

[iminplaya]

Now if the update system would just not require a reinstall.

That's why the suite is so nice. Download the zip file. Extract the archives. Delete the old one if you wish. You can run the extracted program right there where you extracted it, or you can place the folder anywhere you want. I put mine in Program files just for consistancy. None of this silly install, re-install, uninstall nonsense.

A simple mistake

[poningru]

1.7? a while ago,
Its really 1.7.7

Did they fix the bug where Safari owns it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure hope so.

Re:Did they fix the bug where Safari owns it?

[bcmm]

KHTML (yes, Safari is Konqueror :-) is faster but a little less error tolerent, they say...

Re:Did they fix the bug where Safari owns it?

[m50d]

It's much faster, renders fine IME (the acid test looks horrible though), but javascript really slows it down. Still I far prefer konqueror to firefox.

Re:Did they fix the bug where Safari owns it?

[bcmm]

I would probably too, but Konqueror doesn't work well on my system. It takes forever to start loading the page (though once it's started it's quick). In fact all KDE apps on my machine take ages to open TCP connection...

Re:Did they fix the bug where Safari owns it?

[m50d]

Did you compile with ipv6 support? If so it will try to use ipv6 for domain lookups and have to wait until that times out before going to the page.

Re:Did they fix the bug where Safari owns it?

[bcmm]

I don't think I did... Gentoo with IPv6 turned off in whatever that protocol selection config file is and with the use flag -ipv6, so it shouldn't be doing that.

It does look like a DNS timeout though...

Is there a configuration option to not use IPv6 or something?

Re:Did they fix the bug where Safari owns it?

[m50d]

As long as you were USEing -ipv6 when you installed kde that shouldn't be causing it. Maybe you have an old non-working dns in your /etc/resolv.conf? Check it, maybe comment out the first nameserver (assuming there's more than one) and see if that makes a difference.

Re:Did they fix the bug where Safari owns it?

[bcmm]

It points to my NAT router. Non-KDE apps are fine though (except possibly Gaim); Fx loads Google almost instantly .

Windows add/remove programs...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Woot!

In Windows Add/Remove Programs, I now only see one version of Firefox-- 'Firefox 1.0.3'.

This will please many people.

Re:Windows add/remove programs...

[crhylove]

Yes this is great when is this going to happen to Thunderbird?

*sigh*

rhY

Firefox not updating...

[Palal]

For some reason I can't get my firefox to update automatically... maybe it has AI and turns on its defense mechanisms.

Re:Firefox not updating...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been customary for some time that the Mozilla group waits a day or two with the automatic updates to spare the servers.

Re:Firefox not updating...

[MoonFog]

I updated through the update function. I had to do "Check now" though, it didn't show up automatically.

Re:Firefox not updating...

[thetamind_pyros]

Firefox's software update says it will *periodically* check for updates. I think it's every two weeks.

Patience is a Virtue (but maybe it shouldn't be for important security updates).

Re:Firefox not updating...

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried "check now" and it didn't find an update. I guess that not all the localized builds are available yet (mine is EN-GB) and the updater will only match like with like.

Firefox startup time...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have noticed that firefox isnt the fastest starting up on a windows computer, same on my linux machine, but I installed Mozilla couple of weeks ago and it started up almost as fast as IE. Then in this release it says "Size and performance have improved dramatically with this release. When compared to Mozilla 1.6, Mozilla 1.7 is 7% faster at startup, is 8% faster to open a window, has 9% faster page loading, and is 5% smaller in binary size." I am about to install and try it. But why can FireFox not take this and use it to make it's start up times faster??!?

Re:Firefox startup time...

[iCEBaLM]

And everyone knows 82.5% of statistics are made up.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[Anonymous Coward]

So that makes what half a second?

Re:Firefox startup time...

[jcupitt65]

At the moment the Mozilla suite has a more recent version of gecko under the hood. The next firefox (1.1 I think it's going to be called, due out in a few months) will be switching to this and get these improvements too. It'll fix some bugs too, eg. the slashdot rendering problem.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[bcmm]

Um...

Mozilla will always be slower than Fx, or there would be no point in Fx in the first place.
Are you sure you haven't enable Mozilla preloading? Or do you have 100 Firefox extensions or something?

Re:Firefox startup time...

[bcmm]

The /. bug is infuriating, because it has been fixed in the trunk build since soon after it was reported. Are you saying that Seamonkey's Gecko branched from the trunk recently enough to have this bug fix, or is that still to come for both builds? (maybe I'll use the Suite for a while then...)

Re:Firefox startup time...

[adam1101]

False: firefox 1.0.3 has gecko 1.7.7, same as the current Seamonkey suite. Only the unreleased 1.8beta suites have newer versions, but there won't be an official 1.8 suite release by the Mozilla foundation. Firefox 1.1 will be the official release of gecko 1.8. There is a group of old Seamonkey developers working on a release of the suite 1.8 (under a different name), but I doubt they'll have something ready before firefox 1.1.

If you want to count beta's, the firefox trunk nightlies have gecko 1.8 as well.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[jcupitt65]

Ooop, thanks for the correction. Got my moz 1.8 and 1.7 mixed up :-(

Re:Firefox startup time...

[juhaz]

The /. bug is infuriating, because it has been fixed in the trunk build since soon after it was reported. Are you saying that Seamonkey's Gecko branched from the trunk recently enough to have this bug fix, or is that still to come for both builds? (maybe I'll use the Suite for a while then...)

Both Aviary and 1.7 Gecko branch from trunk right after this bug landed and did have it, but it caused a regression of unknown severity and BOTH branches backed it out, so no, it shouldn't be in either, unless Seamonkey folks apply patches from trunk after branching.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[Chanc_Gorkon]

What Slashdot renering problem? I have never had a problem with Slashdot rendering in any version of Firefox.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to count beta's, the firefox trunk nightlies have gecko 1.8 as well.

Nightlies aren't betas. They aren't even alphas.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[Moderator]

1.8 is faster than Firefox.

HTH, Joe.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[bunratty]

Yeah, I wish they'd sync the versions of Gecko and Firefox/Thunderbird so this confusion wouldn't happen.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to get it all the time. On 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 I haven't experienced it.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, make that 83,225%.

Re:Firefox startup time...

[Observador]

Slashdot rendering problem?

Sooo.... that means we won't ever see dupes again?

Re:Firefox startup time...

[mce]

Speaking bout the Slashdot rendering problem. I used to see it all the time in Mozilla 1.7.1 at work and Mozilla 1.7.x at home. But recently the problem has gone away. Did the Slashdot gang at long last so something about the crappy HTML that actually triggered it?

hold for a few more days?

[croddy]

The release should hold for a few more days and we could also get bug 171349 (wrong icon displayed on Win9x) fixed

oh? I wasn't aware Win9x was worth supporting anymore... you *must* be trolling. I'd much rather have a security fix now than to wait for some ridiculous cosmetic bug on a 3rd-tier platform.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[bn557]

you're not declaring a type for i in your sig...back to the booze.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[croddy]

it's a one-liner. it compiles. deal.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[TomC2]

I doubt that Win9x users (like me!) would say that - seeing as we've missed out on the IE pop-up blocker included with XP service pack 2, and Win95 won't run IE6 at all, only IE5.5. So franky Firefox is now the only decent browser for Win9x unless you want to pay money for Opera (or have an ad banner)

I do admit that the wrong icon being displayed is a fairly trivial issue, however.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[croddy]

whoa there friend ... you post on slashdot, and you run win9x?

Re:hold for a few more days?

[Anonymous Coward]

function arguments are int by default. back to school.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[shish]

I wasn't aware Win9x was worth supporting anymore

Maybe not any more, but the bug was reported 2 years ago; I doubt the mozilla foundation would like a joke along the lines of "how do you fix a mozilla bug? Wait until the platform is obsolete, then ignore it!"...

I've been following that bug personally, and I'm still confused as to how it could take 2 years to fix, and why they didn't use the hackaround in the meantime; for a 1.0 app to not have an icon is very embarrasing, and kept making me think the installer was corrupt :/

Re:hold for a few more days?

[croddy]

I would much rather see some attention paid to the very annoying bug 60307, which has been open for five years, and affects functionality on relevant OS platforms...

Re:hold for a few more days?

[CTho9305]

Hackarounds are looked down on. Based on what I've seen, I think the Firefox guys are more inclined to use hacks than the Mozilla Suite people... but there are a bunch of examples of bugs that could be fixed if the reviewers were willing to accept ugly hacks.

I suspect the big factor with this particular bug is a lack of caring - in an open source product developed mostly by volunteers, some people aren't inclined to worry about platforms they don't use, and those that do care may have more important things to worry about (security fixes, crash bugs, etc.). This bug is really trivial, and while a mild annoyance, not worth a developer's time that could be better spent improving other aspects of the product.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[Anonymous Coward]

W[ho]TF modded this insightful? Funny, yes. Insightful, not by a long shot.

Obviously 99.999% of /.ers got the joke, but for both of the people on the planet that didn't get it, Win 9x comprises nearly a quarter of the market. This is especially the case from true PC gamers and dual-booters (and even emulators if you want to count those) who need a DOS-based Windows for compatibility reasons.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[dublin]

Maybe not any more, but the bug was reported 2 years ago; I doubt the mozilla foundation would like a joke along the lines of "how do you fix a mozilla bug? Wait until the platform is obsolete, then ignore it!"...

So true, so true... And now, by trying to force us all into the "Lite" version (which is lighter in capablity than resource utilization), it's even worse:

There are years-old bugs relating to significant functionality that was present in the 4.x series that has *never* mad eit back into Mozilla, despite being even more useful in today's networked world than ever. Here are just two examples, both from the realm of bookmarks, an area where Mozilla has taken a huge step back from Netscape, and Firefox has stepped almost back to IE...

1) Remote storage and synchronization of bookmarks (Roaming Profiles): This was possible in 4.x, and it worked extremely well. Nearly instant, totally transparent storage of your bookmarks and synchronization with the local copy made it trivially easy to always have your latest bookmarks available in the office, at home, on your laptop on the road, etc. This was originally filed as bug 17048 in 1999! Non-responsiveness to the desires of the users is the achilles heel of open source development: for literally *years*, this was the most-requested feature/fix in Bugzilla. I stopped tracking it around 2002, when it beacame obvious that the Mozilla team never planned on addressing it no matter how many votes it had - they kept dodging the issue by marking it as a duplicate of more recent bug numbers so that the truth of the matter - that it was by far the oldest Mozilla bug, would not be known - it was eventually closed and marked as "fixed" on this basis, even though it was no where near fixed. This is just flat dishonest CYA action to avoid accountabilty to the community. A quick check shows that it *may* have finally been fixed in just this month, but won't make it into either 1.7.7 or the badly needed 1.8. (Sorry, but Firefox just sucks in comaprison to the real Mozilla suite. Firfox and T-Bird: Half the capability, with twice the difficulty in configuring it to do what you want. But it's better. Trust us. What a load of BS.)

2) Bookmark searching: Another feature that was present in 4.x that's never been fixed in Mozilla: The ability to actually tell *where* a found bookmark resides in the heirarchy. One of the biggest reasons ever for preferring Netscape/Mozilla over IE as a browser is that Netscape/Moz lets you organize your bookmarks in folders, so you have some prayer of being able to find them again. Since Mozilla, though, searching for a bookmark returns it in a list, but there is *NO* way to tell where it was filed, something you want to know if you're trying to add another similar bookmark in a seldom-used category. This lack of contextual information is just flat wrong, and it's compounded by the fact that Netscape got it right in the first place. (This is an area where Google Desktop could kick some butt - indexing not only the titles and labels assigned by the users, but also the content of the pages - the more I think about it, the more I think Google should just take over from the Mozilla team and build a browser that really works right. The synchronization/store your bookmarks thing seems like it'd be right up thier alley, too.)

These are just a couple of reasons I miss Netscape. Now, these bugs, and mny hundreds more, will be marked "irrelevant", since Firefox/T-Bird are the future. And don't even get me started on the huge benefits of having one of the world's best e-mail programs and a decent little HTML page editor integrated in one place.

Sure, if you're a computer guy and don't mind spending several hours (that's after acquiring a detailed understanding of the rather bizarre operations of Mozilla's profile system, including the completely useless "salted name" security by obscurity debacle), you can set up Firefox, Thunderbird, N-Vu, and a whole bunch of bu

Re:hold for a few more days?

[Toby_Tyke]

Y'know, I had forgotten all about the old icon not displaying bug. I had forgotten because it IS displaying on my 98 box. I honestly just assumed they had fixed it.

Kinda curious why my install put the icons there if your saying the bug still hasn't been fixed.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[dublin]

Sorry, mea culpa. It's worse that I thought - the Mozilla team never fixed the bug at all.

In reality, this bug has been open and unfixed since October 22, 1999. It has been marked a duplicate of bugs filed years later, and at least twice marked as RESOLVED or FIXED in ways that would be intellectually dishonest enough to get one thrown out of school. I know several people who have been very interested in seeing this bug fixed over the years. Many of them are hackers far more capable than myself (not too hard...) So far as I know, no one has this working, though.

This whole thing has left a very bad taste in my mouth about the ability of open source to actually deliver on the needs of end users. The people I really feel sorry for are those like my friend David who actually ponied up hard, cold cash years ago to go toward the fixing of this bug, then had their money stolen as the bug was marked fixed when it wasn't. Nice to know the community polices itself well enough to ensure integrity and fair play - NOT!

Here's a short excerpt from the comments from bug 124029, which this morped into before vaninshing without a trace...

It is tremendously disappointing for me to have paid $100 bounty on this bug
nearly three years ago and still have nothing I can use. To see this bug marked
"RESOLVED/FIXED" is just insulting. ...
(In reply to comment #249)
> It is tremendously disappointing for me to have paid $100 bounty on this bug
> nearly three years ago and still have nothing I can use.
----
Why can't you use it? Just download Mozilla 1.8.x and set up your roaming
profile on an FTP server. It most definitely works, I can tell you that.

> To see this bug marked "RESOLVED/FIXED" is just insulting.

Well, it is FIXED. If you have any additional requests/suggestion, you should
file a new bug.
----
>
> > To see this bug marked "RESOLVED/FIXED" is just insulting.
>
> Well, it is FIXED. If you have any additional requests/suggestion, you should
> file a new bug.

It certainly is NOT fixed. In the status this is in, it is never going to be in
the release versions.
Even in the 1.8 versions, it is only in the nightly builds, not in the officials
alphas (unless they put it in a4, which I haven't used.)

Sadly, this is now my primary point of reference as to the integrity of the Mozilla/Firefox developemtn process. I'm not impressed.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is arrogant and/or ignorant. There are still many more Win9x users than Mac and *nix users combined. Win98SE is still best for older PCs. Yes, worth supporting.

Re:hold for a few more days?

[croddy]

there are reliable statistics to suggest that it's less than 5%, actually.

Sigh.

[Greger47]

I'm sure they got a million submissions about this. Why do they insist on picking the worst one?

It's Mozilla 1.7.7, there's nothing new we didn't already knew about. The update has the same security fixes (scroll down) as the new Firefox release, that's all...

/greger

Redundant??

[XanC]

This is the first post that gives us the correct version!

1.0.7?? What about 1.1PR?

[MrMiyagi]

1.1 PR should be already out by now? What gives?

Check out the Firefox Roadmap to see what I mean.

FF for OS X

[BioCS.Nerd]

Firefox for OS X has an annoying scrolling bug for wheel mice. It's fixed in the nightlies and has been for quite some time now. Does anyone know if this security update happened to include this fix as well?

Re:FF for OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a security problem? Because, you know, this is a security update?

With a separate branch and everything, so they won't accidentally break even more stuff?

Re:FF for OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, as a 19 year Mac user I have to ask, WTF does a scroll mouse have to do with a Mac? It sounds like you're just making-up crap to complain about.

Re:FF for OS X

[BioCS.Nerd]

Well, I'm going to pretend you weren't rude and give you a legitimate answers. Take a look at this page. You see that wheel looking thing between the left and right mouse button? That's called a scroll wheel. I, and my others, have found that with FF 1.0, and it's subsequent releases, that that wheel does not work for the OS X version of said software. Now, if we look in Bugzilla for this bug we find it's there! I'm not pulling things out of my ass! Here, and here.

Lesson of the day Mr. Coward: Next time before you're rude because you think someone doesn't know what they're talking about, why don't you ask them to clarify themselves first?

Re:FF for OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how the registered users are almost always idiots. To the original poster, it's funny how you say there are no Mac mice with crappy extra buttons, and the idiot offers a Logitech mouse as a counter example. Hey idiot, Logitech is not Apple. Get a damn clue.

Re:Open Source has Security Flaws?

[NanoGator]

"So what your telling me is that open source software has security flaws? I thought these things only happened to closed software products!!!! OMG"

NO no no! When OSS software has security flaws, it's great news because it shows how great OSS is! But when it's evil bad nazi closed source software, it's just further proof that it should be replaced by free (well, we're using the glamorous definition of the word free. 'Liberated code' sounds a lot better than $0.00...) alternatives!

(Disclaimer: I'm picking on sensationalism here, not OSS.)

Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox has suited my needs for over a year now, I was always a big Internet explorer guy...when using windows of course. I always used standard Mozilla on Linux or the BSD's.

But I really am happy that I've been IE free all of this time. Sure, Firefox has some trouble with some forms. Like for example, H&R Blocks online tax forms, for that I had no other choice but to use IE...but that was the only time I've used it in over a year. Everything else rocks.
Crashes happen only once a week if that, now IE on the otherhand. We're talking multiple crashes per day. and of course with IE, you have all of those wonderful spyware and other nasty thingamabobbers to worry about. Not with Firefox! :)

I can honestly say this without a doubt or guilty thought, Firefox is definately the best browser out there. and if they can workout the form handling bugs , I think they will have the trophy to the browser world (on paper) its allready recieved my trophy.

Re:Open Source has Security Flaws?

[bstadil]

Disclaimer: I'm picking on sensationalism here, not OSS

You could have fooled me.

No worries, Google is taking over

[Anonymous Coward]

this might be the Suite's last major release from the Mozilla Foundation

Don't despair, it seems like Google is going to be taking over the Firefox project. Check this out, then have a look at Google's patent referenced in that article.

Google has repeatedly denied rumors that it's going to make its own "Gbrowser" - it makes perfect sense that Google is going to take over the Firefox project instead, and incorporate some of the user-side pagerank plans they have.

What They need to Update

[earthstar]

What they really need to update is the Update component of Firefox itself!

For heaven sake,Dont make users download the whole package everytime!Thats a real Inconvenience for all, and its a burden for dial up users to download a 5 MB file that takes anywhere b/w 30 min and a hour .

Re:What They need to Update

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. Ever heard of a difference install ? Even SP2 will only download needed components. Why not download/patch only changed files ? Why the need to click through 15 stages for a simple +0.0.1 update ?

Re:What They need to Update

[adam1101]

4.7MB for Firefox is pretty modest. Netscape Navigator 3 (released in 1996) was already over 3MB, Netscape Navigator 4 (1997) was over 9MB for the browser alone!

Re:What They need to Update

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Yes it is. Requiring user to download the whole package when a part of it has been changed is not a good distribution method. Ever heard of patches?

*Oh OSS* Oh OSS!!* *Firefox*
*fapfapfapfapfapfapfpafapfap*
*Linus!"
*fap*
*splurt!*

Re:What They need to Update

[Anonymous Coward]

Best - Literary interpretation of masturbation - Ever.

meh

[SweetAndSourJesus]

I keep hearing this, and it still doesn't make sense.

Why wouldn't Google just provide kick-ass extensions for Firefox and then promote it heavily? It doesn't make sense for them to fork Firefox and make their own browser when they could just pick up on the momentum Firefox has and offer their Google-specific content via extensions.

If there was a "Get Firefox, dumbass" link on google.com, Firefox downloads would hit 100 million in days.

Re:meh

[meehray]

I will continue to dwell in that wet dream..

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

they could just pick up on the momentum Firefox has and offer their Google-specific content via extensions

Read the patent, they don't want to offer Google specific content. Google wants to read your cookies, cache files, bookmarks, etc to help them determine which websites are popular. Nobody's going to voluntarily download a Firefox extension that scans through their cookies and cache, it's going to have to be built directly into the browser.

Re:meh

[RockClimbingFool]

that is exactly why google will fork firefox. why put in an ad serving extension that can be removed when you can just hard code it in and call it a "feature".

google is definately walking down the path to the dark side....

Re:meh

[l*barbs]

I didn't know heaven still existed.

Re:meh

[SweetAndSourJesus]

Google wants to read your cookies, cache files, bookmarks, etc

When making a tinfoil hat, does the shiny side go on the inside or outside?

Nobody's going to voluntarily download a Firefox extension that scans through their cookies and cache

Nobody's going to voluntarily download a Google Browser that scans through their cookies and cache either, bub.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Shiny side out, otherwise you are merely reflecting the Trilateral Commission's mind-control rays back into your brain, thus reinforcing their pernicious and all-pervading influence.

-the always-helpful A.C.

Re:meh

[FhnuZoag]

Nobody's going to voluntarily download a Google Browser that scans through their cookies and cache either, bub.

The target of spyware is always those who don't know, or don't care. Put a little link on a major web page like www.google.com, and there's a good chance of some clueless newb deciding to click on it without reading the small print.

My only request

[Mancat]

Please fix memory leaks. Firefox seems to allocate more and more memory over time, even when not in use. It will start off with around a 10MB footprint, and will eventually grow to almost 50MB, even with the memory cache disabled. This behavior shows up in Windows, Linux, Solaris, and NetBSD.

No, I have not submitted a bug report, though I probably will. I've always figured that this was some minor leak that would be fixed "just around the corner," but its looking to be more and more unlikely.

Thanks.

Re:My only request

[Anonymous Coward]

yeh, I had this complaint and submitteed all the bug reports and now I don't have the leak since 10.0.2. I was finding after 2 or 3 days thats FF would grab every bit of memory and eventually all the cpu then shit itself. I an now on an XP reboot of 1 week ande FF the same ( both are records... btw MS corp sux but OS ok at least as long as my firewalll protects me) It seems to be fixed to me ( win XP ... I am a UNIX/Lunix nut but have MS coz of remote to work reasons ... i am a UNIX admin but to get into our vpn i need MS and too lazy to get 2.4 kernal working in my Suse 2.6 ... just too lazy thats all.)

Anyway appears fixed to me

Re:My only request

[drendite]

this has been fixed in the latest trunk.. afaik we won't see it until 1.1

Re:My only request

[Kehl]

Agreed - I opened this instance of Firefox last night ..... Top Output ..... FF 1.0.2

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND

14436 xxxx 15 0 245m 173m 39m S 0.3 34.4 12:20.63 firefox-bin

Thats not the "lightweight" Firefox it used to be ..... :/

3 Tabs open containing about 400k of HTML/media (Adblock and Mouse Gestures are the only plugins)

If I left this instance running for more than another 18 hours my console will start swapping like a biatch and the machine becomes un-useable. (10 secs to action a mouse cursor movement on the screen)

Crtl Alt F1 - fixes this, as it normally kills Firefox instantly because it needs to grab some memory for the tty. Otherwise its just a case of manually killing it by PID number on a very slow console.

Also why the FF has its own "appearance/themes" and will not conform to your current Window Manager settings is beyond me.

However FF is still the best there is and thats why I use it along side w3m. IMO

If you have not guessed by now - Linux - FF 1.0.2

Re:My only request

[rfunches]

trunk = nightlies? My FF is at 111MB with 2 FF windows and a total of 16 tabs open. Even closing all but one window and one tab won't do much to the memory usage.

Re:My only request

[apdt]

This can be fixed by setting the preference browser.cache.memory.capacity to something like 16000 in about:config. This will limit the memory cache to 16M.

see this article (about 1/3 of the way down) for more details on this and other tweaks such as changing the disk cache location... My roaming profile is now a sensible size again.

Re:My only request

[ashayh]

Untill this gets fixed, use SessionSaver . Restart firefox, and your tabs opened are still there ! With low mem usage again !

Re:My only request

[Duck1123]

I agree. I've been using nightly builds for a while now (for the XForms support) and I've noticed the same memory downward spiral that the point releases have. Open up ~25 tabs, close 20 of them, and see how much memory 'firefox.exe' is using.

Re:My only request

[Anonymous Coward]

( win XP ... I am a UNIX/Lunix nut but have MS coz of remote to work reasons ... i am a UNIX admin but to get into our vpn i need MS and too lazy to get 2.4 kernal working in my Suse 2.6 ... just too lazy thats all.)

Stop trying to make excuses. Only Slashbot lusers care whether or not you're using Windows. Besides, you're obviously not very heavy into Unix when you say "Lunix" and "kernal" in the same paragraph.

Just stop living this lie that you're attempting to hide behind.

Re:My only request

[zevans]

There's a workaround for this, described at:

http://www.fiveanddime.net/firefox.html

I've restricted mine to 20MB now, which seems to be enough to keep most of my usual pages happily in memory and keeps the pressure off everything else.

This always shows you how to move the disk cache, which is something else that should be made available through the UI, IMHO.

Useless link in post

[Anonymous Coward]

The link for "quite significant changes" goes to the 1.7x change list so of course those are significant.

How about a link to the changes in the new release, 1.7.7?

Re:Useless link in post

[ESqVIP]

Problem is the Mozilla website is simply a mess when it comes to Suite versions. I couldn't find any link referring especifically to 1.7.7, sorry.

Re:Open Source has Security Flaws?

[TelJanin]

No, OSS has security flaws. The difference is that they are fixed.

Problems with the Moz and FF plugin interface:

[Futurepower(R)]

Both Firefox and Mozilla crashed for me earlier tonight when I was printing postage and labels from the usps.com web site.

It's obvious that both have problems with the plugin interface.

The problem with Open Source software is that there is no one to say, "This bug MUST be fixed, before anything else is done." OO people work on what they want, and the less interesting stuff, like fixing someone else's bugs, doesn't get attention.

The Slashdot rendering bug has not been fixed, for example, and both FF and Moz are crashy, as the parent poster says.

Re:Problems with the Moz and FF plugin interface:

[scragz]

The problem with Open Source software is that there is no one to say, "This bug MUST be fixed, before anything else is done." OO people work on what they want, and the less interesting stuff, like fixing someone else's bugs, doesn't get attention.

It's called a realease blocker. At least in the Mozilla world, there are plenty of them for every major release that, err, block it from being released.

Re:Problems with the Moz and FF plugin interface:

[ptlis]

The problem with Open Source software is that there is no one to say, "This bug MUST be fixed, before anything else is done." OO people work on what they want, and the less interesting stuff, like fixing someone else's bugs, doesn't get attention.

Bullshit, look at all the problems with IE & it's Trident rendering engine and tell me that it's easier to get closed source application vendors to fix bugs...

The Slashdot rendering bug has not been fixed, for example[...]

Wrong. It's been fixed in the trunk but had too many effects elsewhere (probably causing bugs, which you seem so worried about) to make it into the Firefox 1.0 branch, so they decided to play it safe and try to iron out these bugs ready for the Firefox 1.1 branch.

and both FF and Moz are crashy, as the parent poster says.

What Operating Sytem? What level of patching (is it up-to-date?)? What hardware is it running on? What plugins do you have installed?

The reason I ask is I know Firefox 1.x has been rock solid for me, both the Debian build and the win32 binary (with 10 extensions installed for each), only problems i've encountered have been as a result of said extensions (IE liveHTTPheaders + sessionsaver causes crashes when uploading html/css files to be validated on the w3c site).

Re:Problems with the Moz and FF plugin interface:

[Anonymous Coward]

OO people work on what they want.

Glad to hear it. What do the habits of OpenOffice.org developers have to do with Firefox? Are you a bad copy&paste troll, or was that just a typo?

Re:Problems with the Moz and FF plugin interface:

[MisterTut]

OK, Here's my stats. Firefox is constantly crashing. I am using OS X 10.2.8. I always use the most recent release, as of today, 1.0.3. Stock iBook, 2 years old. I've removed ALL plugins/extentions, never added any themes.

I swear I must be a crackhead for my inability to give up ff, but I HATE Safari. I keep hoping my problems will be fixed in the next build, but sadly, I keep being dissapointed.

-Tut
http://www.health-hack.com/

Re:Dear /. Fruits

[Mancat]

In my case, it feels like my right hand.

Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[BrookHarty]

Wow, I just loaded Mozilla 1.7.7 and it popped up infront of my shells while I was working. Umm, who decided this was a good feature? Firefox loads in the background.

Really, I hate popup dialogs or any other program that things it has to be your center of attention while you are working, and take focus. Mozilla hasnt did this in the past, and firefox doesnt, wtf happened?

Shame.

BTW, wonder if I get marked flaimbait, troll for a noticing this on the new release and commenting on it. Because you cant say anything negative these days without someone thinking you are being rude. Negative comments are just that, something that can be fixed. I have serveral mozilla bugs that are still not fixed, mostly because its due to older hardware. The downloading of files, where it can cripple a sub-1ghz laptop and 4200-5400 drive, freezing the whole laptop (On windows). :) I use Firefox and Thunderbird, being a long time Netscape (4.x) email client user. Things just keep getting better, (mostly).

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean to say that the application gained focus when it intially loaded, such as just about every X/Windows/Mac/etc. application in existance does?

And you're upset about this?

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I got out of it.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every application? No, not every application. Firefox doesnt.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Anonymous Coward]

I should have modded you offtopic for writing about what mods you'll get, but instead I reply to tell you why you're being offtopic, in case someone else mods you so.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Anonymous Coward]

IM clients load in the background.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole post isnt offtopic, your only suppose to use offtopic when the entire post is offtopic.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a popup when a download terminates, and then you have to close the download manager window because it doesn't automatically close.

I kinda preferred the old way where I had one progress bar per download and I'd know if a download had terminated when the progress bar window disappeared.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about annoying then? It seems like every other post either starts or ends with the disclaimer "I'll probably get modded down for this..." as if they are bravely raging against the unwashed masses.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[RyLaN]

At least in KDE, there is a window-manager level setting to have all applications be pushed to background when they launch. Just pattern match the window class and set 'Keep Below' to be the initial setting.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[mickwd]

"BTW, wonder if I get marked flaimbait, troll for a noticing this on the new release and commenting on it. Because you cant say anything negative these days without someone thinking you are being rude."

Then try making constructive criticism without saying things like 'what the fuck'.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Reziac]

On my WinBoxen, I have the tweak set to "Prevent applications from stealing focus" and Mozilla STILL does it. Makes me wonder what it's doing that it really shouldn't be.

Re:Mozilla failed the "In your face" test...

[Anonymous Coward]

No no, negative comments are only frowned upon if they regard open-source software. If you say something negative about Microsoft, you'll be guaranteed a +%Informative mod, but say something bad about Linux, and you'll be modded "troll".

Slashdot: news for hypocrites and losers who live in their parent's basements.

Re:1.0.7?? What about 1.1PR?

[Anonymous Coward]

1.1 PR should be already out by now? What gives?

It says preview release for developers. There's still plenty of April left for this if it doesn't already exist. The normal preview release isn't scheduled until May. The end of May is a month and a half away. Also, you may have missed the part at the top of the table: "This is, as always, subject to change.".

Damn shame

[mcrbids]

I've been using Moz since 0.5x on Linux. I've gotten very used to it.

I started using Firefox once 1.0 was released. I used it heavily, and for a while, it was my preferred browser. (Mainly because the bright orange icon was easier to find than the bluecurve icon on my FC3 laptop)

But, finally, I had to go back. Moz is just simply better. Having separate address and search bars is a stupid waste of space. The find being down at the bottom of the screen was... funky.

But the one that did it? Refresh on view source!

I develop web apps, and the ability to see raw output in HTML, do a tweak on the file on the server, and then hit reload while viewing source, and see the source update, was the straw that broke the Camel's back. In FF, I have to close the "view source" window, hit refresh, then View Source again.

Ugh.

I haven't uninstalled FF, but the icon is no longer on my desktop, and I really don't use it anymore.

Funny, how the STUPIDEST features can make the biggest differences, no?

Re:Damn shame

[benjamindees]

While everyone's preferences are different (I like the separate search bar, but detest the new find dialog), the thing is, they're *preferences*. They should be configurable. Splitting Firefox/Mozilla makes you choose all or nothing, and I'm afraid both products are suffering for it.

What is the long term goal for Firefox and Mozilla? Are we supposed to port the legacy features from the Suite to Firefox one by one? From what I can tell, that isn't happening. People who like the Suite are sticking with the Suite. People who like IE are switching to Firefox. The rest of us are just complaining on Slashdot :)

Re:Damn shame

[ydnar]

Ctrl+W
Ctrl+R
Ctrl+U

Or you could write an extension...

Re:Damn shame

[Dysproxia]

Having separate address and search bars is a stupid waste of space.

I've got my Firefox set up so that I can just type the searchwords on the address bar. You need to go to about:config, then change the keyword.URL value to http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q= from the default I'm Feeling Lucky address.

Also I use heavily the DictionarySearch extension. By dragging over some words on a page and right clicking it lets me search straight from dictionary.com, Wikipedia and Google image search and if I selected some plaintext URL I can open it in a new tab. Of course Firefox has a simple Google search by default there also.

Re:Damn shame

[CTho9305]

The Firefox developers have specifically rejected PATCHES (not just feature requests) for preferences that allow Firefox to act more like Mozilla (for example, unswap ctrl and alt in the URL bar). They're just not interested.

Re:Damn shame

[mcrbids]

Or, I could just use Moz (which has MORE features, and seems about as fast as FF to me) and do it all with Ctl+R.

Hmm...

Re:Damn shame

[Vantage13]

But the one that did it? Refresh on view source!

I develop web apps,

Sounds to me like you want the Web Developer Toolbar Does everything you need and then some

Incidently...

[l*barbs]

If anyone here is NOT useing Firefox to view this page I will start getting seriously worried... Seriously, with all the cool extensions you can get (Linky!), FF is so much better than IE.

Re:Incidently...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for posting, Ben.

Re:Incidently...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using Konqueror. thphtphhtphtph.

Re:Incidently...

[Anonymous Coward]

konqueror sucks

because, silly

[SweetAndSourJesus]

I've already got Google Ads in Firefox.

Take that, Google!

Re:because, silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Take what? By installing that extension and clicking the links you are handing cash to google (in the form of the person you clicked on handing money to google for clicks)...

A google browser would have that hardcoded so that you can't remove it without the source (sure it would have to be open source so people can remove it if the browser is something special but if you try to convince me that an average person even knows what a C file is let alone how to use it [or actually cares] then you don't know what you're talking about)

Re:because, silly

[meehray]

Omg, that link cracked me up. lol!

useability

[some_god]

I wish someone would port the ability to open bookmarks in tabs to mozilla, like it is done in firefox, that and the firefox search bar is the only thing that keeps me on firefox.

Yes i am aware of sevral plugins that will do this, but they are all crap and/or does so much id have to spend a lifetime going trough options just to get it back to a good state (im looking at you multizilla and Tabbrowser Extensions).

Mozilla starts up in around 1 second on my computer (2.7 p4 running debian) and firefox starts up in around that time or slower.
mozilla is more stable and i can keep it open for weeks at a time while firefox starts sucking up memory like a whore in a bank managers convention in only a day or two.

I still use mozilla for mail, why? because it starts as fast as thunderbird or faster and feels smoother so why bother?

Re:useability

[Anonymous Coward]

It is spelt _usability_ not useability.

But I agree there is little incentive for Mozilla users to switch to Firefox, we already have tabbed browsing and whole lot of extras that we would have to dick around to get setup the way we like if we used Firefox. I am it is inevitable that some day I'll be given a locked down desktop with Firefox and I wont even have the option to install the extensions I need to make it bearble.

At the risk of sounding like a Troll if you will but I may as well use Opera, it seems to be where all the best ideas in Firefox come from.

Re:useability

[CTho9305]

I wish someone would port the ability to open bookmarks in tabs to mozilla,
Which bookmarks? Trunk (1.8 alphas, beta) has had the ability to middle click bookmarks and bookmark folders to open them in tabs for a long time now: see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27280 0 (remove the space)

I didn't think it was worth requesting approval for 1.7.x for the patch.

PATCH AVAILIABLE

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to edit/preferences (or tools/options on windows) select web features and uncheck javascript (you already disabled java right?). That's it, all of these "security" problems are fixed except for the installer one (if you're installing extensions from untrusted sources you have far more serious problems anyway).

Client-side scripting is the security problem, over 90% of browser vulnerabilities are because of client side script, the steps above will fix current and future problems.

"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them" -- Albert Einstein

damn.. have to download it again !?!?

[_Qiang_]

i just upgraded from 0.8 to 1.0.2 two days ago.
found some great extentions on firefox site but i have these two problems.

I have to give up an extention 'IE view' which is not supported anymore.

the TBE (tab browsing extintion) has one feature I couldn't find in the new one. where is the "bring back the closed tab" feature ?

from 0.8 to 1.0.2, I haven't felt any significiant improves besides the new extentions.

Re:damn.. have to download it again !?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a great extension called 'Opera' :)

Re:damn.. have to download it again !?!?

[cowsandmilk]

I'm running Firefox 1.03 with IEView working just fine. I don't know what you're talking about.

Re:damn.. have to download it again !?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just downloaded 1.0.2 now, this afternoon, on dial-up (plus the gnome libraries and stuff it wanted too). I open it up, look on /. and what do I see...

Time to set it downloading and go and make dinner, I think.

Correct link to moz release notes

[Hank Chinaski]

http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.7.7/

there you go

Re:Correct link to moz release notes

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks man!

[goes link]

wtf is this?

"Before installing a new version of Mozilla, you should uninstall your previous version first. If you have a third-party extension installed, particularly the spell checker, you should also completely delete your Mozilla install directory before making a new install. Do not install over an old Mozilla version."

What the heck?

You WANT to overwrite to keep your preferences and bookmarks. (And overwriting 1.7.6 worked fine, i'm pleased to say.)

Also note the install dialog recognized the earlier verision was there, and only admonished, "Unrecognized 3rd party components will be removed from this directory to prevent version incompatibilities and will have to be re-installed. Your Mozilla profile information will not be affected."

Seriously, you're going to lose joe user if he has to rebuild from scratch with every *.*.+1 update. Did I miss something, or are they serious?

Re:Correct link to moz release notes

[pe1chl]

Your preferences and bookmarks are not stored in the install directory.

fsck that ... Compiling ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Do that in 9X

The proof is in the patent!

[Anonymous Coward]

When making a tinfoil hat, does the shiny side go on the inside or outside?

When making an ad-hominem attack, does the.. ehh, nevermind.

Either you haven't read the patent application or you're ignoring what's there. Here, I'll dig up some choice bits:

46. The method of claim 45, wherein the user maintained or generated data relates to at least one of favorites lists, bookmarks, temp files, and cache files associated with one or a plurality of users.

47. The method of claim 45, wherein the scoring the document includes: analyzing the user maintained or generated data [defined above] over time to identify at least one of trends to add or remove the document, a rate at which the document is added to or removed from the user maintained or generated data, and whether the document is added to, deleted from, or accessed through the user maintained or generated data, and scoring the document based, at least in part, on a result of the analyzing.

[0114] According to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention, user maintained or generated data may be used to generate (or alter) a score associated with a document. For example, search engine 125 may monitor data maintained or generated by a user, such as "bookmarks," "favorites," or other types of data that may provide some indication of documents favored by, or of interest to, the user. Search engine 125 may obtain this data either directly (e.g., via a browser assistant) or indirectly (e.g., via a browser). Search engine 125 may then analyze over time a number of bookmarks/favorites to which a document is associated to determine the importance of the document.

[0116] In an alternative implementation, other types of user data that may indicate an increase or decrease in user interest in a particular document over time may be used by search engine 125 to score the document. For example, the "temp" or cache files associated with users could be monitored by search engine 125 to identify whether there is an increase or decrease in a document being added over time. Similarly, cookies associated with a particular document might be monitored by search engine 125 to determine whether there is an upward or downward trend in interest in the document.

Re:Dear /. Fruits

[ShagratTheTitleless]

There's something seriously wrong with your chicks junk dude.

Acid2 Test

[callqcmd]

FF 1.0.3 is still failing the Acid2 Test here

Re:Acid2 Test

[Anonymous Coward]

IE fails as well.

Re:Acid2 Test

[CTho9305]

Amazingly enough, security fix releases tend not to change page rendering!

Re:Acid2 Test

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the developers feel insecure about the misrendering.

Re:Acid2 Test

[Anonymous Coward]

gay faggot homo piece of shit

Re:Acid2 Test

[Anonymous Coward]

why the hell wasn't this modded down as offensive

Re:Acid2 Test

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe cause it's not worth wasting a mod point for?

Re:Open Source has Security Flaws?

[The Cisco Kid]

Try "When OSS software has security flaws" .. they get made public, and they get fixed, usually very quickly.

When closed software has security flaws, for a few months only the blackhats know about them, and write worms and trojans and so forth to abuse them. Somewhere in there some corporate flunky somewhere might find out about it, some red tape later some programmers might get assigned to work on it. Then the rest of the world finds out about it when the closed vendor releases a huge binary 'patch' that fixes that bug, but creates a dozen others.

Customize toolbar and creating search keywords

[jeti]

1. Select View->Toolbars->Customize... from the main menu and drag the search field from the toolbar.

2. Create bookmarks with keywords for your searches. Several are predefined. If you want to f.e. have a quick way to search goggle images, go to images.google.com and right-click the entry field. Select "Add a Keyword" from the context menu, and enter "gi" into the Keyword field of the dialog.

Typing "gi whales" into the address bar now searches google for images of whales.

Re:Customize toolbar and creating search keywords

[Anonymous Coward]

In moz, if I want to google, I can just type something, hit up and then [ctrl+]enter. And I can still do the bookmark keywords too. So where's the advantage with Firefox? A default config that I don't like?

Re:Customize toolbar and creating search keywords

[madprof]

I can just Google in Forefox too but sadly if I put a : or . in my Google search it seems to think I want to load a URL whereas Mozilla knew I was trying to search Google.
Now I've done the bookmark adding thing and I'm a lot happier - typing 'g site:www.foo.org foo.bar' into the address bar works nicely and it's no hassle really.
Firefox feels a bit quicker for me to use than Mozilla used to and seems to look nicer too.

Re:Customize toolbar and creating search keywords

[timothy]

Awesome -- I'd always set up keyword searches "the hard way" (not so hard, really -- I would just always have to google to remind myself of quite how to do this). You've just probably saved me a bunch of time in the future -- thanks.

Also, since I had google searches set up from the URL bar, I was annoyed by but learning to ignore the search bar (along with a lot of other people, Yes, I find it a pain in the eye) -- so you killed that one, too.

timothy

Planned for Firefox 1.1

[jeti]

This feature is being worked on and should ship with Firefox 1.1 .

For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[taxevader]

please please please dont let the URL disappear if the page times out.. its frustrating enough opening 10 pages to have 8 of them load. but for the 2 that didnt load to not even be reloadable due to a totally blank URL line is just unforgivable!!

please fix this bug ASAP!! /end of rant

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[Ann Elk]

FWIW: Moz 1.7.6 has the same feature/bug. Highly annoying.

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[caluml]

please fix this bug ASAP!!

Is it even a bug? Have you checked? If it isn't, have you filed one?

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, links to Bugzilla from Slashdot are disabled.

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[fugas]

And so does IE...

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[Ann Elk]

That settles it then -- it's definitely a bug.

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[Denyer]

Strictly speaking it isn't a bug. It is an annoying default behaviour for most people, though.

Hit 'about:config' and toggle 'browser.xul.error_pages.enabled' to true.

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[Richard_at_work]

IE never has for me, V6 on Win2kpro and XP Pro. If the server times out, or the domain isnt found, the URL remains in the address bar, it doesnt blank it. (For what its worth, my home setup is Firefox on OSX and the blanked address bar is really annoying).

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[a gremlin]

that just happened to me this morning, my session from last night didnt load right (i use SessionSaver) and all i was left with was 14 blank tabs. It pissed me off so much, i guess ill have to start bookmarking everything now...

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

I too find this THE most annoying thing, I don't have crashes or anything with firefox just that damn annoying "url cannot be found........ and so we're gonna hide it from you too, have a nice day! :D" thing :@

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[CTho9305]

XUL Error pages are in pretty bad shape in 1.7.x and 1.0.x - there's a reason they're off by default. For 1.1 and 1.8, many of the bugs have been fixed, and they work a lot better.

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[Tteddo]

Nice! Thanks!

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure when/if the patch is going to make it into a release, but until it does, you can just use the extension from here:

Show Failed URL

Hope this helps.

Re:For Version 1.0.4 PLEASE

[Cap'n Steve]

It is a bug. (see also here and here)

It looks like it's been fixed and rebroken several times.

I still prefer the suite

[GregWebb]

Firefox is OK, but... Quite simply, it just feels a bit emasculated and kiddified. I just prefer the look and feel of the full suite and I'm sure they've moved around and lost some options in the fox.

If Firefox had a suite interface skin and a full (browser) set of suite config options available without having to root around in about:config, I'd give it a try. As it stands, it just doesn't feel right and I'd much rather they pushed ahead with suite 1.8.

Re:I still prefer the suite

[fugas]

I also prefer the theme of the suite browser. IMO, the next best thing is the FirefoxModern theme.

Re:I still prefer the suite

[pe1chl]

Yes, it really is a pity that 1.8 is not being released. The 1.8 beta already has bugs fixed that still are present in 1.7.7 and Firefox 1.0.3

I always found it a bad idea to fork off projects like Firefox and Thunderbird.
The suite should have remained as a suite and the improvements implemented as part of that.
The Mozilla community does not have the resources to develop so many different versions, and it shows.

Re:I still prefer the suite

[Anonymous Coward]

I also preferred suite. I tested Firefox and it was horrible. Then I used it about two weeks and no way I'm going back to suite anymore.

So what I'm saying here is, give it a try. Humans often get stuck to old technology and they are afraid of the change, even if it is for better.

Re:I still prefer the suite

[bunratty]

Mozilla 1.8 will be released, just under a different name with QA done by the Seamonkey group instead of the Mozilla Foundation.

Re:I still prefer the suite

[Anonymous Coward]

I tested Firefox and it was horrible. Then I used it about two weeks and no way I'm going back to suite anymore.

Oh, this is so true. Like, when they introduced the new download manager, I hated it. I posted all sorts of abusive complaints about it, I hated it that much. Now? Couldn't care less, it does the job and that's fine.

Or when they introduced the new search bar at the bottom of the screen. I screamed. I wasted a whole afternoon trying to turn it off. Now? I like it. It's convenient. I wish all my other programs had it.

It's natural to hate something for being different. But just because you hate it doesn't mean it's not actually better...

Re:I still prefer the suite

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried that, and after using Firefox for about a month, I still hate it. Sometimes new technology is just bad.

Re:I still prefer the suite

[Anonymous Coward]

awesome

Re:Open Source has Security Flaws?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fixing flaws is all well and good, but if people don't download those fixed versions the problem still exists. Firefox is about a 4.5MB download. Not everyone has broadband and they're not going to download a new version every week. Nor are IS staff going to update machines every week.

Slashdot still renders incorrectly

[johannesg]

...in the new Mozilla 1.7.7 I installed just seconds ago. Wasn't a fix for this made available a long time ago?

Re:Slashdot still renders incorrectly

[juhaz]

...in the new Mozilla 1.7.7 I installed just seconds ago. Wasn't a fix for this made available a long time ago?

Yes. But the fix caused a regression, and without knowing how many sites it would affect, both Firefox 1.0 and Mozilla 1.7 branches decided to leave it out.

Those regressions have now been fixed too, so it will be fixed in 1.1 and 1.8.

Re:Slashdot still renders incorrectly

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe Slashdot could get updated with newer code more reflective of modern realities? I imagine it's nice and nostalgic to be able to render on Netscape 0.9, but is it really necessary?

Re:Open Source has Security Flaws?

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

You mean that blackhats always release their findings to OSS software people, but don't to closed source stuff out of spite?

You mean blackhats use their information for good, rather than evil, but only for OSS?

Or, do you mean that only whitehats find out problems with OSS far faster than anyone else, thus evading the problem?

Please explain to me the differences.

Firefox and Thunderbird on Fedora Core 2 SUCK

[Kris Magnusson]

on an intel box, just try installing them and see what i mean.

0. on fedora core 2, firefox actually has an installer! great! things are looking up.

1. firefox installs to my trash. why?

2. i downloaded and unpacked thunderbird, which is just a bunch of executables that have to be placed somewhere in the file system to run. no installer to be seen.

3. in gnome you have to make a launcher icon for both programs for the panel. this is no better than kde in solaris or unixware as far as usability goes. to add insult to injury, neither of the apps have appropriate icons to represent them in the user interface.

4. when running thunderbird, it fails to pick up new messages in linux or in windows when using gmail's pop service. is this a real app or is it that NaDa app i keep hearing so much about?

don't tell me to pitch in and make these apps better. i'm a writer, not a programmer. i want things to JUST WORK on linux. i spent my years as a professional open source advocate, but i just want things to WORK now. but of course they don't, since this is linux we're talking about. that's why i don't even bother with these apps since my primary work machine is a powerbook! i have safari and mail that handle my needs perfectly.

if only computing life could be as effortless under linux or windows--if only i could use my mac all the time . . .

......... kris

Re:Firefox and Thunderbird on Fedora Core 2 SUCK

[rjw57]

when running thunderbird, it fails to pick up new messages in linux or in windows when using gmail's pop service. is this a real app or is it that NaDa app i keep hearing so much about?

Works for me, you have set interval mail checking haven't you (i.e. told it to check mail every n minutes)?

don't tell me to pitch in and make these apps better. i'm a writer, not a programmer. i want things to JUST WORK on linux.

Then wait for the Fedora guys to package it instead. Then it will come in for free with up2date.

Re:Firefox and Thunderbird on Fedora Core 2 SUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm a writer, not a programmer.

No you're not.

Re:Firefox and Thunderbird on Fedora Core 2 SUCK

[Stevyn]

I wouldn't blame this on the mozilla team. They just release the source code and let the distros figure the rest out.

Re:Firefox and Thunderbird on Fedora Core 2 SUCK

[Kris Magnusson]

you're right. don't tell my boss. he might get wise.

But I just got done emerging Firefox 1.0.2 dammit!

[nokilli]

It was about a four hour compile, and when it was done, guess which site I go to to see if it's working: slashdot.

And guess what the fucking story is?

Fucking Firebox releases fucking 1.0.3.

Whatever. At least it wasn't a dupe.

Bug fixes

[Masq666]

There are people saying that Firefox may not be that much more secure than IE, but at least Firefox is getting fixes to improve it's security, while MS is not doing much untill they release the next version of IE. I'll upgrade my Firefox right away...

Mozilla RIP?

[darth_silliarse]

I refuse to use anything but Mozilla and I don't want to switch to Firefox/Thunderbird either, should this be the last Mozilla release I will pay for Opera and have a consistent release schedule and support...

Undoclosetab-extension

[Velmont]

You can use the extension undoclosetab for bringing back the last closed tab :) (It's really useful, I'm too quick on the guestures way too often)

And the IEView extension should work for 1.x.. I wouldn't know as I don't run Windows - but I've seen other people using it.

Re:Undoclosetab-extension

[FhnuZoag]

There is also tab bin, which has the advantage of not having to undo in the order of closing (but check compatibility):

http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/tabbin

I've written a slightly modified version to add an Empty Bin feature.

http://images.polarisboard.org/fzplus/tabbin.xpi

If you bothered to RTFA last time it was discussed

[Phil John]

you would know that the mozilla suite will still be developed, but as a 100% community effort separate from the Mozilla Foundation. There are lots of people who love the integration offered by the suite and hence the smaller memory footprint (which will be a moot point once we've got a XUL Runtime Engine (XRE)).

woo not that rubbishy update machanism on windows

[matt me]

i love you fedora! the windows firefox installer is the second worst i have ever seen (after one which spoke to me). why do mozilla refuse to use nsis? it creates icons in the wrong places regardless of what you say, attempts to install to a temp directory, and reinstalls all their default searchplugins.

yum update firefox. love it.

Try the FC3 RPMS on FC2...

[rklrkl]

I've put up some instructions for Fedora Core 2 users on how to get the Fedora Core 3 RPMs (currently 1.0.2/1.7.6 versions - I'll adjust the versions for 1.0.3/1.7.7 when the RPMs turn up) to work on FC2. This puts a "Firefox Web Browser" option in your Internet FC2 menu and you can then "Add to Panel..." to get the Firefox icon on your panel as well (this is NOT difficult - right click on panel background, select "Add to Panel...", double-click on the first "Application Launcher.." option, open up the Internet sub-options (click on triangle) and then double-click on Firefox). Note that FC3 users can simply just use "yum update" to pick up recent versions and these integrate correctly with the users' FC3 desktop (though you may have to add a panel icon like above if you haven't already).

Bug #287717

[Gudlyf]

This is a pretty crappy bug they haven't fixed yet. On Windows, try saving a web page and when the Save As... dialog asks where the file should go, try traversing a shortcut. You can't.

Re:Bug #287717

[ssstraub]

Blame Windows for that. It's a well-known OS bug that happens for more applications than just Firefox. Yes, there are ways around it, and it will have to be fixed by Firefox because MS apparently won't fix it.

Re:But I just got done emerging Firefox 1.0.2 damm

[TeknoHog]

Next time, just emerge mozilla-firefox-bin. (Except if you need fancy compile-time settings.)

When Firefox 1.1 ?

[earthstar]

Thanks for the info buddy.

Any idea in how many months Firefox 1.1 will release?
Any Rough date?

Effing Memory Leak Still Not Fixed?

[sqlzealot]

I see the huge ass memory leak is still not fixed with this release. Leave your browser on overnight and memory used goes from a reasonable 30mb to 100mb+. How did a bug like this not make it through testing? Does noone in mozilla-land leave their browser open for a couple days?

I love FireFox now but I don't seem to recall IE ever having these kind of problems.

Yes, but what problems are release blockers?

[Futurepower(R)]

Except for security updates, I think that the Slashdot rendering bug and the plugin crash bug should be release blockers. And they have not been.

Re:Yes, but what problems are release blockers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on folks, this is a valid opinion and not a troll. Someone with mod points at least give him an underrated.

Mod parent up...

[Denyer]

...grandparent is doing a fine impression of a stuck record. I wish people would stop bitching about the address bar having different default behaviour in Firefox whilst being easily customisable. Having a separate search box is more welcoming to neophytes, but there's no problem quickly setting up alternatives.

Look for 'keyword.URL' in about:config for even more flexibility.

This isn't a troll, I'm just wondering how many users incoming from Mozilla have even noticed the keyword search feature in Firefox. Not many on current evidence. Sometimes it's worth giving a quick glance at the documentation--keyword searches are one of those lovely features that make you wonder how you ever got anything done quickly before.

Re:Mod parent up...

[QuantumET]

The keyword feature is in Mozilla, too, you know.

But can I get Firefox to display google search as an option in the address field drop-down, like it does in Mozilla? Even easier than prepending a 'g '

Wrong icon on what?

[the pickle]

I think I speak for everyone when I ask...

"Win ninety-who?"

Nobody actually uses that any more, right?

p

Re:Wrong icon on what?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are more Win9x users that Linux users.

Cough, Google Zeitgeist.

Re:When Firefox 1.1 ?

[Alci12]

Roadmap is http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/roadmap-1. 0.html

Bug 171349

[DoorFrame]

Ha, that's funny. I didn't even realize it was a bug, I thought Firefox just chose a lousy small logo. I didn't understand why it wasn't their standard logo, but didn't realize it was a bug.

I need to get a new OS.

Re:If you bothered to RTFA last time it was discus

[bunratty]

The development of the Mozilla Suite isn't separate from Firefox at all. Most of the code is shared between the two products, and improvements to Firefox automatically improve the Suite, too. The 1.8 version of the Suite is still a Mozilla project, just not a Mozilla product, meaning that QA and releases will be done by the community instead of by the Mozilla Foundation.

disabled extensions

[roman_mir]

After installing the FF 1.0.3 all installed extensions became disabled but still showed as enabled in the Tools->Extensions list. So I had to go and manually disable them all and then enable them all back.

I wonder if this is a bug?

Re:disabled extensions

[gflores]

Same thing happened to me. I found this. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=287726

AutoUpdater?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am highly surprised that every version of firefox I've used to date on linux or windows does not include an autoupdater or even a check to see if there's a new version available?! At this rate, firefox will be just as much of a security nightmare as IE! What's the problem with just freaking checking a (key signed) page on mozilla.org or whatver to see if there's a new version available, and recommending to the user they download it?

Re:AutoUpdater?

[EMR]

I'm not sure which versions you are using, but every version I've used on windows and linux sans the Fedora Core RPMS, does auto updates. The initial 1.0.1 release they held back on the auto updates as they were having some issues with their system. but the 1.0.2 update went through that day. You may want to check your options to see if you enabled the auto update checks.

*Note* it's just a check and a little "red" or "blue" circle w/ an arrow will appear in the menu bar when updates are available. you have to click the cirle manually to trigger the dialog to ask you what you wish to download.

Speaking of that red cirle with an arrow. there it is right now.

Where are the BitTorrents?

[Conficio]

Hi there, I'm missing updates to the Official Bit Torrents. They are still at 1.0.1 !!! Why does Mozilla not support in a timely manner a ligitimate use of a great P2P system, that could save them (and their mirrors) some money in the process and proof that P2P is not only about "stealing" copyrighted material. K

Re:But I just got done emerging Firefox 1.0.2 damm

[lachlan76]

You call yourself a Gentoo user? Traitor...you disgust me!

:o)

Re:1.0.7?? What about 1.1PR?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you rather have it now and deal with some bad bugs:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_f or mat=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_ desc=&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&bug_file _loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whit eboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keyw ords_type=allwords&keywords=&resolution=DUPLICATE& resolution=---&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=exac t&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&ema ilqa_contact2=1&emailtype2=exact&email2=&bugidtype =include&bug_id=&votes=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now &chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+ as+last+time&field0-0-0=flagtypes.name&type0-0-0=s ubstring&value0-0-0=blocking1.8b2%3F&field0-0-1=fl agtypes.name&type0-0-1=substring&value0-0-1=blocki ng1.8b2%2B (remove any spaces)

or wait a few weeks so that can all be ironed out and you get a release that doesn't suck?

It actually means

[Anonymous Coward]

that you're a pedantic asshat. Shut up, sit down, and increase your meds.

Ahhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

So what your saying is, in you're own limited experience, all those "girls" you've been with have been using their right hand to hold their balls out of the way.

Thanks SO much for clearing that up for us all.

Pleases me too

[Anonymous Coward]

Woot!

In Windows Add/Remove Programs, I now only see one version of Firefox-- 'Firefox 1.0.3'.

This will please many people.

Indeed. I am very pleased too. I was tired of seeing those multiple entries in your Add/Remove Programs each time I remoted into your...

No, don't disconn...

NO CARRIER

You insensitive...

[Anonymous Coward]

... clod! I post on /. under Windows for Workgroups 3.11. And I don't need no stinkin' emulators!

security fix(es)

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the other 1.0.x releases, this is mostly a security fix. ...is a little misleading - this version contains 9 secrity fixes, three of which are deemed "critical".

Had this been an IE post, I am sure the title would have pointed out the number of fixes.

Its not the number that the problem

[bogie]

As I've pointed out before, Firefox's probem isn't the number of flaws its how fast they get fixed. In fact before the last release there was a rather large lag time between when there were a bunch of security flaws and when fixes came out in a stable release.

Firefox is still the most secure general purpose browser IMHO but its still has a long way to go regarding security practices. First they need to develop a decent updating mechanism though so that you don't have to reinstall the entire browser just a fix a bug. The current setup isn't non-optimal to say the least.

Looks nice, but won't connect. It's rollback time.

[TrentTheThief]

I've just done the update to 1.0.3.

Great stuff, that. It won't connect. I even went so far as to use Opera to download a fresh copy of 1.0.3 and then uninstalled and rebooted, installed and it still doesn't work.

And guess what? Neither does 1.0.2! (Which is available here, BTW: http://mozilla.isc.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rel eases/1.0.2/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%201.0.2.ex e)

Lucky I still have a 1.0.

Needless to say, this is a less than inmpressive update as far as I'm concerned. Not that I'm going to stop using FireFox :-) But I sure wish it had been as smooth a process as the last couple updates were.

other direction

[hawk]

What I'm looking for is the ability to have firefox open in a new window instead of a tab on middle-click. Until then, it's useless to me (though I'll install it for others).

and have other peoplehad the problem with editing keys (^K, ^U, etc) no longer working on Mozilla 1.7? I thought it was something funny about the one machine, until I updated this one and got the same behavior.

hawk

Re:AutoUpdater? WFM

[markdowling]

1.0.2/XPSP2

Got a popup from the tray to indicate updates available, clicked the red arrow. It downloads a full installer which is less than optimal and leaves it on the desktop on completion.

However, it removed the 1.0.2 entry which is progress!

Re: TBE still can undo closed tabs!

[KURAAKU Deibiddo]

Seriously, this is still there, and I use it on multiple platforms. It's under the Tab menu, about a third of the way down, "Undo Close Tab". Or you can select from a list of recently closed tabs to re-open, one item below that ("Recent Closed Tabs").

On windows, the shortcut is Ctrl-Shift-Z for "Undo Close Tab", and Alt-R for "Recent Closed Tabs".

Re:But I just got done emerging Firefox 1.0.2 damm

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what you get wasting time and compiling your own for -- zero gain!

Fucking ricers.

You're Right!

[Anonymous Coward]

IE has worse problems. Thanks for pointing that out.

nice troll

[Anonymous Coward]

no, they're not doing much except releasing security updates, just like Mozilla.

Supporting the old workhorses is good

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Win9x IS most definitely worth supporting.

-You hear from time to time about the huge installed base of users out there, who don't upgrade cuz they don't wanna fix what ain't broke. A reasonable decision.

-Then there are the ones who can't afford the latest greatest fancy drivel each year, and haven't been able to afford a new machine since 2k came out. Such people can be just as tech-literate & intelligent as anybody else.

-Third, there are those who even on newish hardware prefer to run older software, both for the added speed and for the stability that comes with not using the latest buggy betaware.

Between these three categories, I'd have to say slightly outdated platforms are more than worth supporting. They hold up half the sky--they are the bulk of the market, and the industry needs to not lose touch with them. Give them good software and you will gain serious marketshare.

So enough with that new-stuff chauvinism already.

I SECOND THAT ONE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

nuff said.

They'd lose market share; here's why:

[Anonymous Coward]

If Mozilla lets its fans download via bittorrent, then the ISP's will kick those fans off the net, and the feds will come and arrest them and the **AA will confiscate their bank accounts leaving them forever disenfranchised...

So, Mozilla foundation is doing people a favor by reducing the likelihood that their users get framed as criminals.

See?

How long before 1.04?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out this release Link to ftp.mozilla.org

OS X FireFox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Flash/Shockwave work right under OS X Firefox yet?

released yesterday

[fozzmeister]

why has my little red arrow not appeared? its not been updated. Im prob gonna hear about stuff like this from somewhere but your mum and dad won't. that red arrow has to work.

besides the red arrow is hard to see really and non-obvious. I think when a patch is released it needs to swap your homepage to tell you that a new version is out. and tell you about the red arrow (if thats what they're sticking with)

Re:Open Source has Security Flaws?

[The Cisco Kid]

No, I mean that when the *author* (developer/vendor/company/etc) discovers a security problem it is not kept secret, and it is fixed promptly. Proprietary software co's often know about lots of security holes and bugs in their software, that no one knows about but the company (and probably the blackhats). Their ostensible reason for not publishing the info is to keep the blackhats from knowing about it, but as you seem to imply, usually its too late for that. The real reason is entirely about their 'image'.

Re:Looks nice, but won't connect. It's rollback ti

[jmshep]

Yep, same problem here... downloaded and installed via 1.0.2. Now it won't load any page at all. It's back to (ugh) IE until I can roll it back. Thanks so much for using us as your integration testers, Moz! And (truly) thanks for the link to 1.0.2 Trent.