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Firefox 3 In Alpha
illeism writes to note that, a mere six weeks after the launch of Firefox 2, Firefox 3 is now available in alpha. CNet reports that it is currently recommended only for software developers and testers. The big change is the upgraded Gecko rendering engine (the UI is unchanged from version 2). From the CNet article: "Firefox 3 will include some significant changes. It uses version 1.9 of the Gecko rendering engine — which itself hasn't been released yet but which includes the Cairo graphics layer. Gecko 1.9 has been in development since before the release of Firefox 2, and it provides vector-based rendering on all platforms. As the Gecko 1.9 road map explains, Cairo will 'bring modern, hardware-accelerated 2D-graphics capabilities to the whole of the Web without requiring proprietary plug-ins or rendering obsolete the broad and rich set of Web-authoring techniques developed over the past decade.'"
Why ? To each program its own target.
KDE has never been "for older hardware". However, perfectly nice & actively developed Desktop Environment exist for older hw (xfce by ex.).
Same here, OpenSource is about making use of older codebase, so nothing prevents anybody to patch FF2.x !
One of the great strengths of OSS compared to proprietary software is the ability to make use of older hardware.
This doesn't happen automagically when you license something by GPL (or similar). It takes work. The strength of OSS is that no one is stopping you from making it work on older hardware. All the code for older firefox versions, and the code for gecko 1.9 is available. Just because Mozilla team is dropping support doesn't mean they won't add patches to fix this if someone else does it. Now compare that with say Windows Vista - you have no way of patching that to run on an old 386.
Moral of the story... don't be so quick to bitch about stuff.
>> It sounds like something is wrong with that.
Yes. What's wrong is having users who still scream for compatibility with their old OS. XP was out in 2001. Win2000 was out in '99. That's 7 years. I really doubt much software when Win2000 was RTMd was still compatible with Windows 3.0 of 1992...
For how many years should we cripple innovation in open source projects just to support DOS 3.3 on 286 ?
This is more than ie7 was, ie7 was a frontend change with only a handful of bugfixes in the backend, and even the top 10 list of worst bugs was not fully fixed.
While I understand your gripe, let me introduce you to Firefox 2.0. It was just released, and likely going to be around for a long enough time to outlast your computer with the P200 chip w/MMX technology that still has windows 98 installed.
Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it.
When you boil it right down, anyone using one of the older versions of Windows (and I count 2000 in this, as MS doesn't support it anymore) is going to have to face up to the fact that technology advances, software changes, and no matter how much they love their old machine/OS, they're going to get left behind. Backwards compatibility leads to backwards thinking.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Unfortuantely Opera 9 is too unstable.
I keep hearing this... don't know why, but in my Linux box, Opera 9.02 is rock solid - it haven't crashed once since i installed it. I experienced a couple of crashes back then with O8 though, but the session management (restores your session completely after a crash) rendered them relatively painless.
I must say all versions of FF i've tried were perfectly stable aswell, but the insane memory requierements (among other peeves) prevents it from being my main browser.
I'm aware of xfce and blackbox and the likes, they are nice, but if you want to run mainstream software that require KDE libraries, you're still hosed.
But in the case of FF for Windows, the problem is that Win9x users (and there are many left) will find themselves in the same situation they were with IE: they'll have to keep running the latest older version of the browser that works with their OS, which will quickly become out of date. I'm sure the FF/Gecko guys have perfectly good technical reasons to leave the old platform behind, but in a sense I hope someone will fork off a Win9x tree of FF and keep developing it, otherwise it would mean OSS is no better than Microsoft with regard to software obsolescence.
So how long are they suppose to be supporting the Win9x OSes? 2 more years? 5? 10? 20? Until there aren't any more Win9x users? But if all of the Win9x users have their OSS software continue to support Win9x, what incentive do they have to upgrade? They obviously don't care about bugs or viruses if they're still using Win9x software after all these years.
Hosed how? If you know of any other environment where I can run a collab suite, an office suite and as many instances of Web browser as my work requires at any given time for a smaller footprint than that of KDE, please kindly let me know. My machine here at work is an old piece of slow crap and KDE is the only environment thus far than has coped with my workload on that aging chunk of hardware.
Sadly, it's more likely that that more people will stick with IE. Most lusers just aren't willing to make the effort to find a *good* browser (or OS for that matter). That's why IE still exists.
If lots of people run Firefox on old PCs, there will be lots of people to develop patches for Fx 2.x.
It works the same as any open source project. The more common the scenario of your use of the project, the more likely lots of other people will be working on it.
In other words, you have nothing to worry about if in fact lots of people run Fx 2.x on old PCs.
It depends on the stage of development. Knowing that you'll have to maintain backward compatibility leads to forward thinking - you have to design in a way that makes it feasible
I understand the decision to go with Cairo, but like you said, I hope it's coupled with a commitment to seriously fix Cairo.!
4 seconds less ? What was the original time ? 1000 seconds ? Or...5 seconds ? You can better tell the percentage improvement, much clearer ;=)
I have a feeling that the 2.x.x branch of Firefox will live on for a very long time, and will continue having bugfix and security updates. If you're running Win98, it will certainly not be the weak point in your system in terms of security or stability! My point is that if by your standards you consider Win98 good enough to use, there will always be a version of Firefox that far exceeds your standards. And I mean, by many miles.
Shame really, 2000 is a decent OS (and I'm still going to have it around for a bit.)
But I guess it's time to start getting on the horse with Linux, because it's also the last MS OS I'll be using.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Adding tabs was a huge change to the IE application model.
The rendering engine was updated for efficiency and standards compliance (which is much better now, if still not yet where you'd like it to be)
Things like anti-phishing, new security models, and a new plug-in interface are features that 'go down to the metal'
IE7 was very substantial. I'm writing this on FF2.0 and I have to say: The IE7 upgrade was far more successful than FF2. I still believe that Firefox is a better browser over all, but not by very much. The only reason I'm still using FF is the extensions. There are just things that aren't available as IE Plugins yet that I would miss too much to fix. Funny enough, FireFox has be in vendor lock-in.
I'd say that the FireFox 2.0 upgrade was a debacle. There are so many things that I dislike about this release. I know I could go back to 1.5 but thats a PITA, too. Some of the many flaws with 2.0 are:
1. The "quick find" menu. When I 'find as I type' it no longer opens-up the actual "find" bar that allows me to highlight/move next/move previous. Instead, it opens a USELESS quick find bar and I have to press ctrl-f to get the full find-bar. This is so idiotic it's difficult to put it into words. There is absolutely no good reason for this. The quick-find takes up as much screen real-estate and my guess is that it takes up just as much resources.
2. The absolutely HORRIBLE options menu. In addition to being visually unappealing, it's horribly convoluted. I now have to click 10 times to do what I used to do in 2 clicks. Changing proxy settings is an example.
3. Ugly graphics. IE7 is just clearly more beautiful. For that matter, FF1.5 is clearly more beautiful. I don't know who created these things (the 'home' icon in particular) but somebody really should have said 'thanks but no thanks.'
4. Why change terminology? Extensions are now Add-Ons. Will they be plug-ins in the next release? BHOs after that? It took me 3 minutes after I upgraded to find the extension control panel.
5. More in-built functionality that I don't need. Like a phishing filter. This shouldn't be in IE, either, but DEFINITELY not in firefox.
6. I dislike having close buttons on each tab. I thought I would like it, but in reality, when I want to close multiple tabs now I have to keep moving my mouse to do so. Before, I could just click, click, click and close 3 tabs. I liked that much better.
What's even worse is that they didn't actually fix the things that would really make this browser better:
1. Memory Foot print. Right now, I have 2 tabs open (one is gmail) and about a dozen extensions. Firefox is using 101MB of RAM.
2. Extensions are not in a 'protected' mode. A misbehaving extension can still leak memory and bring down my entire browser. This infuriates me to no end when it happens.
3. No ability to see what extension has crashed. The recommended solution is to disable extensions one at a time. I should not have to do that.
4. When one tab is 'busy' (opening a PDF, for example) the entire browser window freezes. This is a tough one, I understand, but not impossible.
In summary, FireFox 2.0 was a step backwards for the browser. I sincerely hope they produce better results with FF3.
Proprietary software can support old hardware, too. They just choose not to.
OSS software can support old hardware, as well. More often, they choose to. But not always. Why can't I run Firefox on Commodore 64 or an Altair? Because I haven't downloaded the source code, written the missing parts that would enable the trunk code to be ported to $myplatform, and recompiled it.
You want legacy hardware support? If you're one of the few people still using something that old, and no one else wants to support it, hire a developer.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
People worried about security updates for their browser shouldn't be using operating systems that get no security updates -- namely, Windows 95 and Windows 98.
There are a number of security issues in your OS that no browser can smooth over.
On the other hand, Mandriva 2006, Ubuntu 6, Xandros 3, NetBSD, and Mac OS X 10.2 all run reasonably well on 500Mhz systems with 256MB of RAM (albeit OS X on a 500Mhz Mac instead of a PC). I haven't run Solaris, OpenBSD, or FreeBSD much recently, but I'd bet you could get at least Solaris and OpenBSD to run comfortably on that type of system, too. Other than OS X, all of these are available for free (as in beer) download. Some do have commercial versions with more support. OS X generally comes with the hardware that runs it, although a 500Mhz system probably originally came with OS 9 instead.
If you really want old, I have a 386sx 16Mhz laptop with 5MB of RAM and an 80MB HD running SmallLinux with Links. Perhaps I should complain that there's no support for OpenGL 2.0 on my system or something...
> Wait, you're web browsing on machines that are kept around for no reason other than running legacy apps? Why the hell would you do
> that
Because it's the machine I use to support and maintain the code? Why do you think I'm doing it?
> why the hell would you do it so much that you're complaining that Firefox 3 isn't going to support your system?
Where did I complain that FireFox3 isn't going to run on Windows 2000?
> Sounds like your workplace has issues.
Sounds like you have problems with basic English comprehension.
Some people HAVE to use old windows, because the old proprietary controlling software that came with a given hardware (say a robot in bio-medical lab), only runs on old OS (I've even seen spectro-photo-meters that only run on DOS. Yeah. Thank goodness FreeDOS is our friend in such deprecated cases). The company has dropped support for newer OS for this peice of hardwre and is only doing hardware repairs. You either have to keep a deprecated OS for your machine, or you have to buy a newer model (Which most of the time is out-of-question because the prices are horribly expensive and the older one still does its job).
The good thing with open source software is, compared to proprietary software like IE7, is that users aren't necessarily stuck with this "won't support anymore situation".
In the IE7 world, whatever Microsoft decides, you'll have to accept it. They decide to drop support for everything before WinXP ? Upgrade to a newer more expensive software is your only hope.
In the opensource world, if there's a big enough userbase (and there is surely a big enough userbase in the scientific community), some users will start tweaking and hacking. As the source is open, nothing stops programmers to start a new separate fork that will support a separate platform that won't be supported anymore in the main line.
Once FireFox 3.0 official is out, be sure that you'll see separate Win9x branches : either FF3.0 with a patched Cairo support. Or FF3.0 with a retro-fitted (non cairo-based) Gecko 1.8 engine. Or a separate continued 2.0 branch that is kept up to date and security-patched for users who can't use FF3.0. Or a completly different Gecko-based browser specially tailored for Win9x users (K-maleon 9x ?)
The only drawback is that, because of registered Mozilla Foundation's trademarks, they'll surely have to call it IceWeasel. Or SnowCat. Or FrostBear. Or LavaBadger. Or whatever else.
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