Firefox 3 Plans and IE8 Speculation

ReadWriteWeb writes "Information about the next versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer suggest that the two biggest browsers are heading in different directions. Mozilla has published a wiki page detailing its plans for the next version of Firefox, codenamed 'Gran Paradiso'. Among the mandatory requirements listed for FF3 are improving the add-on experience, providing an extensible bookmarks back-end platform, adding more support for web services "to act as content handlers" — all of which show that Firefox wants to be an independent information broker rather than a simple HTML renderer in its next version. Also in the works is Microsoft's IE8. According to ActiveWin.com, a Microsoft official at CES told them that work has already begun for IE 8 and it may be released as a final product 'within 18-24 months'. Looking ahead, it's obvious that IE will continue to hook into the advanced functionality that Vista offers."

Comments

That old saying about SMPT

[anss123]

Have Firefox implemented email yet?

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[Anonymous Coward]

do you mean thunderbird?

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[Daemonstar]

Thunderbird is Mozilla's standalone e-mail client with extensions (addons) like Firefox.

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple Mail Protocol Transport? No, no I don't think they have. It's probably because of the DCMA, you know.

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[2.7182]

I know shouldn't feed you, but please be aware of
http://www.linux-usb.org/devices.html .

I work with a lot of weird devices and have gotten almost all of them to work.

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[mlk]

Webbrowser != Email Client.

Does IE included a email client? Or does an IE client use the IE rendering component?

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[PseudoQuant]

What does The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology have to do with Firefox anyway?

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they removed e-mail functionality to avoid cluttering up the 'Tools' menu.

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with a lot of weird devices

We don't want to hear your perverted stories, you fucking sicko!

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully by the time Firefox 3 is out, they'll have fixed the memory leak problem.

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[tolan-b]

Well at least two people got your joke ;)

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[GringoCroco]

man, you totally didn't get the joke (see the Score:5, Funny) the article talks about new features that will be incorporated into these two browsers. the parent, asks (with lots of pun intended) weather firefox will incorporate an email client. firefox is a project started at Mozilla that was supposed to build a stabe, fast, cutomizable, free BROWSER as an alternative to the bloat the Netscape was :WYSIWYG web editor, email client, contact manager, browser and who knows what else. you should catch on now ...

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[aplusjimages]

I wonder if we'll see a Thunderbird 2.0 before FF3? It's in Beta, but it feels like it gets less love than the FF.

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[Clazzy]

Never mind that you misinterpreted the parent, but Opera allows for the ability to check email. Granted I don't use it, but it doesn't bloat up the browser and is easily hidden if you don't want it. Of course, we have Thunderbird if we want email clients, so Firefox will never get that feature.

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[Anonymous Coward]

Or does an IE client use the IE rendering component?

Both Outlook Express & Outlook use the IE rendering component.

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[chaosite]

Both Outlook Express & Outlook use the IE rendering component.

Semi-correct.

Outlook 2007 uses Word's HTML rendering engine.

Why, yes, this is as horrible as you think it is. Word's rendering engine can't really do any CSS.

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[Anonymous Coward]

Email is actually implemented using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol or SMTP not SMPT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_ Protocol

Re:That old saying about SMPT

[mlk]

you totally didn't get the joke

I guess not. (not that it was +5 funny when I answered it)

What's up with the code names, anyway?

[KlaymenDK]

"the next version of Firefox, codenamed 'Gran Paradiso'"

Why are they using code names?

I can understand how it could be necessary for things like the original Mac and Windows 95. But why for yet-another-version of an established product?

As I see it, either they might as well call it "the upcoming Firefox v3", or they should not (want to) discuss it publicly at all.

Or is it just to keep Marketing occupied with something harmless?

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[morgan_greywolf]

I can understand how it could be necessary for things like the original Mac and Windows 95. But why for yet-another-version of an established product?

For the same reason Windows Vista used to be called by the codename 'Longhorn' or that Ubuntu 6.10 is referred to by the codename 'Edgy Eft'. Because when they start working on the release, they don't know what they will end up calling it. "FF3" could just as easily end up being FF2.5 instead of FF3 if they don't end up with all the features that they wanted.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Aladrin]

It's not a 'codename' in the spy sense. It's a development name. It's boring to say 'firefox 3' and more fun to say 'gran paradiso'. The names are not for the public, they're for the developers. Any time they talk to the public, they call it 'firefox 3'.

Don't confuse news from third-party sources with news from the developers. The people that wrote this article are not on the team. Mozilla simply doesn't keep their development plans a secret. (They created a publicly accessible wiki.)

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[KlaymenDK]

I can understand how it could be necessary for things like the original Mac and Windows 95. But why for yet-another-version of an established product?
 

 
For the same reason Windows Vista used to be called by the codename 'Longhorn' or that Ubuntu 6.10 is referred to by the codename 'Edgy Eft'. Because when they start working on the release, they don't know what they will end up calling it. "FF3" could just as easily end up being FF2.5 instead of FF3 if they don't end up with all the features that they wanted. Yes and no. They ought to have a pretty clear picture of wether they are aiming for a an upgrade (minor version bump), a full resease (major version bump), or a new product altogether (new trade name). Yes, I realize that these are big projects, but they are (suuposed to) adhere to a roadmap. By the time you get to selecting which features to include, you'll know what order of vorsion bump you're aiming for. Or not. :-p

MS Longhorn: Sure, they need a trade name to stick on the box, and think Windows 2100 ain't gonna cut it. I can understand that.

Ubuntu: They *know* that their releases are steadily incremented. If they can count, no need for funny names. Hmm.... but I can see how that gets boring...

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[ettlz]

"Gran Paradiso". Sounds like a "professional" name for an old hooker.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[kfg]

That's the rationalization, not the reason.

The reason is because code names are cool and they want to call it a really cool code name.

KFG

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Viper Daimao]

Like Magic Man and El Diablo (which means fighting chicken I think)

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

El Diablo means "The Devil".

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[8ball629]

It's pretty standard to give a new project a code name.

I see both of your points though, it isn't very necessary but what if they don't end up calling it anything close to Firefox 3.0. What if they decide to go with a new naming convention by the time the release comes around? They could end up calling it Firefox Revolutions or Firefox Reloaded or... wait - those are Matrix movie names =\.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

As I see it, either they might as well call it "the upcoming Firefox v3", or they should not (want to) discuss it publicly at all. Thats a novel idea, have an open source, community driven project that no one discusses publicly. It's brilliant!

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Zonk (troll)]

Ubuntu: They *know* that their releases are steadily incremented. If they can count, no need for funny names. Hmm.... but I can see how that gets boring... Ubuntu's numbers are based on the year. The format is Y.MM, so 6.06 = June 2006 and 6.10 = October 2006. Fiesty is scheduled for release in April, but what if they had problems and didn't release it until May. Continuing to call it 7.04 would be rather dumb. Or, if Ubuntu went into a Vista-like mess, would it make sense to call it 7.04 in December 2010?

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Viper Daimao]

Because it's not an overused /. cliché yet I knew someone wasn't going to get it.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Supergibbs]

I believe he was quoting Talladega Nights.... I got ya Viper

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[jalefkowit]

It's a development name. It's boring to say 'firefox 3' and more fun to say 'gran paradiso'.

It also makes it clear that it's not for public consumption. If you called it "Firefox 3 Alpha 1" you'd have tons of Firefox fanboys rushing to download the "latest" version of their favorite browser. Firefox versions that don't carry the "Firefox" name aren't ready for prime time; labeling them differently sends that message.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[kfg]

Which is a fairly common thing to name a badass chicken.

Of course if he were really "The Devil" he wouldn't end up in the stew pot quite so quickly, but I'm sure to another chicken he's a mean mother.

I think I'm going to start calling my fighting hydra "Cthulhu." He be bad and shit. Scourge of the daphnia. Tremble before his evil might.

KFG

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Rodness]

It's boring to say 'firefox 3' and more fun to say 'gran paradiso'.

Not even because it's fun. Try reading the Mozilla forums sometime.

The browsers are given development codenames to SIGNIFICANTLY differentiate the development nightly/alpha/beta releases from the blessed official version releases. They don't want Grandpa Joe Sixpack coming along to download this "FoxFire thingy" he heard his kids talk about and accidently wind up with Firefox 3.0 Alpha 1, (which may or may not work as advertised because, well, it's an alpha) when he's obviously not interested in a development release.

Another reason is that it's less confusing and ambiguous, especially when you have multiple versions of Firefox. It's easy to get confused about which feature went into which product when you have "Firefox 1.0", "Firefox 1.5", "Firefox 2.0", "Firefox 3.0" and so forth. At least from a developer perspective, there's more uniqueness to "Phoenix", "Deer Park", "Bon Echo", and "Gran Paradiso" releases from the associated mental imagery.

But keeping them distinct and less noticable from the end user perspective is the most important reason.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[jacksonj04]

This is why you need build versions as well. Chances are people don't suddenly go "The last build was 2862, but it's a new year so we'll call it build 7001.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[ceeam]

Not that lack of new features prevented 2.0 branding..

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[gstoddart]

It's not a 'codename' in the spy sense. It's a development name. It's boring to say 'firefox 3' and more fun to say 'gran paradiso'. The names are not for the public, they're for the developers. Any time they talk to the public, they call it 'firefox 3'.

I can't speak for the Mozilla people, but in my company when we have an internal codename for a project, it has been chosen so as to be something which marketing would never use to describe it.

That way, you can have something to refer to it, it may not be obvious to everyone what you're taling about (for some insider issues this is a consideration), and the marketing drones won't latch on it and try to sell it called that.

However, it has the effect that to a developer, there's so many of these really bad codenames, you really no longer have a clue what your status updates are about unless you have the secret decoder ring. Very often, there's just no rhyme or reason within (or across) projects what the hell the code names apply to.

Cheers

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[rufus t firefly]

"Gran Paradiso". Sounds like a "professional" name for an old hooker.

Thank you. I never thought I'd have to worry about shooting coffee out my nose while reading some inconsequential slashdot article on Firefox ... but here we are.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[jrockway]

Firefox builds that are ready for primetime are branded "Iceweasel".

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[businessnerd]

Why are they using code names?

Because it's just more interesting that way. The code name doesn't really mean anything and there is no reason they can't call it "Firefox 3". But that's kinda boring. I gather the Mozilla team has a good sense of humor and like to keep their project fun, whether they have to invent the fun via funny code names or not.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember hearing that one of the previous firefox code names was "The Ocho", even though the release had nothing to do with the number eight. I think the developers had just seen the movie "Dodgeball" and were still quoting lines and laughing about it.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[kfg]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. I might actually have to take the trouble to watch that someday. The reviews seem to run better than the trailers, which is unusual.

Normally Ferrel just annoys the piss out of me, but I happened to catch Elf by happenstance and thought it was adorable.

Or maybe I just have a crush on Zooey.

KFG

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[ozmanjusri]

It also makes it clear that it's not for public consumption.

I don't know about that. I've always thought my use of Mozilla Minefield (the code name given to the trunk builds) made me sort of edgy and a bit heroic. Sadly, the chicks haven't caught on to my coolness, so no groupies yet.

Maybe next year...

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Viper Daimao]

I thought it was great, but it's much more like Anchorman than Elf, so be forewarned. And I agree, the trailers don't do it justice, much funnier than it appeared, especially with a great cast like John C. Reilly, Michael Clarke Duncan and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[chaosite]

"Minefield" is the name they give to trunk builds... The builds of the Gran Paradiso branch (which doesn't exist yet) will be labelled thusly.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[professorfalcon]

After Gran Paradiso, I hear the next codenames are Vice City, San Adreas, and Vice City Stories.

Re:What's up with the code names, anyway?

[Vare2]

Just so you know, FF2 used to codenamed Bon Echo.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bonecho/releases/2 .0a1.html

features

[dcskier]

keeping up and cutting edge sounds great, but i hope if they plan on adding all of these features they spin off a lite verison too. is it just me or is firefox starting to get a bloated, almost like ie. features are great if they provide useful functionality; but sometimes lightweight, fast, and simple is all you need/want for just browsing around.

Re:features

[chrismcdirty]

I could have sworn the reason that Firefox came into existence was that the codebase of the Mozilla Suite was bloated, and had too many features that a lot of people didn't want in a web browser. And here they go repeating the past.

Re:features

[Reikk]

I agree. I love firefox, _especially_ with adblock plus and filterset.g. It makes browsing the web so much better. However, I cannot use firefox when I'm using other applications. When I'm working with Visual Studio or Eclipse, the only option for me is Opera. Firefox takes up way too much memory.

Re:features

[PingSpike]

Same old story with software. A well liked application has to have 'new versions' all the time because people get a hard-on for new stuff. Eventually it gets so bloated with 'features' of dubious use that its interface becomes clunky or its performance suffers.

I like firefox because it added tabs and simplified the web browser interface (its options screens seem so straightforward and easy to navigate compared to IE's internet options). I think that improving the way extensions are handled would be a good goal, but otherwise it does everything I think a browser should do and just need occasional security updates.

Re:features

[maxume]

There is actually ongoing work towards improving/cleaning up the codebase, see:

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/20 06/10/mozilla_2.html

The roadmap shows mozilla 2.0 as landing for Firefox 4.0, so they are being pretty conservative.

The problem with mozilla wasn't so much that they added features, but that they added every feature that anybody wanted.

Re:features

[Anonymous Coward]

I love firefox, _especially_ with adblock plus and filterset.g.

It's important to note that Filterset.g is not open source.

Re:features

[Caseyscrib]

You can complain about bloating all you want, but so many of the features I've used in Firefox 2 have been incredibly useful. I've tried to welcome change and learn to do new things, because once you get into the habit it really makes your life so much easier. Online bookmarking, live rss feeds, the built-in spell-checking... these have all helped my productivity. Finding stuff is easier, reading stuff is easier, my internet experience is more pleasant. The little stuff really helps a lot. I wouldn't consider it bloating, because Mozilla is adding features that are helpful. Bloating is more reserved for stuff that makes your system run slower yet it doesn't really do anything (IE the window search dog or clippy).

Re:features

[revelous]

I'd like to have the ability to save sessions rather than having to bookmark all the tabs and re-opening them again.

Re:features

[Anc]

I could have sworn the reason that Firefox came into existence was that the codebase of the Mozilla Suite was bloated, and had too many features that a lot of people didn't want in a web browser. And here they go repeating the past.

What makes you think so? If you look at it closely, Firefox sticks to its assumptions. The new features are either supplementing or replacing previous ones, like the improved bookmarks system, or are mostly about streamlining the already existing usage paths.

It's hard to relate to your statement since you provided no concrete arguments or examples. In fact, it sounds as if you were implying that the sheer fact that there's a new release and therefore new stuff coming up means that the application is getting bloated. Perhaps they should halt the development, so not to introduce more bloat, huh?

Re:features

[Atlantis-Rising]

Why is this important to note? Does it materially alter his life in any way? Will the world come crumbing to a halt if he can't view, exactly, the pieces of code that he executes?

No. Chances are, he really doesn't give a damn one way or another. Chances are, even, that he never even noticed.

So who cares?

There are two types of people on Slashdot- those who are slavishly devoted to Open Source and Free Software and those who want to get work done. I would even go so far as to argue that in a vast majority of the cases, they're mutually exclusive classifications.

Re:features

[gardyloo]

I'd like to have the ability to save sessions rather than having to bookmark all the tabs and re-opening them again.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2324/ works for me.

Re:features

[doti]

Firefox will became more and more bloated with features, then one it will reborn from ashes as a new project called Phoenix, that will be a bare-bones light and simple browser, that uses the rendering core of Firefox.

Re:features

[Ambidisastrous]

I still haven't seen any modules I'd really want to remove (e.g. e-mail or a wysiwyg html designer, like Mozilla had), but since you asked:

Epiphany -- a lightweight spinoff for GNOME. Whenever I use it, I enjoy the speed, but I also catch myself fumbling around for little Firefox-only features all the time.

Dillo -- not a Mozilla spinoff, just a super-lightweight browser with minimal functionality. Built on Gtk+, so I suppose it could work on Windows, too.

Re:features

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two types of people on Slashdot. Yes. Those who are devoted to Open Source and Free Software and those who JUST DON'T FUCKING GET IT.

If /. would be a site outside the U.S. we just would not see comments like the parent.

Re:features

[Anonymous Coward]

You want examples? What are rss doing in the browser? Use a rss-reader, alternatively implement it as a plug in. Wtf is spellchecking doing in the browser? There's a whole bunch of separate spell checkers you could use, maybe via aspell plus some extension. Etc, etc. I remember what the "original" firefox web page used to say about mozilla.. "Third, "Mozilla" is not the name of an application; it is the name of a monolithic suite containing a browser, a mail client, an irc client, and an indoor skating rink (we hear that's coming, anyways.)" Yeah, right. What is it they say about history..?

Re:features

[Kazoo the Clown]

What makes you think so? If you look at it closely, Firefox sticks to its assumptions. The new features are either supplementing or replacing previous ones, like the improved bookmarks system, or are mostly about streamlining the already existing usage paths.

TABBED BROWSING is what makes me think so. Don't need it. Don't want it. Never wanted it. Don't like it. Didn't ask for it. I find tabs incredibly annoying-- more often than not I find that tabs have opened in the background that I didn't ask for and only find when I close the window and get a popup indicating there are additional tabs. Is your windowing system so slow that it takes too long for a new window? Or is your memory so tight that a new window uses too much more than a new tab? Tabs take up valuable screen real estate-- TABS BEGONE!

Re:features

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck on that, buddy. Firefox has had tabbed browsing since it was known as Phoenix.

Re:features

[vanyel]

What makes you think so?

A 1G vsize for one...

    PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE
    332 firefox-bi 1.5% 9:47:18 20 535 1014 140M 40.9M 163M 957M

Re:features

[Anonymous Coward]

Kazehakase is another Gecko-based browser to keep an eye on. Newsforge wrote an article about it back in 2005.

Re:features

[Atlantis-Rising]

I'm not an american, you insensitive clod!

Re:features

[chrismcdirty]

I use live RSS feeds and built-in spell-checking daily. But these are things that could have been provided through pack-in extensions. There may be some people out there with no need for these features and would like Firefox without it.

Bloated is what Firefox is after two days of use at work, when, inexplicably, it's using 20-30% of CPU time constantly. Although I don't know if it's to blame on Firefox, extensions, or stupid plugins like flash. But I do know that it never behaved that way when I was using 1.5.

Re:features

[644bd346996]

I, and most of the rest of the internet users, find tabbed browsing to be very helpful. A decent implementation, such as the ones in the mozilla based browsers, is invariably a more efficient way to manage multiple web pages than any general purpose window manager provides. The tab bar takes up screen space equivalent to between one and two lines of text, but allows users to see with one glance how many pages are open, whether they are still loading, and what the titles are.

The problem of unexpected tabs loading in the background cannot be as bad as you make it out to be. First, it usually only shows up after users have configured popups to be redirected to new tabs. Second, if you are closing the window with the mouse, you must move the cursor across the tab bar to reach the close button and you must look at that area of the screen. You should have no problem noticing that the tab bar is still showing and therefore there are multiple tabs open. Also, the confirmation dialog can be easily disabled on all browsers I have used. If you are closing the window with a keyboard shortcut, you should consider using ^W, which closes the current tab and and will close the window when the last tab is visible.

Following the spirit of your post: Is your desktop environment so cluttered that you have to fight for every line of usable space? Presumably you have condensed or disabled all your toolbars and hidden the menu bar and status bar. If you are not multitasking, you should consider pressing F11 to maximize your browser to full screen. That way, only the address bar (and optionally the tab bar) will be taking up space that could be used for your web viewing pleasure.

The biggest reason that tabbed browsing has caught on is that its benefits are so compelling that a very large number of people have taken the time to learn how to use it effectively. I encourage you to do the same.

Re:features

[644bd346996]

Do you have a problem with caching rendered pages and other things? If so, turn them off. Firefox is nowhere near as full of leaks as it's memory usage would suggest - it really is using almost all of that memory.

Re:features

[anaesthetica]

Online bookmarking, live rss feeds, the built-in spell-checking... these have all helped my productivity. Finding stuff is easier, reading stuff is easier, my internet experience is more pleasant.

Please just go use Flock (p.s welcome to the social).

Re:features

[oddfox]

Look no further than your extensions for any performance issues like that. A poorly written add-on can effectively trash your installation and leave it a memory leaking CPU hungry beast. Take it easy with the add-ons, use well-tested ones, and keep an eye out here as a general guideline when choosing extensions.

Furthermore, since it's OSS, people are hardly being forced to include extra functionality. Don't like the direction? Fork it, or ask other people with like interests but more ability to make things happen to take it on themselves. In the end, though, I doubt the spell checker or other new features are the cause of your woes, and it's infinitely easier to track down issues with popular parts of the browser when they're officially incorporated, instead of relying on the add-on manager to assure the product will continue to keep its users happy.

P.S. -- If you find a bug because of some exotic hardware/software configuration, be a good sport and issue a bug report. In my experiences you can be a complete noob with submitting bug reports yet developers are more than willing to track down an issue. If you don't think you have enough information to post a bug report, take to the forums! People need to be more proactive in ensuring their software works for them, and one thing I love about F/OSS is the ease and transparency of that process.

Second P.S. -- Flash is often my problem. Adobe sucks.

Re:features

[Shining Celebi]

I'd like to have the ability to save sessions rather than having to bookmark all the tabs and re-opening them again.

Tools > Options > Main

Startup: When Firefox starts:

Choose "show my windows and tabs from last time" from the dropdown menu.

Re:features

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody claimed you are.

Re:features

[vanyel]

so I keep hearing, but large caches like that ought to be on the disk, not in ram, which has better things to be doing. I do fear that you're sort of right though: most of the bloat comes from web developers who are forcing web browsers to have all sorts of crap in them in order to be able to view their unique idea of perfection.

Re:features

[lsdino]

Does your RAM have better things to be doing? If so, why isn't your operating system using the RAM for that instead?

Large caches can remain in RAM and the only reason not to keep them there would be if you wanted to ensure persistence across sessions or you were running out of virtual address space. Otherwise the operating system should really be doing it's job in swapping out unused portions of memory to disk on your behalf.

That's not to say that a program can't take some consideration in its allocation strategies to maximize efficiency. For example if a program was just blindly calling new or malloc (assuming C/C++ here, given we're talking web browsers that's basically the case) then presumably those allocators would be doing their best to not fragment memory across all allocations. But for a web browser you really want to not fragment memory across significant user-accessed boundaries.

One simply idea is you have all data structures related to a web page to be allocated in 1 continious chunk of memory. That memory would be mmap/mmap2/VirtualAlloc/brk/sbrk's depending on your poison of choice and then handed out in suballocations for various things related to the page. Because the memory is contigiously allocated the OS, after detecting those pages haven't been used in a while, would swap that out to disk.

In the end you get exactly what you want: your large cache is on disk. But it's only on disk if you're using your memory for something else, otherwise it's in RAM. Best of all the developer didn't have to write code that: dealt with how much memory there was on the system, and how much they should keep on disk, write code to write it out to disk, read it back from disk, deal with navigating to a page which might be on disk so you have to check, first reading back in it's date/time to see if you actually should refresh the page, and if so then go and read back to the page, and have algorithms to reconstitute all your data structures, and then deal with the inevitable feature requests to enable cross-session caching, and fixing all the bugs that come out of this featutre, and finally keeping all these pieces in sync as you evolve the program.

Instead all that needs to be written is a dumb memory allocator (really, it's just incrementing a pointer and returning the previous value - allocate a new set of blocks if you run out of space) that has easy life time management rules (page going away? just free all the blocks). Even better the dumb allocator provides assurances that you don't leak memory. When a page is dead it's allocator is destroyed and all memory associated with it is freed. Forgot to free some suballocation along the way? No problem, the allocator freed it up anyway. Now, maybe this isn't how web browsers are working these days. But one would hope their creators are masters of the art and are applying techniques like these to leverage all the great facilities of modern OSes: in this case paging.

Re:features

[vanyel]

Actually, as I look more carefully at the top output I posted, that's exactly what it's doing --- only 143M of that 1G was resident. It's disconcerting to see processes that large, but as long as it really is going to cache, it makes sense. Perhaps one way the Firefox people could alleviate concerns like this is to put some stats of current usage in the "Help/About" window... Oops, that's another feature...

Hope its better than FF2

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I hope FF3 is better than FF2. FF2 crashes on me about 45 seconds into each browsing experience. And no, I do not have any add-ons included. While I really enjoyed FF1.5, I am an Opera user now. Love the "mouse shortcuts" on opera.

Re:Hope its better than FF2

[Rik Sweeney]

I'm not sure what you're talking about. FFVII was the best one (according to the fanboys who probably never finished it anyway). Personally I thought FFX was excellent.

You are talking about Final Fantasy aren't you?

Re:Hope its better than FF2

[DirtySouthAfrican]

This problem went away for me when I recreated my firefox profile (which had been around since the 0.3 days or so). I then imported my old bookmarks, and it worked like a charm since.

Re:Hope its better than FF2

[StonyUK]

I had the same experience. For me it turned out that the Google Toolbar was causing the problem. I now use Googlebar instead and Firefox is solid and stable again.

Re:Hope its better than FF2

[seandiggity]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Firefox has had a mouse gestures extension for quite some time.

Re:Hope its better than FF2

[Nappa48]

Opera had it before Firefox did. Well at least i'm sure they did.

Re:Hope its better than FF2

[travisco_nabisco]

Yes it has had the extension for quite sometime but Opera has had it as a built in feature for many years. I don't know when they were first introduced since I first used Opera in 2001 and it already had mouse gestures.

Re:Hope its better than FF2

[SwedishPenguin]

Firefox 2 was very unstable for me too. I've been running Firefox 3 Alpha 1 for about a month now, and it's been very stable compared to Firefox 2.

Re:Hope its better than FF2

[deimios666]

I was a mouse-gesture user for quite some time. But since the Firefox implementation caused some serious memory leaks I had to abandon using them. I don't know if they fixed it yet.

Sticking with FF

[shirizaki]

Honestly with the issues I had with IE6 I moved to FF 1.5. Then when IE7 came out I upgraded, but found it almost as loose as IE6, just with tabs. Not to mention IE7 doesn't have extentions. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have half of the extensiosn I have for FF. I'm not even mentiioning the portable version I carry with all of my extensions on it.

Firefox 2 has ben extremely stable except with a few quirks, which stems from my computer being slow as hell. I look forward to what Firefox 3 bring to the table.

Re:Sticking with FF

[krakelohm]

Sounds like you might wanna look forward to a new computer instead.

Re:Sticking with FF

[gaspyy]

Actually IE does have extensions, although not as many and not as good.
You can find them here: http://www.ieaddons.com/ (there's a link from IE Tools menu)

The Developer Toolbar is quite good (I'd say better than FF), there's also an inline search, Fiddler (a headers 'spy' for developers) and others. Some of them are not free though.

Re:Sticking with FF

[gardyloo]

I'm not even mentiioning the portable version I carry with all of my extensions on it.

      Well, thank goodness for that.

Re:Sticking with FF

[Zonk (troll)]

Not to mention IE7 doesn't have extentions. Actually, IE7 does have extensions.

Firefox 2 has ben extremely stable except with a few quirks, which stems from my computer being slow as hell. You do know that you can get decent machines off lease for low amounts of money, right?

IE8?

[fullphaser]

They just got IE7 out, give them 3-4 years, they are working on it.

Re:IE8?

[Mikachu]

But Firefox 2.0 actually officially came out AFTER Internet Explorer 7 did.

Re:IE8?

[xiong.chiamiov]

3-4 years? You mean, 8? Meanwhile, the Firefox devs plan on releasing a new version number every year.

Issue one major release every year (Fx 3 in 2007, Fx 4 in 2008, etc.) since it helps drive upgrades and adoption

http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3/Firefox_Requireme nts#Release_Roadmap

Re:IE8?

[colonslashslash]

And your point is?

The parent's joke is at the expense of Microsoft because it took them 5 bloody years to get from IE6 to IE7. Mozilla and Opera managed quite a few major releases in that time, probably because they are actually focused on making their browsers better, and aren't just developing because they feel they have to in order to maintain a slipping market dominance.

Re:IE8?

[Bacon Bits]

Hey, people need to have *some* reason to buy Vista. WMP 12 and IE 8 are better reasons than what they have now.

Re:IE8?

[Ambidisastrous]

I imagine it's just the usual tactic of promising a product 2 years off to overshadow what the current competitor has right now. Why adopt Firefox, they'll say -- IE8 is coming up and it'll blow FF3 out of the water, according to these marketing materials. This glosses over the fact that FF4 will be available by then.

But I think this isn't going to work as well here as it did in the past. Thanks to standards (and the varying amount of attention the browser world pays to them), web browsers are fairly interchangeable; downloading one doesn't commit you to an exclusive platform the way a new operating system or office suite would.

Internet Explorer 8

[anss123]

"Looking ahead, it's obvious that IE will continue to hook into the advanced functionality that Vista offers."

Does that include the ability to only run on Vista?

Re:Internet Explorer 8

[Kelson]

Does that include the ability to only run on Vista?

That's probably a safe bet. Windows XP would actually be out of "mainstream support" today (more than 5 years from release) if Vista hadn't been delayed. Microsoft decided a year ago to extend support for XP indefinitely. Now that Vista's out, WinXP is the new Win2k. It seem likely that XP will drop into "extended support" (i.e. security fixes only, and only for XP Pro) sometime during the "18-24 month" timeframe cited for IE8

Re:Internet Explorer 8

[Anonymous Coward]

One advanced feature in particular matters to them: DRM.

Can't wait for those silly JS hacks people write to disable right clicking to suddenly actually "protect" their copyrighted content...

Detachable tabs?

[Hatta]

Will they implement detachable (and attachable) tabs? Konqueror has had this forever, so Firefox has some catching up to do.

Re:Detachable tabs?

[zesty42]

The articles were pretty vague, but "hooking into Vista" really has more of a Konqueror feel to it. I'm a newb, but I love Konqueror because it integrates into other apps and files that I use on my computer. It's becoming more of a all in one desktop browser/manager. I would expect that as web apps become more popular, this type of integration will be even more important.

Re:Detachable tabs?

[xiong.chiamiov]

Tab mix plus? Granted, it's an extension, not by default, but it (along with adblock) is one of my "can't live without" extensions. The problem with Konqueror is that I can't use it on Windows. (well, not very easily)

Re:Detachable tabs?

[Caseyscrib]

Tab To Window does what you want. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2062/

Re:Detachable tabs?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Will they implement detachable (and attachable) tabs? Konqueror has had this forever, so Firefox has some catching up to do.

Adobe has a patent on it.

Konquerer should make sure it doesn't have any PDF rendering problems....

Hole new set of features

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they also raising the memory requirements for the hole features they are adding? Sorry, I'll be right back, I need to go make a leak..

Re:Hole new set of features

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I'll be right back, I need to go make a leak..

I'm confused. Are you a Firefox developer or do you have to go th the bathroom?

Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements!

[KlaymenDK]

I for one am very much looking forward to improvements in the Bookmarks department.

How it was in Mozilla was actually better than Firefox now, the context menu in the app/toolbar menus were so good you'd hardly ever need to use "Manage Bookmarks".
Anyway, people are allegedly no longer using bookmarks in favour of tag clouds and what-have-you ... probably why it was never deemed important enough to implement the store-your-bookmarks-on-an-FTP which has been discussed for so long.

Re:Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about better support for sites that aren't compliant? Fuck the new features. Make sure the main one (browsing!) works on all sites.

Re:Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements!

[Majin Bubu]

Actually, Google offers a tool that does bookmarks syncing, among other things. Not perfect, but it mostly works. Has potential dangers to privacy, but is very convenient.

Re:Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements!

[Tony Hoyle]

Use foxmarks, and all your firefox bookmarks get synced on various machines.

Re:Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements!

[gardyloo]

Foxmarks is one of the most useful things EVER.

Re:Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements!

[Zonk (troll)]

Hit Control-b in Firefox. You can search your bookmarks or organize them anyway you want without having to use the bookmark manager.

Re:Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements!

[valeurnutritive]

probably why it was never deemed important enough to implement the store-your-bookmarks-on-an-FTP which has been discussed for so long

You are most likely referring to "Roaming Profiles" which has been implemented in Mozilla SeaMonkey. It lets you store bookmarks and other things from the profile on remote servers. Few faithful followers still prefer the SeaMonkey suite over Firefox due to this and some other features which were not implemented in Firefox when they initially decided to focus on Firefox development. Firefox has mostly caught up though in terms of features due to extensions and updates since 1.0

In short if you don't want a 3rd party solution to storing your profile remotely, try SeaMonkey:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Re:Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements!

[KlaymenDK]

Yes that's it, the roaming profiles. And the bit about 3rd party-storage, I've got my own ftp space thankyouverymuch. :-p

I am aware of SeaMonkey but have not looked at it in detail; I did not think it's an official product (also the thing about the "few faithful followers").
Do you know if it's compatible with Firefox extensions, or has a life all it's own? (I'm using a ton of extensions...)

Re:Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements!

[al-ahlex]

It also doesn't have the privacy concerns Google Sync has, because you can configure it to save to and load from any FTP host.

I predict for IE 8...

[rsilvergun]

It will include an improved add-on experience, provide an extensible bookmarks back-end platform, add more support for web services "to act as content handlers" - all of which show that Internet Explorer wants to be an independent information broker rather than a simple HTML renderer in its next version. Oh, and it'll come up not long after Firefox v.3...

It worked last time :).

'within 18-24 months'

[It's a thing]

Translation: several years.

IE8 and Vista Integration

[andrewd18]

MS-Approved Craplets For Everyone!

I wonder if...

[ProppaT]

I wonder if this will be known as FFVI in Japan?

Re:I wonder if...

[Elf_h34d3r]

Mod Parent Up!

It seems to be common to misuse FF as the FireFox abbreviation. Indeed, I can produce countless IRC logs of instances when users bash each other for using incorrect abbreviations.

Often, the FF acronym is associated with Final Fantasy, (FFVI was released in America as FFIII for anyone who doesn't get the reference).

For the record, the proper abbreviation is Fx.

Re:I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's six...I hear verizon has some job openings...

Re:I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm.. don't you mean FFIV?

Re:I wonder if...

[Assassin_for_Atari]

HAHAHHAAH
I think I just disturbed everyone with LOUD LAUGHTER in a 5 cube radius after reading this quick and game witty comment!!!

Re:I wonder if...

[ProppaT]

No, because FFIV was FFII in the US...

Re:I wonder if...

[deimios666]

On the same notice that would mean that there is a FFV in japan which we will get our hands on only when they release FF Anthology...

Re:I wonder if...

[HeroreV]

It seems to be common to misuse FF as the FireFox abbreviation.

"FireFox"? Maybe you should read what you linked to:

How do I spell Firefox? How do I abbreviate it?
Firefox is spelled F-i-r-e-f-o-x - only the first letter capitalized (i.e. not FireFox, not Foxfire, FoxFire or whatever else a number of folk seem to think it to be called.) The preferred abbreviation is "Fx" or "fx".

Re:I wonder if...

[rakarnik]

<nitpick>According to the link you posted, it's Firefox, not FireFox.</nitpick>

Re:I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the one with the Opera?

Re:I wonder if...

[Rakshasa Taisab]

For a while I was kinda confused, wondering what the Fantastic Four had to do with Internet Explorer. Thanks for clearing that up!!!

Rushing IE8

[krunoce]

According to ActiveWin.com, a Microsoft official at CES told them that work has already begun for IE 8 and it may be released as a final product 'within 18-24 months'

Hole-y crap!

Re:Rushing IE8

[Chyeld]

Microsoft Food for Windows

Monday, 10 AM -- Chicago, Illinois -- Start-up software developer Cuisine International announced CUISINENET, the first internetworking program to seamlessly integrate word and food processing. Called breakthrough for small restaurants and snack bars, Cuisine Chairman Mark Meigs confidently predicted sales of thousands of copies with shipments soon to begin.

Monday, 4 PM -- New York -- Cuisine International shares closed sharply higher on announcement of new CUISINENET product.

Tuesday, 9 AM -- Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft Chairman William H. Gates, III announced that Microsoft Food for Windows would soon enter beta testing. Gates described the product as the first of a projected family of products to include Food for Windows, designed for small commercial dining establishments; Personal Food for Windows, designed for home kitchens; Portable Food for Windows, designed for lunchboxes; and, of course, at the high end, Food for Windows NC (Nouvelle Cuisine) designed for large institutional dining rooms. Asked by a reporter about CUISINENET, Gates said that he had never heard of the product, but was not surprised by it, because the software business is highly competitive, and Microsoft has to compete on the merits with many strong competitors, as the FTC had recently concluded.

Tuesday, 3 PM -- Chicago, Illinois -- An angry Mark Meigs showed reporters a copy of the nondisclosure agreement signed by Bill Gates, under which Cuisine International had informed Microsoft a year earlier about plans for CUISINENET. Meigs said that in hindsight, he should never have signed the agreement, as the only thing he learned from Microsoft was that Gates was considering making changes to Windows.

Wednesday, 9 AM -- Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced that Microsoft would soon publish specifications for the Windows Open Kitchen Architecture (WOKA), a series of design specifications to permit manufacturers of toasters, ranges, and other kitchen appliances to integrate their products into the forthcoming Microsoft Food for Windows line. Asked about reports of a nondisclosure agreement with Cuisine International for a similar product, Gates said that the other product was really at most a niche product, and would probably have less functionality than the food-related features that Microsoft would be building into the new Unsaturated FAT File System which would be part of DOS 9.0. Gates said that he doubted there would be much interest in a dead-end solution that would not be able to keep up to date with advances in WOKA. Gates added that over 11,000 manufacturers of kitchen appliances were already having serious discussions with Microsoft about WOKA, and that he expected almost all important eaters of food to standardize on the WOKA environment.

Wednesday, 10 AM -- Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced that he would be giving the keynote speech at the American Bakers annual convention on "Nutrition at Your Fingertips." Gates played down speculation that he would use the Bakers convention to introduce Microsoft Food for Windows, saying only that alpha testing was proceeding ahead of schedule, and the product would be shipped when it was ready.

Wednesday, 11 AM -- Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft Corporation announced that its Chairman, William H. Gates, III, had made a donation of over $250 of personal funds to the Cordon Bleu to begin an endowment fund for the Bill Gates Professorship of Advanced Cookery. The famous French cooking school confirmed that it had agreed to be a beta site for the much discussed Food for Windows application sweet.

Thursday, 9 AM -- New York -- PCWeek Magazine reported in a copyrighted story that it had obtained a copy of correspondence from Microsoft to Cuisine International, demanding that the small developer of kitchen software cease using the Cuisine name, as it infringes on the trademark for Microsoft Food for Windows NC. Microsoft added that Chairman Mark Meigs would also have

Main priority

[slack_prad]

I think their main priority should be to make it lightweight. Smaller memory footprint. Pleeeeeease.

Re:Main priority

[Nappa48]

They should focus in memory in all aspects, for example: MEMORY MANAGEMENT.
Windows Media Player 7 used less memory and had less leaks than Failfox has. I have to close the crap down every hour or so because it goes from 30%~ RAM to 90%~ (YES i'm serious)
Its terrible! And this is WITH and WITHOUT extensions and on other computers. Hell even different operating systems!
If they don't improve it by 3, they can go to hell for all i care, i'm done with their excuses.

Re:Main priority

[deimios666]

Now I'm no expert but I see a growing tendency of multiplatform programs to gobble up memory. Of course in the case of FF isn't the only problem as leaks occur frequently. Then there are the badly written addons. Not a pretty thing.

I'd be happy...

[loraksus]

... with no added features as long as it stopped crashing.
Granted, this only really happens when I have 50 or so tabs open across a few windows, but that is fairly normal usage for me and boy is it annoying.
Yes, my ram's good. No, it doesn't matter if I have any extensions. No, nothing on the "yeah, this problem really doesn't exist, but if it did, you could try these steps to fix it" problem denial page.

The built in session restore feature is nice (as long as your connection can handle 2500 outbound connections at "once" as the dozens of images and the like load up, but ff 2.0 crashes at least once a day for me.

I still use it over opera and ie, but...

Re:I'd be happy...

[ivan256]

With flashblock installed, I have never had a FF2 crash. I currently have 20+ tabs open in two windows. I've actually got a few flash things running, but most of them are blocked.

Try it. You may be pleasantly surprised. You'll have less crashing *and* less CPU wasting flash ads running in the background.

Re:I'd be happy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, my ram's good.

Do you have enough of it? Several hours of running Firefox with 50+ tabs open, using FF2's default "prefetch and cache everything and to hell with the consequences" caching policy could be running your machine out of RAM and swap space...

Re:I'd be happy...

[Vexorian]

Yeah well 50+ tabs ... ...sounds unrealistic or like an overkill. Often the internet is to be read or used and not just to keep the tabs open for no reason, I go with 10+ tabs and never seen the memory usage go above 100 MB (so makes me doubt about the tales of 700MB+ of memory usage), and in the last versions it has only been improvingg, my memory usage is 42MB and I had firefox open since yesterday in a 10 tabs basis.

Re:I'd be happy...

[Anonymous Coward]

100MB? That's only 10 100k jpgs isn't it? Try viewing some *cough* image heavy sites, once the cache blows FX starts swapping before freezing or crashing. Never used to happen with phoenix, has gradually gotten worse and worse freezing X/input and locking me out of the OS.

Re:I'd be happy...

[Kattspya]

I regularly open more than 50 tabs and Firefox rarely crashes. When it actually crashes I can usually attribute it to a single page that usually contains messed up scripts or flash objects. I'm talking about version 2.0.0.1 for windows with various extensions but not flashblock.

Re:I'd be happy...

[amohat]

I think I solved my FF2 issues by not installing the VLC player Mozilla plugin. I figured it out around the same time as v.2.0.0.1 was released, but give it a shot. Not sure what the plug in is for anyways, really.

Re:I'd be happy...

[jesser]

Assuming you have Talkback installed, can you post some Talkback IDs? It's often possible to tell what bug is causing the crash by looking at the Talkback report's stack trace.

Otherwise, we'll just keep trying to fix the most frequent crashes, rather than fixing your crash. Not that that would be a bad thing :)

Re:I'd be happy...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree: I use FF on two systems, and the one without Flashblock crashes fairly regularly, and the other almost never.

Still, wouldn't it be possible to have FF run extensions (like Flash) in their own processes?

If Linux crashed whenever an app went bad, the solution would be to separate processes, not to come up with a Forkblock program that let you selectively stop forking.

love the wording

[xiong.chiamiov]

Security / Privacy Context UI redesign (the lock icon sucks; needs more detail)
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3/Firefox_Requireme nts#P1.2FMANDATORY_Features

Fit and Finish?

[adavies42]

Is anyone working on the little things? Stuff like the URL bar not getting the focus half the time when creating a new tab, or the status bar not saying "Done" when a page is actually finished? The continuous minor irritations of things like that are what make up a large part of a user's general feelings about a product, and one of the reasons I"ll always prefer to use Safari when I can.

Re:Fit and Finish?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pah... Safari has broken "save as webarchive" features, I have loads of pages I saved that take up many Mb each that always come up blank in Safari, I use it as little as possible.

Re:Fit and Finish?

[adavies42]

App-specific web archives FTL, that's what wget's for. Browsers are for browsing.

Re:Fit and Finish?

[Nocturnal Deviant]

meh i use camino, safari doesent have tabs -.-, but camino doesent have my precious add ons ='(, well im going to be making this mac use linux soon so, who cares.

Re:Fit and Finish?

[adavies42]

Ex-squeeze me? Safari's had tabs for at least a couple years now.

Re:Fit and Finish?

[Kelson]

safari doesent have tabs

Are you using Safari 0.5 beta or something? I'm fairly certain Safari has had tabs since the beginning.

Re:Fit and Finish?

[jrockway]

I've never noticed any of these problems, actually. The dev team is looking forward to your patches to fix them, though.

Re:Fit and Finish?

[yarbo]

Safari has tabs, they're just not on by default.

Re:Fit and Finish?

[kbg]

Yes and what about the copy/paste bug? That bug has been there forever.

Information Broker = Your new corporate overlords

[popo]

I'm a little concerned about Firefox 3's new direction as "Information Broker" -- especially after reading TFA.

It seems to me that what we're about to witness is the steady creep of corporate interest into the browser.

Already, Mozilla makes millions from its partnership with Google (via the search box in the upper right).
As information broker, I think we're going to see pre-selective integration with applications and web services.
This is great for Amazon, Google, eBay, Yahoo!, etc.

So have we traded Microsoft for a handful of competing companies who sought to dethrone the former?

Oh boy, here we go.

[Overzeetop]

improving the add-on experience

Yeah, it could be better - though officially supporting and easing the search for addons would be fine with me.

providing an extensible bookmarks back-end platform adding more support for web services "to act as content handlers" -- all of which show that Firefox wants to be an independent information broker rather than a simple HTML renderer in its next version.

Whoa, hey, time to get off this train. I understand this whole convergence thing, and sometimes it's good, but I'd rather try and stay a bit more basic. I'm really not interested in a 40MB FF download, and the resource hogging that goes with it. I know that the pressure is to produce a be-all, end-all application, but I'd really just prefer an efficient browser. In fact, if I had my choice (and I don't - I don't/can't do code), I'd have the whole thing installable in a single sub-folder that could just be moved wherever, whenever I wanted. The install program would simply create the folder, copy the files, and put a shortcut in the start menu - and that's just because I'm lazy.

Re:Oh boy, here we go.

[McDutchie]

In fact, if I had my choice (and I don't - I don't/can't do code), I'd have the whole thing installable in a single sub-folder that could just be moved wherever, whenever I wanted.

Hey presto, your wish has been granted. Have fun. :)

Re:Oh boy, here we go.

[John Betonschaar]

I'd have the whole thing installable in a single sub-folder that could just be moved wherever, whenever I wanted. The install program would simply create the folder, copy the files, and put a shortcut in the start menu - and that's just because I'm lazy.

Hmm sounds like a spot-on description of the 'install procedure' of applications on OS X ;-)

Re:Oh boy, here we go.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't Phoenix runnable something like that? I seem to recall that the copy I had on my old USB memory key was just unzipped from an archive.

Re:Oh boy, here we go.

[Overzeetop]

Excellent, never though to search portable apps for Firefox.

So why not make this the default install?

extensible bookmarks back-end platform ?

[arjay-tea]

"extensible bookmarks back-end platform"

Can somebody translate this to English?

Re:extensible bookmarks back-end platform ?

[Kelson]

Assuming it's the "Places" concept they were working on for Firefox 2 and postponed, it boils down to this:

Put bookmarks (and history, etc.) in a lightweight database instead of a big long HTML file. This will make it possible for the user to store a lot more bookmarks before performance degrades, will make it easier to search, etc.

Re:extensible bookmarks back-end platform ?

[ThinkingInBinary]

"extensible bookmarks back-end platform"

A platform that allows developers to extend the back-end of the bookmarks system by creating plugins that store user bookmarks on a server or in a database instead of in a flat file.

The end

[jfengel]

I find it interesting that there are no radical changes even on the drawing board, and that IE and FF have reached essentially the same state. We'll have vicious flame wars about how Opera users cannot imagine how FF users live without Feature X, and vice versa, but in general the web browser appears to have reached the end of their iterated approximation to the Right Web Browser.

And it's not as good as you'd hoped. Ajax applications aren't quite good enough for prime time, but there doesn't appear to be any way forward without sitting the IE/FF/Opera/etc developers in a room and getting them to agree. And even if they did, the violation of the basic web browsing contract with respect to the "back" button isn't going to have a pretty resolution.

Similarly, basic CSS pages look pretty good, but advanced ones aren't reliable. That's as much to do with CSS's failures as the browsers: designers are forced into contortions which push the edges of the implementations.

It appears to me that the next advance will have to be a step backwards before it goes forwards. For years the browser advanced because programmers added incompatible features which the other browsers gradually took up. That was easy when it was Netscape running the show, and IE was quick to follow. Now IE runs the show, and isn't willing to follow FF, at least not quickly.

Perhaps stasis on the browser side is a Good Thing. Make the existing feature sets more bullet proof, and the innovation will come from the web sites themselves.

Re:The end

[FLJerseyBoy]

Somewhat off-topic, but (emphasis mine):

That's as much to do with CSS's failures as the browsers: designers are forced into contortions which push the edges of the implementations.

I've never understood this. Who (besides their clients) is forcing designers to do anything? Designers deciding that they "must" "push the envelope" because they "must" get this pixel aligned with that one -- or whatever the silly issue -- seem analogous, now that I think of it, to browser builders who decide they "must" (for the most inconsequential reasons) include Feature X, Y, or Z. Maybe we need a new term, Design Bloat or something like it.

Re:The end

[Bogtha]

Similarly, basic CSS pages look pretty good, but advanced ones aren't reliable. That's as much to do with CSS's failures as the browsers: designers are forced into contortions which push the edges of the implementations.

A hell of a lot of the contortions that designers go through would simply not be necessary if Internet Explorer supported CSS tabs and generated content, and Firefox supported display: inline-block.

Re:The end

[jfengel]

There are ways that graphic designers are used to working, and CSS doesn't support that. I'm not referring to fancy menus and other such fripperies (which we're all better off without) but the basic design grid, which is actually supported by HTML tables better than by CSS divs.

That's not design bloat; that's creating a language that works the way the designers are used to working rather than forcing them to do it your way. What's left is an ungainly and unreliable combination of floats and explicit offsets that render badly on different screens and browsers.

Re:The end

[UpnAtom]

You're probably right. The last feature which really made a difference to my browsing was mouse gestures.

Firefox and Opera have their niches and I suspect Opera's is bigger and thus will gradually steal marketshare away from both IE & Firefox.

The focus should be on the websites anyway. I still think Opera's configurability is a winner but maybe people don't mind having to fit in with programmers' bizarre ways of doing things.

Re:The end

[Anonymous Coward]

which is actually supported by HTML tables better than by CSS divs.

FFS, how many clueless people have this idea that divs are part of CSS?

<div> is an element type. It is part of HTML. It has nothing to do with layout. It can create boxes in conjunction with CSS, but that is because it is an HTML element type and all HTML element types can do this - that's the way CSS was designed and it is nothing at all specific to <div>.

Any designer who thinks that divs are an alternative layout technique knows absolutely nothing about HTML or CSS. They are at the level of copy & paste monkeys. Forget divs. They aren't what you think they are. Go read an HTML tutorial.

Re:The end

[BZ]

For what it's worth, the plan is for Firefox 3 to support inline-block.

Re:The end

[BZ]

Designers are designing UIs.

CSS is meant to style documents. As a result, it leaves a _lot_ to be desired as a UI specification language. Basic things like vertical centering are pretty much impossible, because horizontal and vertical layout are very asymmetric in CSS -- widths are inputs to the algorithm and heights are the outputs. For a UI specification language, you want to treat widths and heights in a much more similar manner.

Re:The end

[FLJerseyBoy]

Thanks for both the replies.

I'm not saying that CSS isn't frustrating to work with, even for simple tasks. I've done my share of jumping through hoops to make a page look the way I thought it should look.

What saved my frustration at such times was asking the question, "Well... does the page REALLY need to look EXACTLY like that?" Maybe compromising my "design principles" means I'm not a real designer. But I just don't think the limitations of CSS are nearly as fatal to the usability or the look-and-feel of a page as they're sometimes made out to be.

Again, I'm not a professional designer -- so am probably talking through my hat about matters I can't possibly understand. Just saying it helps to relax: it's good enough for now. And likely to get better later.

FF3

[Echnin]

No, no! this is FF3. :(

Mozilla now doing embrace-extend?

[nursegirl]

I'm very confused about why it's generally considered OK for Firefox to be moving out into the microformats arena. Is it because it's not a monopoly? Or because microformats have been created by others? Would it be evil for MS to start embracing microformats?

Re:Mozilla now doing embrace-extend?

[Kelson]

You got half-way there with the part about microformats being created by others. The key is that microformats (the "extend" part in this case) discussed so far are described openly and free to use.

If Firefox starts supporting, say, hCard and hCalendar by making it possible to send the data to the Thunderbird address book or the calendar app of your choice, there's nothing to stop Opera, Apple, or indeed Microsoft from doing the same thing. Other browser developers don't have to reverse-engineer the features, or sign an NDA, or pay for a patent license.

Embrace is good. Extend is OK too, when done in a way that makes the third step, "Extinguish," difficult to do.

Re:Mozilla now doing embrace-extend?

[nursegirl]

Thanks! Makes more sense now.

Various codenames for IE 8

[192939495969798999]

Crashula, Crashenstein, and the Crashback of Bloatre Lame!

Re:Various codenames for IE 8

[Nappa48]

Same can be said for Firefox as well.
I happen to be using FF just now, IE works fine for me.

Never have i seen a browser crash as much as FF. Hell even programs in general!

SQLite

[obender]

It's probably not so clear from the article but Firefox3 contains a relational database, sqlite which can be accessed from Javascript. This allows for a whole new class of applications to be implemented as extensions.

Re:SQLite

[appavi]

SQLite is not a new feature in Firefox 3. It is already available in Firefox 2.0.

Re:SQLite

[ceeam]

Hope they use it for storing cache data. It's lame that FF loses everything every time it crashes or (IIRC) when you shutdown system without explicitly closing browser first.

Re:SQLite

[Nappa48]

I agree with you, its one of the main reasons it uses so much memory when running.
If they saved things as they happened instead of caching every single damn thing you do, i'd be that little bit happier.
Even a delayed write so it doesn't interfere with loading the page up (if its a page you are opening at the time)

I hate session programs that require you to end it, bug the hell out of me! And i let the developers know this!

What version of IE will it comply with standard?

[stretchsje]

After all the promises of better CSS support in IE7, the Acid Test still looks downright embarrassing.

Seen elsewere but...

[Psicopatico]

...but indeed very funny:

Do you want to see the features Firefox is going to include? Go get Opera.

*ducks*

Re:Seen elsewere but...

[Kelson]

Wait, Opera has ducks? Or is that just a fowl accusation?

Re:Seen elsewere but...

[Anonymous Coward]

So firefox 3 will become propietary, add features that nobody needs and have ui issues! /me sticks to firefox 2

CSS

[lonechicken]

Web Standards & Compatibility (e.g. ACID2, CSS2.1... Should I hold my breath as to whether some CSS "bugs" ever gets fixed in Firefox? Ever since version 0.x beta whatever, a couple of CSS things still irk me that might not be bugs but really look "wrong."

Add CSS borders around images and then make them change colors when hovering. Looks like it should in IE. In FF, it looks like a bucket underneath the image instead of a box around the image. Something like |_|
Make a div or table float to the left or right and place a table of data beneath it. In FF, the floating item is super-imposed into the table instead of pushing it down.

Re:CSS

[Kelson]

When you get a chance, check out the current nightly trunk builds. Just after Firefox 3 alpha 1, they merged in the "reflow branch" which includes a bunch of CSS improvements and passes Acid2.

Re:CSS

[HeroreV]

I just tried both of those in Firefox 2.0 and they worked as expected. Neither behaved the way you described.

FIX CSS ALREADY

[mookie-blaylock]

After dealing with IE7 in a lot more hands-on basis, it seems like some of the more obvious bugs have been fixed. And yet, some of the far more annoying ones (bizarre li padding -- either the whitespace bug or too much padding in a LI despite padding/margining to 0 (and yes, I've got a valid doctype)) still are around. Of course, MS "fixed" the !important hack, which would have made the situation reasonable. I know, hacks are bad, but IE conditional comments feel far more offensive than the !important hack.

Re:FIX CSS ALREADY

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, some of the far more annoying ones (bizarre li padding -- either the whitespace bug or too much padding in a LI despite padding/margining to 0 (and yes, I've got a valid doctype)) still are around.

That's not a CSS bug, that's an HTML bug. If I recall correctly, the problem is that trailing whitespace after closing </li> tags should be ignored but isn't.

Also, doctypes aren't "valid" or "invalid", they either trigger strict mode or quirks mode. Saying that your doctype is valid is meaningless.

Re:FIX CSS ALREADY

[VGPowerlord]

Also, doctypes aren't "valid" or "invalid", they either trigger strict mode or quirks mode. Saying that your doctype is valid is meaningless.

Just because browsers do not implement real DTD checking yet does not mean valid doctypes are meaningless. We call this feature "not adhering to the standard."

Syntax checkers, for example, do recognize DTDs.

Re:FIX CSS ALREADY

[Stormx2]

A lot of the stuff which was fixed was the stuff which had novel workarounds. Two of the most glaringly obvious and terrible oversights in IE7 are:

1) display:table*. Seems like we're still stuck in prehistory here... how hard can it be to implement? I'll give everyone an example. You have a nice, fixed with layout with a single column. You want to center a form. Tough luck, bud. Forms are block elements, and by default will expand to fit available space. You can't float it center, that won't work. display:table; is the most sensible solution, as the form will "shrink wrap" to fit its content, and still be treated as a block element. E.g. centering, borders, etc. If you think you can get away with simply centering elements in the form, it will be ugly as labels etc will be out of place. And if you set them to a fixed width, it'll get uglier whenever someone has a nonstandard font or font size. 2) selectors. Why oh why haven't we got them on every element? It seems insane to me... :hover just isn't good enough

Re:FIX CSS ALREADY

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed my point. Doctypes are neither valid nor invalid. The OP was referring to the fact that certain doctypes trigger modes in certain browsers that work closer to spec. than other doctypes. This is not a matter of validity. This is an implementation-specific detail. The fact that the browsers act in a certain way does not make one doctype "more valid" than another.

We call this feature "not adhering to the standard."

Who is "we"? Certainly not anybody involved with the standards. A browser can legitimately ignore external DTD subsets. If you don't believe me, read the standards yourself.

Syntax checkers, for example, do recognize DTDs.

Yes, but they use the DTD to check the validity of the document. The "validity of the doctype" is meaningless.

Re:FIX CSS ALREADY

[Myen]

1) inline-block? (which, btw, Firefox doesn't do yet; might get it in Firefox 3 due to reflow branch landing)

Re:Information Broker = Your new corporate overlor

[elcid73]

Meet the new browser, same as the old browser.

...no plans for privacy features within FireFox ?

[Anonymous Coward]

In FireFox 2.0 some aspects of privacy features have been banned from GUI configuration. Without knowledge about the configuration settings in about:config the users cannot disable loading of pictures that come from external sites to the site where an HTML file has been loaded and it's almost impossible to deny the usage of the new 'super cookie'. It would be very welcome if the FireFox development team would accept privacy as one of their goals.

How about some real security

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop crashing for no apparent reason like Firefox 2 (I reverted to Firefox 1.5). Try reaching Common Criteria EAL 2. Allow plug-ins to crash without taking out the browser. Limit rights and access given to plug-ins. That would be a nice start.

multi-threaded UI yet?

[Tumbleweed]

Anyone know if this is in the pipeline for FF3? *sigh*

Re:multi-threaded UI yet?

[amRadioHed]

Amen, that's my biggest request. I hate that a java applet or PDF loading in one tab causes the whole browser to freeze.

Re:multi-threaded UI yet?

[ArmorFiend]

What in the heck are you talking about? The UI has been multi-threaded since Netscape 1.0 in 1995. Wasn't that the big improvement over Mosaic? That you could use the scrollbar while a page was loading in the background?

Re:multi-threaded UI yet?

[Tumbleweed]

Yeah, that'd be nice if Mozilla had that, but it doesn't quite manage it in all cases. With the advent of tabs, if you have something in a tab that is waiting for a Flash to load (or whatever), it *can* (but not always), completely lock up the entire browser until whatever it is has loaded. I have no idea what it is that triggers this condition, though.

Re:multi-threaded UI yet?

[radish]

Yep, that's a pain. Also a pain is the modality of dialogs extending beyond the tab which triggered them. Example, I have 10 tabs and one of them needs a password, but I'm currently reading some other tab. I get a nice modal dialog splatted in front of me which blocks be from doing anything (even flipping tabs etc) until I give the password. Why? Why not alert me in some discreet way that a tab needs my attention, and then throw the popup or whatever when I switch to it.

Re:multi-threaded UI yet?

[Michael Wardle]

One of the worst instances of this is where the browser is doing a DNS name lookup. Search Bugzilla for more details.

Re:multi-threaded UI yet?

[BZ]

It's not.

It's not a trivial problem to solve, because web pages assume a single-threaded execution model. therefore any two web pages that can access each other must run on the same thread. That's basically all web pages, given enablePrivilege.

And worse yet, the UI is effectively the same thing as a web page in Firefox (rendered by the same rendering engine, has a DOM, etc). So you get very similar constraints.

The initial design docs for Mozilla did call for one thread per toplevel window, but that somehow never happened, and doing it retroactively is a huge undertaking. :(

Re:multi-threaded UI yet?

[Bob of Dole]

"This third-party plugin can really lock up my browser while it does stuff! Why haven't you fixed this yet, browser developers?"

Re:multi-threaded UI yet?

[Tumbleweed]

Much like an errant program shouldn't be *able* to take down a whole system, I don't believe a plug-in should be able to lock up the browser.

Re:multi-threaded UI yet?

[WuphonsReach]

Which is a real shame, because it pretty much destroys the usefulness of loading pages in background tabs. I mean, the whole reason that I'm loading the page in the background is so that I can continue doing what I was doing, right?

Anyone know if Opera has a multi-threaded UI? What about IE 7?

(The poor UI responsiveness of Mozilla/Firefox is a major hassle for me.)

Messenger features?

[nostrad]

I understand that Firefox wishes to be more than a web browser. But looking at the FFX 3 requirements page I find one very weird requirement:

P2/HIGHLY DESIRABLE features:

• Adding a Serverless open Source Messenger as a default toolbar

Honestly, WTF? Is this really a feature that should be in something that mainly is a web browser? I would understand if there was a need to add a general Kademlia DHT API to easy delivering information, but isn't a chat application something that should be covered as an extension. Typically a chat application runs constantly while a web browser (or "information broker") generally isn't running constantly. I fail to see the logic behind this.

Bah.

[The Nipponese]

As a web designer, I'm automatically dismissive of this. Browser makers working and agreeing on the way CSS should look and act is way more important than new features.

Re:Information Broker = Your new corporate overlor

[Jeff Fohl]

Actually, I believe this is a good thing. Firefox is an open source project, and it can never be reverted to a closed source one. The money that companies like Google pour into Firefox development goes towards supporting something that will always remain open source. This is a win for everyone. Companies that make their living through the browser, such as Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, etc. get an open standard that they can all base their work on something that none of them own outright. They are forced to share. Smaller developers such as myself get the benefit of an increasing reliable standard upon which to develop. When the developers, both large and small, are all working on an open, standardized platform, that means that there is more we can do, and this then benefits the users.

Internet Explorer's days are numbered - at least the proprietary parts of it are. As innovation on the web begins to gravitate more and more towards the Firefox platform, I am predicting that Microsoft will be forced to follow in the footsteps of Firefox. The stakes are just too high, and Microsoft does not have a monopoly on the Web, like it does on the desktop. It will really come down to the needs of Microsoft, vs. the needs of Everyone Else. Since Everyone Else is bigger, they will eventually be the ones calling the shots about what direction the Browser takes.

On a similar vein

[Solandri]

Why do tabs have to be along the top? Why can't they be on the side?

• Widescreen monitors and notebooks are becoming the norm rather than the exception.
• Even the normal 4:3 aspect ratio is wider than it is tall.
• In addition to starting smaller due to aspect ratio, the vertical space in your browser is taken up by the window bar, menu bar, toolbars, tab bar, status bar, and temporary popup info bars. Windows' taskbar defaults to using vertical space as well.
• Horizontal space is taken up by the scroll bar, that's it.
• Most web content automatically adjusts itself to the width of your browser, but to see excess vertical content you have to scroll.
• Many forums I visit already limit the width of their text for legibility, indicating there's excess horizontal space available.
• It's already difficult to read text due to the width if you maximize a browser at 1280x1024 or 1280x800 resolution, again indicating there's excess horizontal space available.
• Books, newspapers, and magazines are larger in height than width. Browsers attempt to mimic this by allowing you to scroll vertically, but there's something to be said for being able to view a larger vertical chunk of text or images at once.
• Pictures in portrait mode are common, and I'd like to be able to view them in a reasonably large size instead of having to always squash them down so they're significantly smaller than pictures in landscape mode.
• Most Western text layouts reference the top left corner as the origin. So if you have a tab bar (or any other bar) that pops up along the top or the left, the content shifts forcing you to spend a split second to relocate what you were focusing on. Suddenly the link I clicked on to open the tab is no longer under my mouse pointer. If the bar popped up on the bottom or the right, this would not happen.

All this seems to point to vertical desktop space being overutilized and horizontal desktop space being underutilized. So why force tabs into vertical space? Give me the option to put them on the side(s).

Re:On a similar vein

[interiot]

Mod parent up. Last year, I got a 1920x1080 display at home and work, and the most jarring thing was reading webpages, because they're all very tall and relatively narrow (most are designed for something closer to 1024 pixels wide). The trend these days is for larger monitors, so that ultimately means excess horizontal space, regardless if your display is 4:3 or 16:9/10.

Ultimately, HTML should may solve the problem by making it possible to automatically add extra columns to fill the width like newspapers do. But, still... the die is already cast, HTML is very oriented towards vertical scrolling, and widespread adoption of multiple columns is a long way off (eg. Mozilla is the only browser that supports it currently).

Re:On a similar vein

[Derek Pomery]

Use tab sidebar.
http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/T abSidebar
Yes, isn't officially on addons.mozilla.org, but this addon has been out there for a while.
You can always inspect the code if you want.

Re:On a similar vein

[Bert64]

Well to a certain extent i agree, far too much screen height is wasted...
But sites which are written with a fixed pixel width really bug me too, properly written html should expand to take advantage of the extra width on a high resolution screen, i shouldn't waste my wide screen by only using a thin strip down the middle of it... A lot of news sites are especially guilty of this, putting text in narrow columns as if it was a newspaper.

Re:On a similar vein

[Anonymous Coward]

All this seems to point to vertical desktop space being overutilized and horizontal desktop space being underutilized. So why force tabs into vertical space?

Because whenever anyone studies this kind of stuff, they find that people are perfectly comfortable scrolling up and down, but not horizontally. This is not new...web developers have known for a long time that horizontal space is much more valuable than vertical space.

That said, I fully support making this configurable to allow people to discover this about themselves on their own.

Re:On a similar vein

[Petrushka]

Many thanks for that, very useful.

Re:On a similar vein

[interiot]

Even if websites allow their text to go the full width, it's still somewhat difficult (or at least unusual) to read text where the lines are 300+ characters wide. (that's the reason websites specify a max width) The solution is to have columns of text like newspapers... but HTML support for that is very new, and it's not clear how well it'll work or how many sites will embrace it.

Re:On a similar vein

[toddestan]

Opera lets you move the tabs toolbar to either the left or right. I tried it, and I didn't like it much (or atleast Opera's implementation). The reason being that you end up with the tabs still horizontal, so now you have a bar on the side of the screen that's something like 120 pixels wide, and it's mostly blank, except for the tabs stacked up on the top of it. Though if you are accustomed to having 40 tabs open at once, then it won't look so bad. What they really need to do is make the tabs the same way they are now, except on the side. Now the text is rotated 90 degrees, but I can still read it just fine (and for the most part, if the site has a favicon.ico on it, I can just go by that anyway).

Re:On a similar vein

[mqsoh]

In my experience, the wide-screen monitors are usually used by artists who have a special problem - all the tool bars and dialogs in applications such as Photoshop are on the sides which leaves a narrow space in the center to draw. It's very frustrating.

When I'm using a wide screen monitor I don't maximize the browser window. I hate the extra space on the sides for sites with a max width and I can't read sites that fill the width. We use the lines breaks and jagged right edge to keep track of where we are in a paragraph (justified text is harder to read).

I find that I usually keep my mouse at the top of the screen so I put my task bar, workspace switcher and volume controls at the top of my screen. Information that I don't need to interact with, like cpu load, time/date and weather are on another task bar on the bottom. I also discovered that I tend to use the top-right of the screen more often so I've put window controls and browser navigation on the right side of the window. I hate all the vertical space taken up also and I recently discovered something to help: In Firefox you can put UI widgets on the same tool bar as the file menu. For regular browsing my tool bars look like this:

|File, Edit, etc.| |search box| |bookmarks toolbar| |back, forward, reload, stop|
|a really, really long url bar (I'm a developer)|
|the WebDeveloper tool bar when I'm working|
|tabs|

After all that I find the idea of tabs on the side offensive to my wrist. I've also long suspected that horizontal mouse movement is easier for me, so aiming for vertical tabs might be more difficult. Still, it would be nice if you had the choice. I'd like to be able to dock stuff to any side of the window. LiveHttpHeaders in the side bar sucks - it should be on the bottom to read the long urls (I've switched to a debugging proxy for that reason). Sometimes I might want two sidebars. In any case, if we could have to side bars, you might find that your monitor width is well used without putting tabs there.

Re:On a similar vein

[mgiuca]

Well the thing about web pages is that horizontal space and vertical space are completely different from each other. The page width is the #1 user-determined factor controlling the page layout (besides whether or not they're using IE). If the width is too thin, things don't lay out as the designer intended, text (especially tables) may be wrapping one word per line, and you may start to see highly-irritating horizontal scroll bars.

(The horizontal scroll bar is annoying because there is no wheel to control it, and also it's confusing to have 2D scrolling).

Page height, on the other hand, controls nothing about page layout except the size of the vertical scroll bar. Typically, the viewer doesn't really care if they have to scroll up and down or not, because it's so natural to do so.

So horizontal space is far more valuable than vertical space on a web page. (However, as you say, with widescreens there is a lot of horizontal space around).

Re:On a similar vein

[Richard_J_N]

Interesting point. Personally, I think that the so-called "widescreen" monitors ought to be re-named as "shortscreen". Apart from watching DVDs, they are a real nuisance. Furthermore, the screen area of an (apparently larger) widescreen monitor is less than its standard monitor equivalent: a 17" widescreen LCD (at 16x9) has almost exactly the same area as a 15" regular (3x4) screen.

[There's a lot to like about the T60p laptop's monitor: 15" 1600x1200 pixels :-) ]

MS CypherSpeak

[foamrotreturns]

...work has already begun for IE 8 and it may be released as a final product 'within 18-24 months'. Translation:

...we are now waiting patiently for the Mozilla team to come up with new innovation for us to claim as our own. Once that has happened, IE8 may be released as a final product 'within 54-76 months'.

SVG

[hollowheaddotnet]

IE8 needs SVG, and the right way - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE for the love of god PLEASE

The advanced functionality that Vista offers

[overtly_demure]

it's obvious that IE will continue to hook into the advanced functionality that Vista offers.

Like what? A shitty version for people who don't want to pay up? One that turns itself off if you go to unapproved websites? One that takes 5 min to boot? One that you will need to buy a whole lot of additional software to use productively? One that uses a supercharged, re-designed, re-written, and vastly more efficient worm and adware propagator? One that requires a 3 MHz quad-core cpu qith 256 Mb cache, 4 Gb of RAM, and 1 Tb of HD space?

I'll stick with Ubuntu and Firefox.

Final Fantasy 3?

[cparker15]

Whoa, you can customize Final Fantasy 3? US or Japan? FF3 US is still my favorite out of the series...

Oh. You're talking about Firefox? Please don't use "FF" to abbreviate Firefox, which is one word. Use "Fx" or "fx", instead. See also http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/faq#spell-a bbreviate

Re:Final Fantasy 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean to say Fox is starting a 3rd FX channel? Awesome! I better call my cable company real soon, I don't even have FX2 yet!

CSS Support

[fredricodagreat]

Maybe Microsoft should focus less on "Vista Integration" and more on CSS support for their browser. Among the 3 Big Browsers (IE, Firefox, and Opera) Opera is the only one that actually passes the Acid2 Browser test. Check it out for yourself.
http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/

Firefox does a decent job, but not one I would expect from a browser such as Firefox. However, IE's support for it is terrible. I'm redesigning my website and the CSS works in every browser I've tried except IE, what is up with that?

Come On MS, I know it's tough, but can you make a browser that at least attempts to comply with web standards? Your browser has been around way longer than Firefox and Opera, but your support is the worst of the three.

Re:CSS Support

[bot24]

Opera is in the big three? I checked a few browser statistics pages, and they say that KHTML is more common than Opera. KHTML based browsers(Konqueror and Safari) both pass Acid2.

Re:CSS Support

[soliptic]

Web stats from work (20,000 visitors/week, non-technical audience) are (from memory) roughly 85% various IEs, 10% Firefox, 3% Safari, 2% the rest.

Re:CSS Support

[fredricodagreat]

Go keep an eye on which ones are always being compared together. It's IE, Firefox, and Opera. Safari and Konqueror get left out because they aren't Windows based.

Curse you!

[Spaceman40]

Now I'm reading all the comments as: "When I had problems with IE6 i moved to Final Fantasy 2.5..., wait, what?"

Meaning of the name

[orzetto]

The Gran Paradiso is the tallest peak of the Graian Alps at over 4,000 metres, and gives the name to Italy's oldest National Park (1856). And by the way, "Gran Paradiso" is a masculine name, so it does definitely not fit a woman.

Re:Meaning of the name

[cheezit]

Yeah, but what about Mr. Paradiso's grandmother?

Re:Meaning of the name

[OfficeSubmarine]

Meh, "Gran" has been a fond nickname for Grandmothers within the US for at least sixty-five+ years now. It's the first thing I think of, at least, on hearing "Gran".

What Bloat?

[mhall119]

This same comment, in one form or another, comes up every time there is a story on a new version of Firefox. I read the article, I skimmed the features list, what bloat is being added? The only thing that seemed that they would cause any excess bloat are the extended bookmarks.

Other than that it's improving the functionality and usability of things that already exist, or building a simple framework that will let other systems (extensions or webservices) provide additional features like microformats and identity management.

They are not bundling a mail client, chat client, html editor, voip phone, or anything else, so stop implying that it's becomnig just like Mozilla.

Re:What Bloat?

[chrismcdirty]

adding more support for web services "to act as content handlers" -- all of which show that Firefox wants to be an independent information broker rather than a simple HTML renderer in its next version.

That's what screams bloat to me, although that's the words of the article writer, not the developers. It doesn't give details, so I'm left to interpret what an "information broker" is based on the little description given. What web services do they plan on supporting? IRC? BitTorrent? Instant messaging? POP and IMAP? Anything other than HTTP and FTP and you're leaving browser territory and getting closer to something resembling the Mozilla Suite.

Re:What Bloat?

[mhall119]

That's what screams bloat to me, although that's the words of the article writer, not the developers. It doesn't give details, so I'm left to interpret what an "information broker" is based on the little description given. What web services do they plan on supporting? IRC? BitTorrent? Instant messaging? POP and IMAP? Anything other than HTTP and FTP and you're leaving browser territory and getting closer to something resembling the Mozilla Suite.

You are confusing a broker with a client (and webservices with internet protocols, but thats for another post). Just like a stock broker doesn't consume the stocks he works with, neither will Firefox consume the data or services. It will just provide a way for content on a web page to be passed directly to a program or service you want to consume that data. Look at Firefox's RSS options, it has a very rudimentary RSS viewer, and has options to add the feed to an external program or web services from google or yahoo. Essentially Firefox will act as a data router, passing data between the web and applications of your choosing, without needing to operate on that data. Since there is already something similar in the codebase (the RSS example), this should cause very little bloat.

Re:What Bloat?

[mikek3332002]

That is what I was thinking. Wasn't the whole idea about firefox was for it to be a internet browser only, cutting the fat from Mozilla/seamonkey.

I'm looking most forward to....

[HerculesMO]

Group policy and MSI deployment of Firefox. I can already repackage Firefox as an MSI using AdminStudio, but I can't control it as much as I'd like via Policy.

It would be nice to see the ability to edit the proxy settings automatically or other things. Disable popups, add a 'trusted' site etc. Just little features here and there that make life easier as a Windows domain admin :)

Search addons.mozilla.org before complaining

[seandiggity]

Seriously, most of these complaints with Firefox could be solved by looking for an extension that provides the functionality you want. There are a shitload of them. These features can't and shouldn't all be included in the browser by default; the customizability of Firefox is its biggest asset IMO.

Re:Search addons.mozilla.org before complaining

[Nappa48]

"But we're too lazy" said the sheep.
Nobody wants simple things anymore, its all shiny and filled with everything! ...i feel sick as a developer, sick to the gut.

Re:Information Broker = Your new corporate overlor

[Kelson]

Actually, the way I read the "information broker" article doesn't seem like a problem. It's essentially an extension of the browser's current role in deciding to open a PDF in Acrobat Reader, Preview, or Evince, to open an email link in your default mail client, etc. Only now it'll be able to open based on data in a page. Got an ISBN number? Open it in your favorite online bookstore. Contact info? Add it to your address book.

It's a lot like Opera's ability to highlight text on a page and send it to a search engine, a dictionary, or a translation service.

As long as the sentiment behind "The personal toolbar is the personal toolbar, not the whorebar" remains intact, and as long as it's possible to choose competing different services/apps, the risk of corporate encroachment is minimal.

A bright firefox future

[Anonymous Coward]

> support web services as MIME type handlers

Can Adobe provide a /dev/null web service for application/x-shockwave-flash? Actually I'm not sure about that as it would have the unfortunate side effect of removing the top yellow bar informing users that they don't have flash. Since the developer (Doron?) deemed this so important that it can't be disabled then web MIME handlers might detract from this particular user experience. I especially like the way this bar is animated in 2.0+, if only it took up a little more screen space - you just can't have enough yellow bars telling users things they are aware of. Fortunate that they added yellow bar support to the image blocking feature in 2.x. In 3.x they could extend this to every element, dismissing the yellow bar would then require numerous clicks which would be a great usability enhancement in line with other recent decisions.

> save web pages as PDF documents

That rocks, an extension would be too complex for such a crucial function and print to file and ps2pdf is much too difficult.

> Handling of back/forward with POST

At last. Glad to see the firefox devs acknowledge all end-users are experts in HTTP and understand the POST method. I think they should also work on providing consistent styling for web pages like they have for RSS and atom - we wouldn't want users getting confused; after all granny is only expert in HTTP.

I know some people are thinking that development should concentrate on SVG enhancements (SVG font), bug-fixing, modularization (XUL-Runner), integration of tamarin and x86-64 JIT. I say bah, much more important that I can print to PDF and assign the SVG MIME type to http://we-are-working-hard-to-kill-svg.adobe.com/

Kudos.

Where do I go to get back to "lean and mean"...

[Kazoo the Clown]

... like Firefox was in the early days? That was the feature I wanted, not the bloatware it's turned into by V2.0. I don't need no stinkin' tabbed browsing or ActiveX, I want a small footprint, high performance & security basic browser who's developers aren't afflicted with bouts of creeping featurism...

Re:Where do I go to get back to "lean and mean"...

[Namegduf Live]

I think it's already been said... but I've actually read the list, even before this article was out, and most of it is cleaning and neatening the UI and such, not adding bloaty new features.

UI upgrades aren't essentially bloat. Hell... they can be reworked to be faster than the old, and given the history of Firefox's development, I've every confidence that such will be the case.

The other stuff being done, the new bookmark system (apparently it will allow you to use bookmark storage websites to synchronise), the work on the extension backend, and such, sound like more reworking and improving existing stuff, making it more efficient and more useful, then adding bloat, to me at least.

The messenger is doubtful, I admit, but aside from that, these changes won't suddenly make it bloated, any more than other releases.

As for Firefox already being bloatware by 2.0, while I can see what you are driving at, the only big new bit of bloat actually added recently (that I recall) was the built in spellchecker. Which I personally think was done well, and is, with the web forums (like this) of today, as sensible a feature for a browser as it would be in a word processor. It's made my life a lot easier, although since I edit a wiki regularly, it may be more useful to me than some others. YMMV.

And while one could argue that adding those features was bloat, even if they were useful, in moving from 1 to 2 of Firefox (can't say I was using it earlier), it has INCREASED in speed and stability, while adding the above. I wouldn't say it is losing lean and mean at all. It's faster with LESS bloat, AND more features. Hardly changing into bloatware.

As for your examples... tabbed browsing is pretty much a 'basic needed feature' now, and it doesn't do ActiveX. From what you say you want, you don't want what most people would consider a 'lean' browser, though... you want something cut to the bone. Thus, you're looking at the wrong browser. Try Lynx for all your just-browsing, small footprint, high performance, and, erm... 'security basic' (?) needs. XD.

Re:Where do I go to get back to "lean and mean"...

[Geezle2]

I agree with you in principle, as I also would like a basic browser that just renders standard HTML and supports CSS and does so in less than a .5meg memory footprint (not including page caching). What I don't understand is your repeated objection to tabbed browsing. I (and many others) see tabbed browsing as the single biggest advance in browser technology since. . .well, since Tim Berners-Lee invented the web browser. I can think of no other feature that is as "must-have" that has been introduced in the last thirteen or fourteen years.

First of all, supporting tabs does not increase the actual memory utilization of the application, or reduce performance. The memory required to spawn a new window and the system (OS) resources needed to support that window are MUCH greater than the resources needed for the application to spawn a new tab within the existing application window. The only significant memory consumption with respect to tabbed browsing is in the form of caching the unexposed tabs. Sure, some of the fancy things that Opera does with tabs probably requires some resources (previews, drag-n-drop, etc), but until some other browser approaches Opera's performance, I can't see anyone complaining about it.

Really, I can only understand your problem with tabbed browsing by assuming you to be a Windows (only) user who has been too lazy to invest the ten or fifteen minutes needed to develop the skills required to operate a tabbed browser. If you bother to learn a couple keyboard shortcuts, you will suddenly understand the awesome power of tabbed browsing. <ctrl><w>has already been suggested to you (for closing the current tab or the window if there is only one tab). I would like to suggest <ctrl><pgup> and <ctrl><pgdown> to cycle to the previous or next tab respectively. Furthermore, if you deselect the option to "Select new tabs opened from links" in Firefox Preferences, you can load reference links from a document that you are reading without interrupting your reading by middle-clicking them (I believe that is how it works in Windoze). This will load the links in the background while you continue browsing the current document.

Perusing /. and you want to read an undisplayed message? Click the link then click the back button when you finish reading it to reload to the original thread? NO! Middle click to load the message in a new tab, <ctrl><pgdown> to read the message then <ctrl><w> to close the new tab when you are done. Viola! Back at the original thread without reloading it! Dozens of ms saved! If you think Windoze can spawn and load a new window faster than Firefox can spawn and load a new tab. . .you are delusional.

Shopping online? Load competing products into adjacent tabs then <ctrl><pgup> and <ctrl><pgdown> between them, comparing features. Shopping at Amazon or some such place and a recommended product catches your eye but you don't want to waste time investigating until after you make your purchase? Middle-click to load it into another tab and check it out later without missing a beat.

Even if all you really use the Web for is finding porn, tabbed browsing is for you. Next time you are on that thumbnail page of Japanese school girls or goats or MOPAR engines or whatever turns you on, middle-click each thumbnail then <ctrl><pgup> and <ctrl><pgdown> through all of your loaded images! You will never again complain about tabbed browsing! (You can, you'll find, do that one handed!)

Anyway, tabbed browsing is a lightweight means of exploring multiple tangential references without interrupting your current task. There are posters here who claim fifty or more simultaneous open tabs. I typically have that many or more open at a time as well. Can you imagine navigating 50+ simultaneously open IE windows? Is that even possible?

Honestly, if you try to use tabbed browsing, you will see the adva

Re:Where do I go to get back to "lean and mean"...

[Kazoo the Clown]

The problem with tabbed browsing is that in MS Windows anyway, it is completely redundant. There is ALREADY tabbed browsing, implemented in the OS. I want ONE place where I can select the tab of any screen page I want, not spread all over individual applications UIs with their own idiosyncratic mechanisms. Essentially, browser tab pages subcategorize your web pages, making them harder to find. If you want WEB pages, you have to go HERE. If you want any other screen page go HERE. Perhaps you spend all your time just in the web browser, but I don't. I have bunches of apps running at the same time-- paint programs, telnet windows, etc. I want ALL screen pages in the same tab system, and at least on MS Windows, there already is such a one, called the TASKBAR. It ain't broke, and it handles ALL application pages, not just web pages. I just don't want yet-another specialized tabbing system. Also, I can move the Windows taskbar to where I want it and to where it is the most efficient-- rather than along the bottom or the top of the screen where it eats up valuable vertical space, I keep my application tabs in a vertical column on the left side of my screen. With the advent of wide-screen monitors, that allows me to stack more "tabs" in a far more efficient use of screen real estate. Vertical space is at a greater premium IMHO than horizontal space, given the aspect ratio of modern screens.

I gather then, that the reason Firefox has it's own tabs, must be because Linux windowing systems don't have a useful system-wide tabbing mechanism like MS Windows has. Or at least, not one that the Firefox developers like. Personally, I know and love Unices generally, including Linux, but their GUIs suck, so I prefer to use them in console or telnet windows because of that. I guess Firefox is trying to compensate for that lack in the application, but IMHO is not where that feature belongs.

Re:Where do I go to get back to "lean and mean"...

[Geezle2]

MS's mechanism to organize multiple windows of each application is most certainly not the same as an application providing a tabbed interface. As I mentioned previously, openning a new window consumes MUCH more system resources than providing a new tab within the existing application. In a worst case scenario, where the application is unaware of this 'feature' of MSWindows and is not optimised with a seperate and lightweight window rendering process, spawning a new window could entail loading a whole new copy of the application into memory. Even assuming that the application is designed so that the bulk of its processing is done by a backend that serves multiple lightweight windows, it will still require more system resources, and thus be less responsive, than a similar application that uses only a single window to display all of that data.

Perhaps you should be aware that Firefox (and the browser from which it was forked, Mozilla) have had a tabbed interface for substantially longer than MSWindows' Task Bar has supported grouping the buttons of open instances of applications. It is the ease of use of the tabbed interface that Mozilla supported that forced Microsoft to address the awkwardness of working with more than one page at a time in IE by grouping the Task Bar buttons. That this was itself an awkward and far from optimal solution is evidenced by the fact that the latest version of IE now supports a tabbed interface.

While it is nice to have a variety of tools to organize your running applications, I've seen no studies that indicate that the tools offered by Microsoft to do this are in any way ergonomically superior to those of any other contemporary OS. Your opinion may very well be that MSWindows is better. My experience, however, is that there are a number of alternatives that get the job done with fewer keystrokes, fewer keyboard-to-mouse-to-keyboard transitions, and fewer mouse actions.

Your assumption that the reason for a tabbed interface in Firefox being because the underlying OS does not support easy switching between open instances of the same program is false. I can't speak for every window manager that runs on every unix-like system, but the ones that I have used, as well as the display systems on non-unix OSes, support easy switching between open instances of the same program.

You state that it is your opinion that applications should not have tabbed interfaces and we should instead just rely upon the OS to organize multiple instances of each application. Your opinion is not universally shared. While the OS most certainly should do this, it should just be considered a fallback position for poorly designed applications that can't manage their own interface adequately (like IE before it supported tabs). This is partly due to the system resources issue that I mentioned above, but also because there are numerous ways of displaying paged information in a compact form. The authors of various applications may (probably do, actually) know better than MS how to manage the display of the information that their particular application handles. Using tabs is only one way, though it is an efficient and effective way. Because of this, you are seeing a growing number of applications that have a tabbed interface. You will, in fact, continue to see more. I will even bet that you will see tabs for selecting open documents in Word before too long.

As a final note, look at the subject that you provided for this thread:Where do I go to get back to "lean and mean".... As I have repeatedly pointed out, a tabbed interface to an application is indeed "leaner and meaner" than launching many seperate instances of the same application.

Sincerely, Geezle/2

Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd need another program that does nothing but chew up about 50MB of RAM. That plus the current Opera would be the future Firefox.

Re:Information Broker = Your new corporate overlor

[kv9]

I for one welcome our new information broker corporate overlords.

on a more serious note, it's open source. someone will fork it or write an extension that disables what you (they) don't like.

-1, Alarmist

If you're doing development...

[Zonk (troll)]

I'd suggest upgrading your memory. My machine at work has 512MB of memory and I run Eclipse, Firefox, Windows XP in VMWare (128mb virtual ram), Exaile, and a few other apps. No problems.

Roaming user

[dpilot]

Still don't see anything about roaming usage. It's been promised for a long time, and unheard of almost a long.

Re:Roaming user

[tqft]

As usual links form slashdot to bugzilla bounced so copy and paste the url

Vote and comment here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24934 3

"Roaming should be useable with Firefox. I added support for it a year ago, but
it probably bitrotted."

Nah...

[Anonymous Coward]

The main problem with the integrated suite was that there were tons of special cases in the UI for each separate application. This quickly became a nightmare.

At least, that's what I remember reading from the comments of some actual Mozilla developers, though I grant that that was quite a while ago. Of course, not being a Mozilla developer myself, I may not have the whole story, but that would make a lot of sense--cross platform UIs aren't exactly easy.

mod parent up

[5of0]

Just my luck. Now that I've used up all my mod points, I find a post begging for my help on its journey to +5 funny.

A new IE8 feature

[ILuvRamen]

IE8 will have a new feature where it will tap into your webcam and keep a constant stream to someone at Microsoft's HQ watching to see if you sing along to a copyrighted song and when you do, they'll send someone to break down your door and arrest you. Yay DRM!

`chroot` a tab

[Pleb'a.nz]

I'd like the abiltity for a tab to be `chrooted` from the rest, or other `chrooted` tabs so that I could login twice under different accounts to my webmail on the same website, login twice under different accounts when developing a website. I really should get around to that feature request...

Even `chown` isn't applicable...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about multi-profile support which would be an interesting extension but I'm unsure if moz has hooks that would permit it. I guess a right click on a tab could show a submenu exposing a checklist of profiles (or pseudo-profiles).

What OS?

[ir]

In Windows FF2 has never crashed on me, however on my Linux and FreeBSD desktops it crashes a couple times every day. I have the exact same extensions and configuration on all the machines. My friends have the same problem with Linux Firefox too. 1.5 never crashed on my on any systems, so I am hoping someone is looking into these stability problems w/the 2.0 version...

Re:What OS?

[ivan256]

I use both Windows and Linux simultaneously on adjacent monitors. They seem to be the same stability wise. (The browser version that is... The uptime on the linux box was 200+ days before the extended power outage this weekend, and the windows box needs to be rebooted at least weekly.)

Sweet. Firefox is definitely catching up to IE...

[Anonymous Coward]

in the area of feature bloat.

Screw tabs

[aztektum]

Here's what I want, a side bar like the one for history that has a nested list of pages I've opened from each domain. So you'd have a listing for

Slashdot.org
                  |
                    - http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl/etc/etc/etc
                    - http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl/etc/etc/etc

The pages are still "loaded" in the background so that when you click on them it doesn't have to retrieve anything and maybe a little popup preview when you hover over them.

Sometimes I have a lot of tabs and it's annoying to deal with them.

Preferred abbreviation is Fx, not FF

[Aero Leviathan]

...and this is why! Well, this probably isn't why, but nevertheless...

http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/faq#spell-a bbreviate

Re:Information Broker = Your new corporate overlor

[WWWWolf]

It seems to me that what we're about to witness is the steady creep of corporate interest into the browser.

I've heard this "HTML" thing may make it possible that the corporate interests will creep into our web browsers.

Oh wait, it has allowed that for a while now. Heh, sorry.

These are just technologies. They allow people to handle data more intelligently. A web page may say "here's an ICBM coordinate" - it's up to the user to make the choice whether to fire up Google Earth, look it up from Yahoo, or reach for the plain old paper atlas. It may say "here's an RSS feed". If the user subscribes to "Boring Marketing Deals" feed, that's their problem - I'm using it to subscribe to primarily interesting feeds. If people figure out a way to profit from these things - well, who are we fooling, of course someone will find a way to profit from them.

And Mozilla Foundation may make money from Google deal - but the crucial bit is that they allow other search extensions to be installed. Open specification. I use other search engines besides Google all the time, and Firefox lets me.

I'm frankly not worried at this phase - the amount of good these things can do for average people far outweighs the amount of evil it can do.

Super Gran

[Anonymous Coward]

And lets not for get the mighty Super Gran
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/s/sgran.htm

Rotate your LCD by 90*

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I have my LCD monitor turned to portrait mode, seriously.

I have 2 20" Dell LCDs (1600x1200). One is in landscape, the other is in portrait mode.
Text applications (Word, Firefox, etc.) go to the portrait LCD. Non-text applications (games, Excel, VmWare) got to the landscape LCD.

This is also fairly easy to do with a laptop and an extra LCD. At work they give us a laptop, a docking station, and an LCD.

If I only had 1 LCD, I would go portrait.

I understand we have 4:3 monitors because we used to hook the Commodore up to the TV, but now with LCDs I going portrait mode.

Re:Information Broker = Your new corporate overlor

[popo]

Yes but that's Microsoft all over again. Google is "bundled" with the browser, and Google will expand into every possible area, re-creating all the best extensions until there are no more indie developers.

Re:What version of IE will it comply with standard

[Anonymous Coward]

The Acid Test has always been embaressing. Not because of what fails it but because it is downright fukking useless and meaningless.

Mod Parent Up

[CamD]

As a heavy tab-user (who has a lot of tabs from the same domain, usually) this would be quite useful. Not to mention the increased vertical space.

Firefox(/extension) developers, are you listening?