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Gran Paradiso Alpha 3

kbrosnan writes "Gran Paradiso Alpha 3 is a release of the Gecko rendering engine for testing purposes only. Here are the release notes. While this release uses the interface of Firefox, no significant interface changes have been made. These alpha releases focus on making improvements to the core elements: graphics, JavaScript, page rendering, etc."

187 comments

  1. Changes. by Seumas · · Score: 3, Funny

    no significant interface changes have been made. These alpha releases focus on making improvements to the core elements: graphics, JavaScript, page rendering, etc." In other words, there have been no changes to anything that MSIE users care about, like 3d buttons, blocky, chunky, weird, chunky tabs and nifty "click" noises every time you click something, load something, go back a page, go forward a page, scroll down a page, select something, delete something, type something, submit something or refresh something?
    1. Re:Changes. by NekoXP · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Aww but I love the click in IE. Sometimes when I click in Firefox I wonder if it's actually DOING anything.. it does seem to sit there and churn a lot in the background. When I click in IE and it's locked up because of some dumb flash anim and not responding to my button press, it doesn't make any sound.

      The click makes it very clear when the browser is sucking ass, and when it is not :)

    2. Re:Changes. by gerrysteele · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Perhaps someday soon they might invent some innovative technology to update you of these events.

      I would call it "The Status Bar".

    3. Re:Changes. by BibelBiber · · Score: 1

      IE users don't go for Alpha Software, do they? When you use MS Windows you expect fully functional software that always works as expected. I'll recommend to wait for Firefox 3 Final.

    4. Re:Changes. by GetSource · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I find this interesting ...

      If anyone says something good about Firefox, the World sings ... but one slightly positive thing about MSIE, and it's all over ...

    5. Re:Changes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you use MS Windows you expect fully functional software that always works as expected.

      I wonder why you haven't been modded up? That's the funniest thing I've heard or read all weekend!

    6. Re:Changes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But even my grandfather, who is most definitely NOT a power user, is annoyed by the click in IE, and almost begged me to turn it off.

    7. Re:Changes. by 644bd346996 · · Score: 1

      So the throbber and status bar are not enough? Submit a request for enhancement to bugzilla. And call it an accessibility option. It shouldn't be hard to add an optional click noise.

  2. Release notes and comments by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 5, Informative

    * Animated PNG (APNG) images are now supported.
    * The DOM clientLeft and clientTop attributes are now supported.
    * Introduced support for , which puts resources into the browser's offline cache. This allows a web application to ensure that its resources are available in the cache when the browser goes into offline mode. See * * * Marking Resources for Offline Use for further details on offline support.
    * Improved precision of layout and scaling across a wide range of screen and printer resolutions.
    * Implemented cycle collection in XPCOM, which detects cases where two released objects hold one another, but neither is held by anyone else. In this scenario, both objects can safely be purged. Previously, the holds each has on the other would have prevented them from being purged.
    * Added support for the HttpOnly cookie attribute, which marks a cookie as readable only by the server and not by client-side scripts.
    * Added a new preference, "Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page", which notifies the user when the page specifies HTTP-EQUIV=refresh.
    * Windows 95, Windows NT 4, Windows 98, and Windows ME are not supported for Gecko 1.9.
    * OS X 10.2 is no longer supported, and OS X 10.3.9 or better is required.
    * The non-standard JavaScript Script object is no longer supported.
    * Moving DOM nodes between documents now requires a call to importNode or adoptNode as per the DOM specification.


    It's kind of sketchy that they're not supporting older Windows or OS X versions, but I don't think that's a huge deal. I wish they'd reintroduced MNG instead of APNG (purely a personal preference; APNG is probably actually a better way of doing it), and any fixes to JavaScript are nice to have.

    --
    "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    1. Re:Release notes and comments by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

      It's kind of sketchy that they're not supporting older Windows or OS X versions

      At a certain point, this sort of decision has to be made: Move forward, or live in the past. The technical issues that surround supporting old systems verses moving forward with more elegant solutions for modern systems.

      But what I don't understand is why they continue to insist that there are no memory usage issues when there is a lot of practical evidence that there are?

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    2. Re:Release notes and comments by Seumas · · Score: 1

      Not to mention, why continue to support Windows versions that MS doesn't support anymore? If someone wants to port it to them and is able, then I'm sure they will but they seem like an odd place to put priorities anyway, when they could be spent elsewhere.

      As for the memory usage, it seems that the answer is always "it's not a memory problem - that's just the result of how Firefox uses it's page caching features to provide fast recall!". I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense to me, because it strikes me as odd that any kind of browser "feature" would possibly consume 500mb or more memory on a regular basis.

    3. Re:Release notes and comments by mhall119 · · Score: 5, Informative

      It doesn't support older Windows because it uses Cairo for faster rendering, which I've read doesn't support older Windows versions. I'm not sure if it's the same reason older versions of OS X are not supported.

      --
      http://www.mhall119.com
    4. Re:Release notes and comments by mboverload · · Score: 0

      Why do you want to punish people who feel just fine about their computer? Jesus, Windows 2000 is still a great, light OS still used in tons of workplaces.

    5. Re:Release notes and comments by mboverload · · Score: 1

      Uh, brainfart. 2000 still supported.

    6. Re:Release notes and comments by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

      As for the memory usage, it seems that the answer is always "it's not a memory problem - that's just the result of how Firefox uses it's page caching features to provide fast recall!". I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense to me, because it strikes me as odd that any kind of browser "feature" would possibly consume 500mb or more memory on a regular basis.

      But if a large number of people us FF in a way that causes problems, it is a design flaw. Either that, or they just don't care what their users want.

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    7. Re:Release notes and comments by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 1

      If you're happy with win2k you'll be happy with Firefox 2. Simple concept.

    8. Re:Release notes and comments by neongrau · · Score: 2, Interesting

      i remember ppl saying the same about windows 98SE when w2k was released.
      ppl like you prefer the eye-candyless w2k.
      and i now hear ppl saying it about XP since vista is out (including me).
      and i'm pretty sure ppl will say the same about vista once the successor is released.

      so like someone earlier posted:
      it's ok to live in the past

      (for a while at least)
      we don't want to come to a total halt in technology

    9. Re:Release notes and comments by CRCulver · · Score: 1

      ...they just don't care what their users want.

      Don't you think users want the lesser of two evils?

    10. Re:Release notes and comments by dvice_null · · Score: 1

      > It's kind of sketchy that they're not supporting older Windows or OS X versions

      There is a reason for this. The changes they have made to the core won't work with older versions of Windows as easily as they do with more modern versions. This means that a lot of work would be need to add support for them. But it has been said that if anyone is interested doing the job, he/she is quite welcome to do it.

    11. Re:Release notes and comments by shawn443 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't remember 2K bothering me quite as much as XP. Everytime I see that balloon telling me I have unused desktop icons I get mad. Eye candy is useless to me unless it enhances my work. Otherwise, give me TWM. That said, I am sitting down with a Vista Home Super Duper Bee's Knees Fucking Ultimate cd coupled with a Barnes and Noble style training session sometime this week. I am sure I am going to be mad.

    12. Re:Release notes and comments by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

      Don't you think users want the lesser of two evils?

      I think users want Mozilla to build a browser that takes into account common usage patterns, and not respond with flip comments that it's being used wrong.

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    13. Re:Release notes and comments by CRCulver · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is the common usage pattern. Uptime on desktop or notebook computers is generally low, and so Joe Average is not too likely to keep Firefox open for days or weeks and notice problematic memory usage. However, Joe Average would certainly notice sluggishness in the workings of the Back button.

    14. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      they continue to insist that there are no memory usage issues when there is a lot of practical evidence that there are?
      Where do "they continue to insist that there are no memory usage issues" and where do you find "a lot of practical evidence that there are"? I find that Firefox does have some memory leaks, and they are being fully acknowledged by the developers. Do you think there are some memory leak reports that are being ignored? If so, you should be far more specific about what these are.
      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    15. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      it strikes me as odd that any kind of browser "feature" would possibly consume 500mb or more memory on a regular basis.
      Firefox using 500 MB of RAM sounds like a serious problem to me. Tell us how we can reproduce the problem so someone can write up a bug report and a developer can fix the problem.
      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    16. Re:Release notes and comments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Open 10 tabs. Wait.

    17. Re:Release notes and comments by EugeneK · · Score: 1, Interesting
      50 megs per tab is not unreasonable - suppose each page is 20k (for example, this slashdot story with all the comments that I just clicked on is 26.87k). Now, you have to build an in-memory DOM for that page. Suppose each byte is a single DOM node (of course it is a tree, so there are would be more nodes than bytes, but on the other hand, several words might be in a single #text DOM node, so it kind of works out). Surely 1024 bytes is reasonable for a DOM node, when you consider all the pointers to various CSS, javascript and other kinds of things that a DOM node needs to have. So :

      1024 bytes / node * 20k nodes / page = 20,2048 k bytes / page
      about 20 megs per page, or 200 megs for 10 tabs. Now, of course you have overhead above and beyond the tabs, such as the UI code (which of course in Mozilla is *iteself* a DOM node and Javascript. So that's the other 300 megs.
    18. Re:Release notes and comments by Nutria · · Score: 1
      Open 10 tabs. Wait.

      How long?

      I've had 40 tabs open, and (in the v1.5 & 2.0 series) see the RES mem get up to 300m, but no higher.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    19. Re:Release notes and comments by LoveMe2Times · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Open a bunch of tabs that use plugins. I haven't pinned it down exactly, but one time a couple weeks ago I had Firefox using 1.5 GB of RAM. Yes. GIGABYTES. I was stunned, frankly. I had a dozen tabs open, tops. I was surfing Adobe's website, Verisign's website, googled a few things, so there were a couple of Flash movies playing and a PDF loaded. One and a half freakin gigabytes. The amount of swapping caused by this resulted in much anomalous behavior, and I was forced to use task manager to terminate the process. On another computer, Seamonkey regularly uses 500+ MB, but that's in large part due to the fact that I use the mail component. It is still quite ridiculous.

      As of right now, my firefox has 5 tabs open and is using about 73 MB. More revealingly, when I close 4 of them, leaving just this comment page, I'm still using 68 MB! My ./ tab does have a chunk of history, but I'm quite certain that 60 or more of those 68 MB have just been leaked away. And I only opened this firefox this afternoon. It hasn't been running for very long. For what it's worth, this is 1.5.0.10. The 1.5 GB problem was on 2.whatever-the-latest-is.

    20. Re:Release notes and comments by G-funk · · Score: 1

      Does it support inline-block yet FFS?

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    21. Re:Release notes and comments by daeg · · Score: 1
      Yes, as of Alpha 2: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/3.0a2/rele asenotes/

      The inline-block and inline-table values of CSS 2.1's display property are now implemented.
    22. Re:Release notes and comments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It does. Both inline-block and inline-table. Look at the changelog for the previous alpha: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/3.0a2/rele asenotes/

    23. Re:Release notes and comments by Ant+P. · · Score: 1

      I couldn't care less about having another format for obnoxious animated ads, TBQH. What really pisses me off is that an actual useful format got killed off for BS political reasons.

    24. Re:Release notes and comments by Dh2000 · · Score: 1

      funny thing is, cairo is dog slow

    25. Re:Release notes and comments by oddfox · · Score: 1

      You'd be much less angry at Windows if you'd simply use Google or another resource to find out how to tell it to not do what you don't want it to.

      --
      "We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
    26. Re:Release notes and comments by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 1

      When you say "a couple of flash movies" do you mean "five or six 300MB TV episodes from Youtube"? If so, that would be most of your 1.5GB memory usage right there...

      --
      0 1 - just my two bits
    27. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but "Open a bunch of tabs that use plugins." isn't exactly a reproducible set of steps. I open a bunch of tabs that use plugins all the time, and I have seen memory usage go up to 400 MB, but memory usage almost always goes back down to below 200 MB after I close the tabs. Don't all browsers use lots of memory when you open a bunch of tabs that use plugins, and then release the memory when you close the tabs?

      If you still think that Firefox has memory problems that other browsers don't have, please give a specific set of steps to follow that causes high memory usage in Firefox and not other browsers.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    28. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Just to make my vague, general statements concrete, I picked three sites at random, each of which uses a different plugin:
      The official US time clock (Java)
      weatcher.com interactive map (Flash)
      Panda Pang (Shockwave for Director)

      With these three pages open Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows XP has a VM Size of 175 MB. Huge memory problem in Firefox? No, Opera 9.10 on Windows XP has a VM Size of 171 MB. After closing the tabs in Firefox, VM Size goes down to 46 MB. Doing the same in Opera, VM Size goes down to 59 MB. If anything, it looks like Opera may have a problem releasing unused memory. Keep in mind for a fair comparison that you must open only those sites after starting the browser, otherwise, you could see the built-up memory usage form hours or days of use in a browser that you've been visiting other pages in.

      If you can come up with a series of steps that causes high memory usage in Firefox, and not high memory usage in other browsers, maybe you're on to something.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    29. Re:Release notes and comments by jbengt · · Score: 1

      "* Implemented cycle collection in XPCOM, which detects cases where two released objects hold one another, but neither is held by anyone else. In this scenario, both objects can safely be purged. Previously, the holds each has on the other would have prevented them from being purged."

      Read TFA, or at least the post you responded to. They are aknowledging and correcting at least one potential source of memory leaks.

    30. Re:Release notes and comments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows, right? On Linux it just climbs and climbs until it eventually becomes unusable and crashes.

    31. Re:Release notes and comments by Nutria · · Score: 1
      Nope. Debian Sid.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    32. Re:Release notes and comments by LoveMe2Times · · Score: 1

      Actually, the size of the flash file (.SWF or .FLV) doesn't matter. Those are cached to disk, not in memory. But no, as I mentioned I was on Adobe's website, which does part of their site in Flash, not surprisingly. I believe (without anything to back me up at the moment) that the problem comes from the Flash/ActionScript bridge, where no JS objects ever get released or somesuch. Tellingly, on the machine that reached the 1.5 GB barrier, I do not have FlashBlock installed, which exacerbates the problem. I think Acrobat Reader also leaks memory, at least when used as a plugin in a Gecko based browser, very badly, perhaps for the same reason.

    33. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      I think Acrobat Reader also leaks memory, at least when used as a plugin in a Gecko based browser, very badly, perhaps for the same reason.
      An Introduction to R (PDF file)
      Opened in Firefox 2.0.0.3 with the Acrobat plugin, VM Size 14 MB
      Opened in Opera 9.10 with the Acrobat plugin, VM Size 22 MB
      After closing the tab with the PDF file, VM Size did not drop significantly in either browser. Still don't see any problem with memory in Firefox. Remember to open only that one page just after you start the browser if you're going to try this yourself. If you can give us a set of steps that reliably reproduces the problem you're seeing, perhaps it could be fixed...
      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    34. Re:Release notes and comments by G-funk · · Score: 1

      Beeeeeeeeeee-yoooo-diful

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    35. Re:Release notes and comments by HeroreV · · Score: 1
      There are quite a lot of people who are very upset about the refusal to support MNG.

      See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18574

      Read some of the comments from Stuart Parmenter, the guy who wrote the APNG spec:

      Normal GPL users? Mozilla is built on top of the MPL... not sure what GPL
      users are.

      > Wake up, we aren't in a democracy.

      Yes.. and that is why your vote doesn't matter...

      > Constantine A. Murenin or someone else, please suggest a reviewer for the Glenn
      > patch.

      I'm the module owner and we've been over this. People tried to go over my head
      and got shot down. Please let this bug finally die.
    36. Re:Release notes and comments by atamido · · Score: 3, Informative

      Cairo is not a speed demon, but it has been getting noticeably faster with ever release that they've made. It may be slower than what Firefox is currently using, but it's also a lot more useful. Their current Gecko rendering engine doesn't have the capability to do the things that they want to do, without a significant rewrite. So in this sense Cairo will add a ton of ability, fix a lot of memory leaks, and probably be at least as fast in a few releases. They will also gain time from all of the developers working on the current engine to have them work to improve some other part of Firefox.

    37. Re:Release notes and comments by tom17 · · Score: 1

      Using this /. comment page, I can reproduce what looks to me like some kind of leak.

      Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows XP.
      browser.cache.memory.enable = false

      Startup - to blank page - 30MB
      Load this comments page - 44MB
      repeatedly refresh the page:
      1st time - 47MB
      2nd time - 47.7MB
      3rd time - 52.2MB
      4th time - 55.6MB
      5th time - 56MB
      22nd time - 81MB
      ~40th time - ~100MB
      and so on... (I got bored of refreshing the page, the pattern seems apparent already)

      Now open new blank tab and close the /. page and no more than ~10MB memory reduction occurs. It should be back down to 30MB as it was when I opened Firefox with a blank page. Where is this extra ~70MB hiding?. There is no history being saved as 1). I closed the tab again, 2). I was only refreshing so no history data was generated. There should be no memory cache as that is disabled.

      Now consider there are lots of times a user may continuously refresh a page, the slashdot index, forum indexes etc. If you have 5 pages that you refresh every few minutes it does not take long for the memory footprint to get well over 500MB. Then depending on your system, it all starts slowing down from swapping/whatever.

      On this particular machine, I need to restart Firefox at about the 400-500MB (system has 1GB) mark as switching tabs or doing pretty much anything starts getting a 5 second delay which is just well annoying.

    38. Re:Release notes and comments by Zombywuf · · Score: 1

      !!!!! You're taking the piss right?

      --
      If you can read this you've gone too far.
    39. Re:Release notes and comments by vidarh · · Score: 1
      On my machine you just run it for a couple of days with lots of tabs. After a while closing the tabs will not make any difference at all in memory consumption.

      I have a Linux box and a Macbook Pro running OSX, and it happens consistently on both of them, and have since 1.0.x at least.

    40. Re:Release notes and comments by Zombywuf · · Score: 1

      To me that's a huge amount of memory for displaying a few kbs of data.

      --
      If you can read this you've gone too far.
    41. Re:Release notes and comments by kv9 · · Score: 1

      If you're happy with win2k you'll be happy with Firefox 2. Simple concept.

      uh, no I will not be. FF3 is progress. anything after W2K is bloat. and FF3 will support W2K (RTFGP) so your point doesn't stand.

    42. Re:Release notes and comments by Tim+C · · Score: 1

      But now that we are all used to tabs, and can open links in new tabs just as easily and quickly as in the current tab, does Joe Average really use the back button that much? (Honest question, as I have no idea)

      Certainly I almost exclusively open links in new tabs unless I'm sure I'm done with the page I'm currently on, and with the number of comments I read here from people who describe having dozens of tabs open simultaneously, it seems I'm not the only one. I freely admit to not being Joe Average though, but then neither are the Mozilla team; I just wonder if they actually surveyed a group of average users, or thought "Hey, this'll be cool and make traversing the browser history really fast!".

    43. Re:Release notes and comments by mhall119 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Right, I think Cairo is being used specifically because it would allow Firefox to finally add features like full page zoom (no just text resizing) that has been available in other browsers for a while now. It should also improve page printing.

      --
      http://www.mhall119.com
    44. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      To me that's a huge amount of memory for displaying a few kbs of data.
      Perhaps, but all browsers use that much memory for displaying pages. Is there some problem specific to Firefox you're seeing?
      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    45. Re:Release notes and comments by hostyle · · Score: 1

      "Windows - annoying by default (but you can make the bad man stop with diligent application of some google cream)"

      --
      Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
    46. Re:Release notes and comments by Zombywuf · · Score: 1

      Other than it used to use a lot less memory than the others, and now only a little, no. "Everyone else is doing it," is not an excuse.

      --
      If you can read this you've gone too far.
    47. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      Ok. I'll try this one, too. I've opened up Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows XP with just this page open, and it has a VM Size of 16 MB. After one reload, it's up to 22 MB. I notice that the ad changed, so memory cache and the Flash plugin are probably responsible for the extra memory, as is memory fragmentation. After another reload, it's down to 20 MB. After the third reload, still at 20 MB. Fourth reload, 24 MB. Fifth, 23 MB. After the 22nd reload, it's using 31 MB. So, the memory is going up over time, but then again, the memory use of any browser will go up over time and stabilize at a higher level. After the 40th reload, VM Size is 35 MB. If I were seeing growth up to over 100 MB as you were, that might indicate some kind of problem. Who knows, maybe Firefox is leaking some memory, but it's not clear when the memory increases only 11 MB after dozens of reloads.

      Let's try Opera 9.10. With just this page open, it has a VM Size of 31 MB. After one reload, it's up to 32 MB. After another reload, it's up to 33 MB. After the third reload, back down to 32 MB. Fourth reload, still at 32 MB. Fifth, 33 MB. After the 22nd reload, it's using 33 MB. Opera's memory usage doesn't seem to be rising as fast. Interesting. However, note that Opera's memory use is higher than Firefox's at each number of reloads. After the 40th reload, VM Size is still 33 MB. Hmmm... you may be on to something here. After 40 reloads, Firefox VM Size is finally higher than Opera's. Does it rise higher, without limit, after more reloads? If so, that would indicate a memory leak. Does anyone want to try it and file the bug report?

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    48. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      I don't understand. All browsers use about the same amount of memory, but only Firefox has the memory problem? You're going to have to explain that one pretty carefully.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    49. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      After a while closing the tabs will not make any difference at all in memory consumption.

      According to the operating system, no it doesn't make any difference. That's because, due to memory fragmentation, memory is being released somewhere in Firefox's memory pool so that it cannot be returned to the operating system. Memory is being released and reused internally, but not back to the OS. It's a well-known effect that isn't a problem specific to Firefox. All browsers exhibit this behavior.

      Generally speaking, memory use (according to the OS) not going down is not a problem. Memory use continuing to rise without bound indicates a problem. If Firefox were truly not releasing memory in a classic memory leak, that's what would happen. Can you give a set of steps that produces a reproducible increase in memory usage without limit?

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    50. Re:Release notes and comments by Zombywuf · · Score: 1

      The point of Firefox used to be that it was lightweight. Now it isn't. This is a clear regression.

      --
      If you can read this you've gone too far.
    51. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      The point of Firefox used to be that it was lightweight. Now it isn't. This is a clear regression.
      Did Firefox at some point use significantly less memory than other browsers? I suppose you can clearly demonstrate this regression? If so, I suppose you have a point. If not, I suggest that you're speculating and are possibly incorrect.
      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    52. Re:Release notes and comments by Zombywuf · · Score: 1

      Well according to archive.org, the reccomended amount of memory to run Firefox used to be 128MB and is now 256MB. As I don't keep detailed logs of my systems memory usage I can only say that it used to be normal for Firefox to be using 30MB (and even then it was quite bloated) and now it's normal for it to be using 80MB. If it's possible to run two versions of Firefox side by side then perhaps I'll test it.

      --
      If you can read this you've gone too far.
    53. Re:Release notes and comments by atamido · · Score: 1

      Yes, those are both features that will be added. But I was referring to added CSS properties. For instance, display:inline-block has been glaringly absent for a very long time.

      The full page zoom brings up an important point. Vista's new rendering system (and OSX's) use a vector based windows display system. They are trying to push people towards using a point based sizing from pixel based. That way no matter what the physical DPI of a monitor it, a window can be displayed the same size. Higher DPI monitors will just render things more clearly. This will get rid of the need to set monitors at a lower resolution because the text on applications is to tiny. Cairo will make it possible for Firefox to take advantage of that.

    54. Re:Release notes and comments by slack_prad · · Score: 1

      If you can come up with a series of steps that causes high memory usage in Firefox, and not high memory usage in other browsers, maybe you're on to something.
      So if another browser sucks it's ok for your browser to suck too?
      --
      Sent from my desktop computer
    55. Re:Release notes and comments by bunratty · · Score: 1

      So if another browser sucks it's ok for your browser to suck too?

      No, of course not! But if all browsers suck, why say "Firefox sucks"? That implies other browsers don't suck. Why not say "all browsers suck," which conveys what you're trying to say much more clearly?

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    56. Re:Release notes and comments by EugeneK · · Score: 0

      nope..i was serious!

    57. Re:Release notes and comments by Zombywuf · · Score: 1

      Then there's something very, very wrong with firefox's DOM implementation.

      --
      If you can read this you've gone too far.
  3. For a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought it was a GTA mod....

    1. Re:For a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought it was the name of a mature porn star.

    2. Re:For a second... by iamstretchypanda · · Score: 1

      Because everyone wants to be yelling "o yeah do it like that Gran Paradiso Alpha 3, you know how to work it baby." I don't know about you, but i'll pass.

  4. Not a gecko release by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's an alpha release of Firefox 3, it uses the Gecko 1.9 engine.

    1. Re:Not a gecko release by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      FTA:

      Gran Paradiso Alpha 3 is an early developer milestone for the next generation of Mozilla's layout engine, Gecko 1.9.
    2. Re:Not a gecko release by wild_berry · · Score: 1

      I'd disagree. I'm using Minefield, the nightly preview of FireFox 3. While it uses Gecko 1.9, it's still calling itself -- and this is the 20070325, tonight's build -- FireFox 3.0 alpha 3 pre.

      I swear someone from Capcom's Street Fighter team was involved in that name.

    3. Re:Not a gecko release by jesser · · Score: 1

      Since it contains a lot of changes to Gecko but very few changes to the Firefox UI, I think it makes more sense to call it a "Gecko 1.9 alpha" than a "Firefox 3 alpha".

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
    4. Re:Not a gecko release by Tim+C · · Score: 1

      Surely you've just agreed with the OP? It's an alpha release of Firefox 3.0 (which uses Gecko 1.9), not a release of Gecko 1.9 itself.

    5. Re:Not a gecko release by wild_berry · · Score: 1

      I was arguing about the name: Minefield versus Gran Paradiso. In truth I don't care what it's called, so long as it's not called CockSmoker. But given the extraordinary crap people install from the darker side of the Internet, maybe that would be a good name.

  5. ACID 2 Compliance by nahdude812 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, it does completely pass the Acid 2 CSS compliance test.

    1. Re:ACID 2 Compliance by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      Aaaaactally, the nose on GPA3 appears 1px too far to the right and to the bottom. ;-P

    2. Re:ACID 2 Compliance by jesser · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's ok if the nose is a pixel offset from the reference-rendering position. IIRC, it depends on the order in which borders are drawn, which isn't specified by CSS. It's even ok, and considered ideal by some, if the nose is anti-aliased to be "half a pixel offset" from the reference-rendering position.

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
    3. Re:ACID 2 Compliance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it does completely pass the Acid 2 CSS compliance test.

      Whoopee fuckin doo! Somebody call the press! Lets have a party!

      Now that there is a browser that passes the all-important-almighty-mission-critical-life-or-de ath ACID 2 test, I guess we'll have to come up with a new cool sounding buzzword browser compliance test in order to perpetuate the browser snobbery that so many have come to depend upon for their routine pointless pissing and moaning.

      Besides, who the hell base64 encodes pngs in stylesheets? Is it simply an exercise in the absurd? Just an obscuree css wankfest? I mean come on...
    4. Re:ACID 2 Compliance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I miss that half pixel. Without it my rendering engine just doesn't feel the same...

    5. Re:ACID 2 Compliance by nahdude812 · · Score: 1
      Normally don't nibble at AC trolls, but just in case you do actually come back to read responses to your own, or in case someone else reads your drivel, it will make me feel better =)

      Whoopee fuckin doo! Somebody call the press! Lets have a party!

      Now that there is a browser that passes the all-important-almighty-mission-critical-life-or-de ath ACID 2 test, I guess we'll have to come up with a new cool sounding buzzword browser compliance test in order to perpetuate the browser snobbery that so many have come to depend upon for their routine pointless pissing and moaning.

      The CSS Acid2 test is actually a very important milestone for any browser which is making forward progress in areas other than user interface. A properly implemented CSS engine means that your pages can look the same in all browsers without browser-specific hacks. However and more importantly it means you can create web pages which are layout-rich without having to alter your page structure to accommodate the layout you chose. The reason this is important is that it makes your pages orders of magnitude more accessible to disabled users. However I'm far less qualified to extol the virtues of CSS than many other people are.

      Besides, who the hell base64 encodes pngs in stylesheets? Is it simply an exercise in the absurd? Just an obscuree css wankfest? I mean come on...

      People who wish to store those files, complete with their images, as an atomic unit. People who wish to make the most optimized initial display possible (no second or subsequent connection to retrieve the image data). People who wish to guarantee that an image is updated every time the user gets a new copy of the page no matter how aggressive some caching proxy between them and the site might be. People who wish to serve image data which is always generated on the fly based on a large amount of data which is already in memory for the serving page, without having to store it temporarily or use a separate request (which would require re-loading that memory). Heck, these are just off the top of my head. Just because you don't have the creativity to think of reasons why something might be useful doesn't make it not so.
    6. Re:ACID 2 Compliance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually Konqueror, Opera and Safari all pass the Acid2 test as well. Let's see.... what browser is missing from the list? I'll give you a hint: "The Web is built on open standards and we at ######### believe that we have to enable those open standards . . ."

      Once again, progress held back by a company with more resources than some countries. It's both amazing and sickening.

    7. Re:ACID 2 Compliance by slack_prad · · Score: 1

      Good. That will shut up the opera fanboys :)

      --
      Sent from my desktop computer
  6. Re:That felt weird by Seumas · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just to be ironic I do not think that word means what you think that it means.
  7. Why should it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I consider it a feature if a browser prevents people from visiting MySpace.

    1. Re:Why should it? by cjdkoh · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Hey! I found my girlfriend, of 5 months so far, on MySpace you insensitive clod!

    2. Re:Why should it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She's probably the parent AC.

    3. Re:Why should it? by pipatron · · Score: 5, Funny

      I knew the MySpace-crowd were young, but 5 months, wtf?

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    4. Re:Why should it? by cjdkoh · · Score: 1

      lol. if only it would let me moderate that comment as funny. as you can tell by my id, i'm kinda a n00b here.

    5. Re:Why should it? by aetherworld · · Score: 1

      Hilarious ^^ Sadly I'm out of points...

  8. Release notes and future comments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "At a certain point, this sort of decision has to be made: Move forward, or live in the past. The technical issues that surround supporting old systems verses moving forward with more elegant solutions for modern systems."

    I dub thee Vista.

  9. What? by mboverload · · Score: 4, Funny

    WTF? Where did the cars go?

    1. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Admit it, you were all thinking the same thing. :-)

    2. Re:What? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      They were destroyed by Cammy.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  10. Ironic by 26199 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I do not think it means what you think it means.

    Which I suppose makes your post ironic. Hmm.

  11. redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by dankelley · · Score: 1

    On OSX, Gran Paradiso Alpha 3 had an annoying habit of flashing a white screen before redrawing a page. To test this, just go to http://www.mozilla.org/products/ and click from tab to tab.

    One can only hope that this won't occur in the release versions, because it is really quite annoying.

    1. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by Seumas · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's a feature, dude. The white screen in between page loads is where the government flashes the subliminal commands, instructing you to consume, worship and be content.

    2. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Knowing Firefox's commitment to OS X, that bug will not only still exist in the final release, but several new OS X-only bugs will be introduced. The annoying issue of the window snapping halfway across the screen that cannot be moved without restarting FF will become even more annoying. The new theme for FF3 will look even less like OS X apps, and will continue to have ugly Windows 95-ish form controls. Actually, they'll be switching to Windows 3.1-ish controls.

      Really, though, if you use a Mac try one of these:

      1. Camino (based on FF, but actually looks and feels native)
      2. Safari
      3. Opera

    3. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it's where Steve Jobs flashes subliminal advertising, how great the new $APPLE_PRODUCT is.

      How did you think the RDF works?

    4. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by Anc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The new theme for FF3 will look even less like OS X apps, and will continue to have ugly Windows 95-ish form controls. Actually, they'll be switching to Windows 3.1-ish controls.
      Quite the opposite. One of the already implemented changes that will make it to Fx3 is enabling native Cocoa widgets.
    5. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by dankelley · · Score: 1

      I like Camino, Safari, and Opera, but I have come to rely upon a variety of FireFox plugins, so the aforementioned aren't really options.

    6. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, changing it from a Carbon app into a Cocoa app has changed a lot. No more weird incompatibilities with Exposé, drawing is done through Quartz instead of ancient Quickdraw and we'll possible see native OS X spell checking and Keychain support in Firefox 3.
       
      You should try it. Mind you, it is still an alpha and final is at least six months away so expect some weird stuff but it certainly looks promising from has been achieved so far.

    7. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by Goaway · · Score: 1

      ...Opera? Did you just complain about Firefox not looking like an OS X app, and then recommending Opera?

    8. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by jesser · · Score: 1

      I think this is bug 361600. I agree that it's annoying, and it looks like it will be fixed in time for Firefox 3.

      It's even more annoying in debug builds ;)

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
    9. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by Rogue+Pat · · Score: 1

      Completely off-topic: I know bugzilla doesn't like links from /.
      So instead i opened a new tab in Firefox, and pasted the bug number "361600" in the address bar and hit enter. Obviously i meant to make it a bugzilla search, but it's past midnight here, and i'm tired so i forgot to enter additional search terms.

      Nevertheless, with only "361600" in the address bar, Google actually returned the bugzilla link as the top link.
      Just thought that was pretty neat :)

    10. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, I see the "consume obey breed" screen just fine. This is a separate issue.

    11. Re:redraws involve headache-inducing white flashes by jesser · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah. For a solid percentage of the 6-digit numbers, Google will give you a Debian bug report, a Gnome bug report, or a Mozilla bug report.

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
  12. Newsworthy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apart from dropping support for older OS's, is this really worthy of being /.'d?

    It's an alpha of the Gecko engine. The most interesting features are APNG and some enhancement for offline browsing. Seriously, what the hell? This isn't Digg...

    1. Re:Newsworthy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously, what the hell? This isn't Digg...

      No, it's a sad attempt from a "wannabe" Digg.

    2. Re:Newsworthy? by gerrysteele · · Score: 1
      I mostly agree that this prob isn't newsworthy,

      However, after trying it out on linux it does seem to be rendering and fetching pages a bit faster.

  13. Re:That felt weird by ProfessionalCookie · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't worry...he's just been hanging out with Alanis Morsette. On second thought, worry.

  14. Release schedule? by Tester · · Score: 1

    I was looking at the mozilla wiki and I couldn't find a release schedule for Gecko 1.9 / Firefox 3. Does it exist somewhere? I read allusion to like March and then to the end of the year. I guess if we are still in Alpha, its more like Q3/Q4 ?

    I tried recent nightly builds, and I really liked what I saw on the painting front. I hope we can get a stabilized release soon.

    1. Re:Release schedule? by dvice_null · · Score: 2, Informative

      Firefox 3 is planned to be released on November: http://wiki.mozilla.org/ReleaseRoadmap
      Wikipedia quotes the same source.

  15. Re:So.. by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If they "fixed" this "leak", the other bunch of fucknozzles would come back asking "Why are back and forward so slow?!??". I think for the time being you people are slightly less annoying, so the "leak" stays.

  16. APNG question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this the first browser that supports APNG?

  17. Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by mallumax · · Score: 1

    Is there a way to run both firefox and Paradiso without affeting firefox settings and extensions etc ?

    1. Re:Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by teh+kurisu · · Score: 1

      I keep a separate user account for this sort of thing. Not exactly convenient though.

    2. Re:Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by dvice_null · · Score: 1

      Yes, but it might be risky. Install both on separate folders and create a profile for each of them. Then modify the shortcuts for both to use their own profile. The risk is that if you click a link the profile set for the shortcut won't get counted in, so what ever profile was last used, will be loaded. This could cause corruption for the profile, so please backup your profile before trying this at home.

    3. Re:Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by obender · · Score: 2, Informative

      Is there a way to run both firefox and Paradiso without affecting firefox settings and extensions etc ? Unzip firefox in a separate directory, for example c:\beta\firefox, make an extra directory for profiles and start firefox with the -profile option:

      set MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1
      c:\beta\firefox\firefox.exe -profile c:\beta\profile
      The MOZ_NO_REMOTE variable will prevent it from connecting to another running instance of Firefox. All the settings are stored in the profile directory so it will leave the regular installation alone.
    4. Re:Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by jginspace · · Score: 1
      "Is there a way to run both firefox and Paradiso without affeting firefox settings and extensions etc ?"

      First of all I recommend you create a new profile for V3 (Gran Paradiso). After that it's possible to run new instances of Firefox from a batch file with the contents:

      set MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1
      firefox -P
    5. Re:Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by Nutria · · Score: 0
      The MOZ_NO_REMOTE variable will prevent it from connecting to another running instance of Firefox. All the settings are stored in the profile directory so it will leave the regular installation alone.

      What if you don't have write-access to c:\beta\firefox ?

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    6. Re:Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by obender · · Score: 1

      What if you don't have write-access to c:\beta\firefox ? Then use a directory where you have write access. c:\beta was just an example.
      I thought you would easily figure that out given that you are running Debian.
    7. Re:Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by Nutria · · Score: 1
      Then use a directory where you have write access. c:\beta was just an example.
      I thought you would easily figure that out given that you are running Debian.


      The point is: why should you need write access to a non-$HOME directory, no matter where it is?

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    8. Re:Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by beef3k · · Score: 1

      1. Get VMWare Server (it's free) 2. Install whatever guest operating system you'd like: Fedora, Ubuntu, Windows... 3. ??? 3. Profit - you just got yourself a nice virtual playground to try out new stuff

    9. Re:Run both firefox and Gran Paradiso ? by obender · · Score: 1

      The point is: why should you need write access to a non-$HOME directory, no matter where it is? You don't. Make subdirectories under $HOME and you're OK. The whole point of using -profile is to allow you full control on where you place you settings.

      And last, for some of us c:\beta is home :)

  18. Alanis uses irony correctly by gvc · · Score: 1
    "Saying the opposite of what you mean" is but one sense of irony. Here's another:

    OED 2 fig. A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was,
    or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in
    mockery of the promise and fitness of things.

    http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0 07HIc
    1. Re:Alanis uses irony correctly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A black fly in my wine isn't ironic, it's just shitty luck.

  19. Re:That felt weird by ady1 · · Score: 1

    I think he actually meant redundant.

  20. Its there a windows component? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What i want its an updated windows gecko component (activex better than .net) with his own native api not a ie cloned one (http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/control.htm) if Xul Runner based much better

    Having the app (firefox) its nice... but a component would be better. I must use crappy ie-control for work because there is not an updated gecko component

    I work hacking internal apps for a medical research company in borland delphi, scheme and dolphin smalltalk. Like me, many people arent good enought at c or have the time to hack something out of firefox.

  21. Bug! by Zarel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I had a feeling the rendering engine improvements would break something. The Quick Contacts list of GMail with Chat has a huge space on the bottom that increases each time you hover over a user. I wonder if it's a rendering engine bug or a GMail bug.

    --
    Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
    1. Re:Bug! by Nasarius · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So file it if it's not there already. That's what the alpha is for.

      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
    2. Re:Bug! by kbrosnan · · Score: 2, Informative

      It is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36349 6 - "gmail talk, onclick textarea creates new space in contacts list"

      --
      These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based upon the order I joined. -Homer Simpson
  22. Re:So.. by jesser · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's possible to turn off the back-forward cache by setting browser.sessionhistory.max_viewers to 0 in about:config. That said, for some users, Firefox uses a lot of memory due to actual leaks rather than this kind of caching.

    --
    The shareholder is always right.
  23. Mac users, give it a try! by chrysalis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For OSX users, Gran Paradiso is a huge improvement over previous Firefox versions. It's way faster, and it feels as fast as Safari. While there are still some bugs especially with forms, this is definitely something OSX users should try.

    --
    {{.sig}}
    1. Re:Mac users, give it a try! by dr.badass · · Score: 1

      For OSX users, Gran Paradiso is a huge improvement over previous Firefox versions. It's way faster, and it feels as fast as Safari.

      If it looks like Firefox, acts like Firefox, but is as fast as Safari -- it's still Firefox. Fuck that.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
    2. Re:Mac users, give it a try! by jrockway · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I hate visiting sites and seeing them render properly! That really sucks! Fuck firefox!

      --
      My other car is first.
    3. Re:Mac users, give it a try! by tuxic · · Score: 1

      How nice! I sure will, but rather wait for at least the beta to come out before I see it worth having installed. In my view, alpha releases are not "good enough" for everyday use, or does this alpha release happen to be extraordinary? :-)

      --
      "People are stupid. Persons are smart" -- Agent K, MiB.
    4. Re:Mac users, give it a try! by hritcu · · Score: 1

      Once it's stable sure. Most people feel absolutely no need to be on the bleeding edge.

      --
      If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
    5. Re:Mac users, give it a try! by dr.badass · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I hate visiting sites and seeing them render properly!

      Where did I say anything about rendering? As far as I can tell, Safari/WebKit and Firefox/Gecko are both more or less accurate. Safari passed Acid2 back in 2005, while Firefox is just now getting there. Besides, if I wanted to run a Gecko browser, I'd run Camino over Firefox, because it doesn't feel like a bad port from Windows.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
    6. Re:Mac users, give it a try! by jrockway · · Score: 1

      Acid2 is a test of inaccuracy, not accuracy. Correct browsers should display "this document is not valid", not that fucked up smiley face.

      --
      My other car is first.
  24. Re:So.. by Seumas · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A browser consuming hundreds of megs of ram is hardly a reasonable trade-off for a slightly faster back button that people rarely use to begin with.

  25. New word! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Fucknozzles! That's a new one. I suppose if you've already got an asshat, you need some matching fucknozzles to go with it.

    1. Re:New word! by Nutria · · Score: 1
      Fucknozzles! That's a new one. I suppose if you've already got an asshat, you need some matching fucknozzles to go with it.

      Just wait for the metric assload of fucknozzles.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  26. Even Mozilla guys ignore non-x86 Linux by cyba · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's only single "Linux" download link that refers to Linux/x86 binary. If leading Free Software project doesn't treat non-x86 platforms seriously, how can we expect something different from e.g. hardware manufacturers?

    1. Re:Even Mozilla guys ignore non-x86 Linux by PipOC · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Are there ANY desktop platforms that are non-x86? If you're running linux on something non-x86 it's likely not a desktop platform.

    2. Re:Even Mozilla guys ignore non-x86 Linux by 644bd346996 · · Score: 1

      Anybody running Linux on a non-x86 box will know how to install from a distro's repositories. The same can no longer be said for Linux on x86, because of people installing ubuntu on their grnadmother's computer, etc. However, in this case it really doesn't matter. This is alpha software. If you are messing with it, you should know how to compile it yourself. It is not really worth Mozilla's time to acquire obsolete non-x86 desktop hardware for building nightlies and alpha releases.

      I find your comment about hardware manufacturers odd. Which companies are currently ignoring the non-x86 market that would actually profit from making hardware for that very small market? The way I see it, market forces have decided that x86 is the only architecture that matters for desktops.

    3. Re:Even Mozilla guys ignore non-x86 Linux by JohnGalt00 · · Score: 1

      Linux on any of the old PPC Macs. Those are desktop, non-x86 systems. Most/all of the major distros support desktop PPC linux running the standard X, Gnome, KDE, etc.

      IIRC, Linus himself develops on a Dual G5 PowerMac. (running Linux, of course!)

    4. Re:Even Mozilla guys ignore non-x86 Linux by eldepeche · · Score: 1

      I hope alpha software isn't in the repositories...

    5. Re:Even Mozilla guys ignore non-x86 Linux by eraserewind · · Score: 1
      Free Software in the FSF's terms doesn't ship with any binaries at all. You got the source code, compile it yourself. Personally I think it's a bit much to expect builds for every platform out there from an alpha release.

      how can we expect something different from e.g. hardware manufacturers?

      Nobody wants binaries from hardware manufacturers. I think most Linux devs would be over the moon if the manufacturers released only source code for non-x86 (or even x86).
  27. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I wish fucknozzles would stop claiming the leak was from the back-forward caching, when it leaks like a sieve even with that feature turned off.

  28. Page Zoom? by tomblag · · Score: 1

    Still just text zoom I see. Not a full page zoom option yet. I thought I read it would be in alpha3?

    1. Re:Page Zoom? by Breakfast+Pants · · Score: 1

      Me too. This feature is long awaited.

      --

      --

      WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
  29. I hope... by theshibboleth · · Score: 1

    this really does mean that we'll have Mac-native widgets now as another poster said, and perhaps they'll throw in color management so that I can consider replacing Safari with Firefox. A lot of people criticize Safari, but its rendering engine actually appears to be superior--it passes the Acid2 test for instance.

    1. Re:I hope... by monkeyman_67156 · · Score: 1

      So does this Alpha.

    2. Re:I hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I highly HIGHLY doubt that you'll get mac native widgets. That's what Camino is for.

  30. Strange OSX behaviour by lindseyp · · Score: 1

    Is it just me?

    I tried to use Firefox and Camino on OSX, but I found very many sites displaying with tiny text. The font appeared way smaller than it should and was very difficult to read. Yes, I know I could set a minimum font size but I'd have to do it for every font, and it would mess up pages where there was a good reason for a tiny font.

    Safari rendered all of the pages fine, so now I just use safari, but it did make me wonder. Doesn't anyone else have this problem with Gecko based browsers?

    --
    j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
    1. Re:Strange OSX behaviour by Bazzargh · · Score: 2, Informative

      *Holds up hand*

      my fault, assuming you are using an alpha or nightly build. There are still a bunch of font bugs in cairo, in particular when the text is scaled. Most of those were fixed in cairo 1.4.2, they should land in the mozilla soonish, and hopefully the next release will look a lot better. Mac fonts on cairo trunk are now pretty much up to par with the other platforms, and Robert O'Callahan, Vlad, etc have done great stuff making it all perform well too.

      -Baz (maintaining mac font stuff in cairo)

    2. Re:Strange OSX behaviour by lindseyp · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the reply, nice to hear it from the horse's mouth. Safari is pretty good anyway, but Camino was also very nice, and Firefox is good for my wife, and therefore good for me, as I'm still trying to wean her off the PC and she keeps giving me stick about the change in user interface. Not to mention there's some freaky problem with the connection to yahoo japan's image server, but that's for another thread. I'll give them another try.

      --
      j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
    3. Re:Strange OSX behaviour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't have to set a minimum font size for every font, silly.
      Your default font size might also have been too small.
      Safari probably used some OSX system setting.

      Another possibility, I suppose, is it wasn't fetching DPI from system correctly.

      Given your confusion above, I'm betting you just had different font settings, and it confused you too much.
      Don't see much the Gecko guys can do about that.
      Maybe Camino
      www.caminobrowser.org
      handles things similar to Safari. Dunno.

    4. Re:Strange OSX behaviour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh. If an actual dev says it was his doing I'll take his word for it I guess.
      Still seems to me that "setting it for every font" sounds totally unnecessary.

  31. Ask your admin to grant you write access by tepples · · Score: 1

    If you don't have write-access to c:\beta\firefox, then you are not the administrator. If you are not the administrator of a machine, and the administrator refuses to grant you this write access, then you probably shouldn't be running alpha software on the machine.

    1. Re:Ask your admin to grant you write access by Nutria · · Score: 0, Flamebait
      If you don't have write-access to c:\beta\firefox, then you are not the administrator. If you are not the administrator of a machine, and the administrator refuses to grant you this write access, then you probably shouldn't be running alpha software on the machine.

      So, in other words, Windows programmers Joe User to need write access outside of his $HOME?

      No fucking wonder it's crawling with viruses and bots.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:Ask your admin to grant you write access by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      , for example c:\beta\firefoxSo, in other words, Windows programmers Joe User to need write access outside of his $HOME? WTF? He said

      for example c:\beta\firefox There's *no reason* you couldn't use c:\documents and settings\Nutria\beta-firefox instead. Windows programmers are *not forcing you* to write outside $HOME.

    3. Re:Ask your admin to grant you write access by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wish I hadn't used up all my mod points earlier today, because you completely failed to grasp that it was only an example path and that it would work for any path to which you *did* have write access, then used the assumptions birthed by your ignorance to blast an OS that although I'm not real fond of, doesn't deserve the criticism you leveled at it.

  32. It's still alpha, for cricket's sake by tepples · · Score: 1

    Linux on any of the old PPC Macs. Those are desktop, non-x86 systems. Most/all of the major distros support desktop PPC linux running the standard X, Gnome, KDE, etc. Expect wider building and testing, especially from the maintainers of said distros, once Firefox 3 enters beta.
  33. Re:So.. by Man+of+E · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Other browsers have shown (Opera, Safari) that it's possible to have speedy back and forward buttons without taking up a gig of memory. You can claim that the Firefox back-forward code is so poorly written that it would have to be redone from the ground up, and that the developers consider a new spellchecker to be higher-priority than a time-consuming rewrite of this memory-hogging component. But please don't pretend that this is an intrinsic trade-off in browser design.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une sig
  34. about:config by SavvyPlayer · · Score: 2, Informative

    browser.cache.memory.enable

  35. Re:So.. by bismark.a · · Score: 1

    a slightly faster back button that people rarely use to begin with What are you talking about? I use the history back and forward all the time. It is especially nice when the back button takes you exactly to the place in the, page you moved forwards from. Also all this memory related gripe, will be more irrelevant by the day. A Giga-Byte of Flash RAM is available for a few tens of bucks. How long can it be before a PC comes with many GBs of RAM?
  36. Re:So.. by Seumas · · Score: 1

    That's pretty crappy programmer logic, though.

    Because we have more available, we should feel free to waste more?!

    Memory usage is essentially constant. The fractional delay of the history button is... what... fifteen seconds combined out of a dozen hours of browsing?

  37. Re:So.. by bunratty · · Score: 1

    It's not programmer logic. The "fastback" feature was one of the most requested enhancements before it was added. It was at the request of users that the feature was added, not because of "crappy programmer logic." Anyway, the feature seems to use only tens of megabytes at most (at least on the vast majority of web sites), and can be turned off entirely if it's using too much memory for your liking.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  38. Re:So.. by bunratty · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nice rant, but Firefox does not seem to use more memory than other browsers. See my above posts and the following links:
    Radically New IE 7 or Updated Mozilla Firefox 2--Which Browser Is Better?
    IE 7 vs IE 6
    Firefox 2 - the lean, mean browser

    If you can give a set of steps that causes Firefox to use "up to a gig of memory" and does not cause other browsers to use nearly as much memory, let's have it. Then whatever problem you're seeing can be reported and fixed.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  39. Ironic you should think so by alienmole · · Score: 1

    Ironically, it's exactly this sense of the word that most people are claiming Alanis failed at. For example, neither "Rain on your wedding day" or "A traffic jam when you're already late" are outside of what might naturally be expected -- as many people have observed, it's simply bad luck. One could argue that both qualify as an outcome "as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things", but the problem with this is that they don't meet the test of being opposite to what might naturally be expected. One could further argue that these outcomes might not be what was expected, but having unrealistic expectations thwarted by everyday reality is not ironic.

    Other questionable examples of Alanis-irony include "Good advice that you just didn't take" and "a black fly in your Chardonnay". The best explanation I've heard is that by writing a song about irony which used examples which were not ironic, Alanis was indulging in meta-irony. Who knew she was such an intellectual?!

  40. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sorry, but "someday ram will be cheap as hell, so who cares!" is the definition of crappy programmer logic. And that's what the poster prior had just commented on. Just because drives are 500gb doesn't mean you should't optimize your application to use as little as possible.

    Anyway, as for firefox itself. I don't know about you but "tens of megabytes" seems like a lot to me for a single feature. And I'm not saying fastback is the cause of the large memory uses everyone sees - but it is the item given blame by everyone in response to their complaints about memory.

    I'm simply saying that either the justification (fastback's fault) for memory usage is incorrect, it is correct and we just have to accept that it's enormous or the justification is wrong and there really is some problem somewhere that a ton of people are experiencing and that is being sloughed off.

  41. Re:So.. by HeroreV · · Score: 1

    My computer is over 3 years old. It was just a regular midrange Dell. At the time, 512MB was standard and I got 1GB due to a special offer. For people whose computers weren't found in a dumpster, it is definitely worth the hundreds of megs of ram to get a slightly faster back button.

  42. Re:That felt weird by icepick72 · · Score: 1

    I was actually going for more of a sense of situational irony; however I admit not much thought went to the wording at the time. The best part has been the enjoyment of reading through all the comments about my statement. Isn't that just a little bit ... ironic?

  43. Um... no. by Millennium · · Score: 1

    The only ironic thing in her song is that despite being about irony, there is in fact no irony in it. Maybe that was part of the intent of the song in the first place, but it doesn't change the fact that there isn't a single correct use of irony in the piece, just a lot of depressing coincidences.

  44. Mozilla Failing to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mozilla has totally failed to understand the user's priorities

    Many many user are trying hard to use firefox Because
    1) Too Slow if you install even 10 or 12 Extensions
    2) No page zoom facility
    3) Extension Technology needs a overhaul Because it Inherently Insecure

    Instead of fixing these damn things what are those Mozilla hackers upto i don't understand

    1. Re:Mozilla Failing to by stu42j · · Score: 1

      Actually, the page zoom at least is being worked on. That's what the Cairo backend is all about.

  45. Gran Turismo 3 by prothid · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Does anyone else suddenly have an urge to play some Gran Turismo 3?

  46. Win2K3 compatibility? by Bob+Ince · · Score: 1

    Anyone got any of the GP Alphas to work on Windows Server 2003 (SV1)? Every one of them has invariably crashed just after opening the first window for me.

    (OTOH XP and Linux seem fine.)