Unless I've missed something, bug 238684 (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23868 4) greatly reduced this risk. As I read the bug/patch, it makes it impossible for a page to "automatically" ask you to download an XPI; you have to actually click a link or take some other real action. I'm sure clever spyware authors will get around this new protection eventually, but it's a step in the right direction. It was checked in about a month ago, so it'll be in Mozilla 1.7 and beyond and I would assume Firefox 0.9 and beyond.
Agreed, I have no idea what people who says caffeine is not addictive are talking about. I've quit it a few times, but I always end up re-addicted because I love coffee/tea and decaf just doesn't taste the same. But the times I quit, I followed a strategy similar to yours of drinking less coffee, and then drinking a lower-caffeine beverage like green tea, until I was weaned off it and I had minimal withdrawl each day.
It's too bad it didn't last; I found when I was drinking essentially no caffeine I had *much* less trouble falling asleep at night, and consequently less need for gallons of coffee each morning. Caffeine is a harsh misstress:).
I don't think this is a corrupt installtion (unless we're talking about entirely different bugs, which is possible). It just doesn't happen every time you visit the page, so it might have seemed like uninstalling fixed it. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=217527 is the bug number in Bugzilla, although at the moment most of the comments are worthless "me too!" posts.
I have to agree with the others in this thread, if you're in the business of laying out something very large (like a college textbook type of document), Frame is still well used. I interned for six months editing/writing/doing odd jobs for a computer science textbook authoring firm and all the book layout was done in Frame. It's a little quirky at first, but once you learn the ropes it is a very powerful tool for ensuring a consistent style and feel throughout very large documents.
It's entirely possible to give people a receipt that certifies that they voted for someone, but not specify who. This lets groups that want to reward voters do so, and keeps people from blackmailing/extorting voters by making sure they voted for the "right" candidate or the candidate that promised them $20 if they just vote for him.
See this bug in Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=217527 . As others have pointed out, if Slashdot used remotely modern, comliant HTML this wouldn't be an issue, but of course that doesn't mean Mozilla shouldn't fix the rendering bug. If you reload the page or do anything else that causes a reflow (resize text, etc) the problem usually goes away, strangely.
And please, please don't spam this bug with "I see this too", "I don't understand why this isn't fixed yet, it should be easy", etc, it has enough of those comments:).
To second this, one of my roommates does all his textbook shopping online. I believe he uses half.com, and he reportedly *makes* money on his textbook transactions by selling them back slightly higher than he bought them for. Not much money, like $14 USD, but still, it beats losing $400 each semester...
These things are being worked on, if you care to look. For example, a major rewrite of the various string classes used in Mozilla recently landed (see this bug: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231995 ), which improved startup speed by about 7%, page load time by about 3%, and reduced code size by sevreal hundred kilobytes. This may sound like small potatoes, but it's just a part of the ongoing optimization effort. The people developing Mozill aren't idiots, the majority of them are professional programmers and software architects. They know performance is important, it's improved dramatically since 1.0 and will continue to do so.
This is only my observation, but I think it has to do with taking interfaces that are wrapped up as XPCOM components and making them into normal, unencumbered C++ classes. They do this to interfaces that really have no business being reusable XPCOM components but were implemented that way for whatever reason. The resulting code is faster and smaller, so it's generally a good thing. It has nothing to do with making Mozilla completely native to each platform as far as I know.
While not using these two methods specifically, much work is being done to improve Mozilla's spam filtering. A lot of it leveraging the code and advice of the SpamBayes project (with their full knowledge and support). If you're interested in some of the gory details, look at these two bugs: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=181534 and http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230093 (I'd make them links, but Bugzilla blocks Slashdot referrers).
Are there websites or books from credible sources where you can learn what your rights are in various situations? Things like whether an officer can search your car, whether you have to let an officer knocking on your door in, etc. Things like this always confuse the hell out of me. I realize I could wade through the entire U.S. code and mountains of statutes, but I'd much rather see the Cliff Notes. Any advice?
That's not strictly true. While I would agree that it implements more old Netscape hacks than Microsoft ones, just today a patch was landed to add support for the Microsoft-specific "onbeforeunload" event (see bug http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=68215) . Other examples abound. Most of the time these non-standard features don't get time wasted on them by core developers, but if someone writes up a good patch and submits it, it's often accepted.
Where is the burning that would cause the product to be named "fire"? Where is the cleverness that would cause the product to be called "fox"?
Maybe I'm just weird, but the answers to that seem obvious to me. Fire I see for two reasons; first, the historical one. The project used to be called Phoenix, since it was "rising from the ashes" of the suite, which was eventually to be killed off or at least relegated to a secondary role. Later it was renamed to Firebird, for reasons I can't recall just now. In another post, someone links to a blog by Firebird developer Ben Goodger that says they wanted a name that preserved the link to the past, and thus something incorporating "Fire".
Also, the fire could be referring to the "blazing speed" compared to other browsers (that's the claim, at any rate).
With regard to cleverness, I in fact think the UI of Firefox is cleverly designed and intuitive. Ideas like tabbed browsing, popup blocking and find-as-you-type are also clever. Now that I think about it, I might like Firefox better as a name than Firebird.
With regard to the Mozilla-to-Firefox migration of settings, I know for a fact this is slated for one of the next couple versions of Thunderbird, and I would assume also the next Firebird (unfortunately Mozilla.org is slashdotted to hell so I can't find you a solid link to back this up). This wasn't a high priority for a while, since they wanted more basic things up and running, but now they're at the point where they can spend a lot of time on "polish" issues like this.
You're right that Firefox can't be kept in memory. Maybe my machine is fast enough that I don't notice the delay (although it's pushing 2 and a half years old now), but I don't miss the feature and it starts up noticably faster than Mozilla. I guess maybe their reasoning was that if your machine has little enough memory that it takes 15 seconds to start Firefox, it probably doesn't have enough to spare to keep it in memory when you're not using it. I dunno, really.
As other people have said, I actually much prefer the new, separate search bar. At least on windows, you can quickly get to it with Ctrl-K, and it's actually much more flexible than the Mozilla equivilent. You can add multiple other search engine options to the bar (in the hundreds), and change which one you search quickly either with a keyboard shortcut or a couple mouse clicks. In Mozilla, you have to dig through several preference panes to accomplish the same thing. I think it's a perfect blend of intuitiveness for beginners and power for advanced users.
I'm a confirmed Firefox convert, but I completely understand why some people still dig the suite. I find, however, if people make the effort to use Firefox and Thunderbird for a few days, often they decide that their way of doing things is less complicated/confusing than the suite's once they stop thinking that the two programs should be identical in every respect (just like the initial switch from IE to Mozilla), and fairly soon Mozilla gets deleted. YMMV.
I think as a core component of Mozilla, that's not likely to happen unless someone takes it upon themselves to independantly write the code and send it in for review. Even then though, they seem somewhat conscious of code-bloat from features few people will ever use (which is why they took out the "kitchen sink" pretty quickly, and also the stated reason why MNG format support is missing). Maybe a plugin or an extension for Mozilla would be the best route to go. "Official Browser of Rock n Roll" would be a pretty sweet tagline for Mozilla though:).
I think it's somewhat company-dependant whether this is a good idea or not. For example, in Joel's little rant that sparked this Slashdot story he specifically says he will more or less automatically shred resumes that don't come in through the channel he speficially told applicants to use (in his case, an e-mail address). But I could also imagine this working in some cases, I guess it's kind of a crapshoot whether this will help or hurt your chances.
Good point about MP3, I was going to say that if you didn't. I still have a hard time trying to explain to older people (generally age 50+) what an "Empee three" is and why something like an iPod is vastly preferable to carrying a discman and your entire CD collection with you on the bus or what have you. I'm sure the odd, non-descript names of the technologies involved are a fairly significant part of the blank looks I get when talking about digital music. Usually the best reaction I can hope for is "You mean like that Napster thing?";).
Those are cool ideas. I think what would amuse me most is a "no-rules" mode where cops just didn't get called. I realize there's codes to reduce the number of stars, but it's a pain to enter every time you do something. A favorite pastime of my friends on I on slow nights (opening myself up to some obvious jokes here...) is to have some drinks and just fuck around in GTA, staying alive as long as possible. It's fairly amusing, in a stupid, juvenile way.
This was the first thing I thought of too. It seems like libraries could be opening themselves up to some real PR (maybe even legal) trouble if they don't check that what comes back in that CD case is virus/worm/trojan/goatse.cx-free. This is another reason I think the suggestion about burning ISOs (which would obviously be made read-only and perhaps have some sort of automatic MD5 checking done prior to burning) is a saner idea.
Alternatively, they could just be using a well-recognized image of what looks like two figures "connecting". I mean, I know Slashdot doesn't like the RIAA most days, but come on, do you really think their intention was to literally say "We are God"?
Slashdot Mirror
Unless I've missed something, bug 238684 (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23868 4) greatly reduced this risk. As I read the bug/patch, it makes it impossible for a page to "automatically" ask you to download an XPI; you have to actually click a link or take some other real action. I'm sure clever spyware authors will get around this new protection eventually, but it's a step in the right direction. It was checked in about a month ago, so it'll be in Mozilla 1.7 and beyond and I would assume Firefox 0.9 and beyond.
Agreed, I have no idea what people who says caffeine is not addictive are talking about. I've quit it a few times, but I always end up re-addicted because I love coffee/tea and decaf just doesn't taste the same. But the times I quit, I followed a strategy similar to yours of drinking less coffee, and then drinking a lower-caffeine beverage like green tea, until I was weaned off it and I had minimal withdrawl each day.
:).
It's too bad it didn't last; I found when I was drinking essentially no caffeine I had *much* less trouble falling asleep at night, and consequently less need for gallons of coffee each morning. Caffeine is a harsh misstress
I don't think this is a corrupt installtion (unless we're talking about entirely different bugs, which is possible). It just doesn't happen every time you visit the page, so it might have seemed like uninstalling fixed it. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=217527 is the bug number in Bugzilla, although at the moment most of the comments are worthless "me too!" posts.
I have to agree with the others in this thread, if you're in the business of laying out something very large (like a college textbook type of document), Frame is still well used. I interned for six months editing/writing/doing odd jobs for a computer science textbook authoring firm and all the book layout was done in Frame. It's a little quirky at first, but once you learn the ropes it is a very powerful tool for ensuring a consistent style and feel throughout very large documents.
It's entirely possible to give people a receipt that certifies that they voted for someone, but not specify who. This lets groups that want to reward voters do so, and keeps people from blackmailing/extorting voters by making sure they voted for the "right" candidate or the candidate that promised them $20 if they just vote for him.
See this bug in Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=217527 . As others have pointed out, if Slashdot used remotely modern, comliant HTML this wouldn't be an issue, but of course that doesn't mean Mozilla shouldn't fix the rendering bug. If you reload the page or do anything else that causes a reflow (resize text, etc) the problem usually goes away, strangely.
:).
And please, please don't spam this bug with "I see this too", "I don't understand why this isn't fixed yet, it should be easy", etc, it has enough of those comments
To second this, one of my roommates does all his textbook shopping online. I believe he uses half.com, and he reportedly *makes* money on his textbook transactions by selling them back slightly higher than he bought them for. Not much money, like $14 USD, but still, it beats losing $400 each semester...
These things are being worked on, if you care to look. For example, a major rewrite of the various string classes used in Mozilla recently landed (see this bug: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231995 ), which improved startup speed by about 7%, page load time by about 3%, and reduced code size by sevreal hundred kilobytes. This may sound like small potatoes, but it's just a part of the ongoing optimization effort. The people developing Mozill aren't idiots, the majority of them are professional programmers and software architects. They know performance is important, it's improved dramatically since 1.0 and will continue to do so.
This is only my observation, but I think it has to do with taking interfaces that are wrapped up as XPCOM components and making them into normal, unencumbered C++ classes. They do this to interfaces that really have no business being reusable XPCOM components but were implemented that way for whatever reason. The resulting code is faster and smaller, so it's generally a good thing. It has nothing to do with making Mozilla completely native to each platform as far as I know.
That would be this bug: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=167951
While not using these two methods specifically, much work is being done to improve Mozilla's spam filtering. A lot of it leveraging the code and advice of the SpamBayes project (with their full knowledge and support). If you're interested in some of the gory details, look at these two bugs: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=181534 and http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230093 (I'd make them links, but Bugzilla blocks Slashdot referrers).
Are there websites or books from credible sources where you can learn what your rights are in various situations? Things like whether an officer can search your car, whether you have to let an officer knocking on your door in, etc. Things like this always confuse the hell out of me. I realize I could wade through the entire U.S. code and mountains of statutes, but I'd much rather see the Cliff Notes. Any advice?
Say what you like about the tenents of National Socialism Dude, at least it's an ethos.
That's not strictly true. While I would agree that it implements more old Netscape hacks than Microsoft ones, just today a patch was landed to add support for the Microsoft-specific "onbeforeunload" event (see bug http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=68215) . Other examples abound. Most of the time these non-standard features don't get time wasted on them by core developers, but if someone writes up a good patch and submits it, it's often accepted.
Maybe I'm just weird, but the answers to that seem obvious to me. Fire I see for two reasons; first, the historical one. The project used to be called Phoenix, since it was "rising from the ashes" of the suite, which was eventually to be killed off or at least relegated to a secondary role. Later it was renamed to Firebird, for reasons I can't recall just now. In another post, someone links to a blog by Firebird developer Ben Goodger that says they wanted a name that preserved the link to the past, and thus something incorporating "Fire".
Also, the fire could be referring to the "blazing speed" compared to other browsers (that's the claim, at any rate).
With regard to cleverness, I in fact think the UI of Firefox is cleverly designed and intuitive. Ideas like tabbed browsing, popup blocking and find-as-you-type are also clever. Now that I think about it, I might like Firefox better as a name than Firebird.
With regard to the Mozilla-to-Firefox migration of settings, I know for a fact this is slated for one of the next couple versions of Thunderbird, and I would assume also the next Firebird (unfortunately Mozilla.org is slashdotted to hell so I can't find you a solid link to back this up). This wasn't a high priority for a while, since they wanted more basic things up and running, but now they're at the point where they can spend a lot of time on "polish" issues like this. You're right that Firefox can't be kept in memory. Maybe my machine is fast enough that I don't notice the delay (although it's pushing 2 and a half years old now), but I don't miss the feature and it starts up noticably faster than Mozilla. I guess maybe their reasoning was that if your machine has little enough memory that it takes 15 seconds to start Firefox, it probably doesn't have enough to spare to keep it in memory when you're not using it. I dunno, really. As other people have said, I actually much prefer the new, separate search bar. At least on windows, you can quickly get to it with Ctrl-K, and it's actually much more flexible than the Mozilla equivilent. You can add multiple other search engine options to the bar (in the hundreds), and change which one you search quickly either with a keyboard shortcut or a couple mouse clicks. In Mozilla, you have to dig through several preference panes to accomplish the same thing. I think it's a perfect blend of intuitiveness for beginners and power for advanced users. I'm a confirmed Firefox convert, but I completely understand why some people still dig the suite. I find, however, if people make the effort to use Firefox and Thunderbird for a few days, often they decide that their way of doing things is less complicated/confusing than the suite's once they stop thinking that the two programs should be identical in every respect (just like the initial switch from IE to Mozilla), and fairly soon Mozilla gets deleted. YMMV.
This has absolutely no effect in Firefox to my knowledge, I'm pretty sure the -turbo option has been deprecated.
I just tested with a patched version of IE 6 and username/password in ftp:// url's still seem to work.
I think as a core component of Mozilla, that's not likely to happen unless someone takes it upon themselves to independantly write the code and send it in for review. Even then though, they seem somewhat conscious of code-bloat from features few people will ever use (which is why they took out the "kitchen sink" pretty quickly, and also the stated reason why MNG format support is missing). Maybe a plugin or an extension for Mozilla would be the best route to go. "Official Browser of Rock n Roll" would be a pretty sweet tagline for Mozilla though :).
I think it's somewhat company-dependant whether this is a good idea or not. For example, in Joel's little rant that sparked this Slashdot story he specifically says he will more or less automatically shred resumes that don't come in through the channel he speficially told applicants to use (in his case, an e-mail address). But I could also imagine this working in some cases, I guess it's kind of a crapshoot whether this will help or hurt your chances.
Good point about MP3, I was going to say that if you didn't. I still have a hard time trying to explain to older people (generally age 50+) what an "Empee three" is and why something like an iPod is vastly preferable to carrying a discman and your entire CD collection with you on the bus or what have you. I'm sure the odd, non-descript names of the technologies involved are a fairly significant part of the blank looks I get when talking about digital music. Usually the best reaction I can hope for is "You mean like that Napster thing?" ;).
Yes.
Those are cool ideas. I think what would amuse me most is a "no-rules" mode where cops just didn't get called. I realize there's codes to reduce the number of stars, but it's a pain to enter every time you do something. A favorite pastime of my friends on I on slow nights (opening myself up to some obvious jokes here...) is to have some drinks and just fuck around in GTA, staying alive as long as possible. It's fairly amusing, in a stupid, juvenile way.
This was the first thing I thought of too. It seems like libraries could be opening themselves up to some real PR (maybe even legal) trouble if they don't check that what comes back in that CD case is virus/worm/trojan/goatse.cx-free. This is another reason I think the suggestion about burning ISOs (which would obviously be made read-only and perhaps have some sort of automatic MD5 checking done prior to burning) is a saner idea.
Alternatively, they could just be using a well-recognized image of what looks like two figures "connecting". I mean, I know Slashdot doesn't like the RIAA most days, but come on, do you really think their intention was to literally say "We are God"?