It will be much more than that when Firefox 2 actually makes it out to the world. This is a very early build
and according to the Roadmap, it will be released near the third quarter of 2006. I'm guessing it will actually be a little later than that. I also found this Feature Brainstorming page, which seems to be closer to what's being planned for 2.0. I see a lot of new stuff.
That's why it's called an alpha developer build. It's barely beginning active development. You cannot expect it to be stable. You cannot even expect it to be safe. This is not a beta or release candidate. It's meant only for testers and active developers. Use with extreme caution.
And it wasn't such a good article, anyway. The author seems to assume that an attractive website has to be elaborate or complex. The main conclusion is that the success of the size depends highly on simplicity and delivering the right message. I may not be a professional webmaster, but simplicity is one of my primary aims when I design a website, and I believe that beauty lies in simplicity.
On the other hand, there are sites that are simple and ugly. This one is a perfect example indeed. But that's an inevitable side effect of having endless threaded discussions of variable lengths. I think the site delivers, and you eventually forget about the design and focus on what the next Soviet Russia joke should be. That's good design in my book.
each version of windows, was more stable and more reliable and more secure than the last one
I agree with you, in general. As I said, I know (hope?) Vista will be more stable than XP, which is already very stable and secure. But it is very unlikely, probably unfeasible for a Windows release to be spyware-free, even with (or despite having) Microsoft security tools being part of the OS. Never underestimate opportunists looking for money and human ignorance.
I don't think spyware is going anywhere. Just as spam, it's here to stay. Many promises have been made by Microsoft in the past and they've been broken like little dry twigs. Giving them lots of credit, one might think they can eliminate and prevent all current forms of spyware, but there are always new ways, and they are always found. I hope Vista is more secure, but infalible? Not even close.
What do you mean? I have the plugins for Shockwave on Firefox and they work just fine. You just go to any page that uses Shockwave and Firefox will prompt you to install the plugin.
Yes. Furthermore, the actions of a few cannot be generalized as the "Firefox community". I'm a regular contributor at SFX (spreadfirefox) and there's a lot of people who help spread the word in amazing ways. But there are also a couple of members, every now and then, that come up with stupid childish ways of "forcing" people into using Firefox. Some will add a persistent nagging popup that IE won't filter, telling their visitor to download Firefox. Others will just go on and on ranting about IE and Microsoft.
In my opinion, Firefox and Mozilla have enough merit to stand on their own. People don't need to bad mouth IE to convince others to use Firefox. IE was good a long time ago, and it will be significantly better when version 7 is released. I will still prefer Firefox for several reasons, but I won't mind people switching back.
I think the Firefox community should not (and so far is not) pushing Firefox to the users, but rather promotion freedom of choice. More importantly, we're showing people they have a choice.
The download numbers are just a good way to establish milestones and celebrate within the community. They may not mean much, but I don't see how they are in any way trolling.
As a platform, or part of a platform, how does it compare with Java,.NET, etc?
Compared to Java, it's significantly faster, because the back-end code is C++. Some argue Java can be faster than that on occassion, but I laugh at those arguments every time I start Eclipse or OpenOffice (you can disable Java on OO for a faster experience, BTW). As you said, it brings the worderful portability Java offers, with more efficient and flexible code. The XUL language is a very powerful interface development language that allows you to create portable UIs that can use the native themes of whatever desktop manager you're running on. Just see the differences between Firefox for Windows, Firefox for Linux and Firefox for Mac. It's the same code, but the look has subtle differences to adapt to each system.
Compared to.NET, it has the advantage of portability. One could argue that Mono takes care of that, but AFAIK it's far from being widely accepted. And again, XUL kicks their ass on interface development and management, and the javascript front-end scripting allows the creationg of new features and components without having to recompile or use heavyweight IDEs or debuggers. I use Textpad and the Javascript Debugger extension. Good enough for me.
I have great faith on the XULRunner project. I think they will accomplish what Java never could. It's just a matter of good programming and enough acceptance. People should give it a spin and see what I'm talking about. It could be the next big thing. Then again, it could only be a trend. What do I know?
Re:This truly shows the versatility of Opera.
on
Opera on the Nintendo DS
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Opera, Opera for Mobiles and Opera for Devices (which is DS' opera) are different products, only the core (the rendering engine) is cross-platform, just as Gecko (Firefox' rendering engine) is completely cross-platform but not necessarily the interface itself.
On a related note, I think, the Gecko-based browser for mobile devices is called Minimo, and is currently under development. I don't think this would work out-of-the-box on a DS, but maybe with a few alterations it could.
The Zoep Firefox extension can be downloaded from here: http://www.glaxstar.com/zoep/. I sometimes have connection problems, but in general it has worked quite well.
I didn't look into it much, I read somewhere that it had something to do with pointer counters. I'm no expert on Mozilla code so don't take my word for it.
Moz/FF was built on the shoulders of giants (Netscape), and we should not actively work to deny this.
I agree. Netscape was a pioneer browser and a very important piece of Internet history, as well as the predecessor of one of the greatest current browsers, the greatest IMO. All I'm saying is that now Mozilla and Firefox are different entities that Netscape, and their code should reflect that.
It's also a matter of consistency. Maybe not now, but in the future young people who want to contribute to the project will see the NS all over the code and find it odd, or even distracting. It's always weird to program on something that has so many age layers, and see a combination of coding standards. The "moz" prefix is a good standard to follow, and it would be desirable to have in the name of the interfaces, variables, etc. as well. It's not that I'm against Netscape, it's just that Mozilla is something else.
I wonder if this means they'll slowly start to rid themselves of the "NS" prefix that's everywhere inside the code base...
That's a massive job, even if done slowly. I don't think it'll happen, specially because it would mean constantly breaking pending patches and blocking access to different groups of files at given times. It would also break common code between other Mozilla and Mozilla-related technologies, like Seamonkey or Camino. It's good that bugs fixed on one app can be easily migrated to the other. I think the ns is there to stay, just like the Kung Fu Death Grip and such. It doesn't do much harm, anyway. A little annoyance to developers.
Well, currently some of Microsoft's products use Flash in order to work. Examples are MSN Messenger and the Windows XP tour. They are not indispensable features, but eye candy most users appreciate. I think their first step towards widespread use is going to be to replace Flash in all of these with their new sparkly thingy. After that, it's all pretty much downhill.
Microsoft can afford to take their time with this. I don't think website developers are going to be particularly fond of this technology, but as grandparent states, it's going to be a lot easier to develop with Sparkle than anything else..NET, anyone?
Slashdot Mirror
It will be much more than that when Firefox 2 actually makes it out to the world. This is a very early build and according to the Roadmap, it will be released near the third quarter of 2006. I'm guessing it will actually be a little later than that. I also found this Feature Brainstorming page, which seems to be closer to what's being planned for 2.0. I see a lot of new stuff.
That's why it's called an alpha developer build. It's barely beginning active development. You cannot expect it to be stable. You cannot even expect it to be safe. This is not a beta or release candidate. It's meant only for testers and active developers. Use with extreme caution.
And it wasn't such a good article, anyway. The author seems to assume that an attractive website has to be elaborate or complex. The main conclusion is that the success of the size depends highly on simplicity and delivering the right message. I may not be a professional webmaster, but simplicity is one of my primary aims when I design a website, and I believe that beauty lies in simplicity.
On the other hand, there are sites that are simple and ugly. This one is a perfect example indeed. But that's an inevitable side effect of having endless threaded discussions of variable lengths. I think the site delivers, and you eventually forget about the design and focus on what the next Soviet Russia joke should be. That's good design in my book.
This is a sample of what I meant (first result from Google): http://www.esecurityplanet.com/views/article.php/3 586511. More specifically the promise of spam disappearing entirely.
I agree with you, in general. As I said, I know (hope?) Vista will be more stable than XP, which is already very stable and secure. But it is very unlikely, probably unfeasible for a Windows release to be spyware-free, even with (or despite having) Microsoft security tools being part of the OS. Never underestimate opportunists looking for money and human ignorance.
Hope this clears things up.
I don't think spyware is going anywhere. Just as spam, it's here to stay. Many promises have been made by Microsoft in the past and they've been broken like little dry twigs. Giving them lots of credit, one might think they can eliminate and prevent all current forms of spyware, but there are always new ways, and they are always found. I hope Vista is more secure, but infalible? Not even close.
And they're "Interesting", apparently. I didn't know the thing had words.
What do you mean? I have the plugins for Shockwave on Firefox and they work just fine. You just go to any page that uses Shockwave and Firefox will prompt you to install the plugin.
Yes. Furthermore, the actions of a few cannot be generalized as the "Firefox community". I'm a regular contributor at SFX (spreadfirefox) and there's a lot of people who help spread the word in amazing ways. But there are also a couple of members, every now and then, that come up with stupid childish ways of "forcing" people into using Firefox. Some will add a persistent nagging popup that IE won't filter, telling their visitor to download Firefox. Others will just go on and on ranting about IE and Microsoft. In my opinion, Firefox and Mozilla have enough merit to stand on their own. People don't need to bad mouth IE to convince others to use Firefox. IE was good a long time ago, and it will be significantly better when version 7 is released. I will still prefer Firefox for several reasons, but I won't mind people switching back. I think the Firefox community should not (and so far is not) pushing Firefox to the users, but rather promotion freedom of choice. More importantly, we're showing people they have a choice. The download numbers are just a good way to establish milestones and celebrate within the community. They may not mean much, but I don't see how they are in any way trolling.
My name is Null, you insensitive clod!
freak?
I was way off...
Compared to Java, it's significantly faster, because the back-end code is C++. Some argue Java can be faster than that on occassion, but I laugh at those arguments every time I start Eclipse or OpenOffice (you can disable Java on OO for a faster experience, BTW). As you said, it brings the worderful portability Java offers, with more efficient and flexible code. The XUL language is a very powerful interface development language that allows you to create portable UIs that can use the native themes of whatever desktop manager you're running on. Just see the differences between Firefox for Windows, Firefox for Linux and Firefox for Mac. It's the same code, but the look has subtle differences to adapt to each system.
Compared to .NET, it has the advantage of portability. One could argue that Mono takes care of that, but AFAIK it's far from being widely accepted. And again, XUL kicks their ass on interface development and management, and the javascript front-end scripting allows the creationg of new features and components without having to recompile or use heavyweight IDEs or debuggers. I use Textpad and the Javascript Debugger extension. Good enough for me.
I have great faith on the XULRunner project. I think they will accomplish what Java never could. It's just a matter of good programming and enough acceptance. People should give it a spin and see what I'm talking about. It could be the next big thing. Then again, it could only be a trend. What do I know?
On a related note, I think, the Gecko-based browser for mobile devices is called Minimo, and is currently under development. I don't think this would work out-of-the-box on a DS, but maybe with a few alterations it could.
Ramen!
In 7 years, brother.
The Zoep Firefox extension can be downloaded from here: http://www.glaxstar.com/zoep/. I sometimes have connection problems, but in general it has worked quite well.
I didn't look into it much, I read somewhere that it had something to do with pointer counters. I'm no expert on Mozilla code so don't take my word for it.
I agree. Netscape was a pioneer browser and a very important piece of Internet history, as well as the predecessor of one of the greatest current browsers, the greatest IMO. All I'm saying is that now Mozilla and Firefox are different entities that Netscape, and their code should reflect that.
It's also a matter of consistency. Maybe not now, but in the future young people who want to contribute to the project will see the NS all over the code and find it odd, or even distracting. It's always weird to program on something that has so many age layers, and see a combination of coding standards. The "moz" prefix is a good standard to follow, and it would be desirable to have in the name of the interfaces, variables, etc. as well. It's not that I'm against Netscape, it's just that Mozilla is something else.
That's a massive job, even if done slowly. I don't think it'll happen, specially because it would mean constantly breaking pending patches and blocking access to different groups of files at given times. It would also break common code between other Mozilla and Mozilla-related technologies, like Seamonkey or Camino. It's good that bugs fixed on one app can be easily migrated to the other. I think the ns is there to stay, just like the Kung Fu Death Grip and such. It doesn't do much harm, anyway. A little annoyance to developers.
You know, you can almost figure out the ??? this time.
Well, currently some of Microsoft's products use Flash in order to work. Examples are MSN Messenger and the Windows XP tour. They are not indispensable features, but eye candy most users appreciate. I think their first step towards widespread use is going to be to replace Flash in all of these with their new sparkly thingy. After that, it's all pretty much downhill.
Microsoft can afford to take their time with this. I don't think website developers are going to be particularly fond of this technology, but as grandparent states, it's going to be a lot easier to develop with Sparkle than anything else. .NET, anyone?
return CowboyNeal;
I thought that was actually a joke. Perhaps I'm overestimating Taco.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0385296/