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Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 Released 626

Posted by CowboyNeal from the kick-the-tires dept.
elfguygmail.com writes "Firefox 1.5 beta1 is out! It includes many new features including a new automatic update system, reworked options dialogs, faster browsing, new error pages, memory and stability updates. Get your beta at Mozilla.org."
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Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 Released More

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 Released

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  • Yeah! (Score:5, Funny)

    by OctoberSky ( 888619 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:32AM (#13515964)
    Yeah! New error pages! Finally no more of that 404 bullshit.

    • Re:Yeah! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:34AM (#13515983)
      No, they said NEW ones.

      I would suspect they've introduced new errors, entirely! Maybe some 700s, 800s.. maybe even some googols!

      Since I'm not going to install it on my mac, someone want to post screenshots of the new screens? Please tell me they're more informative (for unsophisticated users) but not mimics of MSIE.

  • Deer Park !!!!!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by zymano ( 581466 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:33AM (#13515970)
    Yeeeeeeah ! Faster back and forward means better performance reading messageboards . Deerpark alpha wont start on my machine. I am one those that submitted a couple of bugs on this. Good job boys!

    • Re:Deer Park !!!!!!!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeeeeeeah ! Faster back and forward means better performance reading messageboards .

      I agree completely--slow back/forward has made me stick with Opera. Firefox 1.0.6 takes a while to render the page, which is annoying especially when going back to anchors. Opera is nearly instanteous; hopefully Deer Park can compete (trying it now).

    • Re:Deer Park !!!!!!!!!! (Score:3, Informative)

      by ayden ( 126539 )
      I'm trying this out now on 1.5 Beta - works like a dream on slashdot!

    • Re:Deer Park !!!!!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dread Pirate Shanks ( 860203 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @02:19AM (#13516522)
      If they can get it to be as fast as Opera's cached pages, they'll really have something there. Going back and forth in Opera is almost entertaining, it's so damn fast.

    • Back (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TopSpin ( 753 ) * on Friday September 09, 2005 @02:29AM (#13516555) Journal
      Faster back and forward means better performance...

      Nice. Too bad its taken over 11 years for someone to optimize this in a relevant browser.

      I'm not a browser developer so I've always wondered why browsers do not simply re-render what has already been cached when 'back' is used. I hit 'back' and I observe network activity even when the page is entirely 100% cacheable content. The browser is probably playing with If-Modified-Since... I'd rather it just render what's cached especially when, between the time the page was first rendered and the time I hit 'back' the network flakes out and, rather than simply rendering what is already faithfully stored on my local disk, the browser hangs!

      It's not just inconvenient. It's wrong in principle; 'back' should be 'back to precisely what I received previously', not 'attempt to re-get whatever now appears at the previous URL.' If I want the page refreshed, I will use the provided 'refresh' button, mkay? Thanks.

      There's probably some profoundly crucial and subtle reason for all this and I've foolishly revealed my ignorance. Apply the necessary flames, but only if you have credible answers.

      • Re:Back (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @02:54AM (#13516646) Journal
        I think the "problem" with Firefox 1.0 was that it wasn't caching the DOM tree, and given how complex that beast can turn out to implement (code can for example modify their own DOM on the fly whenever they feel like), it's not really surprising to me.

        I think Firefox 1.5 is basically as fast as Opera on this now, so it's nice to see one of Opera's killer features in Firefox.

      • State. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by abulafia ( 7826 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @03:23AM (#13516775)
        It's not just inconvenient. It's wrong in principle; 'back' should be 'back to precisely what I received previously', not 'attempt to re-get whatever now appears at the previous URL.' If I want the page refreshed, I will use the provided 'refresh' button, mkay? Thanks.

        So, the big deal here is maintaining consensual state. I'm sure you know the basics here. Best practice is to POST when changing state on the server, and GET when reading. But, not everone does that. And it also took a long time to come up with that simple rule. The upshot is that when using browser based C/S apps, there is no good way to tell if the last action changed the state of whatever it is you're looking at. (For a simple example, think of confirming a bank transfer, and hitting back from the "it worked" page.) And even the POST means change rule doesn't always work or apply. Good app design has to play a role, but a browser has no idea if what is going on with the server.

        There are other reasons why back can't always be exactly "what you got a page ago", but the above is the main killer (from the perspective of what I do, at least). Developers can make this better by playing tricks with the last-modified header and whatnot, but you're either going to sometimes get broken info or at least do a HEAD when going back, take your pick.

        It is notable that the whole AJAX obsession usually completely kills the back button, and many web developers are very hot on the idea. If global state, session, and sometimes transaction can be bound that much more tightly, it does make life easier for a coder, at the expense of some great client side functionality. (Again, depending on how you think of it.)

        Doesn't mean I'm not using XMLRPC - I don't mind bragging that we were doing some of this a few years ago. Having a community to trade ideas with kicks ass, and I've learned a lot from other's experimentation. But we shouldn't lose track of basics, like "the browser is not just a window frame; inbuilt functionality is important and if you make your own back buttons, you're missing the point."

        • Re:State. (Score:5, Funny)

          by rastos1 ( 601318 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @04:56AM (#13517064)
          Use the approach that is used in my company:

          Developers: Do you want to use approach A or B?
          Sales: Both! And make it configurable!

          • Heh. (Score:5, Funny)

            by abulafia ( 7826 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @07:45AM (#13517633)
            Reminds me of a joke we repeat to each other.

            Consultant: No, what I'm asking is, do you want us to build the method that works, which you hired us to discover and spec out for you, or the broken one, for which you're now asking?
            Client: The broken one!
            Consultant: You're sure.
            Client: Are you billing me for this conversation?

        • Re:State. (Score:3, Insightful)

          by gr8_phk ( 621180 )
          "But we shouldn't lose track of basics, like "the browser is not just a window frame; inbuilt functionality is important and if you make your own back buttons, you're missing the point.

          Actually, a web browser if first and foremost a window frame. From a user point of view, most web pages don't need any state information. I would suggest that the standards guys devise a tag or something to indicate when a page should NOT be rerendered without contacting the server. Most pages need not worry, but you web ap

      • Re:Back (Score:3, Insightful)

        by shutdown -p now ( 807394 )

        I'm not a browser developer so I've always wondered why browsers do not simply re-render what has already been cached when 'back' is used.

        For the record, they do. Well, some of them - Opera has been doing this for at least as long as I've been using it, since version 6. Coincidentially, this particular feature, or rather its absence from Mozilla and derivatives, was what kept many people (myself included) from switching. Now that it has been finally implemented, I shall probably give Firefox another try.

      • Re:Back (Score:4, Informative)

        by arkanes ( 521690 ) <<arkanes> <at> <gmail.com>> on Friday September 09, 2005 @09:01AM (#13517986) Homepage
        The current standard says that "back" should always load from cache, but for a long time it didn't directly address it and a lot of browsers did various thing. IE and Netscape both send a HEAD request for to check for a new version. Opera will unconditionally load from cache. I believe that Opera will load from cache even with a page that has no-cache set, which is wrong.

        Firefox, by the way, will fall back on the cache if it's unable to get the HEAD request. I'm not sure if it will correctly fall back if the HEAD succeeds but the actual request does not. IE will crap out, though.

        Precisely what the "correct" behavior is, by which I mean "what the user expects" will vary from case to case, so it's hard to have a case that everyone agrees with. Netscape and IE both implemented what they thought was right, and have retained that behavior for consistencies sake even though some of the purists in the standards bodies have changed it.

    • Re:Deer Park !!!!!!!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Vicsun ( 812730 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @03:15AM (#13516733)
      Not to troll, but Opera has had this feature for ages.

      Now that Firefox have finally caught up I might just switch back, though. It was the feature that converted me to Opera in the first place.

  • Fp (Score:5, Informative)

    by anaesthetica ( 596507 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:33AM (#13515979) Homepage Journal
    Posting on it now. Generally teh snappier on OS X, which I appreciate. Text handling still isn't good enough to switch from Camino. The drag n drop tabs are a very welcome addition. Also, it looks like the Slashdot bug has been cleared up. Sweet.

    • Re:Fp (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nighty5 ( 615965 )
      Did support for aqua buttons etc make it in for this release?
    • I use Firefox about half the day, and Safari the other half.

      I really cannot see any features in either that the other lacks in a serious way. No sites work differently, other then some sites still block firefox demanding IE, but Sfarai is beter supported.

      If anything the new features list looks like they are adding Safari features to Firefox, so what reason do you have for using Firefox on OS X?

  • Woohoo! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tidal Flame ( 658452 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:33AM (#13515981) Homepage
    If they've really made it more stable and fixed the apparent memory leak, I'll be really happy. Firefox is great as it is, but it seems that if you leave it open for too long it starts to take up insane amounts of memory.

    • Re:Woohoo! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LnxAddct ( 679316 ) <sgk25@drexel.edu> on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:05AM (#13516176)
      I was actually giving this some thought the other day and perhaps firefox should use one of the C++ garbage collecting libraries. A webbrowser really just needs to be usable and low on memory, no crtical speed requirements as long as the UI is responsive, websites render quickly, and javascript interprets at decent speeds (none of which a garbage collector would slow down). Firefox developers could still focus on keeping the memory footprint down, but applying a garbage collector is a good solution because its unlikely they'll ever remove every memory leak. This would remove most of them, help detect others, and keep the remaining problems minimal.
      Regards,
      Steve

      • Re:Woohoo! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by The Clockwork Troll ( 655321 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:33AM (#13516318) Journal
        Unfortunately garbage collection is not a cure-all for memory leaks; the programmer(s) still must take care to ensure that references to memory-consuming objects are removed when no longer needed. This can be a nontrivial task e.g. in a complex application where state is shared among multiple threads and certain corner case situations blur who is responsible for reference clean-up.

        Bugs is bugs!

    • Re:Woohoo! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rirath.com ( 807148 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:20AM (#13516251)
      I've been using the nightly branch builds for some time now, and no... I've seen no apparent fix for the memory leak. I mean, maybe a few holes have been plugged... but it still takes more memory than one would expect. On the other hand, I don't remember them claiming it fixed.

      The best feature for me is the new automatic nightly version system using Firefox's update system. No more manually downloading, unraring, and changing folder names... just a few clicks and I'm done. A very big plus, for nightly users.

      And since 1.5a may break a whole lot of extensions, I recommend Nightly Tester Tools [blueprintit.co.uk], which can force an extention to work. You may also try going into about:config (type that in the URL bar) and manually making the entery:

      app.extensions.version

      Then setting this to a value of 1.0+. Can cause other problems though, so I'd go with Nightly Tester Tools first. Lastly, you could simply open the extension with an unzip util and modify the install.rdf, perhaps the most time consuming but failsafe method.

    • Re:Woohoo! - Not a troll (Score:5, Informative)

      by coolsva ( 786215 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @07:18AM (#13517524)
      Right on the mark. I have been using FF since version 0.6 or so and spreading the word to all people I meet. At that time and all the way till version 1.0, I accepted most bugs/performance issues as beta related. But at version 1.06 if I still have random performance problems, memory hogging. Also, IMHO, I see a lot of arrogance among the developers/supporters. Personally, I want a browser that works well, is fast and supports all sites. IE also does satisfy all my needs but is full of exploits. I recently downloaded Opera to try this past month and there is no looking back. Sure, some features like adblock, flashblock, 'images from originating server' and most importantly extensions/plugins are missing, but guess what, I can live with that. All these latest greatest features we keep talking about are not really revolutionary, they have been implemented in other browsers (including opera)

      Well, there goes my karma, I WILL be modded as troll for this, but had to get it out

  • Classic windows (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bob54321 ( 911744 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:34AM (#13515982)
    For those here that run Windows in the Classic theme, here a link to info on how to fix the menu looks http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_windows_classic [mozillazine.org]

  • I'll update if... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nigham ( 792777 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:34AM (#13515986) Homepage
    ... all my extensions work on it. I had no problems with Deer Park Alpha, except that nothing except Adblock worked.

  • Watch Out Extensions Break (Score:5, Informative)

    by Blahbooboo3 ( 874492 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:34AM (#13515987)
    Warning, seems like most extensions won't work from 1.0x to 1.5beta1..
    • Well, it is a beta.

      In theory there should be time for extension authors to update before the final is released. I've only got 6 extensions, of which one worked already, and one was updated during the day today.

  • I hope it will turn out more stable... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by beeswax ( 65749 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:34AM (#13515989)
    My employer forces us to use firefox at my job... The database front-end they had designed uses flash. Firefox segfaults quite often and the copy/paste buffer is always farked up. I really hope these issues have been taken care of :(

    If it were my choice at work, I'd use Opera.
    • Yes, I have had a lot of problems with Flash on Firefox too :

      - Sometimes Flash wont process mouse clicks.
      - Sometimes Firefox would start to work slow when
      looking at a Flash movie/application. [ not happening in opera]
      - When into a Flash page, if you leave Firefox open for a lot of time then memory will go up a lot (once it ended being like 250MB with only 1 window (no tabs) open in a flash page).

      Oh and one thing I LOVE about opera Flash support is that when you resize the window Opera resizes
    • My employer forces us to use firefox at my job...
      You might want to try an alternative browser such as Internet Explorer [microsoft.com].
  • That's good to know, can uninstall that firefox speeder upper thing. So far there turning out updates quicker than MS, and has better support. Nothing like the lack of pop ups and spam that just doesn't know how to work a PC without IE :) Go firefox! On my site 65% of my users use firefox. It is a hardware site, so you'd expect it, but Firefox is gaining momentum and space. Anyone else have percentages from there site? Slashdot?

  • Deer Park Alpha 2 is great (Score:3, Informative)

    by bahwi ( 43111 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:36AM (#13516001)
    I've been running Deer Park Alpha 2 recently with no problems(SVG is kinda funky, but works great, and with the field testing it should be much better).

    I hope SVG integrates with XUL ok. Gotta test out my XUL apps I have in the field for compatability too.

    There's some changes Extension Authors need to check out too. Mozilla Developer News has the info [mozilla.org] and the big thing is XPCNative Wrappers [mozilla.org] will be on by default. (Yet more info on XPCNative Wrappers is available too [mozilla.org]).
    • Yeah, I really hope XUL goes well with SVG. Maybe then
      the guys behind the tabbrowser extention will make
      it so the tabs can be on the left side of the browser
      window AND have tab name run vertically. This is the
      one thing I still wish for in terms of UI that is
      not available from any browser I know of.

  • Incompatible, duplicate extensions (Score:3, Informative)

    by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:38AM (#13516009)
    There are two things I am not fond of with the current non-Beta Firefox. The first is the way it needs to download the whole installer just to update a point release. The second is how extensions with similar functionality are not coordinated.

    Take the GoogleBar for example. When I first installed Firefox it didn't come with a usable search tool, so I had to find GoogleBar which approximated the functionality of Google's IE GoogleBar. Now, Google comes along and releases their GoogleBar for Firefox and I'm left having to uninstall the old toolbar and install the new one. I'd rather the two projects just work closely together so that it could be updated seamlessly in one fell swoop.

    Things like these occasionally mar my Firefox experience which is otherwise very smooth.

    Speaking of smooth, does anyone else get a brief (1 second) pause when loading large pages in Slashdot? It seems to load part of the page, then it freezes for a second, then renders the rest of the page. It also happens on Photo.net, but there the whole discussion page reloads itself after loading once. Just a strange thing I noticed about Firefox.
    • My annoyance is every time portage (yes that means I use gentoo, no I do not have yellow stickers and an exhaust tip for my laptop) finds and sets up a new update, I lose my SpellBound extension. This means I have to load firefox up as root, install the extension, quit, load up as root again, install the dictionary, quit, and then I'm free to go. I do not know if this is a problem with firefox, SpellBound, or a combination of the two, but it's pretty damn annoying after a while.

      Although as I close this ra
      • uh, so um, why are we using root to install/update the extension?

        I use gentoo and haven't lost an extension once.

      • Re:Incompatible, duplicate extensions (Score:5, Insightful)

        by shellbeach ( 610559 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:00AM (#13516144)
        I do not know if this is a problem with firefox, SpellBound, or a combination of the two, but it's pretty damn annoying after a while.

        It's a mozilla dictionaries problem, I think - the dictionaries (which spellbound doesn't provide itself) install into the Firefox application folder, rather than into your profile folder - so when you overwrite that folder, you've just nuked your dictionaries.

        If this annoys you, you could always ask the spellbound devs to provide dictionaries that install into your profile ... It amuses me the way people are far happier to post complaints on /., where they achieve nothing, instead of sending the same complaint direct to the developer, where they might fix the problem!

  • Now with native SVG support! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sootman ( 158191 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:40AM (#13516021) Homepage Journal
    So the Adobe SVG plugin, which works fine in IE/Win and FF/Mac, will no longer be needed, which is great, since it crashes FF/Win! w00t!

  • Extensions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 2MuchC0ffeeMan ( 201987 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:42AM (#13516034) Homepage
    So far the only extension that works is the gmail notifier. Not even the all-in-one mouse gestures works... I'm patient, but will all of the developers make and re-make their extensions for every version?

    I smell a need for backward compatibility

    • Re:Extensions (Score:5, Informative)

      by asa ( 33102 ) <asa@mozilla.com> on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:48AM (#13516077) Homepage
      "I'm patient, but will all of the developers make and re-make their extensions for every version?"

      No. Developers will only have to test their extensions to make sure they're not broken by the latest Firefox release. All they have to do if their extension still works is tweak a version field at addons.mozilla.org (or wherever their extension checks for updates) and Firefox will allow the extension to run.

      We're still at beta and that gives developers quite a bit of time to get their extensions certified against the upcoming Firefox 1.5 release.

      If the extension author was relying on Firefox application code that changed, and broke the extension, then the extension will have to be updated.

      I'm hopeful that most of the popular extensions will have certified against 1.5 or made updates available by the time 1.5 final ships.

      - A

      • Re:Extensions (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Will2k_is_here ( 675262 )
        All they have to do if their extension still works is tweak a version field at addons.mozilla.org (or wherever their extension checks for updates) and Firefox will allow the extension to run.

        I haven't made any extensions before, but from what little I know, doesn't that mean I can unzip the installed extension, find the file, add 1.5 to the list, rezip and go?

  • Firefox 1.5 installation directions (Score:5, Informative)

    by mdew ( 651926 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:43AM (#13516043) Homepage
    When installing Firefox 1.5

    (1) Backup your old Firefox 1.0 profile
    (2) Start with a clean profile, its best to use a clean profile
    (3) Update your extensions [projects1.com]
    (4) If the extensions still complain, try this following the directions from this link [mozillazine.org]

    • Re:Firefox 1.5 installation directions (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DraconPern ( 521756 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @02:41AM (#13516593) Homepage
      They want corporate to use it, but I will say it again. Item (2) is the primary reason firefox isn't being used by normal users and corporations. Every .x version requires a new profile (otherwise FF doesn't run). Extensions get broken, etc. Most normal sofware will either include migration, or use a major release number. I know this is a problem because I author a Mozilla Firefox MSI

  • New Firefox...same goofy theme (Score:4, Insightful)

    by darxpryte ( 108284 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:45AM (#13516057) Homepage
    I was hoping that they'd replace the big goofy icon buttons on OS X and Linux that just don't go with anything. Maybe next version. The upside is the preferences layout is simpler, and browsing is a little snappier.

    I'm also hoping that my memory leakage problems on linux are solved. We'll see! Now back to searching for the safarifox theme to see if it'll work...

  • Based on 30 seconds of usage (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ocelotbob ( 173602 ) <ocelot@@@ocelotbob...org> on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:46AM (#13516064) Homepage
    Just downloaded it, seems cleaner, the new error pages seem a bit better than the old popup systems; informative and not nearly as cluttered as IE's. Haven't tested page rendering that much, so that remains to be seen, but seems good so far.

  • svg release schedule? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by radarsat1 ( 786772 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @12:48AM (#13516076) Homepage
    Very cool that they have a new release out, I'll be downloading it soon.
    But I'm a little dissapointed it looks like the built-in SVG support isn't in there. Guess it's still alpha? (Haven't been following the Deer Park releases)
    I'm really looking forward to the day where I can actually do a site in SVG and be able to expect more than 2 or 3 people to be able to see it...
    And wow am I ever tired of struggling with the Flash IDE.
  • Does it have a multithreaded interface yet? This is by far my biggest gripe with Firefox. Well, that and the ridiculous memory requirements.

    • Re:my big hope (Score:5, Insightful)

      by adrianmonk ( 890071 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:32AM (#13516313)
      Does it have a multithreaded interface yet? This is by far my biggest gripe with Firefox.

      I agree 100%. There are often pages that I visit which take a while to load. I load them in the background in tabs, but the whole browser grinds nearly to a halt while they load. In fact, if a flash animation takes up lots of CPU in one tab, then all the other tabs, and every other part of the user interface sometimes locks up for a minute at a time. This is just sad.

      My second big gripe is just general bugginess. Yes, it takes time to iron out bugs, but Firefox has had some time. Right now, we're on 1.0.6, and honestly I'd rather see them just spend 100% of their effort on a 1.0.7 that is as close to bug free as humanly possible rather than adding more features. I'm sure the features they're adding right now are worthwile overall, but I'd much rather stay with the feature set I have now and see all the bugs disappear. The worst one is something that seems to relate to perhaps an event queue. Every now and then, something will happen that seems to cause Firefox to just stop processing events. I can press buttons and hit Command-W (I'm on a Mac), and nothing will happen. But if I hold down the mouse button inside a window, somehow this rejuvenates the event queue and these events get processed eventually. Totally, totally weird.

      The worst part is that it seems that flash animations use the same thread as the user interface. So if you have a flash animation that takes a LOT of CPU, which lots of them do, then the user interface becomes unresponsive. This is just silly. You're taking untrusted code (flash from whatever web site) and letting it take CPU time away from critical stuff like being able to close the window that contains the CPU-hogging flash code!

  • I'll Crush Those Fuckers! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Basehart ( 633304 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:32AM (#13516311)
    Right now Steve Balmer is running around naked, drooling at the mouth and ripping up pictures of Bambi, convinced that they named the beta Deer Park because of him somehow.

  • Funny... (Score:5, Funny)

    by VinodTandon ( 530909 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:32AM (#13516316) Homepage
    For the hell of it I clicked on view source on the provided link [mozilla.org]...

    This was a comment in the code:

              Note to Editors of this Document!

              I have meticulously repaired the indentation here. DO NOT OPEN THIS
              DOCUMENT IN A WYSIWYG EDITOR OR (in the words of Robert DeNiro) I
              WILL BRING YOU DOWN! I WILL BRING YOU DOWN TO CHINATOWN!

                -Ben

    nice.
    -Vinod

  • fix the operating systems (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cahiha ( 873942 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:42AM (#13516367)
    including a new automatic update system

    I am sick and tired of every application including its own update system. They all have different user interfaces, they don't handle dependencies correctly (e.g., Firefox may upgrade its own extensions, but not the download manager that they depend on), and they make random connections all over the Internet.

    When will Windows and Macintosh get decent package and dependency management so that developers don't have to put this functionality into applications anymore, and that we don't have to put up with the security risks of many different update systems anymore?

  • GCC 4.01 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by (1+-sqrt(5))*(2**-1) ( 868173 ) <1.61803phi@gmail.com> on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:50AM (#13516419) Homepage
    Beautiful: Firefox' source finally builds with GCC4 out of the box; no mucking around necessary!

  • inline-block? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Yjerkle ( 610052 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @01:54AM (#13516434)
    They've jumped up half a version and still no display:inline-block? Shouldn't they finish CSS 2.1 before they start on CSS 3? Every other major browser out there supports it, so it can't be that hard. Even IE, with it's dismal standards support, has inline-block.

    • Re:inline-block? (Score:5, Informative)

      by SimplexO ( 537908 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @09:57AM (#13518349) Homepage
      Bug 9458 - Implement inline-block in layout.

      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9458 [mozilla.org]

      This is one of those golden-oldy bugs with a 4-digit bug number, so chances are it's really hard to implement.

      Opened: 1999-07-08 15:25 PDT
      Last modified: 2005-09-06 12:46 PDT

      It looks like you might be able to get away with using both of the following rules:

      display:-moz-inline-box;
      display:inline-block;

    • Re:inline-block? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Bogtha ( 906264 )

      Even IE, with it's dismal standards support, has inline-block.

      It should be pointed out, however, that the reason why Internet Explorer has inline-block support is that it was a previously proprietary Internet Explorer extension to CSS, that was added to CSS 2.1.

      Furthermore, CSS 2.1 is only a working draft at the moment, whereas some CSS 3 specifications are candidate recommendations, which means they are ready for implementing, but CSS 2.1 is not ready.

  • Mozilla? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by afidel ( 530433 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @02:31AM (#13516563)
    Anyone know if any of the code changes will make it back to the Mozilla Suite tree? Or is that officially dead as of 1.7? I would like to know because I love the integration of email and browser. I've been using the Suite style since Communicator first came out and I really like it at home. At work I use Firefox and Outlook.

    • Re:Mozilla? (Score:3, Informative)

      by CTho9305 ( 264265 )
      The "Mozilla Suite" under that name is no more... the Mozilla Foundation isn't doing any more releases (well, security updates to 1.7, but that's all). However, a community group is continuing its development under the name SeaMonkey [mozilla.org]. It contains all the core improvements that went into Firefox 1.5 (pretty error pages, svg, canvas, performance improvements) and some new features of its own. Not all changes to Firefox go into the suite - SeaMonkey doesn't aim to be exactly like Firefox.

      If you're intereste

  • FireFox web page in IE (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SnprBoB86 ( 576143 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @02:41AM (#13516599) Homepage
    I understand that IE isn't standards compliant, but it is dominant. As such, many people will be viewing the FireFox web site in IE. But IE doesn't render many of the FireFox site's pages correctly! Rounded corners don't work on every page and some pages (such as the "Mozilla FireFox 1.5 Beta 1 Release Notes" page) have much larger issues. However, IE renders the content at full width and FireFox leaves a substantial margin on either side (I have a wide screen display, I want to make use of it!).

    Blame Microsoft all you want, but this is inexcusable. If you want people to switch to FireFox, they need to believe FireFox is better. Seeing as most web sites are built for IE, users coming to FireFox's web site see a page that doesn't render correctly and they assume the makers of the page are to blame. Why would they blame IE? Every other page they go to renders just fine in IE.

    Since the same organization that made the page makes the software, it is conceivable that people would be turned away from FireFox on the assumption that people who produce broken web pages also produce broken programs.

    Whether the FireFox web site doesn't properly support IE out of laziness, or out of malice. It should be fixed.
    • Firefox and Mozilla have to deal with every quirk of IE's broken css support and none standard extensions because any website that renders in IE "correctly" but not in Firefox/Mozilla is the fault of Mozilla/Firefox?

      Now you are saying that the web designers for Firefox/Mozilla must not use w3c standard code because it does not look as good in IE as it does in Firefox? So when a website that doesn't render correctly in Firefox it is Firefox's fault but when a website doesn't render in correctly in IE even if

  • What I want to know (Score:3, Insightful)

    by poofyhairguy82 ( 635386 ) on Friday September 09, 2005 @02:57AM (#13516656) Journal
    Will the Linux version suck less? Its the slowest of the big three (OSX, Windows, Linux) in the 1.0.x series. Isn't it going to use Cairo more? Will it eat less CPU and RAM so I can stop recommending Epiphany instead?

    I like how it looks best in Linux, but I kinda miss the Windows version sometimes...with its speed and all. And I know its not Linux/Gnome- Epiphany flies. So does a WINEd IE. Only Firefox is slow. Will that be better?

  • Doesn't Fix Splitting Absolutely Positioned Frames (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09, 2005 @03:07AM (#13516683)
    No, this still doesn't fix bug #154892: "Splitting Absolutely positioned frames not implemented - Missing second page of content when printing or print previewing this site"

    This bug prevents many web sites from printing in any useful respect from Mozilla browsers.

    Its existence keeps me from rolling out Firefox as the default. It probably keeps any organization that frequently prints web pages from considering Firefox.

    But what really irks me is that this bug has existed since 2002!. The bug has been duplicated in dozens and dozens of bug reports. It has at least 70 votes in Bugzilla. Yet no one has fixed it, and there is NO INDICATION that it will be fixed in the foreseeable future, yet it directly affects the user's browsing experience.

    The history and severity of this bug does not reflect well on the Mozilla browser or its open source development model. NOTE: I am actually, personally, quite impressed with the Mozilla project, but someone who wants an excuse to banish free software might start with something like this.

    Finally, as a Firefox user, a personal plea: Somebody, please fix this! Please?

    For more information:
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15489 2 [mozilla.org]
    • only 2002? pfft!!!

      this bug:
      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9458 [mozilla.org]
      has been open since 1999 and has over 150 votes. and quite frankly, i don't think the votes mean much. i remember reading a quote from a major maintainer saying that he might consider how many votes a bug had if it was something in the tens of thousands. (this was about two years ago, regarding the most voted on bug in bugzilla, with a little over 500 votes. and still open, by the way...)

      and as much as i like mozilla/firefox an

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