Mozilla RC3 Released

pjdepasq was one of many reader to submit the news that "Those fine folks at Mozilla.org rolled out RC3 on Thursday I noted. They say it's the last planned release before 1.0, which I'm guessing is right around the corner. As a fan of the project (I'm using it on 3 platforms!), kudos to all of you!" Here are the release notes.

Re:Netscape 7

[oever]

Unless AOL really starts using Gecko or Linux becomes bit, there's no big chance of Mozilla regaining the market share Netscape lost.

It's just too easy for people to use Internet Explorer. Then there's the issue of embrace and extend: it's easy for M$ to implement the same standards as Mozilla. Then they just add a few new features that are not in the standards, but in all the tools to make webpages M$ sells. And people will feel obliged to use IE.

A few things could help (highly theoretical): lawsuits, ranting users, OSS breakthrough.

Re:Netscape 7

[visualight]

And don't start saying "hey, I don't need Netscape, I want plain Mozilla!". You're right, but Netscape is for (l)users. If Netscape 7 has success, you'll also have more luck surfing the internet with your Mozilla browser.

Well, I need netscape anyway because some sites won't let you install a plugin for mozilla but only netscape or explorer. The installer gives you a choice of one or the other and if you pick netscape it says it couldn't find it. So I install netscape, install the plugin, then copy the files to my mozilla folder.

Something interesting about Moz on Windows XP

[Nailer]

It uses native widgets. I.e., unlike a lot of other apps - eg, Microsoft's own Office XP - Mozilla actually uses Windows XP's `styles'. If you get rid of the GreyModern / Netscape 4 themes and replace them with the IE theme, Mozilla actually looks and acts like a rather pleasant and featurefilled native looking web browser for Win32. Without the security holes of IE, plus tabbing, popup control, and lots of other goodies IE doesn't have.

Any ideas as to when...

[gusnz]

...the DHTML performance will increase?

The current series has a bad bug in DHTML animation performance [mozilla.org] that I've noticed -- performance regressed in the 0.97 -> 0.98 release, and ever since then rapid animations etc. have often not rendered correctly.

Read through the bugzilla entry there -- apparently some experimental builds have 450% increased JavaScript animation speed, some test are linked to try it out yourself. Does anyone more in touch with the Moz project internals than I have an idea as to when this will be integrated with the main branch of the code -- I heard 1.01 was the target a while back?

I say this as Moz is looking more and more likely to turn up on user's desktops as part of AOL/Compuserve/whatever as they escape from MS's browser licensing terms. Bugs in release candidates are fine (that's what they're there for) but if mass-market NS7 has shortfalls like these, it could spell trouble for JavaScript developers like me.

Anyway, more power to the Mozilla project! It's good to see a truly free, standards compliant, cross-platform browser out there. Looking back a year, I wonder what it'll be like in a year's time...

Some Questions I can't find Answers to...

[Anonymous Coward]

1) What version of Mozilla is Netscape 7.0pr1 based on?
2) Is Mozilla ever likely to support the auto-update function that Netscape has just included? (Being a sys-admin of 50-odd M$ boxes makes it a nightmare contemplating to update them all with the latest release)
3) I know the party for 1.0 is June 12th but what is the projected/updated release date?

Moz on 64bit platforms ?

[jarkko]

Any comments on mozilla running with native 64bit machines ? I'm "running" 1.0rc1 on NetBSD-alpha and it's slow. I could render pages faster using pen and paper. Typing an URL takes about 15 seconds for slashdot.org and rendering the page gives me enought time to fetch coffee.

So, has any tried it on sparc64 or *-alpha ?

Re:Mac OS X version...

[SimonKeogh]

Bloated? A ten meg download that includes browser, mail, news, irc client? And I don't know what machine you are using, but Moz is as snappy as anything else on my computer. I'm sorry, but nothing about this excellent peice of software seems bloated or slow to me. This is by far the best web browser I've ever used IMHO.

Re:Its impossible to have the speed of IE

[ObviousGuy]

Nah, just stick a

SetThreadPriority(hMainThread, THREAD_PRIORITY_TIME_CRITICAL);

Somewhere in the startup code. That'll get rid of those pesky timeslices.

Re:Building a great barn door after horses are gon

[iapetus]

Well, the AOL/Compuserve shift to Mozilla as a browser will certainly have an impact. That's a lot of users about to start using Mozilla, and hopefully as a result a lot of sites providing HTML that works with it, rather than relying on the flawed assumption that everyone who counts uses IE5.5...

Mozilla/Netscape usage & anti-Netscape sentime

[galaga79]

This is not intended as flamebait by any means, but does anyone know what sort of browser share Mozilla/Netscape have? I have been following and pushing both browsers for the past year, encouraging others to try them out, but when checking the browser statistics for my website they don't have any entry at all. Right now the breakdown for my site is about 97% Internet Explorer 5+ and 3% Netscape 4, which is a real shame. Does anyone out there have any more promising browser usuage stats?

It is also interesting guaging people response to Mozilla/Netscape on sites other than Slashdot. It seems like there is real anti-Netscape sentiment out there, an example being the response to Netscape 7 at deviantart [deviantart.com] where there is loads of "Netscape sucks" one liners. I could be wrong on this, but it seems ever since Netscape 4 a lot of people seem unprepared to give Netscape a second chance. Perhaps it is "cool" to hate Netscape because they are owned by AOL, I don't know

Anyway that aside, Mozilla is great is most definitely stable enough for public consumption as the last few releases haven't crashed on me at all. As soon as I get home I'll download RC3.

AOL, IBM etc may disagree...

[MosesJones]

Today its a mute point because its IE all the way, however with Big Blue pushing Linux to all and sundry, Sun with its StarOffice suite not exactly hindering progress this means that Mozilla does have a chance to push back in the same manner as IE did over netscape first time around.

And the final, and critical, element is AOL... don't underestimate the worlds largest ISP, if AOL switch to Netscape then suddenly its game on again.

So no one cares today, but then no-one cared about IE when it was first released.

Re:Mozilla/Netscape usage & anti-Netscape sent

[mce]

In some markets, there still is some hope [slashdot.org], as I posted not so long ago. The good news is that our percentage Mozilla/NS6 using visitors is rising (albeit slowly). The "bad" news is that we definitely are atypical: yesterday we got about 16% non-Windows visitors.

Re:MOZILLA IS DYING READ THIS:::

[fredrik70]

startup time and bloat is mostly due to the XUL based UI. Gecko in it self is damn quick.

If you want to decrease startup time just preload the app.

Mozilla failed?? lacking support of standards??
yeah, right, trolling aren't we?

Mozilla might have taken far longer than expected, but it was hardly failed, AOLs switch to Gecko would be a proof of that.
Gecko is also one of the most standards compliant engines around today

Don't like AOL 'dirty' games with Mozilla?? Welcome to the real world, at least Mozilla is open source, you can always fork the source and do your own stuff if you think the current mozilla is tainted in some way by AOL

Their planning to release with a big bug still in!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesturday, as rc3 was released, bug ID 82534 (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82534 copy and paste - they dont allow links from slashdot) was changed from Mozilla 1.0 to Mozilla 1.0.1

To summarise, this bug freezes any keyboard input to mozilla under some circumstances - so its kinda major

It only happens on windows, but is very easily reproducable (there are many examples of how to produce it in the bug thread)

Two friends of mine tried using mozilla on windows, and both encountered this bug and were stumpped

I cant believe they are planning to release 1.0 with this bug still in since it will for sure put a lot of people off mozilla for a long time - what with it being a point zero...

Re:Moz on 64bit platforms ?

[morbid]

0.9.9, RC1 and RC2 on Sparc64 - crashes due to javascript error. :-(

Re:YAY MOZILLA!

[3.5 stripes]

Actually, some bastard pop up ad people have already figured out a way around it. I was looking at foxtrot online (I live in Italy so these comics just aren't available in our newspapers) with my mozilla RC2 with open unrequested windows unchecked, and pow, a popunder. It has something to do with some of this code here:

well the slashdot system won't let me post it, but if you want a look at it, have a look at the very bottom of the uclick pages right above the end body tag. copy the href and open it in a new tag.

or I'll email it to you nick at mobilia dot it

Maybe it's a bug, but I tried multiple times after a reboot, I restarted mozilla, etc, and this is the only site I've seen it on so far.

Re:Mozilla/Netscape usage & anti-Netscape sent

[krmt]

With all the IE holes, I've been sensing more and more of an anti-IE sentiment. In fact the only browser that I've never heard a truly disparaging remark about (although I have heard honest testaments to its shortcomings) is Opera.

And when I show people Mozilla with disabling pop-ups and tabbed browsing, anti-IE sentiment grows where it never existed before.

Re:Building a great barn door after horses are gon

[rseuhs]

In the long run, Mozilla has good chances of becoming the standard webbrowser:

• 35 million AOL users will sooner or later upgrade to a Mozilla-based browser.
• There are 100 million Playstations and 30 million PS2 sold. PS3 will use Linux and Mozilla for Internet connectivity. If PS3 sells as well as those (and I've no doubt it will) -> More millions on Mozilla. Of course Mozilla can and will be used on many other embedded applications, too.
• Yes, Linux is also starting to make inroads on the desktop.
• Mozilla's ability to be truely cross-platform will appeal. People will use it at work because they know it from their PS3 at home etc.

Of course this doesn't happen overnight. It will take a couple of years, but the people I have shown it to were quite positive about Mozilla.

better than explorer

[hopey]

With pinball theme it looks much nicer than with too big classic theme. Also finally I can switch javascript support and pop-ups on and off by one mouse click with this preference toolbar [xulplanet.com] tool. Tabbed browsing is also great feature. New rc3 starts up and loads pages as fast as explorer. With all these additional features and equal performance with windows native browser I can finally honestly recommend using mozilla.

hopey

My problem with Mozilla on Mac OS X

[jawtheshark]

I have no problem with it's bloatedness. The rendering surely feels better than IE 5.5 for OS X. However I have one *big* issue will all alternative browsers for Mac OS X.
You know the OS X has this nice little feature calles "Location" (Apple -> Location), which allows you to switch on the fly from one network to another. Now I use my personal iBook as well as on my home network (with Firewall/NAT) as on the corporate network (with proxy). The Location "applet", allows you to specify the proxies to use (or not to use) when on a certain network. Nifty, eh? Well I love it.

However there is only ONE browser that fetches this information and that is Internet Explorer. Why? Why? Why? Opera doesn't do it, Mozilla doesn't check it nor Chimera does. I consider all these browsers superior to IE 5.5 You always have to set the proxy information manually! I don't want to do this. Why do I have to change the preferences of the browser when I start it up on another network?

I can understand this under Linux (no central place to get proxies), or under Windows because it has no nifty "location" feature (a central place is there, if the INTERNEL.CPL applet counts).
Sorry, but *this* is my biggest issue with Non-IE browsers on Mac. (Posting from Moz RC2 on Mac OS X...btw)

The coders are getting a bit punch though.

[frankie]

At least a few Mozilla programmers apparently are losing a whole lot of sleep trying to get 1.0final out the door. Take a look at bug 110112 comment 62 (paste the link to avoid the slashdot ban):

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1101 12 #c62

Synopsis: there are various crashes and freezes when using the "ask me before loading an image" option. In a bad imitation of Solomon's judgement, they decided to stop the crashes by eliminating the option.

Review of Mozilla vs. IE

[Zelet]

On Windows boxes, I have noticed that since the RC2 Release Mozilla has become much faster than IE in every category except Jave applets. Even then the difference is minimal.

Another problem with Mozilla that was cleared up since RC2 is plug-in support. Flash and Java were both working perfectly with little hassle (no more hassle than IE) in RC3.

I think I found my new favorite browser. I was very sceptical about Mozilla being able to out-do IE but it happened, and it happened with an eye on security too.

Good going Mozilla crew.

Wow this is FAST!

[Frobozz0]

I have liked Mozilla for a long time because of it's feature set, but as of this release the Mac OS X port is VERY FAST to resize windows and reflow text. I never thought I would say it-- but Mozilla is faster than IE on my box at work- a 500 MHz G4. I could not be happier!

Re:"no big chance..."

[constantnormal]

I guess I get kinda weary with the all-too-common notion that things are always going to be the way they are today.

If market-dominating products persisted in this state due to inertia, or herd behavior, or whatever, then we would still be using Apple IIs, or TRS-80s, or IBM PCs, or CP/M, or Lotus 1-2-3, or WordStar.

Times changes, things change, fashions change.

Bill Gates is acutely aware that Microsoft does not have any lock on the future, it's why he fights so fiercely to hang onto nearly all of the marbles.

If we learn anything from history, its that he won't succeed. Either the crumbs of the marketplace that he does not own will grow into something unimaginable, or some totally unrelated technology will replace the existing computing segment of the economy.

No rational person believes that 10 years from now we will be using systems and software that are just like the ones today, only fatter and faster.

Change happens. Watch for it. Making informed choices is the best way to surf the waves of change.

Just because we're stuck today with IE owning nearly all the browser usage amongst the computing illiterati, is no reason to expect it will be that way forever.

I suppose you also expect .NET to be a raging success (just like the XBox), with millions of (l)users willingly ponying up annual subscription fees to use their PCs. Myself, I figure that before that happens, millions will abandon PC-based email for cellphone-based email -- all we need to dethrone IE is a viable alternative that is sufficiently attractive to the masses.

So long as things like Mozilla/Netscape7, Opera, Konqueror, etc, continue to be developed, there is the possibility that they may catch the public fancy and pose a serious threat to IE.

Re:Mozilla and acceptance

[frankie]

[opera.com] would indicate Opera is very nearly 100% standards compliant

You should read that page more closely. For example:

We are currently working on DOM [...] Modifying the document structure is not yet possible (ie. you cannot add or remove HTML elements). [...] Opera does not support W3C DOM Core [other than a dozen specific methods]

Re:OpenBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Assembly?!? It's just a Web browser! What they hell are they doing that's so hairy they want help from kernel maintainers?