Mozilla Firebird Soars Into View

About a zillion people wrote to announce Mozilla 0.6, but asa was the first: "Mozilla Firebird 0.6 (formerly Phoenix) is available for download. This release features a fresh new look, a redesigned preferences window, preliminary support for Mac OS X and much more. Read why you should be using Mozilla Firebird and get the latest release." I'm not exactly clamoring for a new web browser, but it looks worth checking out.

FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know if this works under FreeBSD Linux emulation? Or (preferably) when the native version will be out?

Re:Font Magnification

[Stuart Gibson]

As of course does Opera (and has done for some considerable time). Of course, Opera can magnify everything (including images) for those with poor eyesight or for, ahem, closer inspection of thumbnails.

Alternatively, you can specify the minimum size of font you will accept (in pixels) which means you never need to magnify text as anything specified above the size will stay as the author intended, yet small text won't drop below your specified limit.

Yes, I know you need to pay for Opera and not Phoenix/Firebird, but that's fine. No need to start a holy war, just passing on the information :)

Goblin

Re:Web panels?

[Anonymous Coward]

Web Panels was backed out from 0.6 but they must have forgot to remove that. At least the Web Panels bookmarks are gone and don't keep coming back!

Re:A browser that puts the user's interests first

[zdzichu]

(One more thing I wish they would fix, however, and that is links that open in a new window.[...])

You can fix it by yourself [texturizer.net]:

// disable target="_blank" (open in same window):
user_pref("browser.block.target_new_wind ow", true);


Check this page [texturize.net] for more interesting tweaks.

Building from source

[huhmz]

I just built Mozilla Firebird from source, actually i downloaded the source yesterday, but didn't want to start the build that late in the night because well... it takes a while to build ;)

The reason I wanted to build from source is that I wanted nifty anti aliased fonts which the nightly builds doesn't offer.
So...
wget http://64.12.168.21/pub/mozilla/nightly/latest/moz illa-source.tar.bz2
tar -xjf mozilla-source.tar.bz2
cvs -d :pserver:[e-mail]:/cvsroot checkout mozilla/browser mozilla/toolkit

Now we are ready to choose build options.
cd mozilla
vi .mozconfig
here is what my .mozconfig contains

export MOZ_PHOENIX=1
mk_add_options MOZ_PHOENIX=1
ac_add_options --with-pthreads
ac_add_options --disable-mailnews
ac_add_options --disable-ldap
ac_add_options --enable-xft
ac_add_options --disable-jsd
ac_add_options --enable-crypto
ac_add_options --disable-accessibility
ac_add_options --disable-composer
ac_add_options --disable-tests
ac_add_options --disable-debug
ac_add_options --enable-optimize="-O3 -march=pentium3 -mfpmath=sse,387"
ac_add_options --enable-strip

All the --disable- options are beause I only want Firebird and not the composer, mail, news etc
the --enable-xft is the important one if you want nice anti aliased fonts.
My --enable-optimize is just some optimizations for my p4 (-march=pentium4 was buggy last time I tried). If you have an or lower than pentium3 then choose diffrent options (man gcc) or use the more standard "-O2"
The MOZ_PHOENIX=1 is what tells the build process to build Phoenix (well Firebird its called now but the option is still MOZ_PHOENIX) and not the standard mozilla browser.
To start building:
make -f client.mk build
This will take a really long time. Also the configure process might complain that you are missing some library like Xft or libIDL, in that case you will have to install it (apt-get install libidl0 libidl-dev)
After the build is complete all the necessary stuff is in dist/bin/ so I copy that to /opt/firebird:
cp -r -L dist/bin/ /opt/firebird
(the -L option because the dir contains a lot of symlinks that will break if you don't use -L)
Now you can run firebird with /opt/firebird/MozillaFirebird

I don't know if this is exactly the official way to do it but that's how I did it.
Good luck

Re:How about XUL?

[DrXym]

The Mozilla browser is based on XUL. So is Firebird.

Mac OS X version is pretty zippy

[hrbrmstr]

I haven't tried a ton of SSL connections yet, but so far it's given a 15-25% speed improvement (perhaps more) to browsing on my Mac (dual 867MHz G4).

I've tried:

• IE (hey, it came with it!)
  
• Safari (latest beta)
  
• Camino (latest stable release)
  
• Mozilla (the 'big daddy')
  
• Opera (lags behind on this platform)
  

IE just rots. Safari, in its most recent incarnation, works well standards-wise, but one can really feel how different it and the Mozilla code really are (and I do like Moz better). It's also "slow". Camino is coming along well, but it too is "slow". SSL is painful on both of them (I tend to use IE on a PC to hit SSL sites).

Firebird is just plain cool. A bit rough around the Mac edges, but it's *fast*. Did I mention that it's fast?

The Camino team and these guys should team up. The combined browser would be unmatched.

Re:Opera

[theprancinghorse]

I used the Opera 7.1 beta for GNU/Linux for a couple of weeks and find that it loses out to Firebird in the following areas:

• It is does not have type ahead find [mozilla.org].
• It does not have as sophisticated cookie and image blocking facilities.
• You cannot limit the functionality of Javascript in ways that Firebird provides.
• It is no faster than Firebird 0.5 or 0.6 in any respect.
• It has an annoying advertisement.
• It does not work well with Java applets (for me atleast).

The first 3 points are the major reason I chose to stick with Mozilla Firebird. Plus, you get a number of cool extensions for Firebird which you can install at a click of a button.

I found that the Tab management in Opera 7.1 was superior that Firebird's out of the box. But there is an extension called "Tabbrowser extensions" which make Firebird Tabs behave as well as Opera.

I for one don't see a reason to spend good money on Opera given that Firebird exists.

Re:Tab behavior

[Gandalfar]

Edit -> Preferences -> Tabbed Browsing -> Load links in the background

should do the trick :)

Re:Great Work

[Proneax]

So, right now I use both Mozilla and Mozilla Firebird, and I see the little Mozilla offsprings dethroning parent Mozilla very soon.

The Developers have stated this will happen [mozilla.org]

Different widget sets

[Phantasmo]

Firebird is built with XUL, the Mozilla project's cross-platform widget set, while Camino is built with Cocoa, Apple's "application environment".

Camino is Mac OS X's answer to K-Meleon [sourceforge.net] for Windows and Galeon [sourceforge.net] for GNOME.

Native UI versus write once, compile anywhere.

actual link

[Anonymous Coward]

Check this page for results

That second link should be this [texturizer.net].

Re:Opera

[Dylan Zimmerman]

Well, if you want mouse gestures, you can always get StrokeIt. It adds mouse gestures to Windows as a whole. Essentially, it recognizes a gesture and performs a macro based on which gesture it was and which application is active. It can even do global gestures like close, minimize all, and restore all.

http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/

Re:A browser that puts the user's interests first

[Anonymous Coward]

the site you mention seems to be down

That second link should be this [texturizer.net].

Re:Building from source

[dcstimm]

ENABLE GTK2 and you will have some amazing looking fonts!

Nasty Flash-related bug in Mozilla Firebird 0.6

[Jack Comics]

Please be aware that there is an extremely nasty Macromedia Flash-related bug in Mozilla Firebird 0.6. If you use Flash or Flash-oriented web sites as extensively as I do, this bug makes Mozilla Firebird 0.6 completely unuseable. To get true Macromedia Flash support in Mozilla Firebird under Windows, you need to create a few registry keys. Normally, this worked fine until the releases starting a few days ago. However, now when you make the registry keys and install Macromedia Flash, it appears to work correctly, but as soon as you re-open Mozilla Firebird, it reverts to the old Netscape "Classic" theme, and adds a few new toolbars such as Help, and QA. Absolutely *nothing* works under this corrupted Mozilla Firebird, rendering Mozilla Firebird 0.6 completely useless. For more information on this nasty bug, please see this Bugzilla entry [mozilla.org].

Keywords, people, keywords!

[Millennium]

Combining shortcuts with keywords will give you guys what you want and more.

I have a bunch of these. Now I can type "search terms" to search on Google, "nodesearch terms" to search on Everything2, "bug number" to go straight to that bug in BugZilla, and so forth. Flexible, powerful, and damn cool.

I use Safari a lot nowadays, and keyword searching is the one feature I really miss. Well, that and a decent JavaScript console. I hope these things get added soon.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:There is something to be said for Mozilla

[djst]

If you had read the Mozilla Roadmap [mozilla.org], you would know that there is already plans on integrating Mozilla Firebird [mozilla.org] and Mozilla Thunderbird [mozilla.org]. They will also share the same Gecko Runtime Environment, which means less memory footprint and better performance.

Re:Where's the "close other tabs" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You need the Tabbrowser Extensions [sakura.ne.jp] extension. It re-adds this feature and a mulititude of others. If you're in Firebird now, click here [sakura.ne.jp] to install it.

More extensions can be found over on Firebird Help [texturizer.net].

Re:"Don't Ask At Startup" Broken?

[BlzOfGlry]

To 'Do Not Ask On Startup' problem is on the list of known issues, on the release page [mozilla.org]

Hopefully they'll fix that problem quickly - it's sure any annoying bug.

Re:Building from source

[Anonymous Coward]

> ENABLE GTK2 and you will have some amazing looking fonts!
It's enough to just enable Xft (as in the parent) to get those wonderful fonts...

Re:Nasty Flash-related bug in Mozilla Firebird 0.6

[cioxx]

Here's the registry entry. Create a Firebird.reg file, copy the follwing entries there and double click it. It should make Firebird visible to scores of applications, not limited only to Flash.

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Mozilla\Moz illa Firebird]
"GeckoVer"="1.0.1"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\Mozilla\Mozilla Firebird\bin]
"PathToExe"="C:\\program files\\MozillaFirebird\\MozillaFirebird.exe"
[HKE Y_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Mozilla\Mozilla Firebird\Extensions]
"Plugins"="C:\\Program Files\\MozillaFirebird\\Plugins"
"Components"="C: \\Program Files\\MozillaFirebird\\Components"

Pie Menus

[jefu]

I've been using the phoenix/mozilla "Radial Context" (ie Pie Menu) implementation for a while now and far prefer it to the gestures stuff. And its been solid and well performing for the most part (sometimes a nightly build will kill it, but thats not that common now).

Everyone

[Apreche]

Ok, what I see happening here is a bunch of people who use Opera or Moz are going to try out Firebird now that it is at .6. The ones who use IE arent' a problem because they will be blown away and convert, I've seen it time and time again.
The people who use Opera or Moz or Konqueror or something else aren't going to be taken in. Mainly because they've already seen most of the features before. But I assure you, Firebird is better. You just need to go get the extensions. Without the Tabbed Browsing Extension you lose a lot of tab functionality. Without the Mycroft search additions the search bar in the top right is only half as useful.

Go to www.texturizer.net/firebird/

get the extensions that you want and need.
The themes are also there, I prefer phusion

There are more at www.mozdev.org

Do that before you judge this software. A raw install is awesome compared to IE and stuff, but the extensions are what really make Firebird the best browser.

Re:Tab behavior

[Christopher Whitt]

I couldn't stand how opening a link in a new tab also switched focus to that tab

Edit-> Preferences-> Navigator-> Tabbed Browsing-> Tab Display-> Load links in the background

The pref has been in mozilla almost since tabs were implemented. Sorry you weren't able to find it. That's one of Mozilla Firebird's clear advantages: a vastly simplified and improved preference panel.

Re:Web panels?

[willll]

Web Panels is/was a half implemented feature thats function was to allow customizeable sidebars in Firebird, similar to Mozilla's sidebar. It was never fully implemented and was supposed to be removed from 0.6, but obviously it wasn't fully removed.

Re:Opera

[theprancinghorse]

I donot know precisely about 'target = _blank' links, but you can try the 'TabBrowser' extension. With that, you can make firebird operate solely in a single window mode, just like Opera.. That should solve your problem.

Windows Installer

[k2enemy]

Windows users can download [mozdev.org] 0.6 with a Windows installer. This will add registery keys for you, making plugin installations much, much easier. It's unofficial, but very convenient.

Re:Building from source

[Anonymous Coward]

I found instructions on how to build tarballs like you can download from the nightly directory on ftp.mozilla.org.

cd mozilla/xpinstall/packager
make MOZ_PKG_FORMAT="BZ2" PKG_BASENAME="MozillaFirebird-i686-pc-linux.`date +%Y%m%d`" MOZILLA_BIN="\$(DIST)/bin/MozillaFirebird-bin"

The bz2 file is in mozilla/dist/

Re:Opera

[hkmwbz]

"It is does not have type ahead find ."

Yes it does. Only it is called "inline find". Opera actually had inline find before Mozilla had type ahead find.

Re:Why do /.'ers think people should switch?

[the_2nd_coming]

thunderbird (a stand alone mail client that plays nice with firebird and is based on mozy mail) will be used.

Re:Font Magnification

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

I've been discussing a similar problem with some friends - specifically, we want to tag specific sites with custom CSS stylesheets, in an enhanced form of what mozilla already allows globally.

This has been filed as a feature request with Moz, but is ranked as very low priority: see bug 41975 [mozilla.org].

A possible hack to get around all this would be if CSS attached a pseudo attribute to all elements specifying the page URI. This would allow you to use the CSS2 specification stuff ( e.g. [obj_uri~='gamespot'] ) to solve the problem.

If you want something that works on the fly, I think it can be done building a bookmarklet that executes javascript to embed CSS... small reference here [incutio.com]. I had a much better page, but I can't find it now, sorry!

Re:Difference between Firebird and Mozilla?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla is the entire package. A browser, email client, and a couple of other things, all in one. Firebird is just a browser. There is, or is going to be, a seperate email client.

Re:What about performance on older machines?

[ngunton]

I don't particularly agree with you about C++. It is certainly possible to write fast, efficient code using C++ (I've used it since 1989). As with any language, you can also create a real mess. I don't think C++ is the problem here, but rather the use of XUL for all user interface tasks. For some reason the implementation of this requires a lot of processing just to bring up a window or pretty much do anything significant. It's even more sluggish than Java.

Rather than being lazy, I would posit that the Mozilla developers all must have relatively newer, faster machines to develop on, because if they had a box like mine then I don't see how they could be satisfied with the performance of Mozilla. I guess you can argue that you need to move with the times, and I agree to an extent, but then I go and look again at Netscape 4.x, and how fast it is. And how it was written five years ago or more. And Mozilla really isn't doing all that much more.

I truly do not care about all the fancy features such as "skins" and tabs and "intelligent" browsing. I just want a fast, lean browser that does the job, adheres to standards and gives me the ability to customize stuff (up to a point - take that too far and you end up in slow, bloated XUL land)...

JMHO, of course. I am not slamming the developers of Mozilla, but rather speaking out loud about what is, for me personally, the biggest issue with Mozilla.

Prefs still need major work

[Selanit]

I've been using Firebird (neé Phoenix) as my default browser since 0.2, in both Windows and Linux. I love it. It's great. Hurrah for the developers.

That said, I've had one major peeve ever since I first tried it: the preferences control is a joke. While this new version (I've just tried it out) is better in some respects, they've got a loooong way to go.

Some specific points:

• Setting the home page should have a button labelled "Choose file . . ." I know I can go File->Open then re-open the preferences and click "Use Current". But that's a pain in the ass.
  
• The "Set default browser" option (Windows-specific) is imprecise. Clicking it associates Firebird with loads of file types, including bitmap files (.bmp). Bring back the old-style Mozilla pref where you click a check-box next to each file type you wanted associated. Hide it behind an "advanced" button if you must.
• Moz is capable of disabling animated .gifs, which makes browsing a lot nicer. Unfortunately, there's no control of that in the preferences.
  

Which brings me to the "about:config" screen. It shows you a list of all the prefs you can control, including things like gif animation. In principle this is a great idea -- the ultimate "advanced" tab that allows power-users to tweak to their heart's content.

In practice, it's horrible. It just prints out a list of every preference there is, in alphabetical order. There are over five hundred of them. You have to wade through hundreds of lines to find the one you want. What's more, there's no indication what they do beyond the names of the prefs. Some of the time that makes it clear -- but lots of the time it doesn't. For example, "browser.related.enabled". That's set to "true" by default. I wonder what it controls?

Then, once you've found what you want -- in my case "image.animation_mode" to control gif animations -- you have to figure out what value to set it to. Altering values in about:config is basically identical to altering values with the registry editor in Windows, and we all know how easily that can screw something up. If a value is boolean, that's fairly easy to figure out. In the case of "image.animation_mode", however, you have to guess what string the developer picked to signify the behaviors. At least right-clicking an option lets you reset it to default if you screw up.

Basically, about:config needs some major work. For one thing, there are about a zillion options in there that no longer apply to Firebird -- editor.* and mail.* for example. Those should be removed. The ones that are left should be put in expandable trees by their first word so you don't have to wade through dozens of options you're not interested in -- eg browser.* would have (+) next to it and expand to show all options beginning with "browser.". There should also be something explaining what all these options do and what their values are. Ideally that'd be a little ? next to each option that would pop up a box explaining the term, but a monolithic document somewhere on the web would work just as well.

Anyway, I've groused long enough. It's a great browser, I just think it should be easier to control all those options. Splitting it into a "basic" and "advanced" config panels is a fine idea, but it needs a lot more work!

Re:Pie Menus

[Foresto]

Yes, I use Pie Menus on Mozilla & Firebird as well. They're like gestures, but with some visual feedback, so each gesture is easy to learn. Get it here. [gamemakers.de]

Re:Fix the installers first

[asa]

Yes the typical response. I'm not asking for release quality in every aspect of the product. I'm just asking that it can handle the basic function of installing itself.

Another thing, if it's so "pre-alpha", why does almost everything else work so well?

Lots works and lots doesn't. That's what you get with an 0.6 :-) If you're willing to risk additional bugs then feel free to just unpack this and use it with your old profile but it's possible that something changed in how we read or write some of the profile data so you could experience problems. If you experience problems upgrading from one testing build to the other without starting fresh, please don't file bugs until you've tested with a clean profile like we suggest in the release notes.

(And thanks for taking the time to download and test 0.5. If you actually use that as your regular browser then I strongly recommend that you get 0.6 because it really is much better.)

--Asa

Re:Two Things I Would Like to See

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus does it kill people to use google before they make a list of demands? Xft builds for various systems here [pryan.org]

Re:No down arrow searches?

[asa]

I'm not gonna use Firebird until they support hitting down arrow to search on Google.

And what's so crazy about using the search field and saving that extra down arrow keystroke? In addition to the default Google, the search field can have literally hundreds [mozdev.org] of search engines available with a single click (including google images, groups, and news). Why would you want to use the very limited search option of Mozilla's addressfield whe you can use a powertool like Mozilla Firebird's search field? It's faster, more flexible andd requires one less keystroke.

--Asa

Re:Well, i just did it...

[asa]

i just removed explorer.exe from my taskbar and replaced it with firebird... (it's the only way i could stop myself starting explorer).

i've been meaning to wean myself off ms for a long time, so going to give this a real try.

suggestions for best non-outlook email program?

Yes, the Mozilla Thunderbird [mozilla.org] email client which has powerful junk-mail controls and all kinds of great privacy features.

--Asa

Re:Prefs still need major work

[BZ]

> It shows you a list of all the prefs you can
> control

Actually, it shows a list of all the prefs that have a value set. Which is not the same thing at all -- there are a lot more prefs that you can control than there are prefs that have a value set by default.

Re:What is happenning to mozilla Composer?

[asa]

http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap.html [mozilla.org]

http://daniel.glazman.free.fr/weblog/newarchive/20 03_05_04_glazblogarc.html#s93853368 [glazman.free.fr]

http://daniel.glazman.free.fr/composer/composer++. html [glazman.free.fr]

--Asa

Re:Difference between Firebird and Mozilla?

[elmegil]

Mozilla is a mail client, a news client, an LDAP client, and a huge MF'ing bloated browser. I.E. it's the Emacs of Browsers.

Phoenix (now Firebird, still not sure I like that myself) is stripped down lean mean browser city, plus it allows you to install "extensions" that modify how it works. You can "put back" things you like about mozilla that were taken out in a couple of cases, plus there are lots of other nifty things. Download a copy, go to "find extensions" under the preferences panel for extensions and look at all the goodies.

Re:Mac OS X version is pretty zippy

[hrbrmstr]

It's a completely different experience on this end.

My config (far from state of the art):

2 x 867MHz G4
133MHz bus
256K L2 cache per processor
1MB L3 cache per processor

1.5GB RAM DDR SDRAM (2100)

NVIDIA GeForce4MX (standard one with the Mac)

OS X 10.2.6

I just re-tried a bunch of SSL sites and the the sites I usually hit. I did a side-by-side comparison between it and Safari and Firebird beat it every time.

They may just be managing user perception well (i.e. making it seem like it's faster).

If someone can point me to a benchmarking tool that can measure browser stuff, I'll be glad to run tests on all of the available Mac browsers and post them somewhere (since we're sliding down the slippery slope of being off topic a bit). I'll google for it as well.

Want the old prefs back?

[Drakonian]

You can get to them by copying chrome://communicator/content/pref/pref.xul into your address bar. (There is no default handler for chrome URLs so clicking it won't work)

Wow, this version feels fast. I've never felt that in all the Phoenix's or Mozilla's or even a nightly from a couple weeks ago, but this 0.6 screams!

Unofficial Xft2+GTK2 Debian package

[darketernal]

Just to let you all know that I have built Firebird 0.6-release into an unofficial Debian package that can be found here:

http://pryan.org/phoenix/joshk/dist/firebird_0.6 -1 _i386.deb

Please send any feedback to the email this username's bound to :)

No crashes here.

[gottabeme]

I saw that too, but I've been using Firebird for several weeks now, and I've only had one crash. What caused it I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it was not any auto-complete stuff, because I wasn't using it at the time. In fact, in the past week I've started using auto-complete more, and it's worked just fine.

Maybe the bugs exist, but they seem to pop up extremely rarely.