Mozilla Project Officially Releases Firefox 0.9 672
_xeno_ writes "The last release candidate was apparently good enough, because Mozilla Firefox 0.9 has now been officially released. New features since 0.8 are, of course, basically the same as in the Release Candidate, including the new Pinstripe theme for Windows and the GTK+ installer for Linux users. The biggest change since the Release Candidate is that this release should ask you to migrate your profile instead of just trashing it. So head over to the Firefox homepage and get downloading, or check out the Release Notes to find out exactly what's new."
mE123 adds "You can get it from plain old HTTP or from fancy new BitTorrent", and points out that (compared to 0.8), "this release includes tons of bug/stability fixes, a %3 speed up, a new theme and plugin management system, a new standard windows theme, and a smaller windows installer."
No source though (Score:5, Informative)
Opera (Score:5, Informative)
Good so far, but... (Score:5, Informative)
The one flaw I've noticed so far, though, is that the extensions options frame is a little buggy. When I finish modifying one extension and go to load up the preferences from another, the extension I just finished modifying pops up. If I go back and load the new extension prefs again, everything is fine. It's nothing major... just a little something that could be fixed for the big 1.0.
Just emerged it! (Score:5, Informative)
It killed off my bookmarks, so you have been warned.
Nope. (Score:5, Informative)
Before you complain about the new theme... (Score:5, Informative)
Why do they bother wasting screen real estate?
Adblock (Score:5, Informative)
Check the new Extensions manager under Tools and see if it's there. If it is, uninstall it from that window.
Close Firefox and use Explorer or whatever to browse to "\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Mozilla\FireFox\profile.3hd\Extensions" on your system drive.
Now you have to figure out which of these obscurely named subdirectories is Adblock. You can use Notepad or some other text editer to open "Extensions.rdf" and see. This string may be the same on all systems, if so, I'm sure someone can post it. Once you know which directory Adblock is still hiding in, delete it. Now go and install the AdBlock nightly from here: http://adblock.mozdev.org/dev.html [mozdev.org]
That took care of it on my systems. YMMV, as always.
Mirror links and other stuff (Score:5, Informative)
Extensions [extensionsmirror.nl]
Themes [mozillazine.org]
Keep in mind that the packaging requirements changed for this release, so not all of your old favorites are 0.9 compatible (yet).
If you want the old 0.8 theme back, you can find it here: Qute [quadrone.org]
And to fix the icon spacing... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:User Agent String? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Before you complain about the new theme... (Score:5, Informative)
Hm. I found the small icons to be way too small. I did, however, remember to bookmark the Old Qute Theme [quadrone.org] from 0.8 and earlier, which has been updated to work with 0.9. IMHO, it is much nicer than the new one, at least under Linux. YMMV.
To get back the old Qute theme from 0.8: (Score:5, Informative)
Right click this link [quadrone.org] and select "Copy Link Location."
Then left click here [texturizer.net], paste the link into the "Remote URL" box on the right, and click Install.
Ahh... feels like home again
3% speedup link. (Score:2, Informative)
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi
Good to see that the message "(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!)" is neither used by either the poster or the
One that page, the part convering the speedup thing:
2) more importantly though, MSVC just generates better code. take a look at
codesize totals for example: linux seamonkey went from 21148 to 20196, and win32
seamonkey went from 13101 to 12821. so, that's a 4.5% savings on linux and a
2.1% savings on win32.
Yes, I know a bit down the text 2-3% is mentioned, I do RTFA, but it shows as much 'substantial' evidence as todays 'Java faster than C++' article.
Re:Adblock (Score:5, Informative)
There's also an extension that makes your old-style extensions from pre-0.9 show up in the control widget. Some of the old extensions (Nuke Anything, for example) don't seem to have been updated, but they still work fine in 0.9 if you enable them. Once you restart Mozilla you have to right click the dimmed extensions to enable them.
Re:Not a single reason (Score:2, Informative)
Getting the old theme back (Score:5, Informative)
If you think the new theme is a step backwards, you can get the old theme back by going to the designer's site [quadrone.org].
Re:Not a single reason (Score:5, Informative)
Easy fix:
Go to about:config and set to True. You will then have a page showing an error message if the address couldn't load, with a link to try loading it again.
On another note, a few days back someone mentioned a way to to prevent Firefox from compressing its memory in Windows when minimized. What was that preference name again?
Re:No source though (Score:5, Informative)
It's on BT just fine Mozilla Firefox 0.9 Source Fixed [pryan.org]
My thoughts: (Score:5, Informative)
--The new default theme...well, I'm in the "damn, that's ugly" camp. I went to Tools -> Themes -> Get More Themes to download Qute, and was taken to Mozilla Update, where there was a link to "install Qute now." I did that but it didn't work. I ended up having to manually download the .jar file and use the theme installer on texturizer.net to get Qute working--It seems like something's broken here, I dunno. Anyone else had a similar experience?
--FF's interface seems a bit snappier now, as well--it doesn't slow down a ton with multiple tabs open. It remains to be seen whether it still has 0.8's nasty memory leaks, though.
--I wonder if anyone else has noticed this: the menus now are rendered a little bit...differently. They no longer look as "Windows native" as they used to, and now resemble Mozilla 1.5 on my Debian machine. I wonder if this was done for cross-platform compatibility (So FF doesn't look as out of place on Linux?)
Overall, though, I'm quite pleased with the new FF's performance. It's a bit of a pain to go around and re-obtain all your extensions and such, but once you get it set up, it works very well. Great job Mozilla dev team!
Re:Broken `-remote' for Linux users? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Royal Oak (Score:4, Informative)
There is a connection. Ben Goodger, the lead developer on the project is from Auckland (http://www.bengoodger.com/about/ben.shtml [bengoodger.com]).
If you look at the Firefox roadmap [mozilla.org], the 0.71, 0.8, 0.9, and 1.0b milestones all have codenames that are Auckland suburbs.
Re:Safari (Score:3, Informative)
Links to .9 extensions and themes (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Am I the only one? (Score:1, Informative)
Yeah I've seen that quite a bit. I think that's slashdot spitting out broken html.
The page overlapping the menu is a mozilla bug. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=217527
Re:User Agent String? (Score:5, Informative)
Change general.useragent.vendorSub to 0.9.
Re:Only 3%? (Score:2, Informative)
Again, this isn't a complaint....the speed difference is only noticeable if you look for it...but it is there...on my systems at least.
Re:Got it (Score:5, Informative)
To reproduce:
1. type in www.slashdot.org
2. Hit refresh until you see the main part overlapping the left part. Should be pretty quick (2-3 retries on my machine)
Oh well... Mozilla 1.7 out and that bug still there...
Don't forget to un-install your current FF... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not a single reason (Score:5, Informative)
config.trim_on_minimize -> false
Makes Firefox and Mozilla always responsive. More details here: Link [mozilla.org]
Prog.
Updated extensions and themes (Score:3, Informative)
Old extensions and themes are going to be broken so you're going to have to make a new profile and install new versions. Here are the extensions [mozillazine.org] and themes [mozillazine.org] that have been updated.
I tried to put the list in here since MozillaZine always gets /.ed, but it wouldn't make it past the filter.
Re:No source though (Score:5, Informative)
To fix the problem, I did a
# chown -R user:user
Re:Safari is slow too! (Score:4, Informative)
They are an IE invention. IE stores them in your cache and "forgets" them when they disappear from your cache. Raymond Chen had a good explanation [asp.net]
on his blog [asp.net] of why this behavior seemed better than having IE constantly hit the servers of all of the sites in your favorites to check for icons, or other alternatives.
Correction (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Broken `-remote' for Linux users? (Score:3, Informative)
Now, firefox -remote 'ping()' should be firefox -a firefox -remote 'ping()'. Also, firefox -remote 'openURL(http://slashdot.org/, new-tab)' should be firefox -a firefox -remote 'openURL(http://slashdot.org/, new-tab)'. Etc.
Re:Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Phoenix 0.1
Phoenix 0.2
Phoenix 0.3
Phoenix 0.4
Phoenix 0.5
Phoenix 0.6
Firebird 0.7
Firefox 0.8
Firefox 0.9
Firebird was actually the SHORTEST lived name for the Mozilla standalone browser formerly known as Phoenix.
Re:I miss from Mozilla... (Score:5, Informative)
I stupidly put off switching for the same reason, but with a little customization you can do it in even fewer keystrokes with Firefox.
Enter about:config in the location bar, set keyword.URL to http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q
Now typing any non-url in the location bar brings up the google search results. No need to press the down arrow!
Re:Safari (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox & Seamonkey still use OS 9 event codes, which is why it doesn't work. There is a patch on that bug, but it didn't make it into 0.9, from what I can tell. See also Bug 106692 -- Rewrite mouse events to use CarbonEvents [mozilla.org].
Re:Safari is slow too! (Score:2, Informative)
Bug linkage (Score:3, Informative)
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12366
It's been marked fixed, yet it still isn't.
The new theme is butt ugly.
No argument there.
If you launch it from the mounted .dmg on OS X (Score:2, Informative)
If it's not going to work right from the
This is on Panther.
Re:Safari (Score:2, Informative)
Ciao
Re:Got it (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Please don't generalize that beyond favicon.ico (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Those damn tabs.. (Score:3, Informative)
The only people not using mouse gestures are people who haven't tried it for a week.
Re:No source though (Score:3, Informative)
I get some XML parser exception in a big pane below status bar. i.e. after installing any extension and restarting firefox, The status bar is at about half the window height and there is some other pane with XML parsing errors .
Also trying to configure any extension gives XML parsing errors.
Re:Firefox (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Got it (Score:5, Informative)
* You'll have to copy/paste those links into your Address Bar, because bugzilla blocks links from slashdot.
Re:Safari (Score:4, Informative)
FireFox hides the tab menu by default when only one tab is in use-- to allow for more screen size on pages. You can always hit CTRL+T on Windows to open a new blank tab automatically in FireFox, Apple(Command)+T on Mac OS X to open a new blank tab in both Safari and FireFox. I dunno about Linux to open new blank tabs, since I don't have my linux box up yet..
You may also be able to keep the tab menu bar visible at all times by going to the preferences... but I never cared it wasn't there, because I use hotkeys to open empty tabs anyway. And I use FireFox exclusively on my Windows machine and Safari on my iBook.
Re:Happens to me, too. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A little disappointed (Score:4, Informative)
"Allow websites to install software" -- if it's checked, you can install extensions by clicking on a
"Select new tabs opened from links" -- just what it says. If you click on a link and have it open in a tab (like middle-clicking a link), this option will select the new tab instead of loading it in the background.
And it's under Edit > Preferences > Advanced.
Web Archive (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Phoenix 0.1-Firebird 0.6 release 9/23/2002-5/16/2003
Firebird 0.6-Firefox 0.8 5/16/2003-2/9/2004
Firefox 0.8-present 2/9/2004-???
So, by actual timeline, Phoenix was used for less than a year, while Firebird was used for nearly a year, and Firefox is indefinite. Firebird did only comprise two releases, it just so happens that those two releases took a damn long time.
Re:Only 3%? (Score:5, Informative)
Enter about:config into the title bar.
Set network.http.pipelining to True
Set network.http.pipelining.firstrequest to True
Set network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to 8 (I'm told higher values get ignored).
Finally and most important, set nglayout.initialpaint.delay to 0
Enjoy the snappyness that results.
Re:I miss from Mozilla... (Score:2, Informative)
Location: http://www.google.com/search?as_q=%s&num=50&hl=en
Keyword: gg
You can use anything for the keyword, but in this example, you can simply type "gg " and it automatically searches Google for the given search text. It's even fewer keys than having to press the down arrow.
This is an older link that explains it more, I can't find the Firefox specific link right now:
http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2002
Re:Only 3%? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Before you complain about the new theme... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Safari (Score:5, Informative)
Control-T on Linux.
You may also be able to keep the tab menu bar visible at all times by going to the preferences... but I never cared it wasn't there
Prefrences --> Advanced --> Browsing --> Hide the tab bar when only one web site is open.
You can also go to View --> Toolbars --> Customize and add the New Tab button to a toolbar.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned about themes... (Score:5, Informative)
At last, Firefox does not require a restart to switch themes.
Re:No source though (Score:1, Informative)
Here
Chinese page simplified traditional extension for firefox and mozilla:
http://tongwen.mozdev.org [mozdev.org]
Get it!
I wish they would post this link (Score:3, Informative)
Didn't delete mine. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Safari is slow too! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bookmarks (Mac OS X) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:IMPORTANT ! Save your bookmarks. IT DELETES!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Application Data\Phoenix\
So you can grab your bookmarks from there (that directory should not have been deleted). Alternatively, you could try copying that folder to "Firefox", but you may find wierd things happening with your extensions if you try that (that said, it seemed to work for me OK). The old nightly builds from a couple of weeks back imported your IE settings rather than your old Firefox settings - I guess that bug's still there. (Although how on earth it got to be released with such a stupid bug I don't know!)
If you were using Firefox 0.8 under linux then your settings were already under ~/.firefox - so you shouldn't have lost any data but there's not much you can do if you have. It's a good lesson in backing up your home directory, I'm afraid!
Re:Good so far, but... (Score:5, Informative)
The old extensions need to be updated to fit the new extensions theme manager. See http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=246043 [mozilla.org] for details on the "bug". Essentially, the extension builders need to update the extension or it won't appear in the theme manager, even though it may install.
There's also a new extension [mozilla.org] that you can install to make the old extensions visible, but the old extensions are still not removable after installation, unlike the new extensions.
One other issue I see with the extension manager: after installing enough extensions to make a scrollbar appear, it was difficult to scroll and the manager became really sluggish. However, I imagine that this is a minor problem that will be worked out over time.
Re:Only 3%? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Firefox is great (Score:3, Informative)
IE is preloaded by windows, so always starts nearly instantly. Just keep firefox open
Re:Only 3%? (Score:3, Informative)
SAVE MY BANDWIDTH (And to fix the icon spacing...) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Safari (Score:5, Informative)
In Linux, the middle-mouse is set up to cut/paste text from the clipboard and to navigate to the test in the clipboard as if it is a URL (following conventions that go back over twenty years). However, you can also set it up with Windows conventions via FireFox's advanced preferences:
Now Mozilla FireFox will follow Window's mouse conventions.
Re:User Agent String? (Score:2, Informative)
From bugzilla:
NOTE - Do not install Firefox over the top of another Firefox installation. If you want to install Firefox 0.9 into the same folder that you had Firefox 0.8 in, uninstall Firefox 0.8 first. Upgrading will be fixed in a future release.
Bug filed here: http://bug zilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=246868
Re:Sho' wish extensions worked. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I prefer 0.8. (Score:5, Informative)
Release candidates are unstable. They are released to find issues that were overlooked by the developers. If you tried it without backing up your old profile folder, the fault is with your own inadequate computer security and safety policy.
Pinstripe is not very ugly! I agree that is needs polish; however, there is little wrong with it.
The backlash is mainly due to inertia; most users - like myself - just got used to Qute. When the Phoenix switched from Orbit to Qute, I first thought it was a horrible, horrible decision! However, I grew used to it and eventually preferred the new theme. After a few days of Pinstripe, I have similar feelings. Qute is pretty good, but not irreplaceably as I once thought. A few tweaks to my user chrome override-file (not the changes making the rounds) satisfied most of my objections.
You people are seriously overreacting!
The theme was never in the download manager. Some erroneous entries used to be listed in the theme manager, but that bug seems to have been squashed.
There were license problems between Qute and Mozilla.org's tri-license policy. Therefor, they will not be able to bundle the popular theme with the oncoming stable version of FireFox Browser. :-( However, I feel the new theme is OK.
Re:Am I the only one? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:user.js (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sho' wish extensions worked. (Score:3, Informative)
Great product, cruel installation. (Score:5, Informative)
It didn't delete anything, probably. For Windows XP:
The data is still in the old installation folder. You need to copy the History.dat file, the Bookmarks.html file, and the formhistory.dat file to the new folder. After searching, I found that the old files were in:
Documents and Settings\MyLoginName\Application Data\Phoenix\
They must be copied to:
C:\Documents and Settings\MyLoginName\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profile s\default.uh4 >
The problem is that the FireFox people don't provide any installation instructions, and the installation sometimes fails to copy those files, and once installed, you cannot do the installation again.
As I said before: Clearly the FireFox team has some former Microsoft employees, because the team sometimes promotes frustration. Crazily, there is no way to import FireFox data, only a way to import IE and Netscape data.
On the other hand, Mozilla FireFox is certainly the best browser, if the best isn't Mozilla itself.
Re:Safari is slow too! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No user.js here (Score:3, Informative)
user.js takes the same values as prefs.js but the values in user.js will always override the prefs.js values
configs (Score:5, Informative)
Re: poorly rendered slashdot pages (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not Ready Yet... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Am I the only one? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Firefox (Score:2, Informative)
Another project owned the name 'firebird' in europe.
In the united states it was cleared, nobody owned it, but the european project might have bitched about it.
Here is a quote from their FAQ on the namechange
"The colloquial name "Firebird" is also in use by another open source project. While we don't believe our use of the Firebird name infringed on their trademark, we wanted to be responsive to the concerns of fellow open source developers."
Here is a link to their FAQ http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-n
Re:No user.js here (Score:5, Informative)
Why not enable by default? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No source though (Score:2, Informative)
According to the release notes, the extension API has changed for 0.9.
See the Mozilla Firefox 0.9 Release Notes [mozilla.org].
Josh
Whelp, deletes your old settings. (Score:1, Informative)
Thanks so much, Mozilla Team. I appreciate it.
Re:Only 3%? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Why not enable by default? (Score:3, Informative)
First, I believe that the default connections/server and such settings are set according to a TCP/IP standard. I believe the default max is 4? Regardless, I am under the impression that that is why it is not set otherwise by default.
As for some of the other settings, I don't know that those are necessarily the best settings for someone on dial-up. I only say this because when looking up Firefox tweaks I found a user.js file for broadband and another for dial-up. The dial-up user.js. I don't recall what values were different or how different they were.
Re:Great product, cruel installation. (Score:3, Informative)
It would have been nice to have a link to that on the main page where everyone would see it before having problems.
Re:What about... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:IMPORTANT ! Save your bookmarks. IT DELETES!!!! (Score:3, Informative)
That bug was fixed.
RTFH (Read The Funny Headline)
Firefox 0.9 impressions (Score:2, Informative)
I have also tried the official 0.9 release, however, at the end of the day went back to 0.8 due to all of the following reasons:
1. Theme. It is not ugly, it is just different and I don't mind that. What I do mind is the lack of polish. I looks like a hack job to me.
2. Installing new themes. I couldn't. And yes I know why, I read the other ways of installing themes but I didn't bother. There must be more elegant ways of dealing with old incompatible themes.
3. Read 2 above. Replace themes with extensions.
4. The "new" themes and extensions managers. They are not new. They were just separated from the options dialog. And although it could be argued that it reduces cluter in the option dialog I am of the opinion that increases cluter on the tools menu and on the number of possible dialogs. Options are usually cluttered - that is where the ugly and complex meet to make the browsing experience beautiful and flexible. They could have gone half way where the new menu items would open the same options dialog but with either themes or extensions selected, respectively.
5. I am a web developer. One of the sites at work "gained" and horizontal scroll bar, where one isn't needed. It just scrolls 2 or 3 pixels and the screen resolution doesn't matter. This is an intranet site so the URL is irrelevant.
I understand that 0.9 is a development release and therefore there are bugs, problems, etc... However, even in development a 0.9 release should be generally better then a 0.8 release, and this doesn't appear to be the case.
STICK WITH 0.8 -- STAY AWAY (Score:3, Informative)
I moved my old profile out of my windows profile, so it's totally gone from firefox's view (at least I won't have lost all my bookmarks), and I followed the advice of the mozilla folks. I uninstalled my old firefox (0.8) from the control panel, and deleted the old app directory. There is now no trace of firefox.
I run the installer, it installs, starts to launch
This is absolutely unacceptable.
0.9 is buggier than 0.8 (Score:3, Informative)