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Mozilla The Internet

Netscape 6/Mozilla Beta Release in 25 Days 265

Posted by Hemos from the this-code-might-fall-into-the-right-hands dept.
liber wrote to us with the press release on Yahoo! regarding the upcoming release of Netscape 6, aka Mozilla. It's a beta, not a full release, but the piece does a good job of talking about consumer anticipation, as well as the big companies that are behind it. Don't wait until the crowd hits. Get started now.
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Netscape 6/Mozilla Beta Release in 25 Days More

Netscape 6/Mozilla Beta Release in 25 Days

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  • Re:PLEASE stop the hype (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why not just use Konqueror in KDE 2.0 [kde.org]? It's fast, a KOM/KParts Embedabble object, HTML 4.0 compliant, has ECMAScript support, and can use the 1.2.2 Java VM if installled. Plus, KDE is generally cool too. Please don't judge KDE on RedHat's deeply borked default install - they're having a fit of NIH syndrome. Try Mandrake instead.
  • Why on earth would you want Netscape to be suid?

    And while I'm posting, a lot of people said to use IE or I don't know what other browser. But nobody thought about, what if you don't have a choice as there isn't a good alternative to Netscape on Linux.

    I would gladly switch to a more stable browser with CSSI and Javascript and a stable Java VM and blah blah blah but as long as there isn't one, I'm stuck.
    --

  • Are there builds for other platforms somewhere? I'd love to try Mozilla, but I'm on Tru64 Unix, which doesn't seem to have builds on mozilla.org.

    I did try downloading the source a milestone or two ago, but after dinking with it for a little while, I saw that it was going to take a bit of work to get it built, and since WSU doesn't pay me to build Mozilla, I had to move on.

    If there's a Tru64 build, though, I'd be happy to use it and file bug reports....
  • Let's see if we can kill this meme, at least for today:
    • Gecko is part of Mozilla, namely the Mozilla layout engine.
    • Mozilla is not based on the 4.x source code, it is a complete rewrite (almost from scratch).
    • Netscape 6 is based on Mozilla (including Gecko) with some Netscape-specific parts added.
  • Okay, can someone with real knowledge of the situation brief Slashdot on what the heck is going on with Mozilla?

    Well, I'm by no means an expert, but I'll try: M14 was a Mozilla milestone like other milestones, and there will be other milestone releases in the future: M15, M16, etc. After release of M14 and a few days of additional bug fixing, Netscape went onto a Mozilla branch in order to prepare for release of beta 1 of Netscape 6; Netscape will do more bug fixing on that branch, and will then combine the Mozilla code with Netscape-proprietary code (from what is known as the Netscape "commercial tree") to create the Netscape 6 beta 1 release.

    Mozilla development and bug fixing continues on the trunk, with contributions from both Netscape developers and others, and is planned to result in an M15 milestone release sometime in April and an M16 milestone release sometime in May. As I understand it, Mozilla bug fixes made by Netscape on their beta 1 branch are being rolled back onto the trunk, and Netscape will use future Mozilla milestones as the basis for future Netscape 6 beta releases and then Netscape 6 production release. (Presumably they will work on branches as necessary to create those releases, just as they are doing now with beta 1.)

    In a side issue, once M14 was released the security/crypto developers at iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions (the Sun-Netscape Alliance) used an M14-based branch to add and test changes to Mozilla needed to invoke SSL functionality provided by the separate Netscape Personal Security Manager [iplanet.com] binaries. As I understand it, those changes have now been rolled back onto the Mozilla trunk and will be in M15. (I think Netscape 6 beta 1 should have those SSL-related changes as well, since they were originally taken from the Netscape commercial tree.)

    For more on Netscape's Mozilla-related development plans see the netscape.public.mozilla.s eamonkey [mozilla.org] newsgroup, in particular the recent posts "Netscape Feature Complete proposal: use 5/2 checkpoint target date" [mozilla.org] and "M15 will be the next checkpoint build from mozilla" [mozilla.org] by Jim Roskind of the Netscape client development group.

  • "It still crashes occasionally, without warning, and comletely unreproducably..."

    And this is different that Navigator 4.7 how? *wham*

  • I confess I haven't kept my code snapshots properly updated, but this is still very exciting! I know the Mozilla project has had a number of snags and delays - I just hope that the result is a better chunk of code than any of its predecessors.

    Anyone run a rendering "benchmark" yet? :P

    --
    : remove whitespace to e-mail me

  • Would whoever moderated my post as Flamebait kindly explain exactly what in that post qualifies as such? I see absolutely nothing which would provoke a sane person (or whatever passes for sane on Slashdot ^_^ ) to flame. Indeed, every last one of the responses to this message has been calm and to the point, with no hint of flaming (or even a spark, for that matter).

    Or is this just another abuse of the moderation system? I have plenty of Karma to burn so I'm not worried about the one-point loss, but I fail to see how this post could be construed as flamebait. If you disagree, then I'd honestly be glad to hear what exactly was so inflammatory about my post. I honestly don't like flaming, even though I'm guilty of it from time to time (I very much doubt that anyone here on Slashdot can honestly say they haven't flamed, on this forum or elsewhere, at least once in their Net career). So please, and this is an honest invitation, tell me what it is that angered you so much.

    You know, come to think of it, at some point the Slashdot heads ought to sit down and clearly define what each of these terms mean. While you certainly can't include everything (then again, the rarely-used Overrated and Underrated are, to my understanding, catch-alls for just that sort of situation) but it would make a useful tool for moderators and meta-moderators.

  • Re:THUD (Score:1)

    by Forge ( 2456 )
    It's hapend before.

    Or was I the only one to use Gnome-1.0 ?

    Or rather fail in the attempt to use :)
  • So rather than telling the sysadmins to fix the broken webservers, we have a broken web server and a broken browser. Yeah, real good solution.

  • Six ? (Score:1)

    by Tsk ( 2863 )
    Wasn't Mozilla supose to be Netscape 5.0 ?
    where's the 5.0 gone , to /dev/null ?
    Nothing is said on mozilla official Web site [mozilla.org]. And going beta just a few weeks after being Alpha is being crazy they're going to kill the project IMO.

  • NS 4.72 isn't exactly quick on its feet either. Every Unix graphical browser that can handle modern HTML is huge and bloated, AFAIK.

    I think the problem with Mozilla is not that Gecko is slow, but rather that the app build around it is SLOW. I'm thinking about taking the Gecko stuff and writing a small, light-weight browser (and _not_ a news+email client! damnit...) around that. I'm heartened to know that other companies are using gecko, since that means it is possible to use it without the rest of Mozilla, and that it doesn't suck. If it sucked, all those companies wouldn't be using it. Especially not the cell-phone companies.
    #define X(x,y) x##y
  • I absolutely agree with you. email and news reading also has to go. That's what mutt and slrn are for.

    I've been thinking for a while about writing a web browswer that uses the gecko engine, but doesn't have all of Moz's crap plastered all over it. Now that I see some like-minded posts, I am most encouraged :) I haven't written anything big before, but I'd love to try. If anyone wants to help me write one, email me: peter@llama.nslug.ns.ca and we'll figure out what language to use, how portable to make it, and all that jazz.
    #define X(x,y) x##y
  • Consider yourself corrected. Netscape has (or will?) forked the Mozilla tree and are adding their own touches for their branded product.

    Personally, I plan on continuing to use Mozilla ...

    Jason.
  • Is this the same as when running Netscape 3 or 4 on Win95 the page reloads if Quickres is used? You mean it isn't Microsoft's fault for once?
  • Doesn't it check with the operating system to see what the association for the extension is? For example, install Win95, then try to open foobar.doc from My Computer or Explorer (the File Manager replacement, not Internet Explorer). Wordpad will pop up to try to open it. But install Office97 and it'll change the .doc association to default to Word instead. It's all a matter of how your associations are set up. I've had IE call up Netscape to open a .htm file, because I had that extension associated with netscape.exe and not with iexplore.exe :) I suppose you could even change your association so that doubleclicking a .doc file caused it to try to open in Freecell.
  • I, too, was surprised to see it moderated that way, usually the really off the wall moderations happen to posts submitted a couple of hours later in the day, about the time junior high schools let out.
  • I am dieing to see the full blown mozilla. What is great about it AOL as the power to push it as the next browser they can get Netspace/Mozilla back as leader in the Browser Area. I predict that it will be about 50/50 in 18 months. If you don't think how aol user are out there and how may non AOL user have AIM.



    http://theotherside.com/dvd/ [theotherside.com]
  • I don't see you saying anything about what code you've produced.

    Right, because I choose to do coding for other projects, notably Wine. I do submit bugs for Mozilla however, and it's really not a time-consuming process to do so. Heck, it's kinda fun having a bug open, sorta like a Tamagotchi except you get to kill it at the end ;-)
  • I've been using the daily build since M14-crypto. Most are really good. I usually dl them in the morning, do really heavy browsing (a viewing developed pages), then I leave all my mozilla windows running until the next morning. Memory does not appear to leak, and only on rare occasion do forms get quirky. oh, and the Mozilla cookie manager is awesome. (I'm on linux 2.2.14/rh6.1)

    Jungleboy
  • First it was "It doesn't run on my XYZ box!"
    Now it's "It doesn't run fast enough!"

    You can never win. :)


    -- Thrakkerzog
  • *THuD!* Wait, too late.. the crowds hit. And they're cheering... "slashdot effect! agggh! Stupid Rob.. no responsibility! My T1.. it's dead! NNNNOOOOooooo! f1r$t p05t d00d!"

    Anyway, that aside.. does this strike anyone else as a marketing ploy? Mozilla isn't ready.. yet they're making an announcement. I thought the open source credo for releases was "when it's done". Maybe I'm mistaken... OSS proponents can be influenced by money and prestige. Suprise.

  • Yeah, IIRC he used his lifeline on that one ".. and that's why it's still beta!" Two releases and 20k bugs later.... =)

    I got the mpeg of that around here somewhere...

  • Okay, can someone with real knowledge of the situation brief Slashdot on what the heck is going on with Mozilla? In particular:
    M14 was released while still listing something like 500 bugs in Bugzilla. What happened? Why?
    Bugzilla is still full of bugs in the M1? department, are these being addressed actively, or has all the recent effort gone into a different branch?
    Speaking of branching, how many different branches are there right now? And who is working on each?

    This is the kind of PR I would most appreciate.

  • People that are agitated over the skinning thing have No Clue(tm).

    It's not a skin. You can do a completely different UI with XUL. The age of applications over the web has finally arrived.

    The point of having their own wiget set is that I, the web developer, can finally have my web site look the same no matter where it runs. If you're tired of motif/Win widgets messing with your careful layout, you know what I mean.

    One example of how it's not a skin is the Zope Mozilla Initiative [zope.org], a project to turn Mozilla into an IDE for zope. Let's see you turn WinAmp into a mp3 editor!

    With mozilla, you can develop an application, implement the UI in mozilla, and poof! You've got a web application that can run on almost every OS out there!

    This IS revolutionary, certainly moreso than anything from Redmond.

  • This got moderated down as flamebait? Sounded pretty reasonable to me.

    The problem with moderation, as is becoming pretty obvious here, is that it's just a way to enforce the lowest common denominator -- mediocrity. I don't want to sound like a Katz groupie -- I reserve the right to filter out anyone I damn well please -- but when the filtering is driven by popular acclaim, only popular ideas will get exposure. Or, in other words, we'll just keep hearing the same old shit over and over again.

    Hmmm... that's overoptimistic. It's not popular acclaim that's driving the moderation, it's a relatively small group of socially-maladjusted retards whose own localized lowest common denominator makes the mass LCD look like a paragon of excellence.

    Until Slashdot has some sort of filtering system that lets users do there own moderation on their own terms, both the discussions and the moderation system are worse than useless.
  • Slashdot must be one of the more frequently tested sites with Mozilla.

  • I suspect that the less-tested platforms are buggier. There isn't even a working IRIX build more recent than 1/27/00, and that one is broken for me because of bug #11420 [mozilla.org].

  • >

    Seamonkey is the project to ship a commercial browser based on the mozilla source. Hence the information on the milestone "M" releases is in a projects/seamonkey/ directory on mozilla.org. Similarly, the beta-stopper-bug-count-page is at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/mileston es/progress-2-beta.html

    HTH,
    Stuart.
  • Why do you speak like a comic book?
  • Actually, I've been DL and running the nightly builds since M14 hit. If you read the information on the Mozilla site, it explains the Netscape "branded" release vs the Mozilla release fairly well. To summarize/paraphrase:

    Netscape took M14 and added AOL/NS specific code (ie: that shopping icon, AIM) and focused on fixing any show-stopping bugs in M14 - this is the Netscape v6 this story is speaking of.

    The Mozilla folks are pressing ahead with M15 development of will be the Mozzila browser. This is what I run - the nightly pre-M15 builds.

    The additional functionality incorporated into Mozilla's browser will be fed back into the Netscape codebase at a later time. This lets AOL/Netscape get a decent enough browser out the door as v6, while letting the Mozilla developers and users debug the addition bells & whistles. Once those B&W's are debugged within Mozilla, then AOL/Netscape will incorporate them into the "branded" browser as a point release (ie: 6.1, 6.2, etc).

    So there hasn't, up until just recently, been a parallel effort. That was just established a few weeks ago with the release of M14.

    As for the NS 5 version, that's the horrendous code-base originally released as Open Source to the Mozilla project. That code was scrapped in favor of developing the Gecko-based product(s) in development now.

    As for the Mozilla browser being a "dead project" - you are flaming here bud! I think the additional support scheduled for Mozilla will give it a leg up on the Netscape branded product. The issue is that the PHB's at large corporations want a "commercial" browser - hence Netscape v6. Since Mozilla will be the leader of new support/features - to later be incorporated into Netscape - it's far from dead... It's the innovator AOL/NS is relying on!

  • So this would be one of those Troll things I've heard so much about?

    Gerv
  • I think Mozilla is (will be when it's ready) fine piece software and that it shows that open source works (or that it can work). Still, I'm so incredibly sick of all this hype surrounding Linux and OSS.. I wish the zealots would just shut the hell up and leave people alone. If they want to help, write code or docs, just don't run around yelling how Linux will dominate the world and how open source is The Way Of Future(TM). Why, oh why did Linus have to mention (joke about) world domination..
  • <plug>For some darn neat cross-browser (Well, at least Netscape >= 4.5/ IE >= 4), check my brother's site [ziggen.com]</plug>
  • eBut eyou ealso eforgot eabout eE efor eEnlightenment eEpplets... e!

    --
    It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think you just crossed it.
    - Sean

  • I'm sorry but he is so right, the linux community is so close-minded sometimes.

  • Need Bug Fixes! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Mozilla has great *POTENTIAL*. However it is currently slow and buggy as hell. Netscape should have planned for a beta 9 months ago, on an earlier code base, then folded in Gecko into a new code base....

    We all need a new browser. Netscrape crashes all the time, especially with JAVA. Maybe, if we /. mozilla, beat the shit out of it, and contribut fixes/bug reports, it might get stable and be usable.

    Lets download mozilla and run it, beat on it, help fix it. Maybe the /. effect could help to make it an alternative?

    sig removed to protect the innocent and guilty!

  • Mozilla tango (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1) I had problems with the "Mn" release.
    2) You should try the nightly builds! They're great!
    3) I had problems with the "Mn+1" release.
    4) You should try the nightly builds! They're great!
    ...
    56) I had problems with Netscape 6.23 Service Pack 4
    57) You should try the nightly builds! They're great!
  • Remember microsoft's heavy handed overraction and the brute force they used to try to push Netscape out of business when they decided that a web browse was a threat to their monopoly simply because it ran java applets and supported plugins. Wow how are they going to react when they see the possibilities that Mozilla provides as a cross platform base for developing really cool apps. If you don't understand what I'm saying do a little research and you will see that Mozilla is really as much like a web browser as Emacs is a text editor. Check out XMLTerm for an example of what is possible.
  • In fact, I've just seen the M14 Mozilla release, and I see it very promising. It didn't crash so fast as previos releases (though I didn't try it on various "dangerous" sites, only on my regular sites), and rendering is good.

    Javascript still acts weirdly, and UI needs improvement, and it's hell slow, but I see many improvements - charset support, dynamic rendering, etc. - over present Netscape. So it can be expected that beta will bing some at least semi-usable browser.
  • The mozilla builds I have been playing with are still nowhere near stable enough to approach a full release, even if the code is labelled "beta".

    Yep, I'm afraid I have to agree here. I've been using M14 as my primary browser recently, and although it's far, far better than the previous versions I'd looked at (M10/M11), it's still not at the point where I'd say it was ready for public release, even as a beta. It still crashes occasionally, without warning, and comletely unreproducably (this is on Win32, admittedly :-) Still, it's showing a lot of promise. I just hope AOL/NSCP know what they're letting themselves in for with a beta release of this quality. The MS-sympathetic parts of the press are going to give them a really hard time unless things rapidly improve over the next month.

  • If I remember correctly, Gecko is the new HTML rendering engine of Mozilla/Netscape 6 (wait a minute... but in that case, what was Seamonkey? Oh well, gone to http://www.mozilla.org to read the FAQ...).

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The Mozilla project so far has produced more hype than code, and what code there is is buggy, unstable and nowhere near usable.

    No, it's alpha quality -- and soon beta.

    I agree, there is a lot of hype. Then again Mozilla is/will be the first browser with full support for the latest W3C specifications. Mozilla is/will be fast compared to the majority of other browsers. So there is hype. But there is also code.

    When this beta comes out, thousands will rush to download and install it, only to switch back to their old browser a few days later as they get frustrated with the slow performance and inevitable crashes. It's a crying shame as otherwise it looks like a good browser - maybe the next attempt will get it right. And as much as we all hate Microsoft, at least Internet Explorer works and is compliant with all but the latest W3C standards.

    I doubt I'll bother with this release, but I'm looking foward to the day when we see a great browser for Linux which delivers performance rather than hype. Thank you.

    If you are looking for a Linux browser, then don't mention MSIE. Face it.. at least Mozilla *runs* on Linux. Perhaps Mozilla will not be the best browser for the Windows platform soon, but please name one browser for Linux that is better than Mozilla (other than Lynx or w3m) and I'll be happy to give it a try.

    By the way, it's terribly immature to bitch about someone's code, especially when they offer you to improve it. If you seriously have issues with Mozilla, go to Bugzilla [mozilla.org] and file some bug reports. I did, and got very neat responses as well as bugfixes.

    Please *do* bother with this release, it will improve the next.

  • I'd have to disagree. I think its quite stable. It needs a lot of work though, as do most beta projects. The two main things that niggle me is the huge memory footprint (although I realise this is likely to drop when debug stuff is removed) and the lack of browser only binaries. If there *was* a browser only I probably would have switched by now. But, the mozilla guys are doing well, and I'll be first in line for the beta relase.

    Now weary traveller, rest your head. For just like me, you're utterly dead.
  • [Sound of loud guffaws]
    Soon? Soon?
    [Sound of loud guffaws]

    Opera for Linux is still early alpha; it doesn't even support animated gifs yet.
    Steven E. Ehrbar
  • There's an important point here which I don't think any of the other follow-ups have picked up on: cross platform user interfaces are hard.

    Its not trivial, as many people seem to believe, to "just go down to the native widgets". While the widget sets on different platforms are similar, they differ significantly in many ways, and some (notably Motif) are very limited. This is precisely what the Java AWT attempted, and as we've seen, user interfaces produced this way are limited, dull, and generally clunky to use.

    This is exactly why the original Netscape went for completely separate user interface code for every platform. The trouble with that, of course, is that n separate user interfaces are hard to maintain, and inevitably functionality starts to drift into the UI code.

    The option Mozilla has adopted - and Swing, most Smalltalk implementations, and almost every other attempt to create X-platform UI have also ended up with - is to draw the user interface in some way completely independant of the platform. Mozilla is particularly interesting in using web-like technologies to do it.

    Of course, there is still a problem. People who are especially fond of their native UI get offended (surprised there haven't been any 'it's not like a Mac' posts yet), and its arguably less performant, though I don't see how that can be. If Gecko is fast, surely XPFE is fast too ?
  • how many more times can you mention "revolutionary" or "next generation" in a press release? The only feature I really want is stability. All those new features sound cool and I really like the look and feel of mozilla, but all of that is not as important as stability. After all, I'd like to use the application on a daily basis and not just drool about the cool features...
  • Go and download a nightly build and give it a try. If it crashes or has annoying bugs, report them and download a new one a few days later.

    It does crash, but you now have to work at it. I'm doing about 1/2 my browsing with Mozilla now, which I'd say is a pretty significant benchmark. Interesting thing: I've run across about 5-6 sites that you *need* Mozilla for (any page ending with .xml for example). I guess there's going to be a lot more of that as time goes by :-)

    Mozilla is quite a bit smaller than Netscape 7 and it now loads faster, though not yet nearly as fast as Konqueror or Opera.)

    I can post to Slashdot with reasonable confidence I won't lose my text :-) and that's a big improvement - though I still wouldn't try anything too fancy when I've got a form up (e.g., hitting back and forward and expecting to still have your field contents intact.)

    There are minor formatting problems that vary a lot from build to build. I downloaded my first skin yesterday (aphrodite - looks good). Memory usage has improved a lot, but it's still got a ways to go. The bugs are down to a short enough list that it's worth keeping track of them and sending them in.

    I can remember when the browser's scrolling had a one second delay and the whole UI was sticky. Now it's really fast at least on Win32.

    It's fast on Linux too.

    I'm absolutely positive that Mozilla will be a success.

    There's no question about that. I also have a feeling that the serious hacking on Mozilla is only going to start after Netscape 6 forks off officially. Then I think you'll see a lot more latitude for *real* changes and improvements to the user interface - beyond just skins and standards - because that narrow focus on just getting the thing out the door will be gone, and the netscape team won't be so protective about the feature set (I hope I hope I hope).
  • Yes, I think Mozilla is doing a lot of things right. It might simply become a PR problem if they call something "beta" that really isn't.

    Of course, the Gecko layout engine seems much more stable than the rest, so maybe Netscape 6 will actually just use that. (Whatever happened to Gecko embeddings in Tk, GTK, and other toolkits?)

  • M14 is impressive, but I think it's still quite far away from being mature enough for a consumer release, even a beta. If they release too early, that could further damage the reputation of open source.
  • I have been running M14 under windows and it does plugins as well as better HTML 4.0 support. The onmouseover's in my div's actually work like they should. I think it will be a really good browser. I am looking forward to the beta. I have noticed one problem though. I visit this web site and even though I have the plugins and can use them elsewhere the plugin detection that they use makes it impossilbe to view any of the movies on there site. They do a plugin detection using ActiveX and see what plugins you have and if yo have the real audio and windows media then it picks the better of the two. I wish they would not do stuff like that. Let me worry about weather I have the plugin or not. There is really no need to go through that level of detection on the internet. Some OS'es have the plugins but not the active x controls and thus cannot view the material. see http://nbci.com

    send flames > /dev/null

  • It sounds like you're saying that the HTML parser and ECMAscript parser are all one piece, rather than separate components. Is this the case? Can web pages under Mozilla use scripting languages other than ECMAscript (e.g., Perl or Python), like under Internet Explorer, or would they need a plug-in?

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • 1. When the debugging code is taken out, will it run faster/suck less memory, etc?

    Well, it's hardly likely to run slower and use more memory, is it?

    2. Are they going to get rid of the ugly, glitzy and only semi-functional interface in favor of, say, something with a working multi-level back button, drop-down address list and non-rounded menus?

    The current UI is really just a test one. Two new ones have already been written in XUL: see ChromeZone [mozillazine.org].

    3. Is the sidebar going away, please?

    View | Sidebar. Magic.

    Gerv
  • The skinnability of Mozilla is not a feature they threw in because "it's cool", the cross-platform skinning engine is in fact Gecko!

    You see, when writing a cross-platform application, especially as big as Mozilla, running on som many platforms, you'll want, nay need, to reduce the platform dependent code to an absolute minimum. Given the incredibly cool, fast, standard compliant, cross-platform rederer that Gecko is, they thought: "Why not use it to render the UI as well?" So they came up with XUL (eXtensible User interface Language), which is just an XML DTD, and some suitable CSS to display the whole lot. (Just browse the chrome/ subdirectory of your mozilla installation to see for yourself)

    And, while the current Mozilla has the same skin for all platforms, i'd expect Netscape to ship the final versions with a MacOS skin for the Mac version, a Windows skin for the Windows version, etc... It's just a matter of replacing the CSS.

    As to websites re-skinning your browser, i've seen it mentioned by some Mozilla developer (and would be shocked see anything else), that it'd be a pref option (never, prompt, always; and in prompt mode, it'd have an "always/never for this site" option) And someone could probably write a plugin that checks for a skin with the same name as your GTK/windowmanager theme and skins mozilla accordingly (this already exists for xmms/enlightenment, IIRC).

    So it's not just the ultimate fluff, Mozilla is just partially written "in itself" for portability/cross-platform reasons.

  • Well, when you try to shoehorn a reference where it doesn't fit, SOMETHING'S got to give!
  • > I wish it would behave like other GTK program so I could give one theme and it would cooperate with me so theme writers don't have to port their themes twenty times after they change something

    Yes, we need a standard for themes (XML?), so that any cooperative themable "software device" could read your .themerc and use whatever parts applied to it.

    --
  • > If you had, you'd know that mozilla is fully compliant with CSS1 and html. CSS2 compliancy is partial

    No problem, just run DeCSS and any residual CSS issues will just go away.

    --
  • Sorry, I'm not an expert. Probably you can plug them in if you write some wrapper for it.
  • mozilla is the entire browser (mail, news, GUI, browser). Gecko is the component that does the actual browsing (displaying HTML, executing javascripts etc.). The html rendering component can be embedded in other environments, even IE would be no problem.
  • Please. VBScript?

    I understand your frustration with Netscape not working with CSS and the newer HTML standards out there, but it is coming. If you stick to accepted standards you won't be locking your clients in for 4 or 5 years. They can use IE for now, then switch to Netscape/Mozilla or Opera or whatever else might be down the road when it becomes available.

    However, I have absolutely no sympathy for you not wanting to learn and use JavaScript instead of VBScript. It never has been nor will be a standard, it was intended to be platform dependent, and has many basic security flaws.

    If you're using a tool like VBScript just to make a quick buck on an application that has a projected lifespan of 4 to 5 years you're simply not being an ethical programmer. The Web will change, browsers will change, OSs will come and go, and if your app needs to last you need to take the time to build it right, work to common standards (even if they're lower) and be honest with your customer about what the Web can and can't do. You need to give them something that actually has a chance to last and still be relevant until the end of its projected lifespan. If they're not willing to listen to and pay for that, upgrade your skills and go somewhere else. Let them sink without your complicity.

  • I actually DO have an SMP-box, which I have
    run most nightly releases since M13 on.
    (dual celeron on BP6)
    It works very well, it's still not
    ready for release, and it isn't even ready
    for beta. However, it WILL be ready for beta
    when it ships as beta.
  • I thought Netscape 5 was coming soon - I guess that got scrapped and we're heading straight to 6? Sorta like the Slackware 4 -> 7 jump...

    The one thing I hate about my netscraper now is that I'll go to type in a URL (say: www.foobar.org), and after I've typed "www.", I hit 'f' and "www.f" all dissapears, so I'm left with oobar.org...

    That and I can't unselect components from the full communicator install (previous versions let me). I refuse to use the NS mail/news clients, since they bungled them so badly - but of course, I can't install anything without everything... bah!
  • I'd like *some*, but not *all* of the crap - for example, I'd like to play with Netscrape's newest HTML composer, but not the mail/news client, or maybe I'd like the news client without the mail client (though they are one big evil piece of $#!% now...). The point is, the custom install *should* have those boxes selectable (as they used to be), or they shouldn't even show them to you at all. What's the point. That, and the newest navigator is a couple of minor versions behind the browser that comes with Communicator 4.72. Some of the bugs are gone (yay!) and some new ones (like the auto-complete bug) are in. If 4.09 or 4.10 was out, I would have d/l that instead, but getting 4.08 again doesn't solve the problems I was having. This did, but I pay for it in wasted drive space and all sorts of extra menu options that I pray I never click on...

    Netscape still bounces my mail to Eudora. I use my Linux box for a lot of things, but I haven't found a mail client yet that's nearly as nice. No configuring needed either (there are some nice features in LoseNT, after all).
  • It's especially good on a page like /. over a slow link. It's one thing at home over a cable modem, but ona dial-up or work link.... slow..... and again... slow for no reason...
  • Shouldn't that be internal versions, though... unless we see it, it shouldn't be numbered... then there's that 5 = Mozilla thing.... don't think that's really right, either. What would we do if Mozilla suddenly was at M20? Revolt! We want the buggy earlier releases!!! or not...
  • I don't have this problem with Netcape on my AIX or Mandrake box, but it does happen on 95,98, and NT (that silly autocompletion thing must be killing me). Of course, it is kind of nice, considering I type 's' and hit return, since it's already filled in slashdot.org. Ayeeeeeeeee only shows a list of things to page down (which could be better at times), but doesn't really complete properly... oh well until it can read my mind, I can only suggest improvements (and try to fix them in Mozilla).
  • True, the 3.x and 4.x versions were close enough that that worked. Version numbering for the sake of version numbering is dumb, but so it the general populous (the same one whose word processor is Windows, and internet provider is Netscape....)
  • That's arrogant. The world must conform to Mozilla? Like that's going to happen. If the next version of Netscape is incompatible with the previous version, no one will want to design pages for it. All existing websites will look stupid in it, so people will not want to use it. "IE displays sites correctly," after all.

    I do report bugs to bugzilla. And the bugs I report include things like "displays table wider than 200 pixels regardless of 'width="200"' being specified." And "Javascript/DHTML do not work, even though same code works in NS 4+ and IE4+." If Mozilla requires a totally different HTML than what currently exists, and what IE and NS use, then screw it.

  • Javascript that works fine in Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x and 5.x flubs on Mozilla. And the layout is wrong, and slow. I'm not trying to be a naysayer, but i do not relish the idea of having to go make all my web sites "Mozilla compatible (TM)".

    Because it's always the webmaster's fault. Even if the browser pokes itself in the eye.


  • Fraid not. If you've taken a look at the site recently, like for instance here [mozilla.org], it has been made pretty clear that M15 of mozilla will be the netscape commercial beta. As for the funky numbering, there are two theories on that floating around: one, posted earlier by Col. Klink, says that Netscape 5 was the origonal OS browser developed prior to Mozilla and Gecko. The other theory says that Netscape is playing the revision jumping game to make it sound like they're keeping up with the Jonses (or in this case, the Gateses). Either way, the NS browser being built is the one on Mozilla.org. It'll be given a lot of polishing and (hopefully) a lot more bug fixes before it gets out of the back room, but it will still be Mozilla. The basis for the branding, integrated AOL IM, and everything else is already in there, either visible in M14 or lurking in the code.
  • Okay, at least on Win32, Mozilla is finally running about as stable and lo-mem as IE5. It crashes much less and is actually somewhat fast.

    I have to respectfully disagree there, unless the nightly builds have somehow made tremendous stability progress since M14. I bit the bullet and downloaded at M14, since I'd heard so many good things about Mozilla on /., and I just have to say that y'all must really really be suffering with the atrocious state of web browsing under Linux to think that Mozilla is as good as many of you make it out to be. (Not to mention the fact that no one disputs that the Win32 version is the most stable! I can't imagine Mozilla on Linux. Well, ok, maybe I can--it's probably something like Netscape in Unix...)

    M14 is an impressive achievement, and contains many thoughtful, well implemented ideas that will really improve the browsing experience if they're contained in a stable framework. In my experience (albeit limited and on only one, slightly idiosyncratic, machine), M14 was nowhere near as stable as IE5. Indeed, I wouldn't even consider comparing the stability of the two programs.

    In about an hour of playing around with M14, I managed to crash it no less than 6 times, not including multiplicities when I was testing to see if my crashes were reproducible. (One, involving both an incorrect rendering and a hard crash on the slashdot home page, was reproducible under several different circumstances. Yes, I reported it, and although it's an awesome system, it must be said that bugzilla is very intimidating for first-time users.) I managed on two occasions to magically lose my back arrow, and despite the much-touted new rendering engine, I ran into several rendering errors. (No, they were not caused by incompatible pages; Mozilla would incorrectly render the pages inconsistently.)

    Furthermore, the little autofeedback-on-crash tool that's supposed to pop up with every crash never worked; it froze (recoverable through ctrl-alt-delete) every time. Dude, when even your crash-reporting tool always crashes, you've got problems.

    That is to say, you're not at the beta level yet.

    Now, maybe I'm just spoiled because the only other public beta I've really participated in has been the very high-quality Q3:Arena tests. On the other hand, no, I'm not. Maybe those of you who've had to make do with Netscape for Unix don't realize this, but browsers--in sharp contrast to, say, Q3:Arena--are designed (or ought to be) to run full-time, in multiple instances, with complete stability and low overhead. IE5 is very certainly not perfect in these respects (low overhead especially), but it does an immeasurably better job of this than Mozilla appears capable of. It loads up very quickly (yeah, that's just because it loads up with the OS...but with the way I use my computer (and indeed, with the way most people with persistant net connections--an increasing percentage of the populace--use their computers), that's a much better way of doing things, and I'd say Mozilla has close to no chance of capturing my desktop if it requires the long wait and splash screen to start-up. I mean, of course I could just stick a copy of Mozilla in my StartUp directory, but...eh, whatever.)

    Back to IE: it's amazingly modularized, and works quite well in that capacity. Case in point, GuruNet (or Flyswat), two little programs that sit in your taskbar and will find definitions, synonyms, and other information for any word in any program that you Alt-click on. Both use a componentized version of IE, and both run transparently without affecting stability or sucking up too terribly much memory (although that could stand to be improved). Examples like this abound.

    And finally, it's quite stable. Yes, IE5 crashes from time to time, sometimes taking down the whole OS. In Win98. However, IE5 is still running full-time in Win2000, which has remarkable stability. (From what I've heard, it's at least on par with KDE or Gnome on Linux, much more so if you run Linux Netscape. Now, sure, a Win2000 reboot is worse than just restarting KDE or Gnome, if your computer is acting as a server or something...but then you shouldn't be using it as a desktop anyways.) In Win2000, you can spawn 5 copies of IE, have a couple IE-based components running in the background, and browse to your heart's content without much risk of crashing. Mozilla is very very far from that, to say the least.

    Finally, IE5 is faster. Yeah, there's still debugging code in Mozilla, and optimizations need to be made, but IE5 is much much faster. Don't believe me, then take your web connection out of the equation: check how much faster IE5 renders pages out of the cache. Easily an order of magnitude.

    And finally, the back button in Mozilla still doesn't work. How on earth Netscape users manage to browse /., when they're always returned back the top of an article everytime they click a link in the comments or read responses below their threshold, is a mystery to me. This is beyond inexcusible. I'm not even sure if it isn't beyond laughable. Perhaps pathetic is word I'm looking for. I know that this is a bug they've identified and plan on fixing, but I really hope for their sake that it's a showstopper before they declare Mozilla beta.

    Uch, so I've ranted for quite some time now, but the point is, Mozilla is going to be most people's first taste of open-source. (Well, except for all the things they use every day they surf the internet but don't realize, like Apache, Sendmail, Perl, BSD/Linux, etc. Their first taste of open-source on their own machines, say.) If it's declared beta in anywhere near its current state (much less *released* in anything resembling its current state), it will probably be their last for some time. Netscape/AOL/Mozilla/whoever really shouldn't rush this, and the open source community developing Mozilla really ought to realize just how much better the competition really is.
  • "4. When will the widgets ever look like they're supposed to?"

    I'm working on this right now. New widgets designed in XBL have come online recently and we just need to convert the front end to use them (e.g. titledbutton is being replaced by button, which looks like the examples on that page). Quirks aside, the new widgets are kicking ass. "Download a nightly build" if you want to see some of the conversion that has been done ;)

    -Ben Goodger
    FE Geek, Netscape.
  • Tha isn't even just an inconvenience, or sloppy code, it's a freaking nightmare.

    If you're trying to do any real session tracking, for things like testing, where students are only allowed to see a question once, the resizing issue is HUGE.

    It isn't necessary, and creates some major issues for web developers. It's high time that SOMEONE over there figured this out and figured out how to resize a freaking window properly.
  • Actually, I thought that the credo was "early and often." :) Marketing or no marketing, getting this (highly usable) alpha into the hands of more people, *MORE TESTERS*, is definitely a Good Thing (tm). If the use a press release to flush out a few thousand more beta testers, more power to them. I've been using the latest Mozilla since it was released and it's nice enough now, destined for greatness certainly. It already runs faster than IE does in a lot of respects. When Navigator 6.0 hits the streets, it'll be a mofo :) Chris
  • Unless something changes radically in the next 25 days, the only way they could call it a beta is if the final release is designated omega ;)

    Personal experience: I've attempted to use various incarnations of the milestone builds on Solaris, Irix, and Linux. The Solaris build has died every time I've attempted to run it. I think I could probably get the Irix build running except for the latest standard GTK libs I built don't have the same soname as the ones the milestone is built against (!). I did finally manage to get M14 running on Linux. Try running HTML 4.0 with CSS1/CSS2 through it sometime though - bet you don't get 5 pages through it before it dies. Seems to me that the browser is about as stable as group I elements in water ;)

    I do have to admit though that for the most part M14 did what I expected it to; it is still lacking in some of the standards areas but in that respect it is way ahead of IE5.

  • I though some of the more recent milestone builds (circa 12 & 13) were a little slow, certainly slower than IE5, that was until I tried a build that had the message logging functions removed (these are presumably testing tools to help catch bugs etc and will not be standard in the production release) WOW! It was fast, certainly faster than IE5. As for crashes I've never had it crash on me (unless you count the times the imbedded activeX gecko control has crashed in the program I've been writing). It isn't my primary web browser (yet) but I have used it a fair bit. I can't wait for the beta release.
  • kWhen kis kde kgoing ktokstop kputting "k" kin kfront kof keverything ? kMaybe kI kwould ktry KDE kout kif ksuch kwas knot kthe kase. kEven kMicros~1 kdoesn't kuse ksuch kstupid kterminology. kI *ksuspect* kthat kthe khead kdeveloper's kname kstarts kwith ka "k"
  • If you dont believe me I cant stand the purdies just go to my website lol. About as plain as they come :-)

  • Comments about the quality of linux desktops and Real player are in no way out of line.

    Being impartial has little to do with trolling.

  • Slashdot must be one of the more frequently tested sites with Mozilla.

    And if you get the "Aphrodite" skin, you'll get slashdot as one of the default sites on your personal task bar...

    ;-)

  • Mozilla looks horrible.
    They'd better start working on some nice themes, because the default looks are crap. And so tells every friend I show Mozilla. I know that it's cute and looks like Netscape's portal, but it's just not pretty.

    I downloaded and installed M14 last week (decided to put my money where my mouth is). &nbsp Go here [mozillazine.org] to pick up a new GUI for your Mozilla. &nbsp This is one of the new features with this browser - changeable "skins". &nbsp There are only 2 out there right now and I'm using the one called "Aphrodite" (which is alot less "loud" then the "Fruity gum"), but this is what supposedly makes Mozilla different from the rest - modular enough to change your interface! &nbsp More info on this can be found at Mozillazine [mozillazine.org].

  • The problem with Mozilla... (Score:3)

    by Millennium ( 2451 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:58AM (#1190028)
    Gecko rules. It is, hands down, the best browsing engine I've ever seen. It's fast, tiny, and standards-compliant like you wouldn't believe. I have little doubt that within a few years, most people will probably be using Gecko in some form or another.

    But I doubt it will be because they're using Mozilla. Or Netscape Communicator/Navigator/whatever. Mozilla started out as a good idea. But they took the idea too far, and got way too much of a case of featureitis. The main culprit: the skinnable GUI.

    Skins are Good Things, mind you. If they're used properly; that is, on simple GUI's. Take MP3 players, for example. What can you do with an MP3 player? Let's see... play, pause, fast-forward, rewind... maybe a couple sound-related options. But all in all, not a complex thing, and as long as you make the buttons identifiable pretty much any interface will work well.

    But skins don't scale. Wrap a skin around something as complex as a Web browser and you start having some serious issues. Consider:
    • Consistency. MP3 players are one thing. But if start up something as big as a Web browser on MacOS, I want it to look like a Mac app. If I start it on Windows, I want it to look like Windows. And if I start it in Gnome, I want it to look like my other Gnome apps. While skins can provide a partial solution, there's no practical way to make it follow the changes I make (consider GTK themes to be a prime example; I can change my GTK theme to BlueSteel and get a BlueSteel Mozilla skin, but if I change the GTK theme my Mozilla skin won't change with it).
    • Performance. Gecko is blindingly fast, but the rest of Mozilla is slow. I can launch Netscape 3.0 faster on a P90 than I can launch Mozilla on a G3/300, and I've timed this before so I know what I'm talking about. This isn't as much of a problem with small GUI's, but again the problem is one of scale; stick it on a Web browser and the issues that were minor on a small GUI will come back to bite you hard.
    • Interface control. This one's actually unique to Mozilla, because of another nice little feature they added: Websites can change a user's skin. I'll pass. The possibilities of exploits notwithstanding, once I have a skin I like I'd rather keep it that way.
    It's a pity. Mozilla could have been The Next Big Thing, even with the cross-platform GUI libs (which could still have gone down to OS-native widgets). But then they had to go and build in the ultimate fluff: a cross-platform skinning engine, and then they had to go and build it in before the rest of the product was even ready. That was their one mistake, and I believe it may well be a fatal one. I have nothing but respect for the Mozilla team; they've made a fine program given the specs. But ultimately, I think Mozilla will be treated only as a proof-of-concept. People will still use Gecko, of course. But it'll be embedded into OS-native browsers for that task. Gnome users will have it in Nautilus (and who knows? maybe the KDE folks will put it into the next Konqueror). NeoPlanet will take it on Windoze. And for MacOS? I don't know. NeoPlanet might do it again; there are rumors that they'll be porting and using the Mozilla engine. If not, there's always the WebThing project.

    It's a shame, but it proves the old adage: a jack-of-all-trades is master of none. Nonetheless, I'll probably use Netscape until something better that uses Gecko comes along.

  • Why no Java? (Score:3)

    by eGabriel ( 5707 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @10:26AM (#1190029)
    The OJI, the necessary portion to do a Java plugin, is available at Blackdown. It works with
    Netscape... the same technology works with the Windows version of Mozilla, so why no Java on Linux Mozilla?

    Not that I'd cry if the world forgot about Java applets. The VisualWorks smalltalk plugin for Linux sounds very interesting.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:37AM (#1190030)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Almost there.. (Score:3)

    by Rob Kaper ( 5960 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:20AM (#1190031) Homepage
    Looks like Mozilla is almost there, although it will take a long time to go from beta to final.

    I'm using the nightly builds quite often and although there has been a lot of progress the last months, Mozilla would not yet be accepted as browser by the masses.

    A few of the issues:

    Mozilla looks horrible.
    They'd better start working on some nice themes, because the default looks are crap. And so tells every friend I show Mozilla. I know that it's cute and looks like Netscape's portal, but it's just not pretty.

    Mozilla crashes too often.
    Don't let the Beta1 progress list [mozilla.org] fool you: these are only release-stopping bugs. There *are* tons of other serious ones that need to be addressed first.

    Mozilla is not MSIE.
    Harsh as it is, this *is* a problem. Even if Mozilla is better than MSIE, a lot of users will not even try it. MSIE does it's job good enough and the general public doesn't care about ethics (yet).

    And there's probably even more...

    But, Mozilla is open source so we can all help and address these issues. Mozilla is very cross-platform. Mozilla might/should/will? replace MSIE as browser component for AOL and gain instant market share. Other manufacturers can also ship Mozilla or even plain Gecko as browser component without paying a Microsoft fee.

    Mozilla will do just fine. Thanks, developers.

  • And what are you doing about it? (Score:3)

    by Ian Schmidt ( 6899 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @09:22AM (#1190032)
    Have you reported reproducable bugs on BugZilla? (I have, they were fixed, it was neat). Have you downloaded the source and submitted patches? Sitting and whining works great for closed source (where there's not much you can do anyway), but it's worse than useless for open source software. The source is out there, the bug database is wide open, get on with it.

  • This is not insightful (Score:3)

    by GauteL ( 29207 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:40AM (#1190033)
    You have obviously not tried any of the
    later nightly releases. It is already
    on par with Netscape 4.72 when it comes to
    stability, and it isn't even beta yet.
    It is _very_ usable, and you somehow imply that
    Mozilla/netscape 6.0 won't comply with the standards.
    This is just plain wrong.
    AND... this is an announcement of a "beta".
    If you do truly mission-critical stuff, you
    would never use a beta.
    The whole concept of beta, means not finished.
    It is allowed to contain bugs.
    However... beta means a very usable, if not
    incredible stable release, and Netscape 4.72
    is neither, so Netscape 6.0 beta would probably
    be A LOT better for us Linuxusers.
    When it comes to windowsusers:
    stick with your IE 5.x for now, but when Netscape
    6.0 is finished, upgrade.
    The standars-complience will be better, and the
    browser faster and lighter.

    I appreciate your "cold shower" kind of thinking,
    but it just goes to far, and ends up being something that could have come out of Microsoft.

    I agree that the hype has been great, but the
    progress made by the mozilla team is incredible.
    The only thing that keeps Netscape 4.72 on my
    harddrive right now, is that Mozilla still doesn't
    support java. It should be included well before
    release though.

  • Mozilla does not equal Gecko (Score:3)

    by 1millionmhz ( 34257 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:30AM (#1190034) Homepage

    This is complete speculation, but I think it is a plausible scenario.

    Navigator 6 will contain the Gecko layout engine developed by Mozilla, but it will not be the Mozilla browser. I'm assuming that AOL/Netscape has been working on a parallel browser effort, using some Mozilla components. Navigator 6 is supposed to contain an integrated AOL Instant Messenger and porobably some other features that AOL thinks will give it the leg up on IE5 (aside from a bigger version number!).

    Navigator 5 is most likely the version number for the plain-vanilla Mozilla browser without the bells and whistles. Ultimately, this is a dead project since only a minority (mainly Slashdot readers) would choose the plain version over the tricked-out Navigator 6...

  • Netscape != Mozilla (Score:3)

    by battery841 ( 34855 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @01:25PM (#1190035) Homepage
    I would like to make the comment that Netscape 6 is going beta in 25 days, not Mozilla. They are similar, but aren't the same. Mozilla still has a while to go before it hits beta (my guess). It's Netscape, not Mozilla!!! Anyone can release anything based on Mozilla and call it what they want, thus the case with Netscape.

  • Re:The problem with Mozilla... (Score:3)

    by Spasemunki ( 63473 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @11:02AM (#1190036) Homepage
    I think the deal with the skinning engine came in with attempts by AOL/Netscape to make the mozilla project more appealing to the rest of corporate America. If you recall the article [slashdot.org] that came out when Mozilla was declared to be Netscape 6, it was mentioned that corporate branding was going to be a Mozilla option- you know, an IBM skinned browser, or a Bank Boston browser for paying monthly fees on your checking account online. If the skin engine is the source of as much of Mozilla's trouble as you say, then the blame lands in the lap of the marketing department for swapping corporate appeal for utility.

  • Mozilla left native widgets because... (Score:3)

    by z4ce ( 67861 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @10:26AM (#1190037)
    Native widgets were not flexible enough for CSS1/2. They had to write their own widget, and why keep the native libraries for what? Scrolling? It's clearly better in the long run to just eat the development time, and write your own platform indepedent widget rather than keep 4 native widgets, while implementing your own. The skinnablity of Mozilla wasn't probaly that difficult to add concidering they had to write their own widget within specifications anyway.

  • *sigh* (Score:3)

    by jallen02 ( 124384 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @09:07AM (#1190038) Homepage Journal
    :-( This hurts.

    I am doing some contract work just developing an intranet. FreeBSD/Apache/Php4/PostgreSQL For the server platform. (I need triggers MySQL people!)

    My heartache comes in when I have to select a client. You see there is not much of a choice honestly. I can pick Netscape 4.x Which has somewhat lacking support for a LOT of goodies I like to use. Just standard CSS/DHTML/HTML4.0 that it cant even handle. And on the scripting side VBScript seems to play the nicest out of all scripting languages. It stops me from having to change coding mindframes when im doing VB/Delphi work.

    The point is If you pick something IE4 is the way to go. Ive encountered some *nasty* problems with IE 4 and 5 and some Nasty problems with NS 4.x. Im at a rock and a hard place because they will be using this app for the next 4 to 5 years locking them into an investment with IE. What can I do I need to make money and im not gonna sacrifice some useability features AND time coding to make it work with Netscape I refuse.

    I think this is happening a whole lot in RAD application development projects. It also locks people inevtiably into a windows platform when you throw ActiveX and stuff closer tied to windows.

    I think I would jump on the Mozilla 6 band wagon Immediately if they could really put up some stable competition. But Ive used it and its crap. I tried to moderate on /. and it just died from all the select objects that loaded on the page.

    *sigh* Im watching some fairly good dreams become just that ,dreams as Mozilla desperately hacks a last attempt at a good browser?

    Jeremy

  • Re:So where is Netscrape 5? (Score:4)

    by Col. Klink (retired) ( 11632 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:36AM (#1190039)
    > I thought Netscape 5 was coming soon

    Netscape 5 was out a *long* time ago. It was the original Open Source Netscape that went to mozilla.org. They never released it. They simply scrapped it and started from scratch with Gecko.

    Note that this was all covered just over a month ago:

    http://slashdot.org/articles/00/02/12/0827237.shtm l

    The only news is the specific release date. In February, they simply said that they would launch it in the "Spring". Being that today is Spring, it's nice of them to give a specific time frame now.

  • Important Note for Mac Users (Score:4)

    by Gerv ( 15179 ) <gerv@@@gerv...net> on Monday March 20, 2000 @12:39PM (#1190040) Homepage
    If you want to help, and own a Mac, mozilla.org could really do with your services testing each daily build. This is vital, as each build must be checked for basic functionality before the tree can reopen so people can go on working. We have enough Linux and Windows people, but no Mac people. This means that some days, the reopening of the tree is delayed an hour or more while someone is found from inside Netscape.

    So, if you have a Mac and the spare time (under an hour, if all goes well), please come to irc.mozilla.org at 8am PST (ish), 4pm GMT in channel #smoketest.

    Gerv

  • I am the GateKeeper (Score:4)

    by Phizzy ( 56929 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:09AM (#1190041)
    I am the KeyMaster!

    XUL!!!

    just couldn't resist...

    //Phizzy

  • Article Tone (Score:4)

    by Life Blood ( 100124 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:47AM (#1190042) Homepage

    Is it just me or did that article sound like a press release straight from netscape with no effort put in to remove the mindless netscape drivel in order to create a balanced article? Whats Next?

    Yahoo Reports

    Microsoft Corp has announced that Bill Gates has ascended to the right hand of the God today. This ascendence took place at the Gazeebo of the Rock located in the heart of Microsoft's Redmond campus. Microsoft urges its shareholders not worry about the loss of the chairman since he will reportedly descend from heaven with the divine inspiration for all future MS products. First among these will be IE 6.0 which, in a stunning announcement from MS, is going to be released to beta testers in 24 days.

    CEO Steve Ballmer replied to all questions about the new product at a press conference saying, "IE6 will be a new paradigm in web browsers. It will be a cadillac of browsers, large and roomy with many features." When asked about some of these magnificent features Ballmer replied by saying, "Ummm... well... It has a wonderful soothing blue screen which appears at regular intervals to calm the user and prevent them from over-working themselves. We will also be including that cute paperclip into IE because everyone loves it so much."

    Confirmation of divine intervention in Microsoft's product line was made by Pope John Paul II as he stood on a pile of unrelated money. The Pope was reported as saying "Direct divine intervention is the only thing that could give Microsoft high quality products." The pope then returned to writing his next sermon on his Jesux workstation.

    Source: Microsoft Corporation

  • MSIE: Standards compliant? (Score:5)

    by Ian Schmidt ( 6899 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @09:29AM (#1190043)
    Internet Explorer works and is compliant with all but the latest W3C standards

    Forgot to mention this in my first reply :)

    Here's what happens in the real world when browsers collide in W3C standards testing:

    Click here for test results [harvard.edu]

    As you can see, last September's version of Mozilla completely trounces MSIE 5 (and Opera, and Navigator 4.7, not that that's hard).

    Apologies in advance to the page owner if they get Slashdotted :-)

  • Mozilla past, present and future (Score:5)

    by robinjo ( 15698 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @12:09PM (#1190044)

    Many people have pointed out how M14 is unstable and how there's still so many bugs in Mozilla. As I've been testing many milestones and nightly builds, I'd like to tell a few things about how Mozilla has developed.

    First of all. Don't run that M14 milestone any more. Go and download a nightly build and give it a try. If it crashes or has annoying bugs, report them and download a new one a few days later. Some builds are really keepers. They are nice and stable. Some builds may have more bugs.

    There's also been lots of improvements in Mozilla. M12 or M13 choke on Slashdot. Incremental table rendering was a nightmare. A long Slashdot page could take minutes. But in the beginning of this year Netscape got it right. Slashdot is loading nicely and most pages I often visit work perfectly. Actually I use Mozilla way more than Netscape 4 already.

    Someone also got moderated to 5 - insightful for bashing Mozilla's skins. It's pretty weird as he really didn't give any hard facs. It was just opinions. Well Mozilla is really skinnable. You can make Mozilla act and look like whatever you want. And it's not only about looks, it's also about functionality. And the most important is that thanks to skins Mozilla is really cross platform. The bonus is that we don't have to wait for Linux ports or curse the differences between platforms. Mozilla will really be the same on Win32, Linux, Mac, BSD, you name it. And when there's tens of different skins for Mozilla after a year, there should be absolutely no reason not to like skins.

    Memory footprint and speed? The newsgroups are slow and Mozilla still eats a bit too memory. But I can remember when the browser's scrolling had a one second delay and the whole UI was sticky. Now it's really fast at least on Win32. So what makes you think that those slow parts won't be fixed?

    I'm absolutely positive that Mozilla will be a success.

  • Re:PLEASE stop the hype (Score:5)

    by ywwg ( 20925 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:52AM (#1190045) Homepage
    It's quite obvious you haven't tried any of the nightly builds [mozilla.org] or the milestone releases [mozilla.org]. If you had, you'd know that mozilla is fully compliant with CSS1 and html. CSS2 compliancy is partial, but it's better than microsoft's incorrect implimentation.

    As for "slow performance," optimization is at the bottom of the list, behind getting things feature-complete and getting to zarro boogs. Besides, mozilla _is_ fast. But you haven't tried it, remember?

    As for "inevitable crashes," I dare you to state that IE never crashes. I also dare you to say that _beta_ software never crashes. Besides, mozilla doesn't crash that much. But you haven't tried it.

    As for bugs, there is a massive public database [mozilla.org]that anyone can access to report bugs. Several of the bugs I have reported have been fixed, and several more are being worked on. Again, this is old hat to mozilla regulars... but you haven't tried it.

    Hype is one thing, but in this case there are avenues to decide for yourself exactly what the product is like.

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