Firefox 3 In Alpha 366
illeism writes to note that, a mere six weeks after the launch of Firefox 2, Firefox 3 is now available in alpha. CNet reports that it is currently recommended only for software developers and testers. The big change is the upgraded Gecko rendering engine (the UI is unchanged from version 2). From the CNet article: "Firefox 3 will include some significant changes. It uses version 1.9 of the Gecko rendering engine — which itself hasn't been released yet but which includes the Cairo graphics layer. Gecko 1.9 has been in development since before the release of Firefox 2, and it provides vector-based rendering on all platforms. As the Gecko 1.9 road map explains, Cairo will 'bring modern, hardware-accelerated 2D-graphics capabilities to the whole of the Web without requiring proprietary plug-ins or rendering obsolete the broad and rich set of Web-authoring techniques developed over the past decade.'"
It's not really a Firefox alpha (Score:5, Informative)
Development has been going on the trunk since the Gecko 1.8 was branched (sometime in 2005) - Gecko 1.8 was the basis of Firefox 2 and 1.5. So there's a lot of backend work been going on that's not been tested by a wider audience. While lots of frontend changes were made on the branch for Firefox 2, most of the backend work was restricted to the trunk.
Future alphas and betas will have more UI changes in them so can more accurately be called Firefox alphas.
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Besides, users don't care (or even know, for the most part) *where* changes are made, they just care that their experience is better or at least no worse. In that respect, this is a Firefox alpha as much as it is a Gecko one, and your comment is simply incorrect, as IE7 introduced a large number of very visible changes (ie th
Front End? Hardly (Score:3, Insightful)
The rendering engine was updated for efficiency and standards compliance (which is much better now, if still not yet where you'd like it to be)
Things like anti-phishing, new security models, and a new plug-in interface are features that 'go down to the metal'
IE7 was very substantial. I'm writing this on FF2.0 and I have to say: The IE7 upgrade was far more successful than FF2. I still believe that Firefox is a better browser over all, but not by very
Re:Front End? Hardly (Score:5, Informative)
Go into about:config, change browser.tabs.closeButtons to 3.
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If an extension is causing your browser to crash then why even bother with it. I get on fine without any extensions apart from adblock, noscript, a download status bar, IE-Tab(which I have disabled as I kept clicking on it by mistake since it's about 10 pixels out from where it was in 1.5) and FireFTP (which I have never used). You could probably find another extension that does the same thing as your broken one anyway,
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The fact that they made the wheel also be the middle mouse button is clever, but in no way required. There are mice available that seperate the functions.
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This is the one that absolutely drives me crazy. I'm a heavy tab user, loading a lot of stuff into background tabs while I work in the foreground tab. Every time I go to open a page in the background I have to WAIT on a tab that I'm not even looking at. Gee, I thought the whole point of loading something in the background was so that it wouldn't interfere with
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Quick Find (Score:5, Informative)
/* Use the old-style / and ' QuickFind Bar behaviour */
#FindToolbar > * {display:-moz-box}
Re:Front End? Hardly (Score:5, Insightful)
will not run.. (Score:2, Informative)
That's nothing. IE7 doesn't even work on Windows 2000!
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When you boil it right down, anyone using one of the older versions of Windows (and I count 2000 in this, as MS doesn't support it anymore) is going to have to face up to the fact that technology advances, software changes, and no matter how much they love their old machine/OS, they're going to get left behind. Backwards compatibility leads to backwards thinking.
Re:will not run.. (Score:4, Interesting)
> to get left behind.
I don't love my old OS, but I have to use it (sometimes) at work because it's the OS that deployed apps use. No point in retesting huge apps on different OS's just to get a new browser. It doesn't bother me - I now use Firefox on those machines anyway. It seems a little odd, though. Aren't browsers just displaying text and graphics, and running scripts? (I don't include plugins such as Flash and Qtime as the run as seperate executable code invoked by the browser).
> Backwards compatibility leads to backwards thinking.
Hmm. You could also write "Pointlessly adopting new technology leads to the need for frequent bug fixes and faster CPUs".
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> that
Because it's the machine I use to support and maintain the code? Why do you think I'm doing it?
> why the hell would you do it so much that you're complaining that Firefox 3 isn't going to support your system?
Where did I complain that FireFox3 isn't going to run on Windows 2000?
> Sounds like your workplace has issues.
Sounds like you have problems with basic Eng
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It depends on the stage of development. Knowing that you'll have to maintain backward compatibility leads to forward thinking - you have to design in a way that makes it feasible
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But why do you have to maintain backward compatibility? Maybe for something like Word this is desirable, as you'd like to be able to open old Word documents with a new version and edit them. But a browser is just rendering text and pictures, and if there's a better way to do it that your machine doesn't support, then that's just too bad.
Backwards compatibility is a crutch -- it keeps users chained to old formats and bogs down code with all sorts of exceptions that have to be programmed in to allow older t
Re:will not run.. (Score:4, Insightful)
But I guess it's time to start getting on the horse with Linux, because it's also the last MS OS I'll be using.
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The need for backwards compatibility, in an application, really depends on the number of users locked into older OSs and the work involved. Quite h
Some people have to (Score:3, Insightful)
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About the same time that people get rid of their AS/400 machines.
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Too bad (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the great strengths of OSS compared to proprietary software is the ability to make use of older hardware. Not so with this new release of Firefox. But then it's the same with other "heavyweights" like KDE, so I guess there's a trend there. That's too bad...
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
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Sorta like how they won't release any patches to the 1.5 series after 2.0 came out, right?
(Hint: timeline was 1.5.0.7, then 2.0, then 1.5.0.8...)
Using the past as the best indicator of the future, it sounds like this isn't a concern. Being concerned that they keep doing it is valid. But assuming such when the evidence points the other way is a bit premature.
Write your own (Score:2)
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Lots of people still use Windows 98. People who don't have lots of money and are perfectly happy with that hand-me-down computer. How about the guy in the corner of the cheapskate office that has a choice of sharing a computer with another employee or using an old machine that was otherwise going to surplus?
In my opinion one of the big selling points of Firefox is that it runs almost anywhere. It runs on Mac, Linux, Windows, even BeOS and OS/2! Being able to run any
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There are a number of security issues in your OS that no browser can smooth over.
On the other hand, Mandriva 2006, Ubuntu 6, Xandros 3, NetBSD, and Mac OS X 10.2 all run reasonably well on 500Mhz systems with 256MB of RAM (albeit OS X on a 500Mhz Mac instead of a PC). I haven't run Solaris, OpenBSD, or FreeBSD much recently, but I'd bet you could get
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And then I bought a Mac.
Anyhoo, Win98 is still ran by people who
a) Don't see a reason to upgrade to XP (seriously, wh
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According to the stats we collect at www.jstor.org, Win98 accounts for 1.4% of our hits (appx 2.1 million out of 151 million so far this month), but they account for only 0.6% of the Firefox users. Both Win95 and WinME are below 0.1%.
Mac OS X (all versions) is about 9% (the user-agent string, which is what we use for this analysis, doesn't distinguish versions of OS X, so I don't know how many of these are 10.2 or earlier).
Or... (Score:2)
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
KDE has never been "for older hardware". However, perfectly nice & actively developed Desktop Environment exist for older hw (xfce by ex.).
Same here, OpenSource is about making use of older codebase, so nothing prevents anybody to patch FF2.x !
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
I'm aware of xfce and blackbox and the likes, they are nice, but if you want to run mainstream software that require KDE libraries, you're still hosed.
But in the case of FF for Windows, the problem is that Win9x users (and there are many left) will find themselves in the same situation they were with IE: they'll have to keep running the latest older version of the browser that works with their OS, which will quickly become out of date. I'm sure the FF/Gecko guys have perfectly good technical reasons to leave the old platform behind, but in a sense I hope someone will fork off a Win9x tree of FF and keep developing it, otherwise it would mean OSS is no better than Microsoft with regard to software obsolescence.
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm aware of xfce and blackbox and the likes, they are nice, but if you want to run mainstream software that require KDE libraries, you're still hosed.
But in the case of FF for Windows, the problem is that Win9x users (and there are many left) will find themselves in the same situation they were with IE: they'll have to keep running the latest older version of the browser that works with their OS, which will quickly become out of date. I'm sure the FF/Gecko guys have perfectly good technical reasons to leave the old platform behind, but in a sense I hope someone will fork off a Win9x tree of FF and keep developing it, otherwise it would mean OSS is no better than Microsoft with regard to software obsolescence.
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So how long are they suppose to be supporting the Win9x OSes? 2 more years? 5? 10? 20? Until there aren't any more Win9x users? But if all of the Win9x users have their OSS software continue to support Win9x, what incentive do they have to upgrade? They obviously don't care about bugs or viruses if they're still using Win9x software after all these years.
How do you reach that conclusion? Win9x isn't any more virus prone than WinXP (in fact, you could argue it is less so since it's no longer the main target). As far as bugs, it has it's share, but again, so does WinXP (I just did an fresh install of XP on my wife's computer that didn't take, and is causing all sorts of minor headaches like disabling the sound server every-other time the comp is started).
What 9x has that XP does not is full Dos support. No biggie if you only want to do the latest of the
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Until there's a good technical reason not too? It's not your responsibility to give people incentives to upgrade. In a lot of cases it makes more sen
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It's not your responsibility as a programmer to support every possible OS either. I'm all for supporting as many operating systems as possible, but at a certain point you have to draw the line, either for technical or practical reasons. Valid technical reasons would be that certain features simply aren't available on a certain OS (eg
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Granted. The lowest specs I'd bother installing Win2k on are a 500mhz P3 w/ at least 128mb ram. This is hardly cutting edge. Grandma's 486 DX2-66 running Win95 (oh the pain . . .) is both a.) miraculous its power supply hasn't failed or a cap busted on the mobo and b.) probably much better off running Damn Small Linux anyway.
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If lots of people run Firefox on old PCs, there will be lots of people to develop patches for Fx 2.x.
It works the same as any open source project. The more common the scenario of your use of the project, the more likely lots
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No, but the OSS community (or at least the Mozilla devs) did choose to use the features that make them incompatible. FF2 runs just fine on all the currently available versions of Windows, so it's not as though it's not possible to make a Gecko-based browser do so.
That's not a criticism, mind - I happen
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's nothing stopping you from running KDE applications under XFCE or blackbox, for instance, as long as you have all of the necessary libraries installed. Of course, you still end up loading parts of KDE when you start the KDE application, but TANSTAAFL.
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I prefer to call that level of choice flexibility.
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Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
This doesn't happen automagically when you license something by GPL (or similar). It takes work. The strength of OSS is that no one is stopping you from making it work on older hardware. All the code for older firefox versions, and the code for gecko 1.9 is available. Just because Mozilla team is dropping support doesn't mean they won't add patches to fix this if someone else does it. Now compare that with say Windows Vista - you have no way of patching that to run on an old 386.
Moral of the story... don't be so quick to bitch about stuff.
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't know about you, but I'd be embarassed to even be running that, let alone something older. You'd have to be running a 486 to be incompatible with Firefox at this stage of the game, and even then, Linux will still feel right at home, and - again - run Firefox.
So what's the problem?
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In my blog, even Vista has already took more share than all the win9x/me equivalents
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OSS software can support old hardware, as well. More often, they choose to. But not always. Why can't I run Firefox on Commodore 64 or an Altair? Because I haven't downloaded the source code, written the missing parts that would enable the trunk code to be ported to $myplatform, and recompiled it.
You want legacy hardware support? If you're one of the few people still using something that old, and no one else wants to support i
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Cairo (Score:5, Interesting)
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Portions of pages that need to scroll smoothly underneath a fixed area on a webpage cause this fixed area to flicker when scrolling.
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What do you mean "that's not worth a performance hit"?
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It's like Bizarro world or something.
Re:Cairo (Score:4, Informative)
Acid2 (Score:5, Informative)
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What does this mean? (Score:3, Funny)
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SVG support, probably. (Score:2)
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performance improvements (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of javascript benchmarks are faster too (depending on the benchmark - other parts are slower)
Gecko 1.9 has been being developed for a long time (the "reflow branch" is 2 years old it has been said!) so I guess it's expected that it improves things so much!
Cairo is kind of slow now (Score:2)
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I understand the decision to go with Cairo, but like you said, I hope it's couple
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If it means decent Zoom... (Score:2, Interesting)
As it stands, the rest of my Linux desktop is perfectly readable at 1280x1024 on a 21" monitor from 10' away. The browser is the only part of the experience that gives me trouble. Sure, I can increase or decrease my font sizes to make the text readable, but that seriously borks most sites' CSS layouts, and doesn't do squat for image-based text.
Re:If it means decent Zoom... (Score:4, Informative)
You're very welcome.
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This is more CSS's fault than Firefox's; they picked a very bad model for laying out vertical columns.
There's also the whole image-text problem, which is more the designer's f
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I think the only way to do it is to zoom the entire page (including images). Which I hear is something that Opera does and I know the Avant Browser does. Scaling one without the other only works if you're going up/down by about 5% (maybe 10%). Beyond that, page layouts start getting funky and you'll have text that overlaps other screen elements.
I have a higher DPI display as well (1
Mac version faster (Score:3, Informative)
Recent nightly builds for Mac OS X feel much snappier than Firefox 2.0. One of the obvious culprits is that Cocoa widgets [mozilla.org] are now used on Mac OS X builds. I don't know if there are other changes affecting the performance on Mac OS X, but the difference is fairly dramatic.
I love Firefox on Windows, but I have stuck with Safari on the Mac because Firefox has always felt porky and slow compared to Safari on the same hardware. The newer builds of Firefox 3 for the Mac are much better: windows, tabs, menus and other user interface elements have a nice immediate feel to them. And the page rendering is more performant than Safari on certain Web 2.0 type sites like digg and Slashdot's new discussion system. It's buggy alpha code, but early indications seem to be good for a nice improvement on the Mac when Firefox 3 comes out.
Cairo (Score:2, Funny)
"Stuff that matters"? (Score:2)
I wonder
Is this actually reflecting the interests of the readers here or is the fact that all news submissions about OpenSuse 10.2 were ignored while the alpha 3.0 submission about Firefox was immediately published just a pathetic attempt of the ed
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Yes. What's wrong is having users who still scream for compatibility with their old OS. XP was out in 2001. Win2000 was out in '99. That's 7 years. I really doubt much software when Win2000 was RTMd was still compatible with Windows 3.0 of 1992...
For how many years should we cripple innovation in open source projects just to support DOS 3.3 on 286 ?
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"without [..] rendering obsolete the broad and rich set of Web-authoring techniques developed over the past decade.'" Maybe not, but it sounds like it will render obsolete most computers developed before the past 5 years. Nothing before Windows 2000 is compatible with the new version of Gecko? It sounds like something is wrong with that.
If you're still using Win 98 in 2 years when this thing is out of beta, may God have mercy on your soul.
Computers haven't been sold with Win Me since early 2001 I believe,
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This parent should be modded up, way up. I, along with others, have harped on the memory leak issue before with FF. Sadly, I'm typing this in IE7 right now, because I like to leave my browser open on my XP box, and the horrific memory leak issues in FF (including 2.0 with NO extensio
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While I wholeheartedly agree I've found that using
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I keep hearing this... don't know why, but in my Linux box, Opera 9.02 is rock solid - it haven't crashed once since i installed it. I experienced a couple of crashes back then with O8 though, but the session management (restores your session completely after a crash) rendered them relatively painless.
I must say all versions of FF i've tried were perfectly stable aswell, but the insane memory requierements (among other peeves) prevents it from being my main browser.
yet more memory leak fud .. (Score:2)
Same here, FF currently using 62,504 KB. I wouldn't know about the memory leak issue unless I read about it whenever Firefox is mentioned on slashdot.
I like $some.opensource.app except it doesn't have $some.random.feeture
was Re:fix the memory leaks first
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My understanding is that this alpha won't, but the next alpha should. The reflow refactoring branch [mozilla.org] was merged back onto trunk [mozillazine.org] recently -- this is a rationalisation of the layout code that fixes a lot of bugs, which also gets Acid 2 rendering properly.
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