Firefox's Effect On Other Browsers 475
An anonymous reader points out an interview with Mozilla's "evangelist," Christopher Blizzard, regarding the future of Firefox and how it affects other browsers. It's an Austrian site, so forgive the comma abuse. From derStandard:
"It's sort of interesting though, part of our strategy is to make sure, that we continue making change and the indirect effect of this is that Microsoft continues to have to do releases, because if we get so far ahead that we're able to drive the platform they are not able to keep up and keep their users. I mean, we have this joke which says 'Internet Explorer 7 is the best release we ever did,' because they would not have done it, if we would have not built Firefox. And the same is true for Apple, they are doing a lot to keep up with us. Safari 3.1 is a good example, as far as we see it, the only reason they did this release was that Firefox 3 would come out and have Javascript speed which would be twice as fast as theirs, cause that's how it was before. So by pushing other people to make releases we can go on our mission to make sure the web stays healthy."
What astonishes me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Informative)
It's gotten a lot better for non-techie users due to more websites testing against them though. I remember using Firebird 0.7 and about 1 out of every 20 sites would not render very well. For non-techie users, having to then start IE for more than 2 sites is a reason to not even try anything but IE.
That's absolutely true. About a year and a half ago I started using my mac exclusively, and with that I lost the IE Tab extension for Firefox. Initially I missed it every day, having to use Safari to try to render pages correctly. Now it is a complete non-issue.
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Insightful)
And useability. What have Microsoft got against menus nowadays?
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Informative)
For the love of fuck.... the memory leak that most people seem to think plagues Firefox is in fact a caching feature and not a memory leak.
Firefox stores a cache of pages in memory. This can be turned of in about:config if it's that much of a problem for you, but will dramatically reduce the speed that you can click back and forwards through pages.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First, I almost completely disagree with you. I find that Firefox 3 is roughly equal with Opera memory wise, but has a little more purely subjective "zip". IE, as far as I can tell, is just painful to use, is rather inflexible, underpowered, and is about as safe as a fishnet condom. I do tell everyone to use Firefox (or Opera or Safari, depending).
You know, seeing as I have made it this far into the post... I'm tired of seeing people say "this is the best" or "that is the best" when the reality is the on
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Homepage:
http://www.eviljaymz.com/ [eviljaymz.com]
I use IESpell which is handy - I don't want to always have spell checking enabled, a right click > check spelling is ideal for my needs as I spell really poorly but have improved greatly over the years of actually checking it.
I use Super Ad Blocker (crappy name but a great product) to selectively block or allow ads via the right click menu. (There is a FF
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Informative)
And the memory leaks are ridiculous, even as system with lots of Ram will be brought to its knees by FF given enough time.
Except IE7 does "leak" memory like sieve, (it's hard to tell exactly what it's doing) at least in comparison to Firefox.
Consider the following link. It is by a well-known Mozilla developer, so while he may be biased you can be sure that a result that cannot be reproduced would set the tubes on fire some time ago.
http://blog.pavlov.net/2008/03/11/firefox-3-memory-usage/ [pavlov.net]
I'm not saying that Firefox is the leanest application ever, but some of the charges against it here are incredibly overblown and of dubious veracity.
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Informative)
FF loads pages faster than opera or IE. And it doesnt have a memory leak. Some addons might i dont know. Take this, I leave my computer on for several months at a time including FF open. I often use multiple windows (currently have 2FF windows up) and always a decent number of tabs (8 and 4). This computer has 256MB of ram and has never brought the system to its knees. Also I use 6 addons. If there were a memory leak i'd have noticed. That and a nice variety of tests, in speed and ram usage have shown FF to beat Opera and IE (last i checked, opera has likely improved lately to keep up). Please don't slander without showing your information.
http://avencius.nl/content/firefox-3-vs-opera-950-memory-usage [avencius.nl]
http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/software/internet/soa/Browser-faceoff-IE-vs-Firefox-vs-Opera-vs-Safari/0,139023437,339289417-1,00.htm [zdnet.com.au]
http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-13626-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=266786&messageID=2542057 [com.com]
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Interesting)
IE7, quicker than Firefox? In every test I've read Firefox is a lot faster both at rendering and executing javascript. And it's really a pain using IE7 as even on a modern computer opening a new tab takes forever (at least compared to firefox).
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, that's funny. But according to the statistics linked in this comment IE7 is among the slowest browsers around:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=621353&cid=24285613 [slashdot.org]
I also tried opening 10 tabs in FF3 and IE7 on an Athlon XP 3200+ with 1.5GB ram. In FF3 it took 2 seconds, in IE7 it took 27 seconds.
Funny huh?
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Informative)
You've clearly never used IE before.
False as well.
While it's true that FF2 leaked memory (a lot more than any other browser), the team has overhauled that in FF3 and it now uses less memory per loaded page than any of the other browsers. The remaining memory holes are still mostly in the plugins (Flash is a good example, google browser sync does a nasty job of it too). However, "quicker than firefox" is an outright lie. Firefox process HTML faster than IE, runs Javascript faster, cleaner, and better than IE, and loads images faster, cleaner, and closer to the standard than IE.
Furthermore I don't call the gaping activex holes in IE "Security and reliability", unless getting hit with loads of spyware and having the odd practice of locking up all the freaking time is your definition of "reliability"
Sorry if your troll wooshed over my head, you seem wrong enough that it may very well have been such.
Fanboy Mods Suck (Score:3, Insightful)
IE7 has the security and reliability. It's also quicker than FF and doesn't leak memory like a sieve
In the classic battle of IE7 vs FF2, he's absolutely right.
I tried FF2 a few years ago when everyone seemed unable to get enough of the kool-aid. While superior to IE6 for its tabbed browsing, once IE7 rolled out, FF2 lost its only edge.
Today, I run FF3 with minimal addons. I don't use NoScript, because it turns normal web browsing into a circus of "allow" clicks, and makes UAC look good.
Still though, I refuse to drink either side's kool-aid. Firefox is not the shining gift from heaven some people thi
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Funny)
$ sudo apt-get install ie
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package ie
$ sudo apt-get install internet-explorer
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package internet-explorer
Erm, well I guess I have to use Firefox then! ;-)
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Insightful)
probably because A> IE is a gaping security hole. B> it still sucks and has minimal useful plugins. C> you might be using linux D> choice
tabs were not the main feature; the main feature was the security, lack of popups, lack of exploits and etc.
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say Adblock is the main feature which makes Firefox differ from other non-IE browsers. Safari, Galeon, Konqueror, and so on. All of them have security, no popups, tabs and so on. Yet only Firefox has a rich system of extensions.
Safari looks promising as a browser for when you're forced to use Windows, its own font rendering especially stands out. But no Adblock/PithHelmet/... -- no deal. Galeon and Konqueror are mostly meh. And since switching from CRT to LCD dragged me kicking and screaming into X (console on LCD sucks), eLinks lost its appeal.
Fixed native resolution (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that LCDs have a fixed native resolution.
When viewing an image which is another resolution which isn't an integer divisor of the native one,
- either you get the whole display completely blurry (if the LCD attempts to fit the image using interpolation)
- or you get funny irregularly sized pixel (which is ugly too)
(This is also one of the reasons why games look nicer on CRTs - the other is higher refresh rates)
I suppose KiloByte is having problems because he can't set the resolution of the conso
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because while IE was implementing Firefox's old features, Firefox was implementing new features (some of them from Opera). So IE is still behind.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If everything you use renders ok in IE, why not just use IE? Especially as it now has tabs, which was the main feature where Firefox was beating it.
Ummm, "tabs" was not the "main feature where Firefox was beating [IE]"
As a non-inclusive list, it is more efficient, is essentially more secure, it's OpenSource (which is a big deal for a lot of people), and allows for more customization.
*I* moved to Firefox (on something like version 0.6) primarily because of extensions.
I use IE 7 at work because I'm forced to do so, and I'm regularly running into situations where I get all irritated because something I do within Firefox simply cannot be done in IE. IE als
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
it's OpenSource (which is a big deal for a lot of people)
And is probably the reason for the better plugins -- my life would be a lot harder without zotero.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Before:
Me: You should try FireFox.
Friend: Why?
Me: See the tabs? Makes things a whole lot easier to keep track of.
Friend: Awesome!
FireFoxUsers++;
Now:
Me: You should try FireFox.
Friend: Why?
Me: *Browses to MySpace* Notice anything different?
Friend: Where are all the annoying ads?
Me: It's called AdBlock.
Friend: Awesome!
FireFoxUsers++;
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:4, Informative)
Tons of reasons:
-IE actually DOESN'T render things quite right, IE 8 (beta) is the closest thing they have now that's anywhere close to "standard compliant", at least in terms of CSS support. In a LOT of cases, pages only render OK in IE because of numerous CSS hacks used to make it display like every other browser, or a IE-only stylesheet is fed to it
-IE is a great way to load your system full of spyware (ActiveX junk, BHO's, toolbars and what not)
-Firefox has tons of very useful addons, like Adblock Plus, DownThemAll, Firebug, etc
-Far better standard support using other browsers, see this page [webdevout.net] for a quick overview
-IE7 is the worst memory hog of them all, look here [lifehacker.com] and from what I've seen IE8 is only worse
-IE7 has the worst interface of them all, with the home button to the extreme right, the standard "toolbar" hidden by default (File/Edit/View/...), and everything else
-No session saver (when IE crashes, kiss all your tabs goodbye)
etc
There's NOTHING good to be said about IE. It's the worst POS to ever come out of Redmond (worse than WinME + Bob + Clippy combined). The only reason to still use it is for apps (like some banks) that require it, because they use ActiveX components or such.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed; and it is the same with Opera, too - it's not just that it's gotten better (which it did), but mostly that most websites these days are not "IE only". Which is also thanks mostly to Firefox, I guess - ev
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Insightful)
My mother is a typical late 60's web user... she has a handful of site she likes to visit and not much more. She has memorized the basic functions I taught her years ago and she's happy with that.
Recently I upgraded her FF2 to FF3 and taught her how to use the new address bar and bookmarking / search functionality. She nailed it in 2-3 minutes and was looking up sites in her history with ease. I was back there a couple days ago and sure enough she has already bookmarked a dozen new sites and raves about how much easier she finds the internet now. (you'd think they had redesigned the entire internet... which in essence is what a browser upgrade can do for you)
To me that right there outlines one of the reasons FF3 is going to produce another large spike in new users. Get what you want easily and with less hassle.
Piling on... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm looking forward to canned index databases for interesting site(s).
The whole idea of exposing data to the user is going to lead to some interesting long-term effects.
If nothing else, one hopes that it will help usher the demise of that ugly data Bastille called the Windows Registry.
Re:Piling on... (Score:4, Insightful)
You obviously didn't deal much with Win 3.x. Registry is much better than config files scattered throughout. I wouldn't mind if it were replaced, but it needs to be a step forward, not back. Linux still has config files scattered in a zillion different places. It would be nice if all configs went into an organized hierarchy.
Um. All the configs do go into an "organized hierarchy"! It just happens to be a filesystem hierarchy (/etc) rather than an impenetrable binary file.
XML files located in a couple of standardized locations. As in one location for machine level configs, and one location each for user level configs.
XML sucks for configuration files, to be honest. Trying to hand-edit XML in a 40x80 nano session in single-user mode... no thanks. Not to mention that XML is decidedly grep-unfriendly.
I think I'm going to have to assume that you don't have a clue what you're talking about, I'm afraid. Try harder!
Re:Piling on... (Score:5, Interesting)
I totally agree that Linux use of plain text files in the "/etc" directory is a far superior solution. However I'd also like to see all the user level config files that currently go into the various "~/.prog_name" folders collected into something like a "~/etc" directory.
Obviously to hide it during "normal" use you could name it "~/.etc" but I do think that it would be more consistent and far tidier to have all the user level config files in their own subdirectory.
Mind you having said that I'd prefer the directories were called "/settings" and ~/.settings" but I suppose 50 years of *NIX cruft precludes this !
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
However I'd also like to see all the user level config files that currently go into the various "~/.prog_name" folders collected into something like a "~/etc" directory.
This is exactly what the XDG Base Directory Specification [freedesktop.org] specifies; by default user configs are expected to live in ~/.config/progname/
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
ln -s /etc /configuration
Doesn't help with all the files in ~, but now you can use /configuration all you want instead of /etc. Programs will still use /etc, but for the most part you don't have to see that.
Re:Piling on... (Score:4, Insightful)
...you mean something like /etc/ and /home/ ?
"Scattered" is just another way of saying fault tolerant.
If all of my eggs aren't in one basket, and a poorly constructed
basket at that, then I don't have to worry about them being all
destroyed by one stupid mistake.
One app doesn't NEED a mechanism by which it can conveniently
destroy everyone else's configuration or the configuration for
every other app.
Once you centralize something you need to start thinking about
how little things like disaster recovery and change management
are going to be handled. "Some XML file" just doesn't cut the
mustard. It's another registry quagmire waiting to happen.
It's this simpleminded "convenience centric" thinking that clobbers Windows.
You've identified no clear problem that needs to be solved with this poorly thought out new mechanism.
Re: (Score:3)
That's what I mean. It starts off good. A single location for the OS configuration in the /etc folder. But the application configs are all over the place. Or they were a couple years ago (last time I looked). /etc/applications//.conf for global stuff
and ~/applications//.conf for user stuff
The names are arbitrary and easily changed. I'm really talking about the concept. And it's more of a gripe towards application developers than a gripe towards the OS developers. And it happens across all platforms t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the problem tho... /etc, and it's up to the app author to give them sensible names... .ini files all over the place, and the registry doesn't really improve matters because the entries are just all over the registry now.
Unix puts configuration in
Windows put it's
Text files are a must, comments in the config files are incredibly useful, being able to edit the file with your editor of choice (and not needing to use specialised tools - great for recovery situations) is also a huge advantage.
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When my inlaws got the automatic upgrade to IE7, the new interface confused the hell out of them. I installed Firefox, and they were over the moon about this wonderful new browser I'd introduced them to. Actually I think its really their new home page; at the same time I changed their home page from the generic cluttered Yahoo to a customized Google Desktop with feeds from my wife's blog and our Flickr
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the great things that FF team did was to allow huge volumes of customization. It can be both a blessing and a curse, but allowing the add-ons and creating an environment where they could be created made FF much more than a web browser. For that, other browsers will constantly have to keep up. FF took bleeding edge and made it cool and functional. It takes a big stick to beat that. Being able to bolt on functions like ABP, foxmarks, FireFTP mean that much of my work is browser based now, and I'd not switch from FF without a great deal of effort by other broswers. I can switch back and forth from Linux to Windows and not really notice any difference in how I'm working.
Better than that, FF makes is so that joe public can experience the same functionality, and with little effort, realize that Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora et al can be just as useful, if not more so, than MS products and OS. Most of the computer user's experience is a web browser these days. If that part works right, most people don't give a damn what OS is working underneath it. I've converted quite a few people, FF first, then OS, like falling dominos.
From my vantage point, FF has done far more than they are taking credit for. FAR MORE.
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:4, Interesting)
> One of the great things that FF team did was to allow huge volumes of customization...but allowing the add-ons and creating an environment where they could be created made FF much more than a web browser.
Please, give credit where it is due. The concept of UI extensions derives from Netscape's plans for a skinnable Navigator 5, which led to the development of XUL - developed, you will note, by Netscape, not the Mozilla Foundation.
In-window plug-ins are today's implementation of NPAPI, again developed by Netscape.
Nothing is created from a vacuum ( well, except perhaps the entire Universe ).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Was 4 windows and 40 tabs it seems, but no-one cares anyway :D
Re:What astonishes me... (Score:5, Informative)
And what annoys me the most is that WHEN Safari crashes (which are within a day more often, ranging from an hour to 2 days.) all my tabs are lost for all eternity with all the information I was waiting to look at.
Select History -> Reopen All Windows From Last Session after relaunching Safari. If you'd like to see that mechanism improved, head over to http://bugreport.apple.com/ [apple.com] and provide your feedback.
Re:What astonishes me...FF 3-4 times/day crash? (Score:3, Interesting)
My FF 3.1 never crashes on XP SP2.
Could you provide specific sites that break?
I wonder about your break problems. Is there anything specific that goes wrong?
Is your virus scan up to date?
What is your OS?
Are you Bill Gates perhaps? (sorry for the thought)
Thanks and I hope FF goes better for you,
Jim
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In Ubuntu 8.04, firefox will crash randomly on pages that have flash video with sound. There is a bug apparently between flash and pulseaudio. There have been a few patches that have been released, and it is better, but still sometimes crashes.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A workaround for this is to run Flash inside nspluginwrapper, even if you're on a 32-bit system.
This way, when Flash crashes, it won't bring down the whole browser with it, and all you have to do it reload the page.
This bug is on Ubuntu's bugtracker [launchpad.net].
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
And what he's not saying... (Score:4, Interesting)
Credit where credit is due, please.
Re:And what he's not saying... (Score:5, Informative)
Opera, although it is excellent, has never had enough market share to look like a threat. Competition from Safari, and of course IE, is the major competitive driver for us.
No one said anything about a threat... (Score:4, Insightful)
And to all those ignorant mods who called me a troll: Opera has been around in fairly significant numbers since about 2000. Even if it had minimal market share, that is the timeframe in which it became noticed by the web cognoscenti. Firefox came out around the end of 2004 (pre-Mozilla came out around the end of 2002).
At the time Mozilla/Firefox was being formed, IE was pretty static, with no significant feature development occurring (IE6 in 2001, IE7 not until 2006). IE certainly wasn't driving feature development in other browsers. Safari didn't even exist in public until 2003.
In addition to the obvious tabbed browsing (no, they didn't invent tabs, but they did popularize them in browsers), Opera has also set the bar for standards support and rendering speed.
Specifically with reference to the article and Mozilla/Firefox, the three most significant UI features of Mozilla/Firefox [wikipedia.org], tabbed browsing, easy inline find, and custom shortcuts, all appeared in Opera previously.
Yes, Opera has been a significant factor in driving feature development in other browsers, and it deserves that recognition and respect, even if you choose to use something else.
Safari 3.1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe they did it because they were pushing javascript apps for the iPhone, and working on the javascript-based SproutCore frameworks and the associated MobileMe apps.
Not everything revolves around Firefox.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thankyou for posting. They have a point about IE7, but a very weak line to Safari3. WebKit deserves its due... Apple was innovating with WebKit long before Firefox, or even Safari, existed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? Wasn't it the KDE developers that were doing the innovating before Safari came into being?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
His take on Safari might have had an ounce of credibility if Firefox wasn't such a dog on OS X. (What's worse, they shipped Firefox 3 with some ridiculous performance regressions [mozilla.org]). But as it stands, his comment is complete nonsense. I've sensed a little hostility towards WebKit in a few of the Mozilla blogs lately. Perhaps there's still some bitterness over the whole ACID3 fiasco?
wow; Big pair on him. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wow; Big pair on him. (Score:5, Insightful)
What amazes me, is that Apple has not pushed OO to be on there. They would be smart to add a few coders to the project just to ensure that it can compete against Office on their platform.
Apple has Pages, Keynote, and Numbers (I pay for them rather than use OO.). Oh, and Microsoft Office. Apple's interest in open source is more of the system/library part, not the front end user experience.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure what your point is in the first two paragraphs. You're correct that Apple saw financial benefit from jump-starting their development with open-source code, then gave back in turn by releasing vast numbers of bugfixes and feature upgrades to those projects. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? I would consider WebKit one of the top-tier open source projects in history and it's being led by Apple.
Yes, Apple does lots of things that are proprietary. They often care more about user experience,
Re:wow; Big pair on him. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe because Apple would never release a product with a user interface even remotely close to anything office classic?
And I'm glad they don't. What I can't understand is why Staroffice/OpenOffice tried so hard to copy something so bad.
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Re:wow; Big pair on him. (Score:5, Funny)
Apple released Safari 3.1 as a reaction to Mozilla releasing Firefox 3 nearly three months later? That's a rather creative way to spin things.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Virtually all of the improvements in Safari 3.1 [apple.com] are in the WebKit engine rather than at the browser application level.
WebKit has/had an open development process. Test builds of WebKit have been available to anyone who wishes to try them, basically since the day after Safari 3.0. Firefox developers, like the rest of us, would have had a very clear and unhindered access to the new WebKit features in Safari 3.1 as it was being developed. I guess this shows that Safari development can improve other browsers e
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Otherwise, Firefox would look and work like it did 5 years ago, with great support for Web standards, but terrible usability.
Yes [flexbeta.net], OMG [flexbeta.net] so [mozillazine.org] unusable! [mozillazine.org]
I'm guessing you didn't use Firebird 5 years ago.
Hell, the Firefox prefs on MacOS X looks damn similar to the preferences layout in Safari, or is FireFox also claiming to be driving UI standards on MacOS X as well...
It looks better now, and does match the style of System Preferences panes of OS X. But it's actually less usable to me in that they moved connection settings (the only setting I ever have to change, to use proxies) off the main "tab". Fortunately it remembers the last tab you had open, so only a minor hindrance.
competition breeds improvement (Score:5, Funny)
I always maintained that Win2K was such a good OS specifically because of the competition Microsoft was getting from open source, they didn't want to be caught napping and wake up to find Linux as a good desktop solution. This theory kind of fell apart with Vista, I have no idea what that steaming pile is in response to.
Re:competition breeds improvement (Score:5, Insightful)
You are indeed correct - but there was more to it than that. Keep in mind that at the time they put Win2K into the planning stages, OS/2 had the server market (due to all the vertical market businesses that IBM catered to). MS needed something that competed, and was decent.
Of course, the other added factor was continually breaking and changing networking implementations and such to ensure that since "your" workstations (mostly) ran Windows, the server had to as well.
Before that, you could manage a Windows domain from OS/2 simply by drag-n-drop. Since MS couldnt beat that (and still doesnt have anything remotely close), they had to make another release (both for competitive reasons and to break compatibility with LanMan).
The key thing (competition) is what died in those areas... fortunately in the browser market, MS can no longer leverage their monopoly to create a similar situation, leaving everyone having to either play catch-up to stay in the game or fighting to stay ahead. We all benefit...
Safari not trailing Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Safari not trailing Firefox (Score:4, Insightful)
Firefox will eventually use tamarin, which should be on par with Squirelfish.
Yes, but Squirelfish was developed first. Hence proving my point, Firefox is not the only leader in innovation; as this "evangelist" seems to be implying.
Re:Safari not trailing Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest taking a look at the commit history of both Gecko and Webkit in the last year or so where JS perf is concerned.
You'll find that they've basically been pushing each other, in almost perfect alternation: one checks in a patch that makes it faster, the other responds with changes that make it faster, etc.
Seriously, go read the checkin logs.
Opera (Score:5, Funny)
And Opera is feeling so pressured by Firefox that it is systematically forced to copy Firefox's features months and even years before Firefox releases them... ^_^
Re:Opera (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Opera (Score:4, Insightful)
Except Opera lagged behind with the most significant feature: being free.
According to the wiki timeline it wasn't until around 2000 when a 'free' version became available (supported by inbuilt ads), and then as recent as 2005 when finally the ads were removed.
Re:Opera (Score:4, Interesting)
Before the ad-supported Opera, however, people just used the evaluation version.
Money was never what stopped Opera's adoption.
What did stop its adoption is an interesting question, though. It has been a great browser for as long as I can remember - which I think goes back to version 3.something. I used it to test my websites, because Opera was much more picky and standards-compliant than the others. I also used it for my own browsing, because Opera was faster and offered a slew of useful features that other browsers lacked (tons of keyboard shortcuts and tabs being the main ones). Yet, I have never seen Opera at far above 1% in global browser market share stats.
Part of it is undoubtedly inertia. A lot of people will just use what comes with their system, which is probably some version of Internet Explorer or Safari, and perhaps Firefox (and, back in the day, Netscape). Part of it may also be explained by the multitude of websites that have been broken in ways that made them not work with Opera. If you use a lot of such websites, having to switch browsers constantly quickly gets old.
Myself, I stopped using Opera because of stability issues on Linux. Those might have been resolved now, but, nowadays, I run only open-source software on my main system. I am not about to make an exception for Opera; I am satisfied with Konqueror.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Using Opera was like having a window on your destop, running it's own little session of Windows 3.11 in a VM...
Last time I checked, Windows 3.11 used a "program manager" window with groups and icons. Opera uses a taskbar and taskbar buttons. If anything, its window manager looks (and behaves) exactly like the window manager on virtually all modern operating systems, which every user is accustomed to. I see how this can be confusing... (not)
You're absolutely right that Opera, since the start, styled itself to be like "the internet running on a VM" (or "the browser as a platform"). A design that has since proven to be
Should be: Effect of Opera on Firefox (Score:4, Funny)
It Cuts Both Ways (Score:5, Interesting)
As a software developer who once loathed the idea of having to code for multiple browsers, I have now accepted that there will be differences and have learned to deal with it and promise to stop whining.
I applaud the browser race and hope that they continue to leapfrog each other for a long time to come.
Ow, my commas (Score:5, Funny)
I never knew, that German, was quite so, comma-happy.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
All I know is that I must be some kind of fucking genius, because I've never taken a German class in my life, and I understood it just fine.
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Blizzard echoing Behlendorf (Score:3, Interesting)
This reminds me of a comment from Brian Behlendorf concerning the design of the Apache License to allow for modifications of the code for commercial release without accompanying source code, in contrast to the GPL. Behlendorf said that this was deliberate because the Apache Foundation believed that supporting the web protocols was more important than the keeping contributions to the Apache code open source.
Interesting to see this sentiment echoed from the client side a decade later.
OT: Pop-under windows - FF3 issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a problem with pop-under windows. They "reappeared" recently, and I'm using FF exclusively. Unfortunately I can't tell if my switch from FF2 to FF3 was the reason, but it was around the time. Is this a known bug? I know I can try to figure out the domains of the sites appearing in those unwanted windows, but I'd be more interested in a general solution. BTW, I have "block pop up windows" activated in the settings, with a few exceptions.
Meanwhile, you're keeping up with Opera. :-) (Score:4, Informative)
Tabbed browsing, clean mouse gestures, two-handed browsing, single-click image disabling, single-click user CSS mode.. heck, most of the user-friendly advances have been standard features on Opera for many, many years. And half of the really good stuff *still* isn't stock and standard on any other browser.
But, Opera did open its doors to the free download hype as a result of Firefox. So I owe you that much. :)
But.. catch up already would you?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That was great, but Opera Software's decision to charge for a full-featured version without intruding ads up until 2005 severely cut its marketshare compared to IE (which shipped as part of Windows since Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2) and Firefox (which was always free to use). If Opera Software had decided to make its browser truly "free" in 2003 its marketshare would be vastly larger, that's to be sure.
Specious viewpoint (Score:3, Insightful)
.
The reason why Safari came out with the faster JavaScript is that the faster JavaScript was needed for the MobileMe service's web interface.
It is nothing more than trivially humorous that a FireFox fanboy describes the world as being Firefox-centric.
Having said that, competition, whether imagined (as with Mozilla's "evangelist," Christopher Blizzard) or real, is always for the better.
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:5, Funny)
middle-click-to-close on tabs comes to mind
It's hard to tell between a left-click, middle-click, and right-click on a one button mouse...
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, because holding two fingers on the trackpad and then clicking is so much easier than just clicking the other button...err, wait...
Actually it is. According to the usability tests I've seen, it is faster and has a lower failure rate because to hit the second button you have to either stretch your hand over or use your other hand, neither of which is ideal. For mice, where one hand is already off the keyboard, multiple buttons are a usability win for experts, but for trackpad users it is a loss for novice users and expert users and more usable but less learnable for middle of the road users.
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:5, Informative)
Apple does very little of the core work for Safari. They just take the open-source WebKit engine and slap their own UI over it
You are incredibly misinformed. A quick glance at recent WebKit changes [webkit.org] readily shows how blatantly false your claim is.
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:5, Informative)
They just take the open-source WebKit engine and slap their own UI over it
WebKit was developed by Apple, originally as a fork of KHTML for their Safari browser. Apple open-sourced WebKit and it was so good that many of its improvements were copied back into KHTML. It's also being used by a number of mobile phones because of its strengths relative to e.g, Gecko, including Android.
Without Apple, there would be no WebKit. But don't let reality get in your way.
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:4, Informative)
Apple open-sourced WebKit and it was so good that many of its improvements were copied back into KHTML.
Umm, KHTML was licensed as LGPL, which means Apple had to open source their fork if they distributed it. As for improvements being copied back, well that happened to some extent, but the Konquerer team seems to have pretty much given up on KHTML and are contributing to Webkit now.
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:5, Informative)
No, you're thinking of GPL. The LGPL would have allowed them to use KHTML libraries without giving anything back.
They can link to it without giving anything back, but the LGPL does not allow them to make changes to it and distribute them without giving the source back. Since Apple had to make significant changes to make it work modularly and the way they wanted, they had to give all those changes back. They don't have to open source the code for Safari, which links to Webkit, and in fact they don't.
WebCore's "improvements" are largely Apple's own doing, apart from those changes which were shared upstream before KDE developers abandoned KHTML.
Apple has done significant work to make Webkit better than KHTML was, but they are certainly building on a lot of work that was done before they entered the game. Apple has played nice with the Konqueror folks and gone out of their way to help them integrate changes and revise the way the shared code base was developed such that improvements from multiple groups including Konqueror, Apple, and Nokia can all be included. That said, to claim Apple had a choice about how Webkit would be licensed or if their changes to it would be open source is simply not true.
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:4, Informative)
the LGPL does not allow them to make changes to it and distribute them without giving the source back. Since Apple had to make significant changes to make it work modularly and the way they wanted, they had to give all those changes back.
You are still being imprecise. The LGPL does allow them to make whatever changes they like, so long as the KHTML libraries they are using are used intact. I do not disagree that any modified libraries had to be shared back upstream, but those changes are portions of WebCore, itself a portion of WebKit. There was no requirement that compartmentalized changes, improvements, and additions be shared if they extended beyond the four corners of the KHTML libraries.
WebCore is much more than rewritten KHTML libraries. WebKit is much more than WebCore.
That said, to claim Apple had a choice about how Webkit would be licensed or if their changes to it would be open source is simply not true.
It absolutely is true. There was no obligation to open-source WebKit. There wasn't even an obligation to open-source the entirety of WebCore and JSCore. There was an obligation to share changes to modified libraries.
What's simply not true is that Apple had no alternative. Apple provided WebKit tactically, not out of obligation to disclose it in its entirety and certainly not out of the goodness of their "hearts".
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:4, Insightful)
LGPL isn't the same as a BSD permissive-style license,
No. But neither is it the same as the GPL generally.
The reason it was known as the Library GPL is that it allowed the non-contributory use of GPL'd libraries by other types of software licensed under terms incompatible with the GPL.
The KHTML library changes would have had to be shared per the terms of the licenses. This requirement, however, does not even encompass all of WebCore, let alone WebKit.
As far as I know, however, any changes or improvements made to the LGPL'ed programme itself must be distributed Freely, with source, if it is to be distributed at all.
Any changed or improvements to the LGPL'd software, which it is a complete program or a library. In the case of KHTML, it is a set of libraries. Those libraries were adopted into the codebase for WebCore--and only those libraries derived from the KHTML libraries would need to be shared.
It does not extend to other libraries written by Apple or any other developer, and it does not extend to products merely containing those libraries. Limiting that "wagon-hitching" (widely, and in some ways regrettably, known as "parasitic") effect of the GPL is the reason the LGPL exists in the first place.
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:4, Insightful)
KDE open-sourced KHTML. Apple didn't have a choice in the matter.
Nonsense. KHTML is LGPL. Apple could have used the libraries without contributing anything back.
Moreover, the DOM is Apple's, not KHTML's. WebCore, the basic component of WebKit, has very little relationship to KHTML.
It was so divergent that the KDE folks pretty much had to accept WebKit as the new KHTML if they wanted to accept the improvements.
That's not at all true. Most of the improvements shared back upstream, including KHTML's ability to pass Acid2, were adapted prior to the merger. KDE adopted WebKit by choice. There was nothing stopping them from continuing development of KHTML separately, nor was their any requirement that the KDE people actually adopt any of Apple's improvements.
Sour grapes that KHTML was largely abandoned in favor of something better doesn't explain why it's WebKit, and not KHTML, that is being adopted by other platforms.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
KDE open-sourced KHTML. Apple didn't have a choice in the matter.
Nonsense. KHTML is LGPL. Apple could have used the libraries without contributing anything back.
Well, I can't claim to be an expert on the LGPL, but Wikipedia would seem to be in contradiction with you, and while I don't trust Wikipedia implicitly, I trust it more than random internet guy.
Further...
Re:Way to go FF! (Score:4, Interesting)
KHTML provided the HTML and XML parsing engine, the DOM tree exports, the CSS parsing engine, the layout engine.
Source? All indications are that Apple wrote their own DOM, and that their CSS parsing is not KHTML's (which was one of the problems in adapting changes back to KHTML years back). They also certainly wrote the SVG support, which KHTML lacked.
That means that WebCore is a derivative of a pair of LGPL'd products.
No. WebCore does not contain KJS code. That's JSCore. WebCore contains LGPL'd libraries from KHTML, but it contains libraries that are not part of KHTML as well. JSCore contains LGPL'd libraries from KJS.
Further, since WebKit is, apparently, a derivative of WebCore
No. WebKit is a wrapper, providing API-level access to WebCore and JSCore, as well as integrating the debugging unit (starts with a D...). It is not a derivative work for the purposes of the LGPL.
Note: IIRC, WebKit and WebCore are parallel products - one isn't built on top of the other, but one was forked from the other.
No. WebCore is a component of WebKit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's incorrect. Changes made internal to LGPL software must be released, it's only external software that links to LGPL that has the right to stay closed.
For what you're saying to be true KHTML would need to be generic enough to be modified by Apple via linking rather than changing any of the internal KHTML code. The changes Apple have made did involve digging into and changing the guts of KHTML. Again, for wh
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Opera's not firefox.
It's functionally similar but the UI isn't worse, it's just different. The browser behavior... isn't worse, it's different, and I prefer Firefox over opera. Even though opera is so feature rich. It's the reason why I have an iphone and not any number of other 3G phones with more features but different behavior
Re:F*** Firefox (Score:4, Informative)
The biggest reason why Opera never got "traction" among Windows and MacOS users was that up until 2005, you couldn't get a full-featured version that was truly "free" (and that meant no ads either!). Meanwhile, IE came as part of Windows since Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2, and of course Firefox has always been free to download (the "free as bheer" thing is really enticing in this case).
Sure, Opera invented a lot of the features we take on IE 7.0 and Firefox 3.0.x for granted, but because of the price issue Opera was never really taken seriously as a competitor to IE and Firefox.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, get back to me when Opera fixes this CSS bug that is over five years old [positioniseverything.net].
As such, Opera can't do uneven-width 'sliding doors' tabs that extend to fill a container, which is what we needed recently. Some might call that an isolated bug, but honestly - a CSS1 rendering bug should not survive this long, while they're implementing more advanced and newer features.
My regret is that (both the) Opera users who visit our site think we've failed to use web standards when really it's -- gasp! -- Opera's fault.