Happy 5th Birthday To Firefox 252
halfEvilTech writes "Five years ago today, Mozilla released Firefox 1.0. Ars celebrates the occasion by taking a trip back in time to revisit our classic coverage of the original release." For fun, we dug up the oldest Slashdot Firefox story, which was a Firebird story proclaiming yet another name change from Feb '04. At least this name change stuck.
A cake is in order (Score:5, Funny)
I think Microsoft should send them a cake to celebrate.
Re:A cake is in order (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A cake is in order (Score:4, Insightful)
I was going to say something like, "thanks for beginning as a faster and better alternative but ending up just as bloated and crappy as we are" cake.
Re:A cake is in order (Score:5, Insightful)
A "Thanks for trying but we are still #1" cake?
More like "thanks for raising the bar and forcing us to improve". I have long argued that the role of OSS isn't necessarily to take over the world but to make it a better place by doing things better for free than most companies do for profit. (Sort of like the NDP party in Canada, they'll never run the country because every time they have a good idea the Liberals take it, implement it and claim it as their own.)
Re:A cake is in order (Score:5, Insightful)
More like "thanks for raising the bar and forcing us to improve".
This!
I remember in the days of Windows 3.1, it seemed like a big deal that you could change IP address on Linux without rebooting. Once a few thousand geeks realised there was nothing inherent about the PC platform that prevented things like this, and memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking etc., there was a strong market incentive for Windows to improve.
I don't think Windows would be as good as it is today if it weren't for competition from Linux. I'm sure MSIE would be far, far worse if it weren't for Firefox. (Yes, yes, OK, Opera. But for years Opera cost money.)
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I remember in the days of Windows 3.1, it seemed like a big deal that you could change IP address on Linux without rebooting.
I remember being in a meeting with a bunch of windows people... guys were talking about changing IP addresses on WfW.. not being familiar with Windows (but familiar with TCP/IP on Unix and Unix-like systems) I asked "why on earth do you need to reboot just to change an IP address?"... everybody in the room turned to look at me like I had grown an extra arm out of the top of my head.
I couldn't believe it when they told me that Windows needed a reboot for that. It *still* boggles my mind.
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(Sort of like the NDP party in Canada, they'll never run the country because every time they have a good idea the Liberals take it, implement it and claim it as their own.)
The NDP had a good idea?
Re:A cake is in order (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh, I can tell you why Internet Explorer has any market share at all - because there's millions and millions of corporate PCs where it is too much trouble to get anything else installed. I end up using it on a regular basis for no particular other reason than it's there. Just like my #1 most used graphics application at work is MS Paint to crop screenshots, doesn't mean it competes with Photoshop or really anything at all, just that it works good enough you don't get anything else installed. Even corporate intranets are starting to figure out it's not 2001 anymore, but there's still not a big return on switching or offering multiple alternatives...
Re:A cake is in order (Score:4, Interesting)
FYI - If you're using Paint to crop photos, Paint.net is a free program that does much better resizing, cropping, saving in different formats, and a lot else (although the rest may not matter to you).
I don't do much with images besides crop and resize, but I still strongly prefer Paint.net to Paint.
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Then there are mandates: Our internal corporate web site FORCES you to use IE for much of its content, for two reasons. Internally developed web apps are only tested on IE, because the beancounters won't give IT the budget to test and certify on anything else, nor will they give tech support even the meager extra money to handle the calls where they say to Firefox users, "What part of 'Only supported on IE' didn't you understand?". External apps (benefits, etc.) may or may not be supported on browsers oth
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Re:A cake is in order (Score:4, Funny)
lol! elrous0 strikes again with his knowledge of yesteryear's pop culture references
MOD Parent UP (Score:2, Interesting)
This isn't a troll. It's a hilarious comment that pokes fun at the fact the original poster's comment really wasn't that funny. There needs to be more comments like this to discourage people from trotting out the same tired jokes that weren't really that funny back when they were popular.
elrous0 needs to learn to be more original or just not say anything at all.
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These comments remind me of this video (where Mac and PC get poisoned with a cake):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mg6wrYCT9Q [youtube.com]
Re:A cake is in order (Score:5, Funny)
A cake is ON order (Score:2)
Probably laced with Arsenic/Belladona etc etc etc
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It's a trap! ;)
Honestly, I remember that one and thought it was nice of them. :)
They also did it again for Firefox 3.
http://www.openbuddha.com/2008/06/17/ie-sends-mozilla-a-new-cake-for-firefox-3/ [openbuddha.com]
Re:A cake is in order (Score:5, Informative)
Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:3, Interesting)
Instead of being a small, simple browser that just did one thing well; Firefox has become way too bloated and indeed the plans for the future seem to impart it with a ribbon-like interface and more nonsensical things. Doesn't sound too good for a nice well-loved product.
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uh. what?
First off, there isn't going to be any ribbon interface.
Secondly, Firefox is still focused on only being a browser, nothing else.
What is this bloat?
addons.mozilla.org is where all the bloat is.
Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:5, Informative)
GP is confused due to this sort of news [pcpro.co.uk]. Parent is correct [mozilla.com] in that there will be no such interface.
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Thanks non-AC.
And of course, if you get right down to it...
http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory [dotnetperls.com]
Now of course, Firefox has a process-per-tab build too, I just hope it never becomes default. (although forcing plugins into a separate process might be nice, esp since I whitelist Flash anyway)
In terms of rendering speed, Firefox tends to be slightly ahead on rendering, and TM/SFX/V8 are basically all tied up way beyond IE8's JScript. TM does have a couple of issues. I'd say the work on implementing merge trac
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Exactly. Firefox has certainly got bigger over the years (though of course not bigger than its ancestor Mozilla), but it has also grown in the features it provides. If it had stayed at the minimal functional level it had at the earliest levels of its development, everybody would be whining that it doesn't offer enough features.
We can't have it both ways. If we want more features, then we have to accept that they will take more cod
Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which piece of bloat would you remove first?
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Awesomebar.
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Uninstall Firefox. Install Opera.
I'm just kidding. I really don't see any difference between the two... opera 10 seems as "bloaty" as Firefox 3. K-Meleon is nice-and-lean but buggy.
I'd like to see Firefox optimized to run the same as now, but with less memory. I don't understand why programs in the early 2000s could run on only 32 meg, but now they need 256 meg (or more). It makes no sense.
Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:5, Informative)
Gecko's memory usage now is less than it was in the early 2000s in many cases. So this particular program is actually using less memory than it was in the early 2000s. Since just the shared libraries for it are bigger than 32MB (uncompressed, on some OSes, etc), it's hard to see how it could fit in 32MB of RAM...
If your question is why there are these big shared libraries, the answer is that it's trying to do too much. The SVG1.1 spec is about 800 pages last I checked. And this is not because it goes into excruciating detail or anything. The CSS2.1 spec is about 300 pages (and while it's better on the detail, it's not perfect). You just end up with a huge gob of code to handle all those behaviors the huge specs require.
How much memory do you think a web browser handling modern web standards should take up? How does that number stack up against existing web browsers?
There's also the data set. People think nothing of sending hundreds of kilobytes of JS per page to the browser (last I checked, cnn.com has upwards of 500KB of JS just linked directly from the page; who knows whether they load more?). People think nothing of sending large amounts of graphics, etc.
Which brings us to the last point: programs are bigger because they _can_ be. If you have to fit into 32MB of RAM, then you can't just decode a 3000px by 3000px image into memory (it's be 4 * 3000 * 3000 bytes, or 36MB). You do it piece by piece and forget the pieces after painting them, or something. You don't even cache decoded smaller images, since it's so easy for that to fill up memory. If you feel like you have more ram to work with, you might make the space/performance tradeoff of keeping the decoded image in memory instead of decoding on every paint...
Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:5, Informative)
You can disable it entirely (the functionality not just the look) in FF3.5, so what exactly is your problem with me using it?
Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:4, Interesting)
I spent a lot of time learning how to disable it as much as possible in firefox 3.0. It was a huge time-sink, and I still didn't succeed in disabling it entirely. So that in itself is a problem: there is functionality that a lot of people wanted to disable, and hated so much that they were willing to work hard to disable it, but they couldn't disable it. This reminds me of the situation with IE on Windows. A lot of people put a lot of effort into figuring out how to remove IE from Windows. Basically it's impossible to completely remove it. I think any unbiased observer would agree that this is a bad thing.
Are you saying that as of firefox 3.5 it is now possible (which it wasn't in 3.0) to easily and completely disable the awesome bar? If so then (a) please tell me how to do it, and (b) the fact that it's such a well-kept secret how to remove it shows that there is a problem with loading this much bloat into the browser.
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Are you saying that as of firefox 3.5 it is now possible (which it wasn't in 3.0) to easily and completely disable the awesome bar? If so then (a) please tell me how to do it, and (b) the fact that it's such a well-kept secret how to remove it shows that there is a problem with loading this much bloat into the browser.
Yes. It's about:config [about], then set "browser.urlbar.maxRichResults" to ZERO. Simple enough?
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Nope, I already knew about that setting, and it actually doesn't turn off the awesombar's behavior. Here are the two configuration settings that I know of that I've already applied:
With these settings, I still don't get back th
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Are you saying that as of firefox 3.5 it is now possible (which it wasn't in 3.0) to easily and completely disable the awesome bar? If so then (a) please tell me how to do it
Depending on what you find objectionable, the MozillaZine Knowledge Base [mozillazine.org] has information that might help.
If it's not the matching/searching/etc. that you object to, but rather just the multi-line display, then you need to edit userChrome.css and add something like the following:
/* Set the location bar to show only URLs, on one line */
.autocomplete-richlistitem spacer,.autocomplete-richlistitemlabel{display:none}
.ac-title description{font-size:11px!important}
.autocomplete-richlistitem{border:none!import
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a) preferences, privacy>suggest results from:>Nothing
b) It's not a well-kept secret it's just some people prefer to bitch about stuff rather than bother looking
A lot of people put a lot of effort into figuring out how to remove IE from Windows. Basically it's impossible to completely remove it. I think any unbiased observer would agree that this is a bad thing.
No i think people that remove IE from windows are idiots, if you don't like some functionality don't use it, removing it from the OS to save 100MB on a 7GB install is a waste of time.
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Maybe I'm missing something in the "options" dialog, but I can't find anything that controls the look of the URL/location/awesome/whatever bar.
OK, so you say I need to make some changes in "about:config". Not exactly easy, seeing as how not every configuration item exists by default, and the available help information is poor (to say the least).
Once I work through all that, it turns out there isn't actually any way to disable the two-line display (which shows page titles along with URLS) without doing some
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preferences, privacy>suggest results from:>Nothing, that completely disables the awesome bar.
If you want to get the old bar then you need an extension or an about:config hack (browser.urlbar.maxRichResults=0, IRRC)
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Count me among the folks who was initially resistant to the Awesomebar. I even went as far as downloading addons to turn it off (well the look of it at least). But strangely enough when 3.5 came out, I left it on, and now I find it quite useful.
Of course, in 3.5 I did have to re-edit my userChrome.css so that closing all tabs leaves the application window open.
oh well. I'll keep using FF until somebody builds a better ad blocker than adblock+ for Firefox. That's MY killer app.
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JavaScript.
Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:4, Informative)
1. Most of the Web needs JS now. Without it, you get a niche browser most people won't use.
2. An awful lot of FF is written in JS.
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The [not] "awesome bar".
Somehow it always makes it harder to find what I want, not easier [eg, for some reason, it appears to have decided that penny-arcade.com is the correct url when I type in "facebook"]
And no; "just turn it off" studiously avoids the OP's complaint - which was that things like this shouldn't have needed to be added in the first place. How soon we forget - the name "phoenix" didn't even appeared in the news post [although it is in TFA].
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And no; "just turn it off" studiously avoids the OP's complaint - which was that things like this shouldn't have needed to be added in the first place.
But some people like to search in page content.
Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which piece of bloat would you remove first?
I am sure that many will say "the awesome bar". I don't. In fact, I use it so much that I think that I could now live without bookmarks.
YMMV, of course.
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> Which piece of bloat would you remove first?
Built in RSS reader.
Also:
- Caching and filtering could easily be done in a separate process
- Themes
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Maybe bloated by your standards, but I use almost all of Firefox's features on a daily basis.
Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe I'm making this point, but here goes...
As a web developer I actually appreciate the bloat. The average user does not have patience to look for extensions that fill in the core features that other browsers offer. Without the "bloat", those users would have likely stayed with IE, Microsoft would have no motivation to improve, and we'd likely be stuck developing for something much closer to IE6... ugh...
So for me, bloat is forgivable -- I'm just happy we're finally at a spot where web standards are taking hold. It's hard for Microsoft to embrace and extend they're losing so much ground.
Happy Birthday, Firefox =)
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It's hard for Microsoft to embrace and extend they're losing so much ground.
Sorry, /if/ they're losing so much ground.
Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead of being a small, simple browser that just did one thing well; Firefox has become way too bloated and indeed the plans for the future seem to impart it with a ribbon-like interface and more nonsensical things. Doesn't sound too good for a nice well-loved product.
The original goal was to make a browser that was just a browser, not a suite of browsing, mail, newsgroups...
Firefox is still that. This is why the Thunderbird project was started, and is still going, for that matter.
It was intented to be a project that did a browser, and did a browser well. It wasn't about making minimalist barebones features everywhere. There are other browsers for even leaner feature sets.
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Bloat... or added features working within ever expanding RAM and HD space?
i'm not saying that there is no bloat in FF. But rather, questioning whether we are calling it bloated because it is bigger. Bigger doesn't not mean bloated. An F-22 is much bigger than a P-51, but that's not bloat. It's improvement and dealing with modern options. The amount of RAM available in a 09 machine vs. an 04 is quite different. Processor speeds and HD space grew faster yet. The Wright Flyer didn't need radar. Should we
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Hang on, did I say I wanted a Firefox upgrade? No, it just happens.
Set your auto-update preferences at:
Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Update
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>>>Hang on, did I say I wanted a Firefox upgrade? No, it just happens.
Then turn it off. Firefox 3 is constantly telling me to upgrade, so I just click "no" and it loads instantly without any hassle.
As for bloat, I don't think it's so bad. Right now I have 11 tabs open and only 155 meg Mem usage and 152 meg VM usage. That's not bad.
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Disable automatic upgrades then.
Tools > Options > Upgrades: Uncheck "Automatically check for upgrades".
Not so hard, but less fun then whining.
Obligitory memory joke (Score:4, Funny)
5 years old? It's getting on a bit and I imagine its memory is starting to suffer a bit. You could almost go as far as to say that it's memory might start leaking soon.
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Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been using it since (Score:2, Insightful)
Netscape 1.0
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Blech. I stopped using the Netscape browser around version 4.72, long after most Netscape users had switched to IE5. I had to abandon Netscape for a while because it was so incredibly crash-prone and unstable. It pained me to do so.
Did you actually hang in there with all versions of NN up through Firefox? If so, you've got the patience of a saint. ;)
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I was running Linux from 1995 on. No IE on Linux.
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The addons deserve the real praise (Score:5, Insightful)
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For all those people who made scripts to disable features... I always find funny how Anti-Technology the slashdot community is. Everything was cool and gee-wiz until the late 90's then it is all get off my lawn and if it doesn't run a P2 then it is not worth running, dag nabbit, I was able to get by 10 years ago without fancy JavaScript I should still do so today... I WANT to download the full page every time I click a button. I don't want to use a little less bandwidth at the expense of extra CPU proces
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Open source cake! (Score:2, Informative)
Recipes here. You can pick your own and then compile it yourself:-)
http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/Cake
Microsoft's open source cake recipe just for Moz.. (Score:4, Funny)
One marthlow of flour
Two wigguns salt
Four bloggerts of sugar
1/10th bloggert salt
1/2 poind MS strychnine (add more for extra flavor)
Beat, stir, bake at 20 degrees (Microsoft degrees) for one MS minute
Dump honey on it for frosting.
Enjoy!
So bloated... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So bloated... (Score:5, Funny)
bad feature bloat
Emacs
You broke my sarcasm meter. Thanks.
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But telnetting to port 80 and doing manual GET requests, then parsing yourself is sooo much faster. Built in adblocking and everything!
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...All together now! (Score:3, Funny)
Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes
Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes
Hippo Birdie, dear Firefox
Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes
No one else sang.
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No one else sang.
Yet it still managed to be out of tune.
- RG>
Re:...All together now! (Score:4, Insightful)
He didn't want to get fined $150k.
Comments about bloat (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, we live in an era where the configurations and limitations for each machine are incredibly diverse.
Anyone still have FireFox as your primary browser on a 1.6 atom netbook after the June 30th release? How is that working out for you?
Default configuration for XP for HP 1010s worked fine, install firefox and you're good to go. Now FF is so much worse, even maxed on RAM, you cannot watch Hulu or Netflix streaming on them.
Oh Noes you shoul
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I get the point, and agree...somewhat. But isn't this creating a false dichotomy. One of the interesting problems we face is how we deal with an evolving web. Maybe the web browser is more of a memory pig is because of its expanded role. We do so much more now than when FF started its rise, so having additional features is a good thing. Maybe someone needs to fork (and heavily publicize) FF into a leaner browser, so we have one browser for those old
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In fact, memory's been getting more precious lately because of the 4GB limit that a lot of MOBOs face.
Do you seriously believe firefox will test the 4GB limit?
That shouldn't happen with a project whose stated goal is to be simpler. Resist the feature creep. More isn't better.
Feature creep? As someone else questioned in a post, What feature would you like to be removed (except awesome bar, which I am not sure consumes as much resources)
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Of course... Here is from my home system — the two instances belong to my (very) significant other and myself:
...
PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND
4954 i 10 47 0 1798M 637M ucond 2 0:00 9.47% firefox-bi
48498 mi 11 45 0 1150M 810M ucond 3 0:00 13.09% firefox-bi
Three times more windows/tabs — or simply more visits to something "heavy" (like Google
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I expect my browser to be well under 1GB. In fact, since all it's doing is rendering web pages, it should be well under 100MB.
Disable flash. And dont browse websites that are a memory hog (this includes slashdot). And voila you will have a Firefox running well under 100 MB memory foot print.
May be... just may be... it is these websites that need fixing rather than firefox?
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Of all things, why should a *web browser* be a memory pig?
Because people want it to be. People want the browser to not only remember the browser history of 10 tabs 20-deep, but to cache it in RAM as well, so that the Forward and Back buttons feel responsive and the hard drive is not thrashing all the time. Since each of these pages has all the bloat of JavaScript, CSS or even Flash, it adds up. (And of course you can reconfigure Firefox to a small footprint if you want...)
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Of all things, why should a *web browser* be a memory pig?
Do you get out much? Or do you relay your slashdot posts by smoke signal to the double-agent Luddite on the other side of the ridge?
The browser has been, since nearly its invention, been viewed as a crow bar to break Microsoft's desktop monopoly. Netscape raised a small fortune in the attempt, and was scuppered after an all-guns broadside of epic proportions. Sun provided much of the powder in the form of Java, expressly designed around platform independence. This was followed by guerrilla resistance pl
5 Years (Score:5, Interesting)
With Firefox it is ALWAYS time to party! (Score:2)
In a continuation of the Open Source Mozilla party started in January 1998, the ongoing Firefox party has now reached it's five year mark. Mozilla.org announced their intention to keep the party going indefinitely.
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy describes the Mozilla / Firefox party as follows:
The longest and most destructive party ever held is now into its fourth generation, and still no one shows any signs of leaving. Somebody did once look at his watch, but that was eleven years ago, and there has b
Suzaku (Score:2)
I *still* think they should have renamed it "Suzaku".
NY Times Ad (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone using Lynx? (Score:5, Funny)
Just curious to know if I'm alone. As the web has gotten more bloated (not just firefox), I find I use lynx more for quick, routine checking of websites. And you can script it.
I like firefox a lot, but sometimes Lynx is better.
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Why use lynx? Why not use something that renders a little more nicely, like elinks or w3m? There's even image support if you want it. There's also dillo, which is graphical, but still really fast as it doesn't support things like javascript. I can't think of any reason to use lynx anymore.
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I like ELinks in console mode, but I still fire up lynx now and again for kicks. Back in '99 to '02 I used lynx exclusively and had it open images in zgv, so I could still read webcomics and see what weather was on the radar, and yet not wait ages for pages to load on the dorm's overloaded connection.
Did you know that lynx has a very basic Usenet client built in? That's what I used before I settled on slrn.
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I'm not sure why this got modded "funny." A lot of my Linux interaction is command-line only, and elinks is a life-saver. On occasion, e.g. when the only documentation for a package is in HTML, the console-mode browser is almost indispensable.
5 years now? Seems longer... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been using Firefox since Phoenix 0.5 (December 2002 iirc, almost seven years now) and I have to say, the community process and the extensions make Firefox what it is.
Yes, these days there's another open source browser on the block (Chrome) and it too is very good. But it's great to have Mozilla and Firefox around because you can be sure that Mozilla will look after users' interests far more than Google or Microsoft will. If nothing else, it keeps the others honest.
So congratulations Firefox, and here's to five more years!
5 years since 1.0 isn't necessarily 5 years old? (Score:2)
Weren't many of us using (at least trying) Firefox well before the 1.0 release? I thought I remembered using 0.8 or something. So isn't Firefox older than 5 years?
If you really want to reminisce, (Score:2)
check out this Slashdot story about Phoenix 0.2: http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/02/10/07/1739241.shtml [slashdot.org]
I remember Mozilla and its slowness and seemingly hundreds of configuration options that I didn't care about. It was like they were trying to fit every possible feature into the software. Then I tried Phoenix and it was so much more pleasant to use, even at that young stage. I'm happy to see Firefox has survived this long and remains, for the most part, as great to use now as those early days.
Firefox returned healthy competition to the web... (Score:2)
...and I think it is major win for all of us. Without Firefox it would be harder for Opera, Chrome, Safari to shine. Firefox pushed compatibility level of writing web pages, so for last years usually when you have done with FF, page worked for rest of bunch too (ok, except JS which is still major PITA). Yes, our mighty fox have experienced several shortcomings time after time, but overall, it have been smooth ride.
Ohh, and it has been excellent study case and example that with clever crowd marketing, art te
Oldest Firefox (then Phoenix) story on Slashdot (Score:2, Informative)
Hmm... This is the initial announcement I found from Sept 24, 2002... Back before the project was renamed Firebird, then FireFox
Enjoy: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/24/1215252 [slashdot.org]
Booo Firefox! Praise Seamonkey (Score:2)
Is there anyone who used the old Mozilla browser and mail suite who doesn't hate Firefox/Thunderbird? I don't understand how anyone can like the dumbed-down Firefux and Thunderturd apps.
When ever Firefox is mentioned on slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
Re:When ever Firefox is mentioned on slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
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I've never seen that problem. I'll admit I'm currently using it on an obscenely overpowered desktop with multiple cores and gigs of RAM (and the location bar history STILL takes a second to come up), but even on my netbook (a 1st-gen eee) it's nowhere near as slow as you describe.
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Considering this problem is primarily hard disk-based until everything's loaded into cache, an SSD-based netbook isn't exactly a good comparison. Also, if one rarely clears out one's history, then the problem is exacerbated.
It can take up to ten seconds for the awesomebar to stop locking Firefox up on my machine , until a certain point where enough is in the cache to bypass much of the hard disk activity.
For a while, I just copied all of my 500 MB of Firefox profile into tmpfs on startup, and it was so muc