[pliny]

The beta is really very good. It's very stable, surprisingly fast, and very responsive. Fasterer and more responsive than Safari 1.1.1 here. I WONDER HOW IT WOULD FARE AGAINST THE MYTHICAL OMNIWEB 5.

A couple a things I notice different are saving html, Safari automatically generates a nice name for you and doesn't use the .html extension; and autofill, Safari's remembers like, everything without oinpoutting it into a field in the proefs. Also you may have noticed hte lack of a spelchek in mozilla.

Anyway I'm using Mozilla as my default because safari 1.1.1 seems sluggish.

[Cadaver]

Which, if any, of the nice themes work on 1.6?

I really like Pinstripe, but it doesn't seem to run on anything higher than 1.4.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by pliny:
The beta is really very good. It's very stable, surprisingly fast, and very responsive. Fasterer and more responsive than Safari 1.1.1 here. I WONDER HOW IT WOULD FARE AGAINST THE MYTHICAL OMNIWEB 5.

If you are referring to rendering speed, it would probably be the same for OW 5 and Safari since OW 5 will use the WebCore engine just like Safari.

[ryaxnb]

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firebird/
Get the latest nightly in the nightly folder. For a quick way, try this link: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or.../latest-trunk/
You know you're a computer geek when you know the mozilla.org FTP addresses by heart.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by absmiths:
If you are referring to rendering speed, it would probably be the same for OW 5 and Safari since OW 5 will use the WebCore engine just like Safari.

No, probably not. http://arstechnica.com/reviews/003/s...rowsers-2.html and go down to "the tests begin."

Here's some data:
ESPN: Safari 4.21, OmniWeb 8.70, Firebird 3.70.
PGA: Safari 5.61, OmniWeb 6.84, Firebird 5.03.

[pliny]

Originally posted by ryaxnb:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firebird/
Get the latest nightly in the nightly folder. For a quick way, try this link: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or.../latest-trunk/
You know you're a computer geek when you know the mozilla.org FTP addresses by heart.

Gah! Not firebird, MOZILLA.

[voodoo]

I simply LOVE Mozilla. It is relatively compact considering its capabilities and it has now 100% replaced the need for Internet Explorer on the Macintosh. At least for me since I updated Moz to 1.6b I've had NO problems with the troublemaking sites of old. Mozilla is the king of browsers - Firebird is no better than Camino IMO - neither cutting edge. Moz has ALWAYS been the cutting edge browser, using the latest version of Gecko. It is the perfect browser to fall back on if you want to use Safari for 99% of the Web or a shining primary browser capable of rendering 99.99999999999% of the Web along with a fine IRC client, newsreader and email app. Writing html pages is fun for beginners in Mozilla. It makes everything so simple and easy. I use Safari primarily and fall back on Moz - nothing beats the Safari interface and bookmarks system but one needs to be able to fall back on something. Before it was the ugly and outdated IE, but now it is Moz 1.6. I've used Mozill since it was in the 0.8 or 0.9 stage.. I've enjoyed surfing on it since the beginning but the 1.6b is simply smashing! It is sad to hear that the Moz team is going to stop developing Moz and concentrate on Firebird. Moz has a clear puropse and is beginning to make a name for itself. They should rename Firebird Mozilla when the axe Moz and make sure the Firebird development doesn't fall behind on Moz's ambition and quality. Kepp up the good work Moz developers! You made it - you made the best browser the world has yet seen!

[bmedina]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Firebird is no better than Camino IMO - neither cutting edge. Moz has ALWAYS been the cutting edge browser, using the latest version of Gecko.

Both Firebird and Camino are built from the trunk of the Gecko code, so every day they get the latest version of Gecko.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by bmedina:
Both Firebird and Camino are built from the trunk of the Gecko code, so every day they get the latest version of Gecko.

Then it has changed since I downloaded Chimera nightlies back in the day. They always used the latest stable version of Gecko while Moz nightlies used the latest build of Gecko that they had. Chimera had an updated Gecko every couple of months while Moz's Gecko was updated every other week or so. Besides Mozilla is no beta anymore. It has become mature, while Camino and Firebird are both betas.. I just don't have patience for beta browsers any more. I was with Moz from 0.8 and with Camino from 0.4..

[pliny]

Originally posted by voodoo:
I just don't have patience for beta browsers any more.

You said it, there's no reason to put up with beta nonsense, they have been in development too long, either they are stable releases with nightlies or updates as needed, or just forget it.

Can't stand firebird interface it blows.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by bmedina:
Both Firebird and Camino are built from the trunk of the Gecko code, so every day they get the latest version of Gecko.

Not quite. Firebird builds from the trunk; Camino does not.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by pliny:
Can't stand firebird interface it blows.

Honest question: what don't you like about it?

[voodoo]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Honest question: what don't you like about it?

Well if I may answer that for my parts:

The interface of the official release is so 'doz XP that it makes me sick. This has been fixed in a way in the nightlies but it still looks rough and unfinished. FB also lacks in features compared to Mozilla and until they've made FB as feature comprehensive as Moz I don't care much for it. IMO Firebird is an unnecessary repition of the Mozilla project. When Phoenix was started it was very much inspired by the Chimera project which in turn was grounded on the fact that Mac OS X users didn't have a good lightweight browser to use. At the time Moz was just to heavy and slow to load - even if it rendered fast. Ironically the Phoenix project almost killed Chimera and while doing so and catching up with Chimera Mozilla reached 1.6 and had become very refined with fast loading speeds, incredible features, immensely refined rendering engine and solid peripheral apps (mail, news, html creator.. et al)

so now in the end of 2003 there seems to be little to like about Camino or Firebird because the slow old Mozilla has rushed ahead of the fledgeling upstarts and managed to achieve its original goal. I wouldn't have believed it possible only a year ago. But now it is a fact. The upstarts have a long way to go before they can touch Mozilla again and IMO that makes the upstarts rather unnecessary as I said before. We have the best Gecko browser out there already and C and FB have a long way to go. Why all the hype on Firebird? It is OK but not nearly as fine as Moz. Color me puzzled.

[Arty50]

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this, but how is moving development to Firebird a bad thing. From what I understand the Mozilla team is merely going to split the existing app into its two parts: email/newgroup client and web browser. And Firebird is being built as the web browser portion. This is a very good thing in my estimation. I mean, how many of you use Mozilla mail? Probably no one. But it loads everytime you fire up Mozilla. Frankly I could do without the bloat. But everything else from a web perspective is supposed to stay the same. I think that's why we're seeing parallel Mozilla and Firebird development right now. Once Firebird and Thunderbird are up to speed, then development of the huge uber bloat app will cease. Frankly, I can't wait.

[bmedina]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Not quite. Firebird builds from the trunk; Camino does not.

No, as I said, both are built from the trunk. Firebird always has been; Camino has since just after the 0.7 release.

Voodoo, the whole point of Firebird is to get rid of the extreme feature bloat of Mozilla. Try showing Mozilla's preferences to a newbie; it's not exactly friendly. For people wanting more exotic features, Firebird has an extensions system that allows quite a bit of diversity: http://www.texturizer.net/firebird/extensions/

The Mozilla Foundation will be moving away from the Mozilla suite and towards Firebir/Thunderbird sometime early next year.

Edit: Camino 0.8 and Firebird 1.0 will both be using the branch of the Gecko for Mozilla 1.7. From when Moz 1.7 releases until Camino and Firebird release, they will no longer be using the trunk code. http://homepage.mac.com/mikepinkerton/camino/

[voodoo]

I'm sure you guys know better about the Gecko trunk than I do, but IMO there is no need for a 'lightweight' browser. Mozilla is lightweight enough for modern computers.

Firebird does not seem like Mozilla's browser portion. It looks and feels rather like a PC version of Camino - which it is looking at its history. It wasn't until later that the Moz team decided to make Firebird "the lightweight Mozilla". That doesn't mean it is a lightweight Mozilla, rather it is a new lighter browser made by the Moz team and using some of the Moz code. This is so unnecessary.

I have a 600 MHz iBook and Moz 1.6 runs faster than Safari on my computer. That tells me there is no problem with Mozilla. It isn't bloatware anyway. I never use the Mail feature of Moz but I use the composer feature and the IRC feature.

So if a 600 MHz iBook runs Mozilla fast, Mozilla has become 99.99...% compatible with the M$ dominated web and it has long since left beta to mature and make a name for itself why replace it?

No reason except that the Moz team didn't realize that there was nothing wrong with Moz when they decided to axe it for the alternatice Firebird project. Mozilla hadn't won awards for exccellence, it hadn't begun to take over for the defunkt Netscape at online banks, it wasn't particularly fast and seemed bloated. Now things have changed a lot and Firebird isn't that neat anymore. As long as Safari is available there is no reason to use Firebird IMO. Mozilla's strength is feature completeness. The Firebird/Camino projects will never get there without becoming as big as Mozilla and then what was the point of Firebird?

Safari is the best lightweight browser for the Macintosh. Apple will see to it. If you needed features for your browser there was always Mozilla. Now that is going to change. They are taking away one of out browser options because a few linux users want a Camino too!

Unfortunately OmniWeb is not a good replacement for Mozilla since OW uses Webcore like Safari. I need one Gecko browser that is worth it's salt and on Webcore.

/rant

[pliny]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Honest question: what don't you like about it?

I pretty much like voodoo's take on the Firebird interface. While it may be fine for a Windows XP computer because the widgets and menus are very compliant with the XP interface, it isn't for a Mac OS X computer for the same reason.

And while I can see the purist argument for reducing bloat, like voodoo says, computers running the latest Mozilla's shouldn't be too concerned about it. Strangely enough or hats-off-to-moz.org enough, Moz runs faster on my iMac dv than Safari does.

Another thing is the PC builds have an installer that lets you pick your components and the Mac should as well, it used to in the old System 9 days, but the suite is not nearly as slow as the suite tag would suggest.

Moz is very speedy to load and run and it's more stable than Firebird.

So while it may be simpler in the end to split the apps and dev teams as mozilla.org has already decided, I would suggest reworking the Firebird interface for the Mac or at least having a platrom neutral interface/theme like Moz has now.

[bmedina]

Have you guys even tried a nightly in the past month? You complain about Firebird's interface being too PC-ish, but you're fine with Mozilla's? You are aware that they use the same widget set, yeah? It just makes no sense.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by bmedina:
Have you guys even tried a nightly in the past month? You complain about Firebird's interface being too PC-ish, but you're fine with Mozilla's? You are aware that they use the same widget set, yeah? It just makes no sense.

Yup I've tried the nightlies. They are a lot nicer looking and kudos to the FB team for making things nicer. The look was not my main gripe - rather the inane decision to throw us (Mozilla users) back to beta testing YET another browser even if we already have Mozilla! Working!

I have nothing AGAINST Firebird I just happen to think it is a waste of time and space since we HAVE both Mozilla AND Camino.

PS. skinning works on Moz too so if you want an Aqua interface on Moz it is available.

[voodoo]

This thread was about Mozilla 1.6 but I've noticed (perceptive as I am ) that many people are defending the decision of the Moz team to abandon Mozilla for FB and/or defending Firebird...

I'm sorta fine with that but tell me people: what does Firebird have that Mozilla doesn't have?

i.e. WHY on God's green Earth should you choose FB over Moz as things are now? In the future - sure I can imagine that it would be a no brainer when FB has finally caught up with Moz and nobody is developing Moz - but now as of this moment, why should anyone choose Firebird?

[Developer]

Originally posted by voodoo:
What does Firebird have that Mozilla doesn't have?

Firebird does have a more Mac like user interface. This induces the hope that Firebird will be what Camino was supposed to be on the Mac and what Mozilla will never be. Mozilla is a full cross platform project and it therefore will not readily support platform specific features like Aqua UI, Services, spell checking, sheets, etc. pp. Camino on the other hand was supposed to be a native Mac OS X application using the Gecko browser. And the hope is that Firebird will become a Gecko browser that is still using the strengths of the respective operating system.

[voodoo]

I just heard some technical blah blah details no user cares about or wants to know about. To prevent people from misunderstanding the question :"what does Firebird have that Mozilla doesn't have?" I posted A LONG EXPLAINATION of that question.

I'll post it again for you:

i.e. WHY on God's green Earth should you choose FB over Moz as things are now? In the future - sure I can imagine that it would be a no brainer when FB has finally caught up with Moz and nobody is developing Moz - but now as of this moment, why should anyone choose Firebird?

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by pliny:
Gah! Not firebird, MOZILLA.

I know, but Firebird is better - and faster! - then Mozilla.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by pliny:
I pretty much like voodoo's take on the Firebird interface. While it may be fine for a Windows XP computer because the widgets and menus are very compliant with the XP interface, it isn't for a Mac OS X computer for the same reason.

And while I can see the purist argument for reducing bloat, like voodoo says, computers running the latest Mozilla's shouldn't be too concerned about it. Strangely enough or hats-off-to-moz.org enough, Moz runs faster on my iMac dv than Safari does.

Another thing is the PC builds have an installer that lets you pick your components and the Mac should as well, it used to in the old System 9 days, but the suite is not nearly as slow as the suite tag would suggest.

Moz is very speedy to load and run and it's more stable than Firebird.

So while it may be simpler in the end to split the apps and dev teams as mozilla.org has already decided, I would suggest reworking the Firebird interface for the Mac or at least having a platrom neutral interface/theme like Moz has now.

Firebird is reworked for the Mac. Ugh. That's why I linked to the nightlies. It's very nice and reworked. It renders faster then Mozila. It looks more Mac-like (the nightlies do.) It works well, it's designed for the end user.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by voodoo:
This thread was about Mozilla 1.6 but I've noticed (perceptive as I am ) that many people are defending the decision of the Moz team to abandon Mozilla for FB and/or defending Firebird...

I'm sorta fine with that but tell me people: what does Firebird have that Mozilla doesn't have?

i.e. WHY on God's green Earth should you choose FB over Moz as things are now? In the future - sure I can imagine that it would be a no brainer when FB has finally caught up with Moz and nobody is developing Moz - but now as of this moment, why should anyone choose Firebird?

It's smaller, it's easier, it works better with other mail clients and such, it has a built-in Google search field, a more Mac-like interface that looks almost as good as Safari (IMHO,) it is designed more for the end-user.

[aerocatnd]

Originally posted by ryaxnb:
I know, but Firebird is better - and faster! - then Mozilla.

Not for Mozilla 1.6b...

[Cadaver]

I wish the Mozilla team would update the standard theme a bit, though. It's been the same since, what, Netscape 4?

And another thing - any one know of a Mac-like theme (ideally similar to Pinstripe) that'll work with the new Mozilla builds (post 1.5b)?

[wataru]

Originally posted by voodoo:
i.e. WHY on God's green Earth should you choose FB over Moz as things are now?

Because Mozilla is bloated and Firebird isn't. And I'm talking both features and download size. I'm on dialup and I like nightlies. You do the math.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by wataru:
Because Mozilla is bloated and Firebird isn't. And I'm talking both features and download size. I'm on dialup and I like nightlies. You do the math.

That is so last century.

Most people are or will be on high speed internet and 20MB isn't very much then now is it? You are talking from last century. I can understand there has to be a 'backwards' browser like Firebird for the people still on beige G3s and dialup but when you have an iMac and a DSL then Mozilla is the thing.

It is faster than Firebird *despite* being bigger in MegaBytes. If it is bloated with features it certainly doesn't slow it down.

So in that light I think it is abysmally stupid to end development of a browser that *works* now and is *built* for the future.

[trash80]

well that is a tad arrogant if you don't mind me saying so

anyway mozilla isn't ending in development, its simply splitting into different programs... which makes sense. why must you load the mail if you only use the browser.

firebird and thunderbird arn't different from mozilla, they will have the same code at the end of the day.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by trash80:
well that is a tad arrogant if you don't mind me saying so

well no, if you explain why you think I made an 'arrogant' comment...

[trash80]

ok saying that it was so passe to worry about dialup and stuff, most people around the world still have it... and no i don't but many people do.

in any event, once faster net access becomes the norm file sizes will just increase, a similar thing happens with s/w and h/w

[bmedina]

Originally posted by voodoo:
It is faster than Firebird *despite* being bigger in MegaBytes. If it is bloated with features it certainly doesn't slow it down.

So in that light I think it is abysmally stupid to end development of a browser that *works* now and is *built* for the future.

It's pretty much impossible for Mozilla to be faster than Firebird. They both use the same rendering engine (Gecko) and the same UI API (XUL). Firebird's UI code is much more streamlined than Mozilla's, which is the reason for the speed difference. If Mozilla is faster than Firebird for you, it's probably because you use Mozilla more often and its disc cache is larger.

Also, Firebird works *now* and I'm sure it's "built for the future", whatever that means.

[Arty50]

voodoo, I just don't follow you. You're neglecting app startup time, memory footprint, and hard drive space.

Why would you not want Firebird? Yes Mozilla may be every bit as speedy and have a couple of other features...right now. But in the very near future, Firebird will have every single BROWSER feature that Mozilla has and then some. But I'd argue the 95% or more of all Mozilla users do not use Mozilla Mail. So why should they have to load those additional resources every time. Resources which lengthen the startup time for the app and also increase its memory footprint, all for something that will never be used. That's why splitting up Mozilla is such a good idea. All of the browser functionality will be there, you just won't have all the crap that's going into Thunderbird and has nothing to do with browsing the web.

[wataru]

Originally posted by voodoo:
That is so last century.

It is faster than Firebird *despite* being bigger in MegaBytes. If it is bloated with features it certainly doesn't slow it down.

So in that light I think it is abysmally stupid to end development of a browser that *works* now and is *built* for the future.

No, it's not last century. There are more people on dialup than on broadband, and it will probably stay that way for quite a while. So why don't you come back to earth for a bit?

And I don't know what you've been smoking, but Mozilla is not faster than Firebird.

Give it up, man. Mozilla is SO last century

PS. Take a step back for a second and realize that you're being an arrogant asshole about a webbrowser. Reality check, please.

[pliny]

I'll have to try it again when I'm back at my machine but as far as Firebird being faster than Mozilla, I didn't see that, but as usual ymmv. They seemed about the same. Strangely enough for browsers using the same rendering engine one can be faster than another--compare OW 4.5 v. Safari, e.g. The Moz nightlies and releases IMO are more stable than the Firebird ones, I base this simply on the number of crashes on one v. the other and usability of menus, panes, etc.

As far as the difference of downloading a browser on broadband vs dialup, I supopose this is a big difference, but only if you're downloading the nightlies every night, yes? Suckas for pain.

Did somone mention the google toolbar in Firebird? In Moz,you can search google from the url bar, which is nifty too. Doesn't really matter how you do it I guess cause it's all google anyway but doing it in the url bar saves me ~.065 seconds that I otherwise would have lost forever! Forever!

[voodoo]

Originally posted by bmedina:
Also, Firebird works *now* and I'm sure it's "built for the future", whatever that means.

Since you're not sure what it means I suggest you bail out of this argument

Goodbye.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by Arty50:
voodoo, I just don't follow you. You're neglecting app startup time, memory footprint, and hard drive space.

Both Moz and Fb start up in similar amount of time on my machine so that isn't an argument. I've got a lot of HD space and besides using FB would save me ca 25 MBs. That is a non issue anyway since I *have* FB on my HD regardless of other browsers. Most people don't care about 20 to 30 MBs of their HD for a useful app. Memory footprint is irrelevant since OS X came along with advanced VM management and a common RAM size of over half a gigabyte.

You had an argument somewhere?

[voodoo]

Originally posted by wataru:
No, it's not last century. There are more people on dialup than on broadband, and it will probably stay that way for quite a while. So why don't you come back to earth for a bit?

And I don't know what you've been smoking, but Mozilla is not faster than Firebird.

Give it up, man. Mozilla is SO last century

PS. Take a step back for a second and realize that you're being an arrogant asshole about a webbrowser. Reality check, please.

It is faster for me. I don't need you to tell me which browser is faster. I can see that for myself quite fine. Mozilla is quite faster, while FB is on the Safari speed level or so.

I know ONE person that uses the internet on dialup. The 56k is dead. Face it.

Oh and you have been reported for using unnecessary profanity and personal insult.

[wataru]

Originally posted by voodoo:
It is faster for me. I don't need you to tell me which browser is faster. I can see that for myself quite fine. Mozilla is quite faster, while FB is on the Safari speed level or so.

I know ONE person that uses the internet on dialup. The 56k is dead. Face it.

Oh and you have been reported for using unnecessary profanity and personal insult.

Oh, you know ONE person on dialup? Guess what, I don't know ANYONE from France. Does that mean that France doesn't exist? I repeat, 56k IS NOT DEAD. Just because you don't use it does not mean that it is dead.

I don't need YOU to tell ME how slow Firebird is. It is CLEARLY faster than Safari on my machine. Perhaps you're using old versions of Firebird?

You've been reported for being an asshole.

[mindwaves]

Guys calm down. Feel free to make a new thread. Anymore excessive name calling will face the DemonHood ban (tm).