OSNews

Can't remove the go button (without an extension or about:config)

You can't? I just did it in 1.5 without any special extensions, and I wouldn't have thought they would purposely remove this. If true, you've found a bug.

still no +tab button on the UI by default

If this is you're biggest problem, then Firefox has got it made.

New skin is a massive step back in usability.

Disagree, although I think this is simply going to differ from person to person.

Firefox still has some issues, like the Download Manager from hell, but it seems to be coming along pretty nicely.

[...] still no +tab button on the UI by default [...]

Ever tried middle mouse button on "homepage"? You're even having your homepage in the new tab then.

Get a grip. Maxthon is an incohesive mess tacked onto IE.

Just about every single browser available has used some features they've taken from another browser. Does that mean Firefox developers don't think IE is an incohesive mess? Or think Opera is one? Actually, we have no way of knowing that, because it is a completely seperate issue.

What little good stuff there is has been borrowed from Maxthon.

Boy, your lame attempts at trolling get extremely boring over time.

There's no reliable benchmarks out yet, so it's a good thing we've got your one personal experience to go by, with no discernable units of measurement.

Yes, you are trolling actually. Back up your claims please and don't warp them around a "no offence, but..." ploy.

So what. He stated his opinion. That doesn't equate to trolling.

Everything against open source or against an open source application is considered trolling.

"Everything against open source or against an open source application is considered trolling."

That's pretty much how it comes across.

While I'm sure some people do mod down any anti-open source post, I haven't noticed anything too bad in this thread. Nothing like the old KDE vs GNOME flamewars. A one sentence post about how "firefox sux so bad" deserves to be modded down, IMO. Go ahead and reply to this with a list of the posts you think need to be modded up, and I'll look through them and decide - I'll even respond to each and every one with my reasons for modding them up or not.

No point going thru them. But if - to pick a single glaring example - you want to decide whether a post labelling people as retards is offensive and personal abuse and worth a mod down, or some kind of insightful comment that deserves a mod up then go for it.

Calling them retards was unfortunate, but really incidental. It was only a single word in the title and the whole comment said absolutely nothing derogatory like that (at least that's how I remember it). The actual meat of the post basically just said "Quit whining," and while that isn't the most useful post ever I do agree with the sentiment. IMO, it didn't deserve to be modded up or down, it was just a typical post here at OSNews.

Yes, you are trolling actually. Back up your claims please and don't warp them around a "no offence, but..." ploy.


Sorry, I have no idea how I could benchmark this. I'm not an engineer. This is not a reason not to share my personal experience. Jackass.

I actually had the impression that Firefox 2.0 is fast, especially compared to IE7, and actually it is.
Just as an example, scrolling through a long web page. I had the impression that Firefox 2.0 was faster than IE7. To perform a more accurate test, I set the frequency of my CPU at 400Mhz. And the difference is huge : scrolling a page in IE7 is really slow while it's still very smooth with Firefox 2.
But that's true Opera is fast also.

I have to admit that I've never put any version of Firefox through any performance measurements but at the same time I've certainly not experienced any noticable slowdown during continious usage. I've only got 512MB of RAM as well on an Athlon XP 64 3200 (32-bit Windows).

I do think that Firefox does take too long to initially load, and I for one would be fine with a background service running to ensure that Firefox loads quicker, as long as the memory footprint is low enough.

All-in-all, I think the 2.0 release is well worth the upgrade if only for the spellchecking feature alone.

I already have spellchecking in my browser. And system-wide.

I use a Mac.

Well sure, but that doesn't mean that I should use a Mac over a Windows or Linux machine just because of system-wide spell checking. It's a great feature for Firefox I believe.

Same here, but it doesn't work in Firefox, it's not using a Cocoa interface! (Cmd+Ctrl+D on a word in any cocoa app in case anybody is wondering)

Exactly.

So why use Firefox in OS X? It's slow, doesn't integrate with anything, and feels like a Linux app desperately trying to be an OS X app.

Because with the UNO skin it looks like an OS X app, and no other browser offers the extension range. Firebug is an essential tool for any web developer. Plus, why is it wrong to use Firefox in OSX? I can run many browsers, easily; that's my choice. Firefox for me is a development tool, and the best one for the job too.

You mean they still don't have system-wide spellcheck in Windows?

Anybody know if Vista will finally get PDF support?

Use firefox preloader if you want firefox to run in the background for quicker load times

It also means the same old FUD from people who care not to educate themselves, but care more to educate us about their opinions.

Facts? You're the one claiming it leaks like a sieve, and FF2.0 has only been released today. Can you actually present /any/ of these 'facts' of yours that pertain to FF2.0, at all?

How about the complete lack of mention of performance/resource improvements in the release notes/change log?

How much of the Firefox core was actually changed in 2.0? Ask yourself that.

"""FUD or no FUD, it's the truth. Firefox leaks memory like a sieve.

Whether or not you care to admit it doesn't change the facts."""



I support Linux with FF as an often-used application on multiuser systems. One of my systems is running FF 1.5 with 50 users. Typically, about 10 users are running FF at a time. They tend to leave the browser running for long periods.

This server is running about 40 Gnome desktops + 100 instances of a point of sale application, plus a few instances of an accounting package, plus acting as a Samba file server, a database server, a web server, and a Ruby on Rails application server. We have 4GB of main memory, hardly use any swap, and typically have several hundred MB available for cache and buffers.

The machine stays up for months between reboots.

Performance is excelent. One of the main "word of mouth" selling points that makes the existing Windows users want Linux terminals is that the speed is much better.

I think I would notice if *any* of our apps had significant memory leaks.

They don't.

Perhaps the Windows version of FF has memory leaks. But I can attest absolutely that the Linux version does not.

Edited 2006-10-24 01:05

Fair enough.

Memory leaks, slowness, and poor system integration are why I refuse to use Firefox on Windows and OS X. Linux ... well, there's not much of a choice there.

"""Memory leaks, slowness, and poor system integration are why I refuse to use Firefox on Windows and OS X. Linux ... well, there's not much of a choice there."""

Sorry about perceived memory leaks and performance problems on your systems. All I can say is that I find no evidence of them on my platforms, which don't seem to have much of an intersection with yours.

I find that system integration is fine. No problems with speed. Like I say, speed is a selling point for the Linux terminals at this site.

While I don't see any memory leaks, FF memory consumption is indeed a bit higher than with Epiphany, the default gecko based Gnome browser, which shares more memory with other apps as well.

I've been thinking about moving the users from FF to Epiphany. I thought it might involve a trade off. But the more I look, the more it looks like a win all around.

I'm not sure what you mean by not much choice of browsers under Linux, though. I would be inclined to say that the problem was *too much* choice. My God!!! We have Epiphany, FF, Konqueror, Opera, Seamonkey. As if that is not enough, we also have IE under Crossover. Office.

Then there are the other, special purpose browsers: Dillo, lynx, links...

Could you please clarify what it is that you mean by "Linux... well, there's not much of a choice there."?

It would be greatly appreciated!

Edited 2006-10-24 02:20

Just that when one considers most Linux distributions, and the proprietary plugins available in the Linux world, everything is very Firefox-centric.

"""Just that when one considers most Linux distributions, and the proprietary plugins available in the Linux world, everything is very Firefox-centric."""

Yes, you are right.

Distros do tend to ship FF as the default browser.

The plugins follow Netscape's standard, though, and work with Netscape, FF, Seamonkey, Opera, and Konqueror.

One thing that you should keep in mind is that we don't all worship FF, and some of us work toward making other browsers the default for our prefered distros.

Konqueror is already the default for some distros. It may very well be the best default for KDE-based distros.

I happen to think that Epiphany may be better browser than FF for Gnome-Based distros.

I do recommend FF for our Windows users.

Which is the funny thing about all this. You suggest that there is a lot of browser choice under Windows and little under Linux. And from my perspective, I have more choice than I really want under Linux and don't see a whole lot under Windows.

I don't doubt your sincerity. But our differing perspectives do make a difference, don't they?

Sincerely,
Steve

Edited 2006-10-24 03:22

Just that when one considers most Linux distributions, and the proprietary plugins available in the Linux world, everything is very Firefox-centric.

Firefox just uses the standard Netscape plugins, which is the same thing Konqueror and Opera also use. I assume that Epiphany uses the same as well, although I've never used plugins in it myself.

If by choice you mean IE 6 then, well ... congrats. IE7 still breaks many (IE6 optimised, what an irony) sites as people report, so the choice on Windows isn't so great either by your standars.

I think I would notice if *any* of our apps had significant memory leaks.

They don't.

It depends on what extensions you've got installed. I've been told some of the old versions of AdBlock actually leaked memory every single time they blocked something, and that could add up real fast.

"""I've been told some of the old versions of AdBlock actually leaked memory every single time they blocked something, and that could add up real fast."""

Been told by whom?

I believe my eyes and the performance monitors I have running. Not what "I've been told" about FF extensions.

I'm not a big fan of FF extensions, which I consider to be a security problem looking for a place to happen. But I do allow them, for now. And I have simply not seen evidence of noticeable memory leaks.

Edited 2006-10-24 02:37

By an AdBlock developer... Although I don't have the link now. Anyway, that particular problem was fixed a long time ago - pre 1.0 I think. I was simply using it as an example. I've never had any trouble with leaks. Occasionally, if I leave the browser running for a couple weeks the memory usage will get up to 250-300MB and the browser will start to feel sluggish, but I just restart it using the SessionSaver extension and everything works great again.

Edited 2006-10-24 03:21

Slowness and memory leaks or not - Firefox is still the only browser supported on all the OSes *I* care about.

Why must the trolls come out to play every time a browser-related article is posted on OSNews?

I suspect it is due to the fact that they cannot articulate a credible argument against the product.

FFS, it's not an argument, it's a statement of personal observation. It's like a goddamn turkey-shoot the way anyone who mentions Firefox's memory issues is getting modded down around here. Look, Firefox is my primary browser but even I can acknowledge that - certainly on Windows at least - it becomes a massive memory-hog after a while. No, I don't have 'proof' - I don't even know what that means - it's just a personal observation. But if you drop your post-viewing threshhold down to -5, you'll notice I'm not alone.

Remember, you can not make changes to Fire Fox source and use the same name unless you say "mother may I" to Mozilla.

The article posted on this website maybe a week ago about developers taking suggestions for FF 3.0 contained a lot of people saying that they want a reduced size, increased speed, and smaller memory requirements. Granted FF 2.0 had not been released, but it sounds like FF is not what it once was.

Edited 2006-10-23 22:40

Remember, you can not make changes to Fire Fox source and use the same name unless you say "mother may I" to Mozilla.

You're sort of taking that out of context... he was basically suggesting that if you think you can fix the problems, go for it - and submit your patches back to Mozilla.

Obviously, if they can find nothing wrong with a patch submitted by an external developer that fixes some serious flaw(s) in FireFox/Gecko, they have no reason not to apply the patch to the trunk.

You're sort of taking that out of context...,

Yeah, I am. Not a big fan of Mozilla's policy. However, I am sure that Mozilla's development team can certainly tweak FF to be faster or use less memory, but they have not done that (not speaking about 2.0 of course). I guess it is not a high priority for them right now. I kind of thought that was the whole point of FF. Don't get me wrong, Mozilla has done a lot of good things for all major operating systems in a very short time, but I don't think that we should give them a free pass. I encourage criticism of any software project, because the right criticism will lead to a better product.

Edited 2006-10-23 22:59

One real problem with their policies is that they drop support for older versions. So if there is a security problem on an older version, you can't patch it and still call it Firefox as the Mozilla people won't deal with that older version.

you can't patch it and still call it Firefox as the Mozilla people won't deal with that older version.

*YOU* can patch it and still call it Firefox for your own purposes, you just can't distribute it publicly that way.

Consider that they don't have the manpower and resources to validate every patch submitted for older versions.

This is certainly not specific Firefox... when it comes to officially supporting older products, especially security-sensitive products, there are serious trade-offs involved. It is almost certainly a better use of resources to move forward with newer versions.

Only with Firefox could someone call those who say anything against it "Retards" and get modded up to 5.

I think that pretty much depends on what they were saying against it. some people have no coherent arguments and just come here to pick fights, they are indeed retards.

Actually this is the build from 20061010 which is firefox 2.0 final
As for the memory leaks, just try valgrind.

hussam wrote:
"Actually this is the build from 20061010 which is firefox 2.0 final As for the memory leaks, just try valgrind."

so show us the valgrind output. since you state this as fact, you must have run it against firefox, right? so where is the data to support you? though memcheck isn't perfect, it would atleast add some credibility to your claim.

The author of Tab Mix Plus is fixing the issue:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1122/

You can grab the development version which works on Firefox 2.
http://tmp.garyr.net/

If you had spent less time trolling, and more time browsing, you would have seen this message [1]:

I REALIZE THAT FIREFOX 2 IS GOING TO BE RELEASE ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24. A NEW VERSION OF TAB MIX PLUS IS GOING TO BE RELEASE SHORTLY AFTER THAT, IN LESS THAN A WEEK. PLEASE BE PATIENT, FOR NOW YOU CAN TRY THIS VERSION EARLY.

http://tmp.garyr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3515


God I hate trolls!
- Gilboa
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1122/

Edited 2006-10-23 23:05

OK, I wasn't trolling. People seem to have gone troll mental today. A troll is someone who atempts to start an argument by writing an inflamatory post. Therefore, the only way to deal with a troll is to not reply. The very worst way to deal with a troll is to write an angry reply. For a very good example of how to reply, see the other reply to my post.

... Call me crazy, but there's a -world- of difference between:
- "TabMixPlus doesn't work in 2.0; Anyone knows how to solve this problem?"
and
- "TabMixPlus doesn't work in 2.0; Firefox 2.0 s0cks! I'm switching to Opera! Muaaah!".

Taking your own definition of troll:
- You weren't looking to start a discussion nor were you looking for information.
- You didn't add (-any-) information why it was -so- important for you to upgrade -NOW- and/or why is it -so- important for you to get TabMixPlus 2.0 working -NOW-.
- You neglected to add that you didn't even bother to do a simple Google search before posting.

The only thing you did say was: "Opera here I come".

If this isn't trolling, someone should rewrite the definition of trolls.

- Gilboa

There's a development version. On forums you can even find RC1 version that should be pretty stable.

Why the hell would you use Opera simply because it passes Acid2 test? - do you actually think there is a website out there designed exclusively for browsers that can pass that test?

The test is designed to abuse CSS to the nth degree to see how browsers cope with it - it's not meant to represent some benchmark that web designers code to.

"Why the hell would you use Opera simply because it passes Acid2 test?"

I agree that thats a silly reason to use the browser.

However it does have something over the oft quoted reason that "I use Firefox because its open source".

At least there is a technical merit basis to stating that passing Acid2 is a reason to use the browser.

Personally I think both "it's OSS" and "it passes Acid2" are daft reasons to use any browser.

Personally I think both "it's OSS" and "it passes Acid2" are daft reasons to use any browser.

How is "it's OSS" a daft reason? - OSS means that Firefox source can be scrutinized by external parties without any NDA, can be ported to new platforms without waiting for a commercial company to do it, can be modified and re-used by nearly anyone with few restrictions (there's the trademark issue - but I don't consider that a huge restriction technically - it's mostly just a marketing issue)

I go back to my previous point - Firefox is the ONLY browser that supports all of the hobby OSes that I care about. Opera does not do this (yet) - and neither do any KHTML-based browsers.

On the other hand, "Passes Acid2 test" is certainly low on my priority list.

Update: I may be wrong, Links/Lynx may also support all the OS platforms I care about...but i haven't checked yet

Edited 2006-10-23 23:25

"Why the hell would you use Opera simply because it passes Acid2 test? - do you actually think there is a website out there designed exclusively for browsers that can pass that test?

The test is designed to abuse CSS to the nth degree to see how browsers cope with it - it's not meant to represent some benchmark that web designers code to."

Good point, and noted. Actually that post was a troll and can be modded down. I couldn't resist as someone later in the thread would have written about 'Superior standards support' being the reason to switch to Firefox 2.0. Why you ask? Because it happens on every damn firefox thread.

The problem wih people talking about 'Superior standards support' is that they aren't educated enough to realize that a browser supports many standards, CSS being one of them only. So even if Opera has a slightly better CSS support (and even that is questionnable since my experience is that Opera support more css2 commands but Gecko supported CSS commands are supported more reliably in very complex CSS-P designs), Gecko still has a better standards support overall since it's Javascript and DOM capabilities are much more complete than Opera.

"I will continue to use opera since it seems to be the only one truly passing the Acid2 test."

Konqueror also passes the Acid2 test.

So does Safari AFAIK.

AFAIK, the aim is to port Konqueror (in fact, all of KDE) to Windows sometime soon.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39187111,00.h...

If this port happens, Konqueror may in fact become the second browser (after Opera) available for Windows which passes the Acid2 test. This could easily happen ahead of Firefox passing the Acid2 test, it would seem, at this rate.

That's because it got /.'d also

That's because it got /.'d also
and dugg, you forgot, dugg

This thread just shows how much of a failure the mod system has become.

While I somewhat agree with your complaint here - the real world does happen to work this way also.

Personally, I see that most of the mod'd down posts are basically just trolling anyway, so it doesn't bother me all that much. I usually read at -5 anyway so I can see some of the blatantly stupid things that people are posting.

Mod points are a way for the community to criticize each other - If the majority of OSNews readers are pro-FF, then you should expect the majority of anti-FF posts to be mod'd down - why would you expect otherwise?

Add: Most of the people reading here can tell when someone is posting for no other reason than they have a chip on their shoulder and think their opinions mean something to everyone else.

Edited 2006-10-24 00:04

Mod points are NOT a way for people to criticise others.

If look at the mod-down thing there is a line for "I disagree with this persons opinion" and if you choose that as the reason to mod down a comment, it DOESN'T mod down the comment.

Whether you think they are or not, they will be "abused" in this way - the only way to prevent that is to have uber-moderators continually tracking who is modding down others and restricting their mod points accordingly... until that happens, get over it.

I'd guess given your other comments here that you're only including those who are not singing from the Firefox book.

Heh, seriously - do you consider the one-line firefox-bashing posts to be worth reading? Do they seriously provide you with the level of entertainment and fulfillment you require when reading a firefox-related article?

I have seen posts of mine be mod'd up to 4 or 5, and then back down to 1 or 2 quite a few times. Do I come back and whine about it?

I may be pro-firefox, but I am certainly not one of the people YOU are complaining about so please look elsewhere.

Edit: Also consult rule #12:

12. Do not use the comments as a platform to discuss OSNews' moderation or editorial policy. If you want to complain about your comment being modded down or you want to accuse OSNews of censorship (yet again) please do so in an email. We're actually eager to discuss our thinking with readers, and will almost always reply right away to emails on that subject.

Edited 2006-10-24 00:24

The new mod system implemented a while ago was the reason i moved to other news source and only check osnews once in a while.

New mod system suppresses the voice of ones who disagree with larger group.

"""The new mod system implemented a while ago was the reason i moved to other news source and only check osnews once in a while."""

+1 CrazyDude0. I absolutely agree.

Looking at your previous post that were vulgar and mostly didn't actually include anything to prove your point I'm not surprised that you were modded down to hell. If you voiced your opinion in a more civilized way...
I'm drunk.

At least one person is now complaining that IE7 is slower than Firefox 2.

Interesting... that's the first I've even heard of it.

I wonder if Microsoft's attempts to bring the javascript compliance up-to-snuff has introduced some new bottlenecks?

He was complaining about the speed of ajax sites in IE7. Didn't it just get native XmlHttpRequest support? I think in IE6 it was done through an ActiveX control.

Don't be surprised. Mozilla does this with every major release. They stick it on the mirror a day or two early and then retract it, while berating anyone who actually downloaded it ahead of time. They did it with 1.0, 1.5, and now 2.0. I've got $100 that says 2.5? and 3 will be the exact same publicity stunt.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-firefox, but you can't say someone miraculously stuck an RC up on a mirror when it's your own download server.

Contrast this with Fedora, who are populating the mirrors as I post this. The seed mirrors all have a core/6 directory at this time but it's locked down with a .htaccess. That would be the proper way to prepare for a release. I actually find it quite amusing how retarded the Mozilla devs think we all are sometimes.

kernelpanicked? You're still around here?

I remember noticing you about a month ago on the Ubuntu forums. You left in a huff with a final rant that said you were leaving Ubuntu for Fedora because we in the Ubuntu forums did not force newbies to RTFM enough.

Then I noticed you here about a week later. You were leaving in a huff because of... I can't remember what you were in a huff about. I think you were modded down on something.

Anyway, you were going to create a news site that would put OSNews to shame and more or less destroy it.

How's that going? :-)

removed

Edited 2006-10-24 04:35

"I am not talking about the performance on internet"

Where else would you like a *web* browser to perform?

I was talking about the performance on the machine. Not only performace on the web is enough. It must be optimized to run faster on the local machine and must take less memory. Firefox sucks in that case.
BULKY browser...

They moved it to the tab itself. It does take some getting used to, but I found it only took about a day or two before I was accustomed to the location on the tabs.

I believe they mostly did this per request by the majority of users who felt it should be on the tab. I will admit that it's easier to close a tab this way now - especially if it's not the currently visible tab.

As people will find - the location they had it before was that way for a reason. Having the close button on the tab makes it easier to accidentally close a tab instead of selecting it.

I'm guessing you can probably find a way to switch the behavior back if you need to - either using about:config, or an extension.