You can read all about the new features here, download here. This bug is still there though (Win2k/XP).
Mozilla 1.2 Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Let it go Eugenia!!!
Thats no bug, its a feature
From the way you wrote it, one could judge that the bug is Win2k/XP support …
It mostly happens on Win2k/XP and it does not happen for all users and no, it is not a Windows bug, it is a Mozilla one.
From what I noticed from our previous story (a very small sample of the mozilla userbase of course), it affects about 5-7% of the Mozilla users.
But is an extremely annoying timing issue and it really prevents me from enjoying Mozilla. The bug was already submitted by others when I joined the discussion at bugzilla.
Tried it on WinXP and I’m not seeing this bug. I tried it on a P4 2Ghz, so maybe it only affects slower machines. I will try it on my 700Athlon and see if I see it, but I haven’t seen it on that machine before.
As I said, it does not affect all machines. You just have to be unlucky.
I really wish the Mozilla developers would add a feature to allow Mozilla to direct mailto: links to third party email apps, like kmail or evolution. I think this ia a major flaw of Mozilla.
Being a user of win2k & mozilla I can also testify that it’s bloody annoying.
On an interesting side note Mozilla is even slower on FreeBSD than it is in windows (same machine, dual boot). From my own experiences and what I’ve heard from others — Mozilla sucks on FreeBSD. Fortunately we have a native version of Opera now.
I’ve never seen that bug on either win2k or winXp, but they should really fix these things, there are also a couple memory leaks that really need to get fixed (e.g Bug 174760.) I can’t understand why they keep putting this off in favour of including things like “ALT-tags as tooltip”.
I do not get this ‘bug’ either and I have a P3 566Mhz
128MB Ram. Slow – only in the eye of the beholder. And anyway – instead of harping on about a timing issue for the second, third or until it gets fixed – why don’t you do something about it…
If you can’t ‘fix it’ then don’t use it – it is really simple. There are other browsers out there you know!
If Mozilla supported the back and forward buttons on my mouse, I would probably use it, but, alas, it doesn’t, which is really lazy, if you ask me.
angaek: so because you didn’t see it, it’s not a “bug” hmm?
So basically, what you are saying is, I shouldn’t use Mozilla and the features it has that I like because there is a bug in it that I can not personally fix, but could be fixed by others that actually develop the product? If so, then I think you need to find a new hobbie, as you don’t belong here.
>Mozilla sucks on FreeBSD.
Mozilla was compiled with GCC 2.95.x on FreeBSD, while the Windows version was compiled with a special version of ICC used my Ms, which can optimize things much better than that version of GCC.
>why don’t you do something about it…
I filed a bug report. I will do nothing more. It is not my job to fix Mozilla’s bug. I don’t have any plans developing for it, I just want to use it, as the rest of the 99,9% Mozilla users out there.
Try another such rude comment towards me or anyone else here and you will get banned.
>There are other browsers out there you know!
Yes, indeed. This is why I use IE 6.
In addition to the DNS name end part you could place user’s OS and browser info for everyone to see as well. That would give a perspective to people’s opinions.
I won’t get a chance to try 1.2 until I get home. I have been using the beta of 1.2 and it has been rock solid. Only complaint is that the ‘icon only’ option for the toolbars didn’t do much to shrink the toolbars, which take up entirely too much screen realestate, and it’s even worse when you add tabs to the mix. Hope they reworked this in 1.2 final
i totally agree with you.
actually, i typically use phoenix for browsing and kmail for mail.
the same affliction affects kmail, in that if I click a link that someone emailed me, it fires up konqerour.
there’s no way to set your default email to kmail, and your default browser to phoenix…..a major problem in regards to ease of use with your choice of applications.
Mozilla looks the best browser for BeOS most compleety that is, why isn’t there a BeOS build somewhere?
There is – go to BeBits.com. However, the Mozilla ports for Be have been really bad so far.
I am afraid to install Mozilla 1.2 and other versions up now. When I tried to install the 1.2 (alpha) release, when I double clicked the install icon, suddenly my hard drive started spinning insanely fast and loud and the hard drive indicator light went crazy and my computer restarted. I tried it again after the restart and the same thing happened again. I am not sure what’s going on. This did not happen with previous alpha releases. I am aware it was an alpha so that’s an excuse I guess but can I be bothered downloading another 10MB…about 30 minutes time? I probably will download it but my primary browser is IE.
“Try another such rude comment towards me or anyone else here and you will get banned.”
IP: —.qc.sympatico.ca
Says a lot…..
To the Anonymous poster who can’t use Mozilla mailto links with his regular e-mail client: Try searching for a solution on mozilla.org. It took me 5 seconds to find.
Windows, Macintosh: To make Mozilla use another mail program, you can either (a) uninstall Mozilla, then re-install using Browser Only (Mail/News not installed), or (b) add this line to user.js:
user_pref(“network.protocol-handler.external.mailto”, true);
This will open the system default mail program when you click on an e-mail link in Mozilla.
heh, 1.2 is out, I’m still using 1.0
Am I blind? Where is the pop-up ad blocker pref panel? 😮
this is first time that i like feature called “themes”… use pinball theme to get more screenspace, it loads faster (in theory, you will not notice in real life unless you got slow machine) and afterall it looks kind of neat…;)
Yes, Pinball is the one I use too. It is clean, nice and it does not take unesassary space.
IP: —.qc.sympatico.ca
Says a lot…..
Either you hate quebec, you hate the french, or you hate canada. Keep your personal opinions about people to yourself. I am two of three of those, and i dont appreciate such comments, they dont belong here.
The pinball theme is nice, but breeze is even nicer (if you are into simple and clean).
http://www.deskmod.org/?state=view&skin_id=16637
Yuck, this is so.. Motif..
It would be nice if they were a bit more clear on this. Anyway, here is how to get rid of pop-ups:
1. Go to the Edit menu, then pick Preferences.
2. Double-click the Advanced option, then select Scripts and Plugins.
3. Keep Javascript enabled if you’re so inclined (I do).
4. Under “Allow Scripts to:” the first option lets you control unrequested pop-ups.
This will get rid of popups that you don’t request and keep the pop-ups that you do request…ie some sites that let you click a link to pop-up an enlarged photo, etc.
I only keep the last three options checked since some sites don’t work properly otherwise. It is highly recommended to un-check the first five options. Doing so will eliminate all of the annoying javascript junk that’s been polluting the web for a couple years now.
John
Is any RPM built with XTF enabled out yet?
To the poster who said I could find the answer to my problem on the mozilla.org site… I searched the site and the Mozilla FAQ presented this answer:
*****
3.3. Can I use a different mail program with Mozilla?
Windows, Macintosh: To make Mozilla use another mail program, you can either (a) uninstall Mozilla, then re-install using Browser Only (Mail/News not installed), or (b) add this line to user.js:
user_pref(“network.protocol-handler.external.mailto”, true);
This will open the system default mail program when you click on an e-mail link in Mozilla.
GNOME, KDE (Unix/Linux): This is not yet possible in GNOME or KDE, but work is in progress to make Mozilla for Unix compliant with the X Desktop Group Standard as it is finalized.
*****
According to this FAQ, I am out of luck. I didn’t find any other solutions on that site.
Is there a work around that this FAQ doesn’t mention? Thanks.
>> In addition to the DNS name end part you could place
>> user’s OS and browser info for everyone to see as well.
>> That would give a perspective to people’s opinions.
Hell yes… Although it can be spoofed somewhat, but it would be cool to see
Yeah, Eugina, a browser would be really cool! True, in Opera you can spoof it, but it would still be interesting. You can get the OS, too, right? It may take up too much space, but then again you could always make it smaller (“Opera 7/Windows 98”).
Irrelevant info really. Just look our stats on Counted.com about the browser usage on osnews…
Mozilla is on the rise if you want to know.
Don’t bother with the install file .. just download the zip file version, extract it to a directory, and run. No, I don’t use Mozilla as my primary browser, but I do use it isntead of iE6 for any secure transations.
Thanks WorknMan, I will do that.
I think it happened to me a few times before, but it never occured to me is might be a Mozilla bug specifically. Recently, my computer has been cured; it doesn’t happen any more.
The Mozilla team is doing a fabulous job and even if there are a few missing features it is quite easily my favorite broswer. I used it for everything but Windows BugFix (errr… Update).
I see as usual see a ton of misinformation about what Mozilla can and can’t do.
The email thing someone else already explained
“If Mozilla supported the back and forward buttons on my mouse, I would probably use it, but, alas, it doesn’t, which is really lazy, if you ask me”
It does for me with my Intellimouse. You need to a mouse with better drivers. The code is also there for this now and should be integrated very soon. As for calling it lazy, well I guess its easier to be lazy and whine about something then to actually look into what is being done.
“When I tried to install the 1.2 (alpha) release, when I double clicked the install icon, suddenly my hard drive started spinning insanely fast and loud and the hard drive indicator light went crazy and my computer restarted.”
Odd, but it was an Alpha, and they are usually pretty buggy. You should try 1.2 Final. A web browser shouldn’t cause your computer to crash unless your having other problems.
“Is any RPM built with XTF enabled out yet?”
They should be out soon.
Really for anyone who has problems or questions with Mozilla, OSnews isn’t the best the place for it, you should head over to Mozillazine.org where you will get plenty of help.
Someone said something about spoofing, well this little addon helps to do that 🙂 Although, I do think it is pointless to do so, unless the site you are trying to view is being annoying about it.
http://www.xulplanet.com/downloads/prefbar/
I just tested 1.2 on my linux box and well after three tabs it froze, so i am back to using 1.1.
some realy cool things :
the prefbar :
http://www.xulplanet.com/downloads/prefbar/
one click to kill pop-up, clear cache…spook your user Agent (Don’t do this !!!)
the mouse gesture
http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/installation.html
click & down : new window
click & uo : new tab
up & right & down : view source…
and lots of more
one day to learn, and it become indispensable !
Ok, last question here:
Is there ANY way that I can put the “Home” button on the main Navigation Toolbar? I want more screen realestate as well, so I want to get rid of the “Personal/Bookmark” toolbar. But I need only one button from that toolbar: The Home one (I don’t want to use the shortcut or the Go menu for “Home”, I want a button there
.
So, is there a way to put the HOME icon/button on the main navigation toolbar, just after the “Stop” button?
I am just like you when it comes to the Home button, but for the exact opposite reason. I want more room on the Personal Toolbar (not get rid of it) and for the life of me, I can’t understand why the hell they put the home button there instead of on the regular toolbar!
Yes, install this xpi :
http://home.no.net/trihand/mozilla/home/en/
And if you want Opera/IE Like Full screen :
http://www.krickelkrackel.de/autohide.htm
Is their a way to install Mozilla and Netscape under a different profile?
That would work…except Counted.com seems to be down. And I don’t think it would be irrelevant. The browser and OS that a person is using can be valuable information and something to take into consideration when looking at something they’ve said.
>Yes, install this xpi
Thanks, it added the functionality I needed for the Pinball theme, but it f*cked up my Modern theme and created an entry for a new theme that has no name (the name shows blank) and it can’t be uninstalled. I hate buggy software.
At least works for the Pinball theme…
I use Mozilla on Win98/2000/XP and Debian and never came across it.
Are you sure you don’t have some shifty freeware installed that mucked up some dlls?
I have hundreds of applications here. As others also do. It is like trying to find a needle in the desert.
If you mean that in order to use Mozilla I should have a “clean” Windows machine, with all due respect sir, this is just not right.
I just crashed Mozilla. All I had to do is click the 4 additional loading icons in its status bar (email, composer, address book and chatzilla). I clicked on them one after the other (I didn’t wait for one to load and then click for the other), and Mozilla deadlocked.
On another note, the Sidebar is behaving _really_ weirdly. Some times it doesn’t open, sometimes it does not show any channels while they are all checked, while other times when I resize the Mozilla window, the Sidebar gets half-opened all by itself. Buggy.
And why the freaking Composer does not support syntax highlighting on its HTML view, while the code IS there! (the View Page Source has syntax highlighting!)
And I can’t get the mouse scrolling as smooth as in IE. I changed its settings, but to no avail. Mozilla just “jumps” to the next page instead of smoothly scroll to it, and after you scroll a bit, you lose the idea/notion as to where exactly you are each time in a long page.
Being a web developer among other things, I need the feature where I can copy an image to the clipboard, like IE does. Me and some hundred others have requested this and it hasn’t being implemented yet. Neither the important ability to mouse-wheel scroll through the long list when you open the URL bar.
On the good side, they have fixed 2-3 other things I always wanted to see on Mozilla (now you can select images with the selection mode and when you copy some text and by mistake you had selected an image as well, it does no longer includes the ALT text on the copied text!!).
Other than these 4-5 irritating problems with Mozilla, it looks good.
And that the mozilla mail registers correctly in windows configuration so one can click on a link with a mailto from any other windows program and instead of open Outlook Express it would open Mozilla Mail…
Changing settings in IE doesn’t solve… so it must be much deeper…
Somewhere in registery prolly…
http://66.181.171.71/2/42699/400/?sub_page=0&date=0
As you can see, today Mozilla does well, as we had this new release.
If you see the previous days stats, Mozilla is behind IE, but today they are very close. A few months ago, IE was the clear winner, extremely front of the others. Today, Mozilla is catching up.
This is a horrible usability issue. When I use the Trackpoint on the Thinkpad, the mouse pointer becomes an hourglass and then flips into the “slider” logo, and then back to hourglass and so forth — at the speed of maybe 20 changes per second. But the page is not scrolling. However, if I pull the Trackpoint stronger, then the page finally scrolls. Really ugly. Now, of course, there is no way these guys are going to do squat about this problem, even though itexists since ALWAYS. I see it release after release, and they don’t fix it.
BTW, bug reporting in bugzilla is the most fUcking frustrating one I have ever seen! Try this: fill out all the fields, all the descriptions but forget something (you don’t know in advance) which they think it’s indispensible, and click on Submit. Well, you get a warning that you must provide that information (and if you don’t know, you can “just guess”, that’s what they say. So, it’s not that critical, after all?) and that you must “Press the Back and try again”. Well, so I do, and voila’, all the fields are erased clean!! Fucking brilliant. These guys are certainly generating a lot of goodwill.
> BTW, bug reporting in bugzilla is the most fUcking frustrating one I have ever seen!
Haha… indeed. It happened to me, TODAY, when I wrote a comment to an existing bug.
Until we have all these little quircks fixed, I don’t see me leaving IE. IE has other, smaller, problems, but overall, it works as you expect it too.
I just crashed Mozilla. All I had to do is click the 4 additional loading icons in its status bar (email, composer, address book and chatzilla). I clicked on them one after the other (I didn’t wait for one to load and then click for the other), and Mozilla deadlocked.
Mozilla does deadlock for a few seconds from time to time, but it may not have crashed; you probably killed it prematurely. What OS were you using, btw? (Not that it should matter!)
On another note, the Sidebar is behaving _really_ weirdly. Some times it doesn’t open, sometimes it does not show any channels while they are all checked, while other times when I resize the Mozilla window, the Sidebar gets half-opened all by itself. Buggy.
The side bar is a bit buggy and probably the worst done bit of Mozilla, but it will come good.
And why the freaking Composer does not support syntax highlighting on its HTML view, while the code IS there! (the View Page Source has syntax highlighting!)
Yeah, that’s a bit odd. Bug report?
And I can’t get the mouse scrolling as smooth as in IE. I changed its settings, but to no avail. Mozilla just “jumps” to the next page instead of smoothly scroll to it, and after you scroll a bit, you lose the idea/notion as to where exactly you are each time in a long page.
I prefer it as it gets me straight there. And if you’re losing where you are due to page length you probably should have dragged the scrollbar. The scrollwheel was never meant to be used to accurately scroll 20 pages at a time.
Being a web developer among other things, I need the feature where I can copy an image to the clipboard, like IE does. Me and some hundred others have requested this and it hasn’t being implemented yet.
Right-click on the image and hit save it.
Neither the important ability to mouse-wheel scroll through the long list when you open the URL bar.
The majority of users have their hands on the keyboard at this point as they type an url then spot the matching url underneath it, then use the arrow keys to reach it.
If it’s an url you use frequently, bookmark it. Plus, don’t you know, the mouse wheel is a major arthritis cause (that same curly motion of the finger) – well it is for me. It’s best you don’t use it for everything like you seem to! Again, the scrollbar is there, and it’s easier and more accurate than the mouse wheel.
On the good side, they have fixed 2-3 other things I always wanted to see on Mozilla (now you can select images with the selection mode and when you copy some text and by mistake you had selected an image as well, it does no longer includes the ALT text on the copied text!!).
Other than these 4-5 irritating problems with Mozilla, it looks good.
Awesome really when you compare it to IE in terms of development speed, security, and bug-squashing speed. IE truly is poor feature-wise and standards-wise. As a web developer, especially with it’s non-syntax highlighting source code viewer (ie notepad), it’s amazing you can claim it is better. I use it purely for testing purposes.
About the BeOS versions of Mozilla.
Aww come on, the last few versions have been pretty good as long as you have enough memeory.
Re: Win2k/XP a bug?
I don’t have that problem on my new system (athlon xp 1900+ with XP pro) but on my old celeron700 I would get it a lot. It’s very annoying.
As far as the sidebar goes…
Oh. Some one actually uses that
I find it very annoying. The OSnews sidebar is kinda cool, but it takes up to much space. I just always leave OSNews, TBJ, and a few other websites open in tabs and i’m fine. The bugs you having with the sidebar sound alot like the oens I had with some really old versions of BeZilla…
🙂
>but it may not have crashed; you probably killed it prematurely.
Charles, don’t play such games with me. I am not an idiot. Ok?
Mozilla was DEAD.
>The scrollwheel was never meant to be used to accurately scroll 20 pages at a time.
I am talking about OSNews.com’s front page, not any long manual page. IE just does the scrolling better for me. End of story.
>Right-click on the image and hit save it.
Again, you try to make me feel like an idiot. You won’t succeed. I know VERY WELL what I need it to do. I don’t want to bloody save it, then navigate with PSP and open the file. That TAKES TIME. I want it to copy the image to the clipboard. And if you see the feature request for this, you will have to go PAGES of the same feature request on their bugzilla, for months now!! The feature is still not there.
>The majority of users have their hands on the keyboard at this point
WRONG. When you click the little arrow of the URL bar and its url window opens, you don’t have the hands on the keyboard, you have it on the mouse. The URL window should support wheel mouse. The fact that it does not support it is actually non-standard from usability point of view.
>Awesome really when you compare it to IE in terms of development speed, security, and bug-squashing speed
Did I ever compared Mozilla to IE in “terms of development speed, security, and bug-squashing speed”? Please get your facts right. I DID NOT.
What I compared IE to Mozilla is in terms of USABILITY and STABILITY. I don’t give a monkey about development speed (IE is already in a good stage where works well), security (I don’t do online banking) and bug-squashing speed (Mozilla 1.2 has more bugs, EASILY found as I showed here today, than IE 6).
So, please, we all like Mozilla. I do, really. But let’s try to be REALISTIC here, not cover our eyes with a black cloth and start singing “mozilla rockz” all night long. That won’t help anyone.
Another bug on this URL:
http://olinux.uol.com.br/news/open_news.phl?id=6600
Screenshot here of what happens:
http://www.eugenia.co.uk/images/mozilla.jpg
To enable XFT font rendering just add this line manually to your prefs.js file located in :
/home/username/.mozilla/default/f05qfkay.slt
“user_pref(“fonts.xft.enabled”, true);” <–minus the double quotes !!
Works in 1.1 as well !!
Enjoy !
When I click on that link with konqueror, I get a box asking me if I want to open it with KWrite; similarly, with Links I get the text of the source. I don’t think this is a problem with Mozilla.
I had the same problem because I just didn’t like the Home button in the personal toolbar area. I ended up using the Alt+HOME keyboard shortcut.
It is because there are more version of IE. See this:
http://66.181.171.71/2/42699/400/?password=&sub_page=8&date=0
Looking at the browser list for OSNews… I usually look at this w/Phoenix (Linux & Windows) or Chimera. Neither is listed. Do they report themselves as Mozilla? Might be part of the reason Mozilla has shot up, since both seem much more usable to me than Mozilla.
im sick of all the dang bugs.. i have been using mozilla for a great while now and have been loving it, but putting up with lots of bugs.. and they keep adding new features and they aren’t even fixing the current bugs. i know mozilla is not for end users but all the browsers based on mozilla still haven’t fixed the same bugs that are in the mozilla tree. im starting to think those bugs just aren’t going to be fixed. and im going to go back to explorer i think. it may not be open source and have proper css support, but at least its speedy and generally bug and crash free.
When I click on that link with konqueror, I get a box asking me if I want to open it with KWrite; similarly, with Links I get the text of the source. I don’t think this is a problem with Mozilla.
Yes it is a problem with Mozilla. I got the same error while browsing at http://www.deskmod.org. It failed to detect an html document and displayed the source code instead.
http://olinux.uol.com.br/news/open_news.phl?id=6600 sends a mime type of text/plain. I know Eugenia probably isn’t going to accept that it isn’t Moz’s bug, but I have to say it is bad that other browsers are accepting that as html. If I set my web server to send a document as text/plain I expect browsers to show it as text, even if it happens to be html.
Has an evanglism bug been filed on that site?
By the way, it would sure be nice if people would site bug numbers instead of just ranting about how this or that isn’t getting fixed. Don’t tell me about it, show me.
Also, the stats are very interesting, but how acurate are these? Am I supposed to believe that no one is visiting OS News on a Mac is using IE? Somehow as much as I would like to believe that (at least for OS X), I would have to doubt it.
Also, how do I get stats for OS News from Counted without a link from you?
Chimera runs much faster than Mozilla 1.2 on OS X.2.2, running a Dual 800mhz box, with a 1gb RAM. I think the OS X port needs some optimization.
>Has an evanglism bug been filed on that site?
Yes. After I posted this comment here (I submitted a bug). That server indeed sends wrong MIME type.
>Also, how do I get stats for OS News from Counted without a link from you?
What do you mean? Counted is not our site. It is a third party! You go to /Computers/Software/Operating Systems/ I think.
Another bug:
Go here:
http://www.trekbbs.com/ubb/Forum28/HTML/012252.html
Select the message. Boom! It all became underlined out of the blue! (This is because of the way Mozilla does the NAME tag)
So far so good and the XFT font rendering kicks butt ! Do a test install to see if you have any dependency issues first before installing. I needed to install unixODBC.rpm ( I got this from my discs ) first before I installed 1.2 but after that it’s all good baby. Of course do remember this is a TEST RPM which includes everything along with the kitchen sink !! If you just want to install the browser only then wait till the rpm is spilt up into smaller componets and use urpmi or apt-get to install it once it’s up and ready for download.
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/contrib/texstar/linu…
P.S. Remeber that this is only a test RPM !! Use at your own risk !!
QuickTime 6 on win2k has the same behaviour. So it could be that they are using a particular set of widgets or… whatever.
It’s not a bug and it’s not Mozilla only, since it happens with iCab and Omniweb too. Doesn’t happen with IE though, but IE is the only browser accepting as HTML a page with no html closing tag.
I personally don’t think they are acurate. Because a lot of Opera users spoof as either Mozilla or Internet Explorer due to hostile behaviour towards us by some webmasters.
OT, both Phoenix and Chimera identify themselves as Mozilla 5.0 (or 6.0, I’m not sure).