The new major version of Mozilla is now available. Release notes are here. On a similar note Netscape 7.1 and Epiphany for Gnome 0.7.3 are out while on other browser news, learn about the iRider browser and its usability enhancements over other browsers.
Mozilla 1.4 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Did anybody notice that the date on this release (1.4) is the same as 1.4 rc 3? I looked at the FTP site to download this and saw that the Linux and Windows versions are dated Jun 30 while the Mac OS X version is dated Jun 24 which was the same as 1.4 rc 3. Were we lucky enough to get the final version on Mac first or is there some wrong here. Anybody know what’s going on with this?
Now development can start on what everyone is waiting for… Mozilla Firebird =))))
Well, to get back on topic, let me say that lately I’ve been really pissed off at the Mozilla project’s slowness with regards to releasing sources. Distro maintainers and users of source-based distros can’t do anything with Mozilla without the source, and I don’t understand why the sources come up to a month after the official release. Is the OpenVMS package so much more in demand than sources?
The RC means it will become final if there arn’t any major bugs found. Apparently there weren’t any so they went ahead and made it final.
Yeah, that pisses me off too. I don’t know whether it’s lazyness, or if they do that to save some disk space or bandwith… Anyway, I’m currently pulling the sources of Mozilla 1.4 from CVS: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.4/README
does anyone know where I can get the source for 1.4?
thank you.
if you provide a link I would really appreciate it:)
thank you again.
if you provide a link I would really appreciate it:)
And what do you think it is, the green underlined text in the post preceding yours? An ad?
the irider browser looks kinda interesting. got some nice features. Browse ahead, proper page level histories, etc.
Whether there is room for yet another browser in the market is debatable, and when you have to buy the browser, probably even less room. (IMO in the “pay” browser market, Opera is probably the best placed).
Still competition is healthy and I wish them the best of luck
should have read all the way to bottom of the download page…
“Since iRider is implemented using the version of Internet Explorer installed on your computer, you can use Internet Explorer’s extensive privacy control features (using the Tools/Internet Options command) to manage your level of privacy while using iRider.”
Based on Internet Exploder! No matter how good the house is, if the foundations aren’t good….
having downloaded and used it I have to say it’s quite fast.
Sure it doesn’t have tabbed browsing, but he page level history (and cacheing) sort of means you don’t really need it.
Just a great shame it’s build around IE… I’d consider buying a decent browser made with KHTML, Opera, or Mozilla/Gecko, but never IE?
Strangely though, the “best” feature is the little animation you get whever you click a link (pointless, yes, but looks nice!)
I din’t see your link by the time I posted my comment, sorry:)
You don’t have to be harsh with me Smart Guy…
Sources have been uploaded as a bziped tarball:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.4/src/mozilla-…
I din’t see your link by the time I posted my comment, sorry:)
Well, your post was a good candidate for a RTFM
You don’t have to be harsh with me Smart Guy…
I apologize, I didn’t mean to be that harsh.
@skamp
Doesn’t it occur to you that, with less than a minute separating his post and yours, he may not have pressed the page refresh button before typing his comment? As in: he read this page & comments, went to their site, didn’t find sources, then came back & posted without refresh so he could see your comment?
Or does it just feel too good to assume others are stupid?
Thanks allot:) Now I’ll compile the whole stuff with AA fonts and all other patches I have for mozilla:)
RE: Jack Perry (IP: —.nomadic.ncsu.edu)
Thanks allot for your support, but maybe my question was not so good. Anyway I didn’t find the sources at the ussual places, so I posted my comment:) And my reply to skamp wasn’t also the best.
I agree, the completion of Moz 1.4 allows us to close that bloated chapter of web browsers. I’m really excited to see how the next version of Mozilla Firebird is going to develop as they start making various modular features available. I like the current incantation of Firebird so much that I wrote my own little review over here: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze47gs4/TheLinuxBox.org_files/Mozilla_fi…
Mozilla Firebird rules!!
Doesn’t it occur to you that, with less than a minute separating his post and yours, he may not have pressed the page refresh button before typing his comment?
My post:
2003-06-30 21:29:21
His post:
2003-06-30 22:19:41
That’s less than an hour, not less than a minute.
Or does it just feel too good to assume others are stupid?
I don’t know, but maybe you might.
Have you been slacking, and not taking your meds again?!!!
Now it takes the same percieved amount of time as Firebird to load up.
Anyway are they really different. I once deleted all.js and launch mozilla firebird and it looked exactly like mozilla 1.4 and earlier would like, only with the debug menu options.
Previously I hated the download version of Mozilla because the fonts were not AA and therefore UGLY. I am compiling the source now with ‘enable-xft’ and toolkit set to ‘gtk’.
I hope that fixes the problem but it would be nice if AA fonts were enabled by default, or you could enable them or there was a binary with the enabled as an alternate download.
I don’t mind being called stupid if you will tell me how this can be done without compiling.
Thanks.
Andrew
to say that I have been using the RC’s at work on Windows and they seems really fast, apart from startup time which is not bad and does not bother me at all.
To any Mozilla dev’s out there, great work! I have been really impressed how each release has come faster with more and more quality. It seems crazy to even consider using IE.
Have you been slacking, and not taking your meds again?!!!
What? What are you saying exactly? Jack Perry’s statement was utterly wrong, I corrected him, that’s all. Besides, I even apologized to marcm. So what’s wrong with that?
This flamebait^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H conversation should be modded down.
I am using Netscape 7.1 right now to read OS News and I’m impressed. It seems much faster than 7.02, and far superior to the disappointing Netscape 6. I am seriously considering taking Safari out of the dock and using Netscape for a while as my default browser. Safari never got rid of some of the quirks of the beta versions. For example, in Safari I still cant de-underline links. I could deal with it in beta, but I kind of thought it would be something the user could control in the final version. Guess not. Besides, I think its good to support Netscape even though AOL sold them out by doing a deal with the devil (MS) to make IE the AOL browser. Cant quite understand that!
As we all know, Mozilla is going to be completely gutted and turned on its head. Most of the next incarnation of Linux distros (except debian) will no doubt ship with Mozilla 1.4 and I recommend everyone stay with it for at least 18 months while Firebird stabilises and all major security flaws are fixed.
You’d think a tech reporter would know the difference in the “major” and “minor” numbers in a version number.
In debian mozilla has AA suppot with the mozilla-xft package and fontconfig. Don’t know about the other distros.
Yawn. Is this a troll or just clueless? Firebird is built from the same tree as the current browser, so nothing is going to be completely gutted. It’s a change to the UI (and how the UI toolkit is organised) and some different build options which have already been tested by various mozilla embedders. Firebird will have as few security issues as the current browser does (not none, but not many and generally not as harmful as Win IE ones).
> Firebird is built from the same tree as the current browser,
> so nothing is going to be completely gutted. It’s a change
> to the UI (and how the UI toolkit is organised) and some
> different build options which have already been tested by
> various mozilla embedders.
I would consider a UI rewrite and build system revamp for a project the size of Mozilla to be pretty major. Wouldn’t you? As for security flaws, I don’t understand how you can make such promises (unless you are a regular commiter). AFAIK, searching through the Mozilla mailing lists will reveal concearns of this nature among many of the developers.
My intentions were not to devalue or demoralise firebird’s efforts. It was simply a quick observations based on past experiences with the rule being: “When a large piece of software undergoes heavy modification, it is wise to use an older version until the next release stabilises and has undergone significant testing”. This applies more so when existing parts are heavily modified rather than with the addition of (sigificant) new features. I could well be wrong (I do recall being wrong once before…). Firebird may well be as stable as a rock by the time 1.0 arrives.
Thanks Victor.
Using SuSE here.
That is one of the benefits of distros like Debian and Gentoo over SuSe and Redhat. When a new version of Mozilla comes out you get the new package. Most packages are not upgraded by the other distros except for security issues and in the case of SuSE KDE normally gets updated.
After compiling with AA the fonts look amazing, Really liking them. I now have the Calendar installed as well. But it is much nicer to have a package so it can be managed easily. Creating my own package is not just not practical to me, the creation of a spec file is too tedious for me.
If Debian just had good hardware detection it would be great for me. I have installed it previously but the Sound Card would not work.
Sorry, I’ve been on Slashdot too much. Seeing trolls everywhere. My apologies.
The Moz UI rewrite is rewriting the XUL + JS frontend which will also have it’s toolkit reorganized. This stuff is separate to the backend, which is mostly C++ organized into XPCOM components. Security stuff (e.g. the Javascript implementation, the cookie/image permission managers) is wrapped up in the backend and will not be rewritten as part of the UI rewrite (although as with all the code, it’s always being worked on). Mozilla is just a big bag of components and things like the managers just mentioned are simply different components to the UI.
I’m not too familiar with the build system, but my impression is that it is going to be much the same as before rejigged for the new options and layout of libraries. I’m not a comitter FWIW. I have done some triage and submitted a few patches (not modesty, really very few
I agree that with rewrites things get unstable, but remember that Firebird already exists (and has for quite some time as Phoenix), so much of the rewrite has already happened and so has much of the testing of it. This was a parallel reimplementation of the UI that started a long time ago. It’s not as though that it’s only just now that people will start coding for and using Firebird; rather that now all the months and months of work that have already gone into it will become the trunk. My issue was your mentioning security flaws, as while there probably will be some, they will be ones that would have been/are currently in mozilla anyway regardless of the UI.
I don’t know, but maybe you might.
LOL! I looked at that 3 times, and each time interpreted it as minutes-seconds instead of hours-minutes. Yup, you’re right! 🙂