Many users submitted the news of the myriad Mozilla releases, including Mozilla 1.5, Firebird 0.7, and Thunderbird 0.3. In other news, Opera 7.21 for Windows, Solaris, Linux and FreeBSD was released this week as well. Update: Epiphany 1.0.3 is out too.
A Bevy of Browser Releases
About The Author
Adam Scheinberg
Technology Executive • Web Developer • Father • Foodie • Music Snob • OS enthusiast
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Mozilla is really an excellent product.
The only thing missing was a good PR-department
It looks good now, take a look how their new (and standard compliant) more user-centred website is
http://www.mozilla.org/website-beta/
In other news, the mozilla foundation launch a phone support (based in the USA) and sells CD in order to finance the software and themselves
http://www.mozilla.org/website-beta/press/mozilla-10.15.03.html
The good news with all this changes is that the mozilla foundation prove his capibility to supply to the dead Netscape.
has started agin but very slowly.
—
perso.hirlimann.net/~ludo/blog/
Mozilla and its derivatives are certainly great browsers but I have to second what the first poster jmf wrote. They desperately need better PR. I do some side consulting for some educational technology products that run thru Java. There are all kinds of problems with IE and it way it handles Java in the product (not mention all other Java-based products, but we will save that discussion for another day). I repeatedly tell people interested in the product to use Mozilla (or Firebird) because I have encountered zero problems with the Java with those two browsers. Most people using Windows reply “Moz….what?” They haven’t even heard of it. They all know Netscape but that is almost as bad as IE in my opinion (too much bloat in Netscape….in my opinion!).
If Mozilla were to get significant press, they could begin to make inroads into wider usage. It certainly is a better browser but most people don’t know the first thing about it. Redesign the website all you want (it does look nice though) but that will not drive traffic to it and lead to better marketshare.
I think that the full sized mozilla suite is in the running as far as bloat goes. that being said, I do use firebird and thunderbird, because they both rock =D I think that if mozilla could get installed as default on dells or something, then they would be on the road to more acceptance.
Just downloaded and installed 1.5. It is faster, smoother than 1.4. It just keeps getting better. 🙂
Apple should have used it instead of “rolling” their own with Konquer.
I use Opera in Windows (at work), i’m addicted to the mouse gestures and at home my prefered browser is Firebird for BeOS. It’s geeewwwdddddddd
Great to see new versions with improvements.
DaaT
http://www.iscomputeron.com
The only browser that would get PR after a new mozilla realease is the Netscape browser based on the mozilla work.
Probably because everybody is now trying to do that
I’ve been an opera fan since they were all just flat out free. And i have to say, when i first strated running the beta of 7.21, i thought it was great. Now that i’ve been running it since the day of its release, i just want to shoot it. Its buggy, pisses me off and worst of all isn’t as all around fast as it used to be. I am so glad that the actual release if finally out. I’m so tired of filling out bug reports, it isn’t even funny. I hope they made this offering as good as i’ve come to expect their offerings to be in the past.
OH and no more beta testing for them in my near future.
-=gabe2=- I choose Debian, what os do you choose?
i am unablet download firebird the ftp site is not working
I’m seriously impressed with Firebird, I’ve been using Opera for nearly 2years but FB has been my default browser for the last 5 months. I’ve been using 0.7 for the last 2 weeks and have found no problems with it all and have also been pushing it out to most of the corporate users here at work as an alternative to IE. I’ve been pleasantly suprised to see that your average joe user suddenly stop using IE and switching to Firebird. THunderbirds my defult mail client on windows, theres a few bugs that annoy me but on the whole its pretty good for a 0.3 release !
Harjtt : o )>
Just thought I would let people know, there seems to be a problem with the downloads in that the links are broken on the download pages. If you ftp in, you will notice that the directory structure is slightly different. Not sure why, but just thought I would let people know.
is the ability to print using cups… i hate having to switch browsers when i need to print something
The only browser that would get PR after a new mozilla realease is the Netscape browser based on the mozilla work.
I can´t believe you don´t know that Netscape (and IE) are dead
Here’s a link to a Windows installer.
http://seb.mozdev.org/firebird/
anyone? I only get timeouts on the FTP.
Is it just me or are Gecko browsers (recent builds) just plain crashy lately. I have Camino, Netscape, and Firebird (recent builds) and they all crash very often. Opera Mac crashes a lot as well.
Here’s a working FTP server in Japan
ftp://ring.so-net.ne.jp/pub/net/www/mozilla/mozilla/releases/mozil…
This is starting to look nice, it’s very standards compliant which points out all of the bad HTML in my website that was created to be IE compliant
I’m using it as a validator as well as a browser.
Lots of stories have pointed out that MS stopped developing IE after it “won” the browser war. It’s frustrating to see CSS problems with IE because I’d like my site to be standards compliant.
Mozilla is awesome. I use Epiphany because I like the UI better (blends in with GNOME), but no doubt about it, Mozilla is the absolute best when it comes to Windows browsing.
Funny thing about Epiphany is that it blends in almost _too_ well. When I switched to it from Moz not too long ago, it took my girlfriend a second to realize that it was a browser, and not Rhythmbox or some other GNOME app
.
-Erwos
Props go to the Epiphany devs, it’s a great little browser … a Firebird for Gnome. But, is there a changelog available for 1.0 -> 1.0.1 -> 1.0.2?
RE: jmf (IP: —.ira.uni-karlsruhe.de) – Posted on 2003-10-15 14:19:42
Mozilla is really an excellent product.
The only thing missing was a good PR-department
It looks good now, take a look how their new (and standard compliant) more user-centred website is
ftp://ring.so-net.ne.jp/pub/net/www/mozilla/mozilla/releases/mozil…..
This is starting to look nice, it’s very standards compliant which points out all of the bad HTML in my website that was created to be IE compliant
I’m using it as a validator as well as a browser.
Lots of stories have pointed out that MS stopped developing IE after it “won” the browser war. It’s frustrating to see CSS problems with IE because I’d like my site to be standards compliant.
Microsoft hasn’t developed further because most people don’t know Mozilla exists, there for Microsoft doesn’t have any competition. If Dell created something like “Dell Web Browser” and “Dell E-Mail Client”, brand the look ‘n feel and ship it with their machines, it would force people to update their sites. I doubt webmasters are going to say to 20million Dell customers, “use IE or sod off”.
Mozilla is as excellent as always. I regard it as the very best of the big open source apps, in that it is undeniably better than the closed / proprietary counterpart (IE). Having a top notch web browser is extremely important to me, as that’s what I use the most in day to day life.
I recently tried Firebird again, and it’s cool but not captivating. It’s definitely fast and light, which is excellent, but other than that, it’s just Mozilla without some of the most advanced features. The interface is a blatant clone of IE, in terms of the menus, history and bookmark sidebars etc.
One massive question – WHY is the tabbed sidebar from Mozilla gone in Firebird? That’s one of the great innovation in Moz, so why dispense with it again? Not being able to add custom sidebar tabs (like the OSnews one!) is a big downer to me using Firebird. So for now, I’ll stick with Moz 1.5, which rocks all the way.
Firebird and Thunderbird are absolutely great; I’ve been using Firebird for ages now (since 0.4 or 0.5), and Thunderbird for a couple of months, and I’m quite happy with them.
I wish Firebird, or any other browser, for that matter, supported SVG graphics natively. Then I could use it as a high-quality print engine for technical docs. 🙂
– chrish
You have to go to Edit > Preferences > Privacy & Security > Popup Windows to enable pop up blocking. You no longer have to double click on the address bar to select all of the text (nice touch) The text zoom feature is much better than the IE solution, it even works on fixed sized fonts.
Yeah Epiphany is a cool browser. But however, I need a girlfriend for that “wow” effect
. Yet I always feel unconformtable to talk about computers when Im around with non-geeks.
The cool things in the computer world are for free, for example:
– “Hey, I saw you closed the conversation window. Why did you do that?” (MSN, dunnow about other protocols)
– Tabbed browsing
– Continue this list…
But somehow this doesn’t do it for the end-user. The browser just doesn’t work where THE USER wants it to work. And yes I mean IE-centric pages. Also I cant recommend Gaim to other msn users, because they want to see the picture of someone else. They want to be able to use their webcam… they want to be cool to their friends.
This is the number one problem of the open-source browser IMHO:
Not everyone is a geek, and starts sweating with a new release of a program… People use computers as a tool. That’s it. And if tool A does the work, then why should I search for tool B?
the new moz site is pretty well done.. Dave Shea (of mezzoblue.com and csszengarden.com) has done a great job with it.
Standards compliant and an attractive site in general. Woo!
Firebird is working _very_ well indeed. I does appear to
load http://www.dn.se (a swedish newspaper) as fast as IE. Mozilla
1.4 didn’t…
Good work guys. Bravo.
Crashy?? I haven’t noticed any problems here… In fact, I’ve been running the 1.6a nightly builds for over two weeks now, and haven’t had it crash on me once. I can’t speak for Firebird, since I don’t use it very much… But Mozilla has been soild for me.
Applications on 10.1.5 are crashy in general. I just downloaded firebird .7 here at school at it’s rock solid stable so far, much faster at rendering/downloading than IE 6 here. I think it may be time for me to upgrade on October 24 (panther).
for posting my email adress.. and as the first link..
could you remove that? it’s not like i’m responsible for the mozilla releases..
How do we know it’s really you? PGP signature please.
You can find torrents of the new versions here:
http://www.metashops.co.uk/mozilla/
A bug was introduced in the 7.2.0 betas that made pages load without the images showing and more to the point, without the placeholders for the images or any error message
this bug although acknowledged on Opera forums made it through to the final 7.2.0 build.. 7.2.1 loads images correctly a lot more of the time but still occasionally fails to include them.
To show images you have to work out where on the page they should be and right click on there to select load image. Refreshing the page won’t do it.
I really hope that 7.2.2 has a full and final fix for this bug, it really irritates me ( couldnt sign up for something online in Opera the other day as a 100×50 px “Continue” button wouldnt load and I couldnt locate its position on the page to manually load it ! )
I love FireBird, but if seems that this release should have gone through a bit more beta testing first.
It doesnt display scroll bars on the windows version.. I have deleted it and gone back to firebird .6 for now…
Hopefully they can fix it soon, as otherwise .7 looks great.
Running Firebird 0.7 on RH9 and man is this thing smooth. I had some minor problems with Firebird 0.6 and so far they all seem to be fixed. 1.0 can’t be far off.
for posting my email adress.. and as the first link..
could you remove that? it’s not like i’m responsible for the mozilla releases..
You were the first to submit it. If you don’t like it your e-mail address posted, don’t submit it. Sheesh.
thank you for removing it..
Wow, I have found this really weird bug in .7: My webpages are bouncing! It looks pretty funny though, I wonder what the hell is going on!
I’ve been using Mozilla and recently Firebird for close to 2 years now so a “0.3 or 0.4” release don’t scare me too much.
I get the impression that Thunderbird is largely based on the Mozilla/Netscape e-mail client so major bugs should be out of it. Has anyone lost e-mail, etc because of a bug in the program? I want to use it but don’t want to risk losing stuff.
You forgot to mention that Opera 7.21 is also available for Linux (SPARC, Intel, PPC), FreeBSD (Intel), and Solaris (SPARC).
Is there any way to have Mozilla on OSX use the middle-click to open in new tabs. It does this on every other platform, but I guess there’s probably some Apple HCI reason for disabling it on Mac. Anyway, it’s a real pain. I even tried adding user_pref(“browser.tabs.opentabfor.middleclick”, true); to the prefs.js file, no joy…
Ben
anybody knows if mozilla 1.5 is based on seamonkey (1.4) or in firebird (0.7)?
Thanks to the work of Adrian Mardare, we have packages on QNX for Mozilla 1.5, Thunderbird and Firebird.
http://www.qnxzone.com/readmore.php?news_id=316
Firebird is an application which is truly amazing. It get’s smaller and smaaaaller and smaaaaaaaller… not only that, but more feature complete, faster and just more amazing than it already is.
However!!! The next step for Mozilla.org which I currently lack is that they should hook up with all telecom companies and make sure Firebird takes Operas place in cellphones and also in PDA’s. Firebird which is so small and take up so few resources should be able to offer great power to the user in these boxes.
Anyway, I’ve waited for 0.7 and I’m so happy to see it become reality.
w00t w00t Mozilla team
To: Chris D.Emery
Hitting “g” a couple times doesn’t fix the images not loading? That toggles whether Opera should show all images, show images in cache, or show no images.
I’ve been using Opera 7.2 since the beta and haven’t had that problem.
mick_nobody: I would be willing to bet that your problems are theme related. It is HIGHLY recommended that you delete your old profile, Mozilla directory, etc. before you install a new one. Check their forums for more detailed instructions.
I am using 0.7 now on Windows (and have been using the release candidates for quite a while) and see the scrollbars just fine. Everybody who has had this problem I have seen in the forums have tracked it down to a theme. 0.7 introduced a new way to packages themes and you need an updated one or it will have problems with the scrollbars.
“Opera 7.21 has been released for Windows”
Why not tell the WHOLE TRUTH! Instead of making it look liek the other platforms such as Linux and Solaris are outdated and ignored or even non-existing why not say the platforms Opeara supports.
Anyway, I’m happy about these browser releases, I’m especially excited about Opera and Mozilla Firebird. While Firebird still dosen’t provide some useful advanced features that Mozilla does, such as a powerful search for bookmarks it makes up for it in its speed, consistency, and ease of use.
Writing this with Firebird 0.7 with WinXP. Terrific release. =)
Just updated all my Moz stuff, seamonkey, firebird and thunderbird. Uninstalled old seamonkey (1.5b) and removed old fb and tb dirs. Left the profile dirs for settings.
Everything works nicely, only things I have had to take care of so far are reinstalling some fb extensions that were installed in the firebird directory.
The new “tab” menu in fb is cool, lets you apply some advanced magic on your tabsets.
Anyone know where the release notes are for Firebird 0.7 ? I haven’t downloaded it yet (currently using Opera 7.2) .. just wondering what’s new.
I installed Firebird 0.7 on Linux after seeing this article. It works great. The only thing I had to do was install a laucher icon on the desktop linked to the executable.
The handling of Firebird .7 ‘s release has been poor. They should have had mirrors for downloading but none were availible as of 1pm PST when I downloaded the app. A few sites had the newest Firebird listed but were pointed to mozilla and had bad links(cNet and VersionTracker for example).
Other than that I have been using Firebird for year now its working out like a charm. One thing I have noticed with this release is that it is keeping the website icons rather than keeping them only for a single session. It also has a more refined feal to it. Installed in a different directory under WinXP and it pulled all my settings and bookmarks properly under my user account.
With Thunderbird .3 out in a much more usable format and thr new Firebird, I am almost ready to delete mozilla 1.4 off my computer.
With the lovefest going here, were are the Trolls?
Hi Anon
The toggle images function is not related to the images not loading issue, according to Opera it’s caused by the new image handling code….
Is there anywhere we can follow the download count for Mozilla and mozilla firebirD?
I expect them to pass 1 million soon…
192.168.0.3 – – [16/Oct/2003:12:43:31 -0700] “GET /index.php HTTP/1.1” 200 4326 “http://192.168.0.3/“ “Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i586; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007”
hmm this is faster than firebird (0.7).