“Mozilla, the long-awaited open-source version of the Netscape browser, is to release its first beta-test version aimed at a broad audience in the next few days.
The three-year-old project has begun to finalize a version of the Mozilla code for wider testing release, which could lead directly to the release of version 1.0 of the software. Previous beta, or test, versions have been aimed at the developer community.” Read the report at ZDNews. In related news, Opera has just released Opera 6b1 for QNX.
Countdown on Mozilla Nears Zero
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
“Opera has just released Opera 6b1 for QNX”…?!?
How many users does QNX have, that Opera would go thru the trouble to release a port for it? All this time I’ve been thinking QNX is on the order of another AtheOS as far as number of users.
Pat
So they can release Opera for QNX, yet they can’t be bothered to release an update for BeOS? (Didn’t they actually update it for the eVilla?)
yeah – nice. Thanks. Really. No, I mean it…
> How many users does QNX have…?
Not too many compared to a desktop OS.
_However_, QNX pays Opera to do it. It is as simple as that. Do not forget that QNX RtP is nothing but the developer’s platform for QNX’s net-related projects (including IAs). So, QNX did what Be did: Paid Opera to either do the browser port, or as in Be’s case, license the source code in order to port it themselves.
These embedded systems market has nothing to do with the amount of end-users, but with the business of the company and what their developer’s need in order to create full-featured products FOR the end users.
In fact, in QNX’s case, Opera runs as a client/module under Voyager, the native browser framework under QNX RtP. So, when you load Opera under QNX RtP, or a QNX-powered IA, you don’t even see or recognize that what you run is Opera. It is just the HTML engine they use, not the whole Opera environment as you know it under Windows or Linux.
> So they can release Opera for QNX, yet they can’t be bothered to release an update for BeOS?
QNX pays sums to have that ported. There is no Be anymore to pay Opera for a BeOS release. And the BeOS user/market-base, well, we all know how small it is and how non-sustainable they are. I mean, there was/is not a single company that made their living out of BeOS. So, why Opera should bother when they know they aren’t gonna make money?
I thought this thread was about mozilla, no??
🙂 Anyways, mozilla is very usable as it, and I hope the 1.0 version debuts with more improvements in speed. Does anybody know why they wouldn’t design a more appealing interface? The “modern”-look buttons look like they were designed by elephants 
Well, are questions about number of QNX users serious? It’s top embedded system OS, it may be used in some devices and you will not even realise. So – Opera can be handy for them.
Now back to Mozilla – I use it regularly from 0.9.6, so actually, 1.0 is out pretty long 🙂
-pekr-
Well, that would make a difference – I guess QNX would do that in order to have something to offer their userbase (all three of them *smirk*).
I know – kidding – but what about that eVilla thing? Am I wrong, or didn’t somebody use the Opera code there? If so, was it Be? Sony?
I can understand Opera’s reasoning, sort of – actually, it’s more surprising to me that someone would try to make money from a web browser these days. With all the free alternatives, I wonder how many people are willing to pay $40?
Now, in the case of BeOS – if they had done it, I would have paid, because there would be a real benefit (assuming they did it right). But for Windows – ?
> what about that eVilla thing? Am I wrong, or didn’t somebody use the Opera code there? If so, was it Be? Sony?
It was Be. They had licensed the source code from Opera, for a fee, of course. And they used it for their IA projects, including eVilla.
As how Opera makes money in these days, simply, by taking over projects like these from QNX or Be in the past. Embedded systems business always yields money to a company.
Yuppers – that’s what I figured. As I said, they’d starve trying to float a company off a retail web browser.
So I guess Palm has the eVilla/Opera code now, eh? God, let’s not open THAT can of worms again… ;^P
Thanks, Eugenia, for giving such informative posts!
> With all the free alternatives, I wonder how many people are willing to pay $40?
Maybe not enough to be a viable company on that business alone – I don’t know how important the embedded systems client business is, but evidently plenty. We shall see if K-Meleon is ever updated again (last update Oct. 2001). If not Opera will be the only reasonably lean and mean browser for Windows out there that does a decent job with Javascript and CSS.
Until you’ve tried it.. I’ve used QNX as well as BeOS, Linux and the rest… QNX is the *Nix without the X (*server) – MacOSX without actually being OSX if you will.. its fast, small and very friendly.
Try it, it dual boots with Win98 very happily, havent tried it with Linux or NT series windows.
As for Moz.. rock on…
I have been testing Mozilla 0.9.9 for the last couple weeks and it is really great, I have a couple complaints, but then again I have complaints about all the web browsers. Right now I am posting using Chimera’s Navigator (0.2) and I have to say this little booger is fast and lite on its feet. I still have a sweet spot for OmniWeb (beta 4.1), I am currently testing that and sending DRs to the OmniGroup folks, but it is quite nice thus far, it can only get better!
I can’t wait for Mozilla 1.0
🙂
The fact that Mozilla is an open source project and an accumulation of the ideas of hardcore developers is not all that surprising. The rendering of pages sustains only a few subtle flaws, it’s very flexible, and has multitudes of settings. However, I downloaded the latest beta for my girlfriend because she was in an anti-IE phase and Mozilla convinced her to prudently switch back. It still has the same clunky interface a la Netscape 4, it isn’t very fast, it’s auto-complete features (both for URLs and page forms) are irritating and unintuitive, and I won’t even bother mentioning the problems I had using it on BeOS. If Mozilla had come with Windows, I’d still have downloaded IE (even though I have my share of qualms with it as well) …
Personally, I’m still waiting for a great browser to come along. Actually, I guess I’m just a software cynic in general, so don’t pay any attention to my comments.
I wonder how many people are willing to pay $40?
Guilty. Worth every dollar. Simply compare the cost of Opera to the cost of an average PC game, and then compare how many hours you’ll spend with Opera vs the time spent on a game. Opera is really an excellent browser. A beginner can cope with free browsers like IE5.5/6 or Mozilla, but power users (like most of the readers on this forum) need a tool which is tailor-made for their browsing needs. Opera is the power users browser.
Zenja,
Wow I think you nailed a good point there. That could be something for opera to market with. Just start marketing things price in number of video game cost vs time used ratio’s.
I’ve been using Mozilla for nearly 2 years now. Originally this was on Linux where I found Netscape so unstable it was unusable (hint: switch off java fixes it). I used to use the daily builds because the main builds were not so great, they got better each time but it was a bit of a lottery – you never knew if the build would work at all! After a while it became a lot more stable and I was able to switch to the monthly releases about a year ago.
I tried Opera Alphas on Linux but I would not advise this, when it crashed it took most of my user settings with it – not just Opera settings but everything! It was an Alpha and it was Alpha quality… The 4.0 Beta on my Psion was no trouble though.
Mozilla has been my main browser on Windows and Linux for quite some time now. I still have to resort to IE for some things but I try to avoid it, every time I think I’ll try an MS product thinking they have got it right – they haven’t and it does something stupid.
I did use Opera on BeOS (with a license) for quite some time, it worked fine with BONE but still crashed a bit on some sites. It wont install in DANO so I had to switch.
I’ve tried Mozilla on BeOS on Numerous occasions and only switched over after I went to DANO, Mozilla BeOS only become really usable a couple of months back. It still can’t read some sites properly without crashing (news.bbc.co.uk, http://www.expatica.com – Netherlands ).
I’ve been using some daily builds for BeOS recently but there are still stability problems which increase badly with low (128MB!) memory and it doesn’t support Ctrl as a Shortcut key yet.
The 1.0 on Windows and Linux should be an excellent browser, BeOS will hopefully follow in due course.
Worth every dollar.
I agree totally. Being able to save a dozen pages is quite a timesaver – well, maybe not, but it definitely is a more leisurely way to browse. And now I can’t live without those mouse gestures.
Mozilla is somewhat depressing on BeOS. On Windows, it’s beautifully rendered, even if it’s not as peppy as Opera. On BeOS, it’s “usable now”… but depressing. Opera 3.62 for BeOS may be antiquated, but it’s incredibly fast – it feels like BeOS. I always end up using Opera again, and I gladly payed for it. (I’m one of the lucky ones who never had all of the crashing with the BeOS version – it’s always worked perfectly for me). So, while it’s depressing that a current version of Opera will never make it to BeOS, it’s even more depressing to see something as sluggish as Mozilla on BeOS, despite it being modern and free.
But it doesn’t look like there will be any other options in the near future for BeOS, and I guess I should be thankful that a modern browser does exist.
cant wait for moz 1.0. hope they fix some bugs in the email and address book. making it faster would be nice too… maybe i should try compiling it hehe
First of all, QNX didn’t even pay for the original Opera 5 port —- IBM paid money to Opera Inc. for porting it to their NetVista thin clients. Don’t know about Opera 6 though, probably QSSL paying for this new version.
If you guys can pony up enough cash from the BeOS driver fund, you can contract Opera Inc. directly for a new BeOS port.
Second of all, the FREE version of BeOS was downloaded over a million times. QSSL has over a million PAYING installations of QNX worldwide (from their website at http://www.qnx.com/support/faqs.html). QSSL employs about 275 people, has about 20+ million in annual revenue and profitable for the last 20 years. Even on its best days, Be Inc. was employing 100 people (latest SEC filing stated that Dan Johnson is the only employee left), slightly over 2 million in annual revenue and losing money during its entire 11 years of corporate history.
You can set CTRL key to work in mozilla on BeOS. Check FAQ on http://www.bezilla.org
Unfotunately mozilla hangs up after viewing few pages, and it hangs up quicker if i go to next page before finishing loading current one. i have 512 MB RAM.
Well, I just hope you or your girlfriend actually used the product for more than months, without touching IE. Because, there is some psychological factor in the game, so if you are used to one product, you want the other to work the same way.
I think that actually you are wrong, but of course, you have full right to have your own opinion 🙂
I found quite the opposite – gee, IE lacked print preview even in 5.0 version. Not to mention easily opening frame page in a new window from context menu, not to mention tab-browsing, not to mention free and decent website composer, not to mention IE crash taking down all your browser windows, not to mention mailer/news-reader, now much better in details than Outlook Express …. so … 🙂
Cheers,
-pekr-
The BeOS daily build is looking great.
Much better MTBF.
check it out at:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/latest/
ciao
yc