In sad news for people who prefer Mozilla Suite over Firefox, seems will be there no Mozilla Suite 1.8 Final while developers already start talking about fork , others are just happy over the situation. More here.
Mozilla 1.8 Final Might Never Come
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I don’t mind to say it either, let it die. Either work on Firefox and other apps, or don’t.
My point is that either you adapt, or die; Mozilla suite is bloated, waste of space; Firefox is quick and thin; and it won.
$
mozilla is great. i hope it lives on
I use firefox and like it, but all the firefox hype meisters and fan boys should realize that Mozilla actually renders faster and is more stable than Firefox right now.
There are some page render results that were published a month back. Check Slashdot or google if you care for the results.
Additionally, many people like the integrated suite, among other reasons because it makes it easy to bring old Netscape nostalgics aboard the new ship.
If it turns out that Mozilla does not have the resources to push both firefox, thunderbird and the Mozilla Suite at the same time, then I guess a decision has to be made.
However, do note that many people and organizations built their applicatons around Mozilla’s Suite core apps. I was just recently passing through the airport in Malaga, Spain and then tourist info booth has an internet enabled touch screen that runs a very customized Mozilla suite.
Whichever way they go, best of luck to the developers. It’s a very worthwhile and important project, even though I think khtml is actually better designed and easier to code on.
I wanted to build it on windows for one reason or another and man was it a lot of freaking code and a complicated build system even with cygwin and friends.
How does someone in their spare time get involved with such a behemoth when it is going to take months to get up to speed on even a small fraction of the code?
Compare that to something like eclipse, where you have series of books and tons of docs that explain all the interfaces and everything.
Does Mozilla have stuff like that?
Lumbergh,
Check this out:
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/
to Say goodbye to the mozilla suite. I don’t really mind as I already did this 2 years back or so when Firefox (Phoenix) came around. Mozilla may render faster or whatever, but it simply doesn’t look as good. Startup very slowly and just seems oldish.
On a completely different note, for many of us who enjoy the power of Outlook 2k3 which is simply 10 years ahead of Thunderbird/Mozilla Mail, it makes no sense what so ever to have all the extra things which comes with Mozilla.
This is good, now try to figure how Thunderbird will become competitive… things that come to mind is
a) A better addressbook, please look at outlook for once. I’m talking customization, photos etc etc.
b) Live Queries, once again look at Outlook
c) Improved ruleset for sorting mail
d) Better integration with cellular devices such as mobile phones
e) Maybe insert an SMS message service in there as well for storing SMS messages and such (together with the mail)
f) Better Instant messaging services, Thunderbird shouldn’t be mail, it should be a communication app treating more protocols than one. Look at IMKit for BeOS
g) Blackberry support. now this is really a serverend feature, however, since some providers don’t offer it, maybe some sort of “forward” feature or something to blackberry enabled servers would be nice for us providers who don’t have it.
In the meanwhile, I’ll just stick to Firefox and Outlook 2k3 and figure that ordinary Mozilla doesn’t exist and soon it’ll be a fact.
Mozilla is dead. Even my grandparents can use FireFox.
I think it’s tragic that this is happening. I’ve been a suite user for years now, and it’s far better than Firefox. The suit is a mature product. Firefox to me is nothing more than a toy. I really don’t see what all the fuss about Firefox is. I personally cannot stand using it! And I advise people against using it and suggest the suite to them.
There’s no way I’ll switch to Firefox. Mozilla is just a better browser. And that’s all I use it as, just for browsing. I don’t use mail or composer. I just get a much better browsing experience from the suite than I’ve ever been able to get from Firefox. And I’ve been playing with Firefox since it was Phoenix 0.1! So it’s not like I haven’t used Firefox.
I’m just not impressed by Firefox at all. And I much prefer Opera to it. I plan on using the suite for as long as possible… And after that, I guess it’s over to Opera…
If you want to build Mozilla on Windows, this page is really helpful: http://gemal.dk/mozilla/build.html
Just follow steps, and I am sure you will get a working build, without much trouble. After the build, you can actually start hacking.
This shouldn’t even be considered until Firefox and Thunderbird are more integrated. They both use a ton of the same functionality, and loading both up should not result in loading the same functionality into memory TWICE! This is somthing they plan to do for FF and TB 2.0, but until then, we just are not ready to drop the Mozilla Suite. Period.
It mkaes sense to cut out the functionality of Mozilla, package it in seperate products that still feel like a suite. Thunderbird and Firefox are a great example of this IMHO and if they benefit from “the downfall” of the Mozilla suite, I’m all for it.
I got it to build. In fact, I think those are the instructions I used to build it. I just remember “a lot” of code being on my hardrive. What I was most interested in was something like gtkmozembed, which ended up getting built for windows by the mono folks anyway.
I think it’s just like i read somewhere else.. Most people who used Mozilla before Firefox came around sticked to it.. That’s for a reason.
I like mozilla.
More then firefox even.
The current uproar about firefox doesnt really make much sense to me, mozilla has been out for far longer then firefox and they really are pretty damn similar, perhaps firefox was merely around at the right place in the right time and got lucky?
/me shrugs
I hope mozilla lives on.
How about getting the Mac version working properly; you know, removing duplicate menu entries, using PROPER Mac widgets for the forms, oh, and HELLO?! its 2005, why are you still using QuickDraw? How long as Quartz been around? geeze, and people wonder why I stay with Safari.
until then, we just are not ready to drop the Mozilla Suite. Period.
Everyone seems to be making the same point, that Mozilla should not do this to the users, as if this decision might be made to screw users over or something. It’s great if you feel that Mozilla should not be dropped, but the fact remains that there are only so many developers and resources to go around. Unless you have a solution to that problem, telling Mozilla to keep working on it despite this is not a viable path. Otherwise, we may come to a point where both Firefox AND Mozilla end up where Netscape is now – forgotten and hardly used.
Personally, it makes sense for Mozilla to go this path and drop one of the two projects (presumably the integrated suite). Then they can dedicate their work more on Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. and speed, security, and other benefits will be able to come quicker. It may be a sacrifice in the near-term, but if we want Mozilla to keep achieving a larger market, especially with the threat of an IE 7 in the future, this is the most logical path forward.
By the way, those that keep calling the Mozilla Suite bloated are just clueless.
Seamonkey has a smaller footprint. Running Mozilla Suite is lighter than having Thudnerbird and Firefox running side by side. Who would have said some years ago that the Mozilla Suite was lighter than anything?
So, there you go. If you just like a product, say so, but do not try to make a technical argument to justify it when the technical reasons are not there.
What firefox has going for it is brand recognition, which is no small thing, but let’s not confuse this with technical superiority.
They use the same rendering engine, it just that all the development of the engine was one the suite, then ported over to Firefox.
I understand that they use Gecko. But there is a lot of code duplication between Thunderbird and Firefox, a situation which some Mozilla devs claim will be corrected by the time that Firefox 2.0 ships.
Look, I don’t mind one way or the other. I just want people to understand that the Mozilla Suite is technically very good and that it isn’t bloated or any of the other nonsense that often gets thrown around.
I completely agree with you Eu! Actually, in the little test I’m doing now, Mozilla suite is using less memory than Firefox!!!
So how the heck is Firefox supposed to be smaller and quicker?? And the suite is bloated?? I’d like for someone to explain to me exactly what makes the suite bloated. More features doesn’t mean it’s “bloated”.
And for those wondering… Current memory useage of both browsers with the same page loaded is as follows…
Mozilla suite: mem usage: 5,488k vm size: 20,320k
Firefox: mem usage 13,388 vm size 20,712k
It always seem the case on my system that Mozilla uses less memory than Firefox. I also find that the Suite seems to render faster than Firefox, and they both seem to load in an equal amount of time.
How about getting the Mac version working properly…
Yeah, fixing the MathML bug would be a good thing. I’m thinking of looking at that if I graduate in May. Maybe even if I don’t graduate in May (I’ll need something to do if I fail the thesis defense…)
i am longtime ie user that can’t even believe i am saying that. but firefox is so cool and simple that i just can’t ignore. i like idea separation of browser with e-mail client, no need to be bloated.
And yes to compete, all resource must support one product , not several product that do the same thing. for exp: Linux just cannot success in desktop because KDE vs Gnome, there can be / should be only one!
Linux just cannot success in desktop because KDE vs Gnome, there can be / should be only one!
We have to stop saying this!! The whole point of open source software is to have choice. And there are many more desktops than just Gnome and KDE, anyway. The answer is plain and simple, and it is the same answer for any open source project: if people want it, they will work toward supporting it. The source code is there, waiting for anyone who wants to work with it, fork it, whatever.
From a technical point of view, I agree that the Mozilla suite is still better than Firefox. My tests with the alpha releases of 1.8 show a LOT of improvement in speed and stability, and there are still quite a few annoying XUL/Javascript bugs in Firefox. I had thought that having two parallel projects was a good thing, sparking innovation on both sides.
And by the way, Microsoft has done just fine winning the market with parallel products, such as Outlook/Outlook Express, or Windows 95/Windows NT, Or now Windows 2003/Windows XP. Not to mention at one time they had Works and Microsoft Office in parallel.
All those people bashing the suite just have no ideia what they’re talking about:
. The suite isn’t going anywhere for the simple reason that the people developing it like it better than the birds
. IF the suite should go unattended, well, let’s wait. Whoever waited for Mozilla 1.x and kept using Netscape 4.7 can surely wait for someone to pick on the suite again
. FF is simply hype. It’s a better browser than IE (while worse than Seamonkey), but that’s not enough for it to make a living. When IE7 ships, what will be of FF? And IE7 needn’t even be half as good as FF to drive it out of business
. About the only good feature FF has is the Find toolbar. Also plugins are reportedly easier to write. Nothing that can’t be corrected
. The suite IS what kept all the non-IE people together all these years. Those people want it. They don’t want to be told that ‘resources must be focused’. Focus the resources on the suite!
Currently using Mozilla 1.8b1.
In case you all have missed it; FireFox’ future is also not so certain (no I’m not trolling):
http://www.expert-zone.com/index.php?module=announce&ANN_user_op=vi…
Seems to me that the Mozilla Foundation is having troubles coping with the succes. Let’s hope they can figure it out before they turn tits up.
I myself would prefer both Moz and FF to move on for the reason that FF and TB are at thispoint memory eaters like no other browser I’ve ever seen (especially the OSX version is a total disaster). You don’t throw out your best player without having a replacement ready.
This sucks… I use mozilla over firefox, only revert to the latter for pages that crash mozilla – e.g. browsing the video games section on ebay
I’ll keep on using mozilla latest until it gets too damn old.
Like it when my apps integrate; firefox and thunderbird (correct name?) are ok but when I want to switch to my email client I like having some handy icon somewhere. Mostly, I just disliked the separate email client forget for what reason. But it was enough of a “showstopper” for me never to use it again. Damn, if only pegasus mail looked better or handled all accounts in a list/tree list? view as does mozilla mail/thunderbird.
I’ll miss you mozilla. Never did use: composer, address book, irc chat, or even the calendar add-on when I chose to install it. Now if there was an option for firefox and thunderbird to recognize each other better
In case you all have missed it; FireFox’ future is also not so certain (no I’m not trolling):
I was about to bring that up. Looks like these guys are going through some crisis.
I guess I’m not really saying that mozilla should stay or go because I don’t use it at all. I only use firefox. However, it is true that Firefox is:
a) bloated (how can it use so much memory?)
b) slow (very mysteriously slow sometimes)
c) crash prone. FF crashes regularly or locks up. Try going to this list of rpms at fedora.redhat.com and watch FF freeze up (at least for me) http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/3/i386/os/F….
Does anyone else also have the download manager acting crazy all the time? I have this on two different computers.
Why have I not switched to FF?
Mozilla has:
1) Sidebar
2) The little buttons in the upper left hand corner that allow you you temporarily hide the Navigation bar and others.
3) I just don’t care for the XP look and feel. Yes, I know you can change it.
4) I love the way the “Preferences” is laid out. I see no point in changing anything more in “about:config” while I can do it in the menu. Yes, I have made a ton of changes in “about:config”.
I will take Moz over FF any day of the week.
How about getting the Mac version working properly; you know, removing duplicate menu entries, using PROPER Mac widgets for the forms, oh, and HELLO?! its 2005, why are you still using QuickDraw? How long as Quartz been around? geeze, and people wonder why I stay with Safari.
If you were content with safari you wouldnt be so displeased with the Mozilla version for your Apfel. Accept it: it is not you who ignores them, it is them who ignore you Apfel users always bitching about something without rest.
I’ve seldom seen one of you actually show gratitude for all the Free Software made available for your platform.
But I’m not sure which memory leaks people are talking about. Right now I show Mozilla at 18,044k, Firefox at 20,776, and IE at 15, 384. Where’s the “Huge” memory leaks I keep hearing about?
I have been a long time Mozilla user. Although I use Firefox more and more lately the Mozilla suite is still my baseline browser. I am really hesitant to believe what is written in the linked articles.
why?
1. Firefox has utterly failed to build a community of developers sufficiently compentent in the code to maintain it. Perhaps this will change someday-but there is no room now for hackers when it comes to Firefox-the project has been totally standoffish to a lot of potential new coders due to it’s percieved elitist attitudes. As said this may change-but the Mozilla suite has been and will remain the gateway for hackers and new coders trying to become Mozilla developers.
2. Although we have seen round after round of ‘Mozilla is dead, long live Firefox’ the fact remains that the Mozilla suite was the development platform that gave birth to Firefox, Thunderbird and Nvu-none of these applications are suited as a development platform-if the Mozilla suite is abandoned the *source* from whence these applications came will likely all dry up.
3. The advantages that the Mozilla suite as development environment offers is perhaps only now becomming fully visible. There have been repeated attempts to fully realize it’s development platform potential in the past-but only now is *Mozilla* (MoFo) actually beginning to win mind-share-the the fact is that during the preivous attempts to relaize it’s potential Mozilla commaned perhaps 5% of the browser market-at this point *Mozilla* is closing in on 10-15% market range- this bodes really well for enticing new developers to jump aboard-but they aren’t going to jump aboard Firfox….
4. Everybody and their brother has been waiting for Gecko to become stand alone. But if Gecko is the only technology from Mozilla that actually survives the new ultra-hype surrounding Firefox then Mozilla has no real chance of posing any longer term competition to IE. I for one don’t want to look back in 5 years and say, “well for a moment there it seemed like Mozilla might actually have had a chance at making the web enjoyable again, but alas what we saw was only a minor blimp on the radar screen-now Firefox usage is down 60% due to stagnation and the inability to compete with IE 8.0.”
Personally I am just going to wait until the hype cools down and everybody sobers up a bit. Once the air has cleared a bit I expect these folks to come to their senses.
You could say that prolly about a future 1.9 release, but the 1.8 should become finished since it is almost done.
“But I’m not sure which memory leaks people are talking about. Right now I show Mozilla at 18,044k, Firefox at 20,776, and IE at 15, 384. Where’s the “Huge” memory leaks I keep hearing about?”
On my iBook Safari uses ~28MB and FireFox ~50MB.
2096 firefox-bi 0.8% 0:13.42 10 189 348 20.4M 31.7M 50.4M
2035 Safari 0.0% 1:51.93 6 111 324 18.1M 19.0M 28.2M
>> In case you all have missed it; FireFox’ future is also not so certain (no I’m not trolling):
> I was about to bring that up. Looks like these guys are going through some crisis.
Well, if we have a look at xfree86.org, thoses crisis are good for all in the middle and long term! (xorg)
Regards,
Joacher
If you discontinue Mozilla, I won’t switch to Firefox, I’ll switch to Opera. Opera is more similar and has an embedded e-mail client, IRC client, and much more. I think anyway that Firefox is poor compared to the Mozilla Suite, they basically took away most features and kept just the browser
Bad bad…
They are right to end Mozilla. Mozilla will always be the bloated ‘son of netscape’ that felt slow, sluggish and unfinished. Firefox is what Mozilla SHOULD have been from the start and I fully understand developers ending Mozilla to concentrate on other things.
Mozilla didn’t set the world on fire, but Firefox did.
(i give it a few minutes before the Mozilla fanboys mark this post as abuse like the others.)
I use mozilla exclusively. What I like about it is:
1) stability – it never crashed on me;
2) configurability – firefox’s configuration is a laugh, it should offer a usable configuration screen, not just those ugly bitmaps;
3) search from the address field – I don’t dig the separate entry box
I’d never switch to firefox, cause it lacks in those areas when compared to moz.
i actually prefer Mozilla over firefox & thunderbird…
integrated browser & email client & WYSIWYG html editor…
better rendering of websites…
if it forks i hope it goes to good and capable hands…
They Should make a new mozilla suite, and Call it Mozilla 2.0
Browser : Firefox – Mozilla Web Browser
Mail: ThunderBird – Mozilla Mail
Callendar: Sunbird AKA ThunderBird + Callendar – Mozilla Mail ?
Adress book: Thunderbird again? – Mozilla Mail ?
Composer: NVU – Mozilla Composer
Chat: <INSERT SOMETHING HERE> – Mozilla Chat
All modular and all can be separetly installed.
Now that/this would be great
firefox needs to unify the url entry box and the search box into a single address bar the way mozilla has it before i’ll start using it. it is so nice to be able to use the arrows to change between functionality in the same box.
I don’t know if it’s time to drop the whole suite, but I think that it should be done, they must concentrate on a single product, not on duplicated browsers and MUAs, the suite could be replaced by a more modular version, made of the existing software (mainly firefox and thunderbird)
Not backported in FF. Such as roaming profiles. *Sigh*…
…OpenOffice.org go the same way Mozilla went.
I hate the idea of a suite bundled in one huge application and I preffer much more to have little apps running faster, starting faster, being able to have different update schedule and not this “f**k yourseft and download our new 30mb updated version” just for patching a browser-only ou MUA-only thing.
I pray to all the gods and entities-gods-like every night for some splendid miracle to happen in the brains of the developers and thinkers of the OO.o to start cleaning up some code, separate the modules and, one of the most important, get rid of the ‘soffice.bin’. I am not running StarOffice, am I?
If I want to write I want to just write. The same goes to presentation, spreadsheet, drawing… If I want to integrate a database with the write it should be done by linking. I could say MS Office does this but I preffer to say: PageMaker does this since early 90s. You place graphics, images, artworks, texts inside it and once the original document get update it is also update inside the PageMaker.
Issue n°1 with Thunderbird: no option to open links in a new tab.
Issue n°2: no button/link to launch TB from FFox (ctrl+2 = mail in Mozilla Suite)
Issue n°3: ctrl+m in Mozilla Suite opens a new mail message…
Issue n°4: Mozilla Suite has a quick launch bar in the down left corner, which I often use…
Issue n°5: ctrl+n in Mozilla Mail opens a new Mozilla window…
(and there’s probably more…)
That’s integration.
I have also many many problems with FFox, which I just can’t stand compared to the Suite navigator… not enough options, no multizilla (love that plugin cause it allows closing tabs with a single click)…
Yeah, plugins are great, installing them is easy, but sorry it’s not “it” yet.
I don’t care having to open 2 appz, but when it’s a pain to switch from one to the other I don’t understand… What’s the benefit of that move ?
think Moz suite users are BIG pushers for Firefox since they know it’s a dumbed down version of their browser and many people use webmail only, so it’s okay for them. And now they’re telling us to look elsewhere ? That’s really a bad PR move…
What is this that people on ‘both sides’ are so aggressive in their reaction to this post? I mean, this is *SO* stupid. Remember that both projects share the same code base and rendering engine. It could be deadly to the Mozilla project as a whole to be fighting over this.
And to the ‘suite fans’: Firefox is not some ‘toy’. It is a success. You can’t ignore that fact. So it would be logical to go on the long term for Firefox and Thunderbird. And yes, if there are things that need to be fixed to have the same functionality as in the suite, they should be fixed first.
Let’s not waste time ‘fighting’ each other, but focus on the real goal here: a widespread, globally used open source browser that can compete with IE. This is good for the user, this is good for the market, this could be good for standardization on the web.
This is an important example that choice in open source is controlled by developers. If they want to end a prodoct, they can, regardless of what their customers and users want. At least in the proprietary world, work on the product would very probably continue as long as customers demonstrated their desire for the product by buying it in sufficient numbers.
Sure, some users could grab the source and continue development. But, then, by definition, they’d be developers. They’d quit when they got bored, too.
It’s difficult for people in the real world to depend on open source when…, well, they can’t.
When this day would come. Seems a waste of resources to have a MozApp, plus FireFox, Thunderbird, etc,
Enterprise can’t adopt so fast, come on.
We needed 5 years to replace Netscape 4.xx with Mozilla. Finally everybody are happy, you tell me that Mozilla is dead.
Thak you!
Why did nobody of our UNIX power users liked it?!
No, we will not upgrade. We will wait another 5 years. Maybe we’ll have then something better.
Three things I liked better about FIrefox …
1. Speed
2. Speed
3. Did I mention speed?
Oh, and the extensions are pretty nifty too.
IMHO, Mozilla didn’t really become usable until v1.6 and by then, Firefox was simply much better.
Oh, and the extensions weren’t bad either. Sure, Opera is faster, but this is not an Opera vs Firefox thread
I don’t like mozilla over ff because i don’t like software that duplicates the operating system functionality. I mean, lauching apps, communicating between apps, multitasking is the work of the os. This is what i call bloat, and waste of energy. Big, all-in-one apps had some interest with a monotasking os, or one that doesn’t let apps communicate easily or share fonctionality. So it had some interest in the past but not now with todays os’s.
As far as rendering is concerned, please stop bitching, it’s the same code base taken at different times, it’s a short term problem.
And who cares if a program takes 20 more megs of memory, only devellopers know what a megabyte is!
> This is an important example that choice in open source is controlled by developers.
They are the only ones investing resources into the product.
> If they want to end a prodoct, they can, regardless of what their customers and users want.
There is _NO_ reason why somebody spending and investing _nothing_ in a product should have a say regarding its development process.
> At least in the proprietary world, work on the product would very probably continue as long as customers demonstrated their desire for the product
Actually, there is also no proprietary software you can affect as a paying customer. All you can do is to pay and _hope_ that the payment will be a incentive enough and thedevelopment will be continued, or that it will go in a direction you like. If there is willingness to pay for continued development and maintenance, why should this not work with Free Software projects?
> by buying it in sufficient numbers.
There is also no reason why a desire for a Free Software product cannot be expressed in sufficient number of money donations.
> It’s difficult for people in the real world to depend on open source when…,
When they dont want to pay for it?
> well, they can’t.
All they can depend on is that the particular Free Software product is free and will stay free. The whole difference ist that the users you speak of want to be able to count on it, like they do on products they support financially, but dont want to pay a single dime for development of Free Software, because they for no actual reason expect it not only to be free, but also to be gratis.
from [Prognathous] http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/007532.html
The reason this change of focus irks Seamonkey users, is because Firefox has become a WONTFIX-bonanza for many thing that are simply more usable in the Suite:
Firefox’ URL autocomplete is buggy (Bug 246237).
Its tabs need a visual redesign (Bug 206175, INVALID).
It has no site navigation bar (Bug 187488, WONTFIX).
Bookmark notifications were actively removed with Bug 253478.
Filing groups of bookmarks is unpolished (Bug 257311).
You can’t place the New Tab button in the correct place (on the tab-bar) without extensions.
Its Ctrl+Enter functionality is inconsistent between links and the URL bar (Bug 177498, WONTFIX).
No support for changing file associations (Bug 216501, WONTFIX).
Handling of the Find bar is inconsistent with other toolbars (Bug 250587, WONTFIX).
The installer makes things needlessly difficult compared to Seamonkey’s excellent installer, especially for those who are used to specifying a new installation folder by merely changing the path (Bugs 280195, 254961, 251735, 229343, 241282).
Opening a folder in a group of tabs is slow compared to Seamonkey groupmarks (Bug 172675).
The Find toolbar makes Find-As-You-Type annoying (Bug 250309).
Links-only-FAYT is buried as a hidden pref and is no longer available for user of the Find toolbar (Bug 250924, WONTFIX with nary a comment to explain why).
You see, it’s not just that Seamonkey is quicker, it’s also more usable for many of us. You can read many similar comments by other disappointed Seamonkey users in mozillazine forums.
> 1. Speed
What the hell are you talking about? Which speed – rendering or are you refering to time we need to load the binary to memory?
In practice there is a small difference. We are using web browser and email together and we are not PC users which start/stop browser or email client 100x per day.
Mozilla suite is running 24×7 on every workstation and it’s all time in memory.
Where did that speed go?
From http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=6186#1
> “sorry,as an ex suite user, what “advanced” advatages does
> it haves over FF+TB?”
Installing themes and extensions are a lot easier and less time consuming with the suite. Unlike FF and TB, you only need to install and configure things once in the suite and they run properly in the browser, e-mail client, calendar (if installed), etc. Maintaining themes and extensions in both FF and TB can be tedious because you have to do everything at least twice. If you have extra time on your hands, I guess that’s not a problem. But if you’re a busy person, then repeating the same steps over and over again just so your browser and e-mail client sync up is a bit too much.
Having Mozilla 1.7.5 open with, browser, e-mail, and composer allows me to work, monitor e-mail, and check my web authoring with only one program. Can’t do that with Firefox or Thunderbird. Of course I could open Firefox, then Thunderbird and consume more resources than with just Mozilla 1.7.5. Now add a graphics program (PSP 9.01) and some sound applications and resources run low.
But with Mozilla 1.7.5 I can still have all my working applications running and have lots of available resources.
The suite needs to remain in development, that is where Thunderbird and Firefox get their foundation. In addition there are many professional web developers who need the power and flexibility of the suite.
Michael
————————————————
From mgordon2 http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=6186#1
The Mozilla Foundation is undoing itself. They are simply reducing their ability to develop quality software products by focusing on the IN-things. FF/TB is years (3-6 yrs) away from being a complete new Moz Suite.
So until 2010 or so, all users will be left without a Suite replacement?! Is the world supposed to run Alpha/Beta code for FF/TB/?? deployments until then?!
Goodbye Mozilla, you guys had hope but dropping the ball on FF *and* Seamonkey is really bad practice. SAFARI and MSIE are the only reasonable browsers to use and support as a developer now — there’s no clear path for Moz in the future… except for NETSCAPE8…
I made the switch for no reason in particular.
1. FF doesn’t search in edit boxes. That sux.
2. FF works with plugins better.
3. I wish FF had an email icon so i could go directly to email.
4. FF look and feel seems cleaner.
5. Thunderbird handles blogs which is nice.
6. When one crashes it doesn’t kill the other.
7. I wish a browser window crashing wouldn’t kill all windows.
Not a big deal difference though.
Firefox doesn’t seem to render the websites I visit properly either. So, although I do use Firefox, I use it for programming only, and not as my primary browser just yet.
Seamonkey (Mozilla) renders sites far better than firfox does, with much fewer problems.
I know FireFox is just at 1.0, so I am sure things will improve. But till then it is my secondary “lite” browser.
-gc
My humble opinion on this:
I use all mozilla apps, browser, mail, chatzilla and composer. It is nice to have only one application open, much better than 4. Please give mozilla suite a chance.
Why not the developers finish Mozilla 1.8 Final FIRST and then switch the efforts on Firefox/Thunderbird. It just doesn’t make sense to drop Mozilla 1.8 when it is almost complete. Why drop that ball on the users/corporate users? Also, I wonder if this decision is based on Netscape 8 Beta.
Look at Mozilla’s 2.0 wiki. See if you can help with one of the projects.
they should modularise and continue work on their crown jewels like the gecko rendering engine, javascript parsing, and technologies like XUL.
sure, their Suite is bloated and only really suited for tweakers, not most end-users.
if they produce modules, then other projects can continue to use these most valuable softwares.
I’ve tried Firefox, and though it is loads better than explorer is is only a shadow of the functionality of Mozilla. I do not use any other features of Mozilla besides the webbrowser, and I hope to continue this. One feature in mozilla standsout above all others for me, cookie management. Cookie management in Firefox, put nicely, is dreadfull. There is not quick and easy way to unblock a site from sending cookies after you have deemed it legit/necessary. This feature alone could keep me from every adopting Firefox over Mozilla.
I never muched like mozilla, and I’ve only liked phoenix/firebird/firefox on versions .6,.7,.9,.9.1,1.0.1 (1.0 was obnoxious for me).
I’m stuck on firefox now, because I’m addicted to extensions like:
Image zoom
adblock
tab prefs (ok that’s available pretty much on opera, but not so much in konq)
smoothwheel
But yea. If you want to see Mozilla keep going, go volunteer to help develop/test it!
Sounds like you’re saying that Mozilla development would continue if customers sent money. You might like to use the word “donation” for that, others might use “bribe” or “purchase price”. Makes no difference to me.
The fact remains that so long as developers, and only developers, can decide to kill a product, then all this “free” stuff doesn’t mean squat for users.
I agree, once they get things a bit more integrated they can then consider killing Mozilla. I’m sure they could add a simple check to Firefox and Thunderbird to see if the other is running and then only load the needed parts. Would speed up loading and reduce memory usage.
On another subject, as for Mozilla vs FireFox vs Opera. I personally preffer Firefox, it seems to load faster and is lighter on resources than the other two. I find Opera has too much eye-candy, of course that can be changed with themes, then again you can add eye-candy to FireFox with themes too. As for Mozilla, I’ve always noticed the extra bloat.
Of course it also depends on what you need. I use FireFox because I just need and want an efficient and quick browser. I really don’t want the rest of the Kludge that comes with the Suite.
My opinion is really, keep and work on both the suite and the stand-alone apps. They both have their markets. The Suite for those who want an all in one, fully integrated solution. The stand-alone apps for those who want to pick and chose.
Don’t you guys see it, by shutting down Mozilla… AOL will have less competition in promoting the truly bloated browser that is Nutscape
8. They want to stop competition from the inside before they take on Opera and MSIE (they wish!)
IMHO, Netscape screws up all the good work done in both Firefox and Mozilla, I have tried their new beta which is based on Firefox and talk about slow and bloated…I know it is a beta but still
.
Btw, I’m a big fan of Firefox, but I don’t see the need to scrap Mozilla, I thought having a choice is a good idea. Maybe the developers can make the parts modular like how some guys suggested earlier, this way there can be a complete suite download or only the individual applications.
Since the products are almost similar, I don’t see why they can’t bring the codes together and have modular applications. For example, Firefox is the browser, thunderbird the mail client, and etc. All this application will come under the Mozilla suite banner, the work they have to do is on how to integrate these application when the user chooses to, if the applications are installed separately.
Nobody has made much mention of the fate of Composer. It’s not in Firefox and not in Thunderbird but it’s in Seamonkey (Mozilla). Does anyone actually use Composer? Does Composer simply exist so we can compose HTML email messages in Thunderbird and Seamonkey or is there some real reason we’re keeping Composer around?
“Not backported in FF. Such as roaming profiles. *Sigh*…”
Someone does an unofficial build of FF which lets you do this (you can keep a complete copy of FF complete with your profile on a USB key and it’ll work on any machine you plug it into).
Lemme get this straight. Netscape shuts down the (presumably, in your opinion) superior Suite so that the (in your opinion) inferior Firefox is Netscape’s only competitor.
So if Netscape think the Suite is better than Firefox, why is Netscape 8 based on Firefox and not the Suite?
I don’t use Mozilla anyway. I use Firefox. Safari and Firefox are my preference anyway.
Composer will live on as Nvu. Did anyone actually ever use the integrated composer anyways? I know I havent touched it since the Netscape 4 Gold days. There’s just better tools avalible now. Maybe now that its been seperated out as Nvu, we’ll finally get a more advanced feature set.
deam, i do not like firefox; i am waiting for fork; so what it 1.8 will reach final; who tells that 1.9 will reach it then? as i got it seamonkey can be this fork. name is great; i believe it will be a good shot.
RHEL3 doesn’t expire until ’08, which means RH will be keeping a patched up mozilla for ya’ll until then! Just use their sources..
>The fact remains that so long as developers, and only >developers, can decide to kill a product, then all this >”free” stuff doesn’t mean squat for users.
Swap the word developers for managers and you have just described proprietary software. I’ve had closed source software products both canceled and ‘upgraded’ from underneath me becuase there where too few customers, and no amount of complaining from me, the user, had any effect.
The advantage with open source is that I can pay someone else to continue development if necessary. Can’t do that with closed source.
I agree that maintaince on both the Suite and the new, seperate standalone apps must be a strain on the developers, but I think there is still a need for the Suite until the standalones are actually more integrated. Many people still use the Suite, and may not switch over to FF/TB/SB if they abandon it.
Solution:
Make the standalone apps work together like the Suite. If it can be done, make it so that one installer program can install all of the components of the “new mozilla suite”, FF/TB/SB. This way people have the ability to use the apps they need and have it work in a way that I think most users of both the suite and standalone apps would expect.
I like Firefox, I think its swell but I do love the Mozilla Suite and I doubt I will ever stop using it, but when the time comes, I think I will more than likely switch to the Avant Browser.
The advantage with open source is that I can pay someone else to continue development if necessary. Can’t do that with closed source.
Great, so who are you going to pay to continue Mozilla development?
I use composer to layout and setup web pages quickly. I don’t like how it fills in tags for fonts, spans, etc. So once I get it laid out, and filled in I switch to a text based editor.
I don’t have any other options as buying software for work isn’t a priority. So name one wysiwyg html editor that’s 100% free and has actual features.
Besides i can open up Mozilla it takes less ram to run than Firefox and Thunderbird. Runs faster with both mail and browser open, not to mention I can open the mail, check for new mail, and close it down, it leaves the mail checker in memory notifing me when New mail hits my inbox.
That both solutions should stay. Open Source is all about choices. Some of you claim that having all-in-one is fine, while others prefer to run browser only. See? If we kill Firefox, some will be unhappy. Same goes for Mozilla. And DE X vs. DE Y.
_Great, so who are you going to pay to continue Mozilla development?_
I’ll make you a deal… In return for an industry standard 15% cut, I’ll set you up with an experienced Mozilla developer to do contract programming work for you. Or you could always skip the middleman and post an inquiry on the relevant Mozilla developer lists.
There’s only one browser on the MAc that works with the Mambo CMS built-in editing. It’s Mozilla.
Until Firefox developers fix this, we still need Mozilla.
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1.html
the mpl, like pretty much every other software liscence agreement, doesnt say that the developers will support the product forever. however, it gives you the option to support it whether or not they decide to stop. you can even make money off it.
anyone who didnt see this comming really hasnt been paying attention. the MoFo has an extremely limited amount of resources and funding, why in the world would they support two competing products, one with a massive install base, the other with a moderate one? to those of you who believe they owe you something, how much have you paid for the right to use, modify, and redistribute mozilla? how much would you pay for similar rights for, say ie or opera?
make a mozilla-firefox suite
The prospect of hiring a singleton developer to keep a single app alive isn’t very appealing for a singleton user.
The point is that, from a user’s perspective, the impact of open source developers getting bored and quitting is exactly the same as proprietary vendors dropping a product for financial reasons.
Users aren’t free if developers — proprietary or open osurce — decide what products are made.
I’m a user. I really don’t care if developers are happy or not. It is my interest if developers produce software I want to use. If developers drop a product I use, then I lose, whether or not it is open source or proprietary.
Well, I guess it’s back to IE (ugh) for me if they kill it. I honestly dislike firefox, seems buggy,unpolished and slow to me.
I guess I’m not really saying that mozilla should stay or go because I don’t use it at all. I only use firefox.
Almost the same here. I also use Konqueror, Links, and Opera, but Firefox is my main browser.
However, it is true that Firefox is:
a) bloated (how can it use so much memory?)
Memory footprint is not an indication of bloat, but may be an indication of aggressive caching.
b) slow (very mysteriously slow sometimes)
Never had that here.
c) crash prone. FF crashes regularly or locks up. Try going to this list of rpms at fedora.redhat.com and watch FF freeze up (at least for me) link snipped
The page loaded fine in Firefox here, although the server seems a bit overloaded. Probably too many people checking out your link.
Does anyone else also have the download manager acting crazy all the time? I have this on two different computers.
No, things are fine here. The download manager is a bit limited, but it seems to work fine.
A couple of comments: Firefox comes on most platforms, with differing problems cropping up on each. I run a version out of Debian’s Sid repository. You may run Fedora Linux or Windows, or BSD, but I suspect it’s Fedora. How to put this diplomatically: Some packages that run just fine elsewhere tend to get a little flaky on Fedora.
Firefox comes in a host of configurations. Mine is fairly “loaded.” My list of extensions includes the DOM Inspector, Adblock, Pop-up Alt Attribute, User agent Switcher, Spellbound, Resize Search Box, Cookie Culler, xMirror, Disable Targets for Downloads, Context Highlight, and Tabbrowser Extensions. You will have a different combination installed, and even if it were the same, you might have different versions and configurations from me.
What does this mean? For troubleshooting, try renaming your ~./mozilla/firefox directory to something else, and relaunch the program. Browse “clean” for a while. Test Firefox on trouble prone sites. Is it stable? Next make individual changes to prefs.js and user.js that you had in your old configuration. Next add back the extensions one at a time, testing as you go.
If Firefox is unstable when “clean,” you should try a distribution with a better reputation for stability. If it still crashes, check your hardware.
What can the suite do that Firefox + Thunderbird + Sunbird cant do without a few extensions and a little bit of integration with each other? Seriously. Mainting two code bases is pointless, Firefox won, The Mozilla Suite lost. Simple evolution. Let it die.
The key word is extensions…I’d rather a good browser with lots of features built in than downloading them right after install. I generally preferred Firefox because it had toolbar customization but I liked the suite for its interface (other than toolbars)
Issue n°1 with Thunderbird: no option to open links in a new tab.
I use Firefox and Thunderbird. The behavior you lack is the default on this computer.
Issue n°2: no button/link to launch TB from FFox (ctrl+2 = mail in Mozilla Suite)
Issue n°3: ctrl+m in Mozilla Suite opens a new mail message…
Ctrl-m in Firefox launches a compose window in Thunderbird. If Thunderbird isn’t running, it still launches a compose window. Ctrl-2 does nothing in Firefox, though.
Issue n°4: Mozilla Suite has a quick launch bar in the down left corner, which I often use…
Which duplicates the quick launch function of many desktop environments.
Issue n°5: ctrl+n in Mozilla Mail opens a new Mozilla window…
Ctrl-n opens a new compose window in Thunderbird, which makes more sense, come to think of it.
That’s integration.
Some of it is present in the duo of Thunderbird and Firefox. Some of it isn’t. A lot depends on what you have set up as your default e-mail program and browser, which is as it should be.
“Firefox won, The Mozilla Suite lost. Simple evolution. Let it die.”
Uh, in which contest? What did FF win?
Evolution indeed, like when moles lost their sight or Urochordates their ability to move.
Over at mozillazine they posted the news that Mozilla Foundation will stop the Suite and hand it over to a community that will continue its development. No more speculation
Was it not the original plan to dump Mozilla and convert over to Firefox and Thunderbird?
Also, I see allot of people complaining about Firefox not having a Mail icon they can click on and I’m baffled.
If you go to tools-toolbars-customize, there is a Mail icon you can drag to the tool bar. Some people need to look a bit before they start complaining about things like this.
“Uh, in which contest? What did FF win?”
Hmmm let me see:
1. Popularity.
2. Winning over developers.
3. Marketing.
4. Heats and minds of the general public.
5. Publicity.
6. The various techinical superiorities (arguable I agree).
…and the rest…
“Evolution indeed, like when moles lost their sight or Urochordates their ability to move.”
And what exactly would Mozilla lose by getting rid of the suite? Hmmmm….
The usage numbers on all the sites I saw seem to suggest that at least 1/3 of all Mozilla.org users are Mozilla suite users.
I’ve got FF and Mozilla installed on both FC3, Slackware and XP.
I find Mozilla to be faster (I don’t care much for startup times; I do care about rendering times), better at handling IE only sites and, unlike FF, doesn’t suffers from stability problems.
While I find it hard to remember when I last saw Mozilla crash, FF crashes regularly on both XP and Linux.
Oh… and I really need the composer.
Gilboa
I hope Mozilla lives on. It’s been my most used app for years.
I use both the browser and email, and often use the Composer too for quick html editing.
FF and TB are good but they are not ready to replace Mozilla.
And I love the “modern” Mozilla theme. The neutral gray tones are somehow soothing to my eyes and mind.
Anyway to get that theme in FF? Anyone knows?
I’ve converted a lot of my clients to Mozilla and 99% of problems went away for the ones using Mozilla.
No more spyware and trojans.
And Mozilla have proven to be a very stable and reliable app.
If it turns out that FF and TB people are playing dirty to gain share at the expense of Mozilla, I will boycott them and will not use FF and TB. And I will not install or recommend them to others. Instead I’ll stick to Mozilla for as long as possible.
Keep Mozilla alive!
On a positive side, its source code is available so anyone can fork or modify Mozilla. Given the huge success of Firefox and Thunderbird, it becomes harder to maintain Mozilla suite. Given that Firefox can be customized to be like Mozilla suite (e-mail, news, chatzilla), it becomes obvious Mozilla Suite demand is declining. I won’t be surprised that Camino (browser for Apple OS) will follow soon.
“Uh, in which contest? What did FF win?”
Hmmm let me see:
1. Popularity.
FF acquired some users due to the millions spent in publicity. It remains to be seen how many will stay.
2. Winning over developers.
MoFo told them wehre to go. Not a contest.
3. Marketing.
Marketing is a contest?
4. Heats and minds of the general public.
You’re repeating 1).
5. Publicity.
You’re repeating 3).
6. The various techinical superiorities (arguable I agree).
Curiously the only point you have. FF *has* technical superiorities regarding the Suite, and the reverse in a much smaller extent. However, the Suite wins in performance and stability.
…and the rest…
Which would be?
“Evolution indeed, like when moles lost their sight or Urochordates their ability to move.”
And what exactly would Mozilla lose by getting rid of the suite? Hmmmm….
Going from being a unique Internet platform into being an overhyped browser, which anyone can try and easily get rid of. And then, what will the MoFo have?
If only Seamonkey would ship with the Mostly Crystal theme by default, all of a sudden the FF people would stare wide eyed and begin to think it might be good after all. Which is a moot point since Mostly Crystal is available for FF/TB as well. Ah, but how do you install a theme in TB? Download what? Then do what? Ah, ok. Will try it someday.
I’m for having one product only, but that should be the Suite. And when I mean the Suite I mean that any of its apps is really ahead of the birds (except for Nvu and Sunbird). So an aviary suite, as has been suggested, is precisely the wrong solution.