Firefox 1.0 Released

New Here writes "November 9 has arrived and with it comes Firefox 1.0. According to its home page, Firefox empowers you to browse faster, more safely, and more efficiently than with any other browser. I'm New Here, but this Firefox does sound very promising! Firefox 1.0 is available now for Windows, Linux, and Mac from the mozilla.org ftp server."

Re:1.0 right now

Its great! I downloaded it from here: http://mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu/pub/mozilla.org/fi refox/releases/1.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%201.0.zip Don't think slashdot will be able to bring down an edu. Go firefox!

Re:1.0 right now

[Vader]I find your lack of faith distrubing[/Vader]...

Re:Where is Preferences?

I believe this was done for consistency with microsoft's software in windows. The logical place is indeed under edit, but usability has little to do with logic. If most windows users expect it under tools, under tools it must go.

Re:Where is Preferences?

I disagree. "Edit" menu contains editing commands, right? Cut, copy, paste, delete (no matter if it spplies to text, image or other content). What's logical about placing Options there?

It's just as illogical to put options under "View" menu, which is meant for managing the way content is displayed in the program. You don't just "view" options, you view and modify them. "Tools" is a kind of a catch-all, but it makes most sense of the three.

Re:1.0 right now

Now be sure to change your web pages to detect non-Firefox browsers (or at least non-IE) and encourage them to upgrade to Firefox. I've documented the basic technique here: How to detect Firefox [ericgiguere.com] and See the headers you're sending [ericgiguere.com].

Eric
Why the Vioxx recall reduced spam [ericgiguere.com] (humor)

Anyone seen this yet?

FF Default Home page? [google.com]

Die, MSN, die!

Re:1.0 right now

Your browser detecting technique is broken. If you send different content to clients depending on which HTTP request headers are sent, you need to send an appropriate Vary response header [w3.org]. Otherwise public caches could serve the wrong content to the wrong browsers, resulting in Firefox users getting "upgrade to Firefox" and non-Firefox users getting the content intended for Firefox users.

Re:1.0 right now

You're quite right about the Vary header, and I've updated the page (and the header viewer) accordingly, thanks: How to detect Firefox [ericgiguere.com].

Eric
Reading C Declarations: A Guide for the Mystified [ericgiguere.com]

Re:1.0 right now

in about:config, change extentions.disabledObsolete to false.

Some may still not work, but most of them probably will.

Re:1.0 right now

I don't think they change anything major (or haven't since .9 or so). In the past (before knowing about this option), I've modified extentions manually to up the target version number to whatever I was running.

I think their way of specifying Firefox versions is rather retarded. Instead, I think each Firefox build should have a list of extention API versions it supports, and all the extentions should have an API version number instead of a Firefox version number. But, at 1.0, its probably too late to change that for the time being.

Re:1.0 right now

I was skeptical, very, very, very skeptical.

I ran Linux exclusively from 1995-2000, and the lack of a STABLE web browser than would handle LOTS of Java, Flash, etc ... it sent me to Windows 2000.

I kept Linux on the server, but Windows on the Desktop.

I was really not expecting much when I downloaded Firefox 5 months ago, as I had been using IE exclusively for 4 years.

What an incredible surprise. I have not used IE at all for three months, and am considering a switch back to Linux on the desktop.

Firefox has the potential to really open some doors to not only "alterntative" browsers, but "alternative" OS'es as well.

Re:1.0 right now

Java and Flash on Linux are at least as good as their Windows versions. Yeah sites that use them can be slow, annoying, and sometimes, though very rarely, cause browser instability, but I see the same crap happen to my wife under Windows XP with IE.

The type of plugins that still suck on Linux are media player browser plugins. Sure there is an mplayer plugin for Mozilla, but after over a year of using it... I still feel that it is crap. So for video and music that is not streamed, I just download to a local folder and play from there. However, for streamed content, I tend to be up sh*t creek.

I'm New Here

No way really?

Re:Don't forget to check out the extensions:

Posted as plain text by mistake ;)

FoxyTunes: http://www.iosart.com/foxytunes/firefox/ [iosart.com]

AdBlock: http://adblock.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org]

More: http://update.mozilla.org [mozilla.org]

Re:Don't forget to check out the extensions:

And don't forget that many of your extensions will not be able to work with this version of Firefox. -.-

This is perhaps the one most annoying thing about Fireofox. I love it, the extension concept is fantastic, it really makes my browser the way I want it to be... but it's almost Microsoft-in-a-Can when it comes to upgrades and dealing with old extensions.

I really hope that they include SOME backwards compatability with extensions in future versions of Firefox. I had a nice set of extensions that I had give Firefox EXACTLY the behavior I wanted it to have. (Doubleclick to close tabs, smooth mouse scrolling, BugMeNot, Googlebar -- frickin' GOOGLEBAR! doesn't work yet under 1.0 -- Image Toolbar, and a bunch of others.) But as soon as I upgraded, half my extensions suddenly don't work.

Ironically, FoxyTunes, the extension that took almost forever to get ported over to MacOSX, isn't one of the ones that needs to be updated.

A message to the Firfox developers: I hope this isn't the way things are going to be for EVERY version release, otherwise people might not bother to update, and then we get the same thing that happened with Windows with people not updating their boxen.

Mirrors

Mozilla.org is really getting hammered. Try waiting a few hours for the mirrors to update.

Here is a Google cache of the Firefox Mirror List [64.233.183.104].

Re:Mirrors

Obviously just switch the 0.10 to 1.0 in the mirror urls... we can't have everything now can we :)

Re:Mirrors

autoupdate worked beautifully.

options->advanced->software_update->check now

Not really

Isn't the whole point behind auto update is that it does it for you, or it at least tells you that an update is available? It seems to me that auto update isn't working at all. I've gotten no notification of any kind on any of our boxes.

Re:Mirrors

the bittorrent link has like 500 seeds, takes about 30 seconds to download the whole file. :)

Re:Mirrors

You insensitive clod! What if i'm on a 300 baud acoustic coupler?

Hehe :) Firefox slashdotted slashdot's RSS :)

HEHEE...

Think about it...
TONS of geeks downloading Firefox.
Each copy of Firefox has a live bookmark pointing to slashdot.
Slashdot's RSS news feed get's slashdotted and Cmdr. Taco goes nuts :)
Finally, this is what happened [slashdot.org] :)

I really wonder what the present download count is!

Re:Mirrors

Also, be sure to check out the Moox Optimized [www.moox.ws] Win32 builds. I installed the Firefox M3 build a while back, and I have to say, Firefox was fast before, but now it's downright snappy.

Be kind to his bandwidth though.

Re:Mirrors

In general, apps have no control whether they get swapped out or not under Windows. In fact, when an application gets minimized, Windows pretty aggressively swaps as much of that app out to try to keep the rest of your apps snappy, whether or not you're short on RAM. However, due to a nifty hack, the moz devs have found a way to prevent or at least reduce how much of their app gets swapped out when minimized. If your desktop habits include frequently minimizing / restoring Firefox, try this:

1) Go to about:config
2) Right-click in the content area and create a new Boolean value
3) Name it "config.trim_on_minimize" and set it to false.
4) Close & relaunch

See bugzilla bug# 76831 if you'd like more details. (no linking to bugs from slashdot)

Moox Torrents

With thanks to escaflo:

Moox Firefox 1.0 M1 (MMX) Torrent [curtin.edu.au]

Moox Firefox 1.0 M2 (SSE) Torrent [curtin.edu.au]

Moox Firefox 1.0 M3 (SSE2) Torrent [curtin.edu.au]

Use the torrents and save his bandwidth.

Well New Here, Here's the Band Wagon now JUMP ON!

I've managed to download a copy and order a t-shirt and the site isn't slashdotted yet. What are you all asleep or something?

Re:Torrents

http://firefoxfah.sourceforge.net/fftorrent.html [sourceforge.net]

Re:Torrents

Sweet. Pulled it down from the torrent in seconds. Can't even reach Mozilla.org or spreadfirefox.com or any of those sites right now. They are simply swamped.

I wonder how bad my home server would get pounded if I were to post a link to the FireFox 1.0 download [incoherency.net]. Go ahead, pound it... It's a special occassion. ;)

Please tell me

Why should I switch from Mozilla to Firefox?

Re:Please tell me

No IRC client

Get Chatzilla then?

Will integrate nicely with Firefox and doing that will still avoid a lot of cruft in the Mozilla Suite.

Re:Please tell me

No, no, see, it was all in the way you *said* the question. For example:

Non-troll (honest question):

"Why should I switch from Mozilla to Firefox?"

Troll (indignant):

"Why should I switch from Mozilla to Firefox?"

See? It's all in the tone of voice. ;)

Re:Please tell me

Firefox is also believed to be faster, maybe not upon loadup in windows because of the OS integration with IE (even with the mozilla startup thingy). Faster (well, less bloated) than Mozilla also because they've been really trying to slim it down.

It's more standards compliant, which allows me, as a developer to write more standards based code, *then* use workarounds for stuff which IE doesn't like. That said, IE still handles crazy markup without crashing or other artifacts (see firefox/slashdot rendering bug). Security wise, it's supposedly a lot better becuase it doesn't have deep ties into the OS.

Top seller for me? I can put it on my USB drive and transfer it to the harddrive and it'll work, even on machines when I don't have admin rights (and aren't insanely tied down). I also can't live without tabbed browsing, and mouse gestures (an extension).

What differentiates it from the stock mozilla browser? Well, Firefox is now the flagship browser from Mozilla.org and I wouldn't be suprised if they don't end-of-life the stock mozilla (technically called seamonkey IIRC?), so Firefox is the one with the future. I've been testing Firefox since their very early betas (.3 0.4?) and it replaced seamonkey on my desktop around .7. There's that automagic plugin finder (which has only worked for flash for me), new download manager. But other than that, there's not a whole lot of features that set it apart from seamonkey, i guess, but mozilla.org, rather the mozilla foundation sees it as the future. Seeing as how it 1.0 now, I don't see any reason not to switch. In a few weeks, of course, when all of your favorite extentions get updated.

Re:Please tell me

Tabbed browsing (I don't use this my self) 3rd button triggers new tab when on a link, or triggers fast/slow scroll

Mozilla supports both of these (at least 1.7.3 does, I don't know about any earlier version).

Bookmarks better defined

Possibly, even though I can't see much of a difference myself.

Firefox looks nice, I was able to import all of my settings from Mozilla. Unfortunately, Thunderbird doesn't seem to have a similar import function from Mozilla Mail (why would this be so difficult to implement? They seem to have one from Outlook to Thunderbird).

Re:Please tell me

Why I switched [from Mozilla to Firefox].

Tabbed browsing (I don't use this my self)
3rd button triggers new tab when on a link, or triggers fast/slow scroll
Bookmarks better defined

Mozilla has tabbed browsing and middle-button-opens-new-tab.

Now, what I want (among other things) is:

1. Clicking on bookmark link opens link in new tab.
2. Ability to scroll the tab bar, so that when I have 50 or so tabs open, I can see the ones on the right-hand side.
3. Have a download queue, so that only two or three files are downloading at once. Also, save the queue across sessions.
4. Saving file saves to file hierarchy based on link name (yes, I am one of those people who saves files to, for example, "basedir/http/207.200.85.49/pub/mozilla.org/firefo x/releases/1.0/source/firefox-1.0-source.tar.bz2") . And, finally,
5. Can display mangled HTML (e.g., Slashdot pages) in a somewhat reasonable way (without having to type ^+ ^0 each time).

There are other things that I would like, but those will do for a start.

Re:Please tell me

This was a personal annoyance of mine too, until I figured out how it works.

The "/" key invokes search, and escape will take you out of it.

I actually prefer the box at the bottom of the screen, it just take a bit of time to get used to it.

Re:Please tell me

To quote someone in my regular forum:

I don't think they're that far apart. Try it, if you like it, stick with it. If you don't then it's never going to change that much that you'll struggle to switch.

And to quote my own reply:

I'd go with that. I switched from the Mozilla Suite back when Firefox was Firebird (v0.6 I think) and I haven't looked back. Although there were problems with the options dialogue back then, I found the increased speed (both in loading and operation) really made a difference.

Re:Please tell me

Just depends on what you use primarily. I found myself before using Firefox and Thunderbird but not a lot of extensions on either one. I kept both open all the time. So why spend the extra memory when the combined footprint on Mozilla browser/client as a suite is smaller than the combined fox/bird?

If you find yourself as a power user that has a ton of diff extensions, don't find yourself stuck in your mail client all the time, then use firefox / thunderbird. Mozilla will meet your needs if you just want a browser with all the security of fox but nothing else of it.

Re:Please tell me

Exactly. I went back to Mozilla after a while because Firefox / Bird can take up ridiculous amounts of memory when used together and only recently have either offered truly unique features (Live Bookmarks, Saved Searches).

I have 1.5 GB in my machine now so I don't really care much about 250 - 300 MB that the two can take up combined under heavy usage.

Re:Please tell me

There is one significant reason to use the standalones instead of Moz suite: if you load a boggy or crashy page in Firefox, you can switch to Thunderbird and check your mail while you wait. With Mozilla, problems in one half will take down the other. If you want this fixed, please join bug 115903:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115903

Re:Please tell me

Because living in 1998 cannot be healthy.

Re:Please tell me

Why should I switch from Mozilla to Firefox?

There isn't all that much difference. But the Firefox extensions are good (and easy to fetch), especially Web Developer gives you loads of cool tools for inspecting web pages, and Mozilla Firesomething is an instant classic (it's a parody on Firefox' name's history - it gives your windows names like "Mozilla Superkoala" - this sort of thing cracks me up. But then I am a nerd).

Friends of mine love the mouse gestures extension, but I didn't like Black and White much...

Re:Please tell me

I like being able to shut down my mail app without losing my work in the other in my browser -- and vice versa.

My imap server only gives me a small amount of space for my email folders. When I start deleting stuff the deletion often only commits when I shut down the mail app. With Mozilla, that might be hours later because I don't want to lost my web sessions. I can restart Thunderbird without touching Firefox.

Also, if one app crashes it won't take down the other. Crashes are pretty rare now, but when they happen it's still pretty annoying.

Finally, it seems like more work (on the UI and extensions) is going into Firefox than Mozilla, so I might as well get on board.

Mirrors

Mirrors:

http://64.12.168.21/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releas es/1.0 [64.12.168.21]
http://207.200.85.49/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/relea ses/1.0/ [207.200.85.49]
http://trillian.cc.gatech.edu/pub/mozilla.org/fire fox/releases/ [gatech.edu]
http://mozilla.osuosl.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/ releases/1.0/ [osuosl.org]
http://mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu/pub/mozilla.org/fi refox/releases/ [indiana.edu]

Official Torrent:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rel eases/1.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%201.0.exe.to rrent [mozilla.org]

Re:Mirrors

Direct Mirror [100bigcoupons.com] to Firefox Setup 1.0.exe [100bigcoupons.com]

Re:Mirrors

heh, well they're the company that I work for, and we have a killer server with much more bandwidth than we need, so I try to setup a mirror to give back to the community.

We're not trying to slam you, we're not trying to rape you with popups or redirects. Just happen to have our name mentioned in the URL. Your choice if you'd want to use our services. I feel this is very similar to a sourceforge mirror of download links. You choose a mirror, the company happens to be listed on the left. They don't do anything except sit there with their name.

I totally agree on the 'free ipod' and 'free lcd monitor' bit -- I don't agree with those MLM schemes

Also btw, -- if I'd chosen to use my personal blog URL -- HornyandConfused.com [hornyandconfused.com] instead of 100BigCoupons.com [100bigcoupons.com] You would've thought I was advertising a porn site instead :-P

I'm open to suggestions as to how we could better give back to the open source community with our spare bandwidth. We've contacted numerous open source projects and offered to be mirrors, but most everyone seems to have plenty of bandwidth now adays -- the only place I see is when there's an occasional slashdot story that links to a site that got hit hard.

Re:Mirrors

Also don't forget about the excellent resource of Moox [www.moox.ws]'s optimized releases of Firefox: http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/ [www.moox.ws]


His site seems to be holding up under the stress.
He has Optimized Release Builds of FireFox 1.0 [www.moox.ws]

I'm still waiting for 1.0 with SVG.
Anyone?

Re:Unofficial Change Log

If you're wondering what's new in 1.0, here's a link to the unofficial changed log [squarefree.com] (link grabbed from mozilla.org's FF release notes).

In case it gets slashdotted, new features:

• New options for controlling where links from other applications open.
• New experimental options for controlling where links in web pages open. To make these experimental options appear, set browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs to true in about:config.
• Firefox is now available in 14 languages.

And improvements:

• "Sort by name" in Bookmarks should sort siblings, not children.
• Information bar (blocked popup, missing plugin, etc) should be closeable.
• View Source should use Find Toolbar.
• Find toolbar loses content when new tab clicked.
• Disable sites reloading onresize. (Many sites reload onresize to work around bugs in Netscape 4. This caused problems in Firefox due to tabs, the Find bar, and information bars.)

Re:New York Times Ad

If you read the spreadfirefox FAQ, the ad wont run on the day of release but in some point within the next three weeks. They get better pricing if they dont demand a specific day.

Re:New York Times Ad

The "three weeks" policy gives Microsoft, who doesn't have to worry about advertising budget, time to schedule a competing ad on the opposing page. Steve Balmer will tout the virtues of IE by proclaiming that Microsoft's track record with security is actually beneficial for the US economy. After all, look how many thousands of folks are employed simply because of Microsoft!

Oh, and not directly related, but from MSFT site:

Dave_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Does Mozilla firefox have better security than Internet Explorer and is it a good idea to use?
A: Hi Nicholas, I can't really comment on Firefox security however I can say that on Internet Explorer we are committed to security, the results of which can be seen with Windows XP SP2. If you have automatic updates enabled you can be sure that you are using one of the most secure browsers available.

Old news

Got it 5 hours ago.

Google hosted homepage

The new homepage points to http://www.google.com/firefox [google.com]. Fire your conspiracy theories at will...

Re:Google hosted homepage

Who is Will?

Re:Google hosted homepage

You must be new here. [slashdot.org] *g*

Re:Google hosted homepage

Hmmm.. a couple of theories..

8 million firefox users (as of spreadfirefox.com) all hitting mozilla.org as their default start page must generate quite a lot of traffic, and the start page wasn't that useful other than telling you what you just downloaded and installed.

The other theory is that Google donated quite a bit, but I prefer the first ;)

Re:Google hosted homepage

You can check out this [google.com] too

Re:Google hosted homepage

The IE one is designed to go in the explorer bar search pane of IE, thus it is narrow, small and lightweight.

Re:Google hosted homepage

And the IE page is 589 bytes whereas Firefox' one is 1458 bytes which tells us how lean and up-to-the-task MSIE compares nicely against Mozilla bloatware.... WAIT A MINUTE!!! </stupid_joke_attempt>

Anyway - what was the trigger for IE page? Anything uses it now?

PS: What's that gradient business at the top of Firefox page? We don't need stinky "cool designs" at Google!!! ;) Or, come to think of it - I see. It's so that tabbar does not mix with the page, right?

No XUL?

Hmmm... I wonder why they didn't create a page using XUL, like this page:

Google XUL [google.com]

This has become my new homepage in Firefox, although I wish it was centered...

Re:No XUL?

Hmmm... I wonder why they didn't create a page using XUL, like this page:

I wonder... could it be because it's ugly, looks different on different platforms, takes four times as long to load and provides no extra benefit for the user?

Finding updated extensions

Your extensions will be disabled unless they are configured as compatible with 1.0. Unfortunately right now trying to use the built in "search for updates" feature is very slow, from server load I presume. I found updates for several of my favorites by searching http://www.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org].

Workaround.

Open Firefox and put about:config in the address line.

Put app.extensions.version in the filter.

Change value from 1.0 to 0.10

Most, if not all, extensions that work in PR should work now.

Your extensions will have to be reactivated by right clicking on each extension and selecting Enable.

Use at your own risk...Lawyers make me say that...

The browser wars are back.

Or at least I hope so, even if IE fights back a tiny ammount we'll see a huge lot of improvements in the web generally, IE is so often the 'lowest common denominator' when it comes to designing for the web.

But for usability and speed of use I'd go with Firefox any day.

links to torrents...

before it gets hammered too badly:

linux i686 torrent [mozilla.org]

win32 torrent [mozilla.org]

(both EN-US).

A better mirror?

For now, at least: ftpmoz.newaol.com/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases /1.0/ [newaol.com]


Anyone know if the New York Times ad went through? Is it available to view anywhere?

Re:A better mirror?

Anyone know if the New York Times ad went through? Is it available to view anywhere?

The design has not been finalized yet. Also, when they submit the final design to the New York Times, the newspaper gives them a window of about three weeks for which the ad could run. This gets Spread Firefox a better price.

BBC front page Story

New browser takes on Microsoft [bbc.co.uk]. Pretty fair coverage IMHO.

Runs like a breeze!

For the Europeans: http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/firefox/ [mozilla-europe.org]

Donkey:

OS X Will rule this world [ed2k]
Windows Exe [ed2k]
tar.gz [ed2k]

Mirrors

ftp://mozilla.isc.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rele ases/1.0/ [isc.org]
ftp://mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu/pub/mozilla.org/fir efox/releases/1.0/ [indiana.edu]
ftp://mozilla.oregonstate.edu/pub/mozilla.org/fire fox/releases/1.0/ [oregonstate.edu]
Official mozilla.org torrent for Win32:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rele ases/1.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%201.0.exe.tor rent [mozilla.org]

Good grief

When the Grauniad and the BBC report this story hours before it appears on Slashdot, you know something's wrong with the world.

Re:Good grief

When the Grauniad and the BBC report this story hours before it appears on Slashdot, you know something's wrong with the world.

Fortunately, the /. editors are already hard at work making plans to repost the story early to make up for lost time.

More Links

I've posted some more interesting news and Mozilla developer blog links and a screenshot of the new Firefox Google search interface on my blog:

inside aebrahim's head - firefox 1.0 is here! [ebrahim.org]

Rendering slashdot

Well I'm reading this in Firefox 1.0 and it *still* doesn't like slashdot's code. It still occasionally renders the comments overlapping the left hand menu and it initially rendered this "post comment" screen double width - with the left hand menu titles taking up my entire screen. I haven't encountered any problems with any other sites, so I expect it's just slashdots dubious HTML that's confusing firefox. Mind you I hate to admit that I've never seen IE mis-render slashdot.

Has anyone else seen Firefox render slashdot incorrectly?

It can usually be fixed with a simple click of the reload button (F5).

It's fixed

If you download one of the nightly builds, you'll see it's actually fixed in the "trunk," but not in the "branch" 1.0 came from, because it apparently caused too many other flaky reactions.

bug 264913 [mozilla.org]
bug 217527 [mozilla.org]

The good news is that Slashdot WORKS again in the nightlies. If you really want, you can grab a nightly build here [scarlet.be] and check it out for yourself. They are generally pretty stable, but thy sometimes f with your extensions.

Re:It's fixed

It is? :-( I'd gotten attached to that bug... Slashdot looks all strange now without it.

Re:Rendering slashdot

Has anyone else seen Firefox render slashdot incorrectly?

Yes. And I've seen some other sites render incorrectly too.

In Slashdot case, simply Ctrl-+, Ctrl-= should do the trick, but unfortunatelly there are some sites out there, where even this trick will not fix the page. Also, there seems to be some sort of CSS rendering bug in Firefox, which fucks up Bloglines.com, if you use some proxy server.

There are some other bugs still in Firefox, which haven't been fixed even if there are several bug reports about these issues. (rendering, lock-ups, etc.)

There also seems to be a way to work around the pop-up filter. I've bumped into sites, which are able to open tons of pop-ups and crash the Firefox even if the pop-up blocker is on. I need to investigate this issue a bit more and file a report, if there already isn't a bug report in Bugzilla.

So, you're not only one having problems with Firefox.

Re:Rendering slashdot

ironically it's not a bug in firefox, but a bug in slashdot.

However, I (under linux) don't get this bug at all since 0.9.

Next, SVG

Next desire, native SVG [mozilla.org] support so FireFox wins the enterprise space before Longhorn even gets to market.

We have two years.

Re:Next, SVG

Keep an eye on Moox's Site. [www.moox.ws]
He's already in the past done release builds of Firefox with SVG. They were pretty nice.

I'd watch for it in a few days.
Meanwhile, I've already setup a Mirror of Moox's FireFox 1.0 Optimized release builds, just incase he gets slammed. [100bigcoupons.com]

Slashdot bug still present :(

Just installed in an hour ago. While everything looks nice and polished, unfortunately the Slashdot rendering bug is still present :(

They did backport some support for IE-only JavaScript features from the 1.8 branch though (but that was also in the RC's, I think).

Another torrent link...

Thought I would help the cause...Win32 zip torrent

http://www.jiggybyte.com/dl/FireFox10.torrent [jiggybyte.com]

BBC

The BBC now has an article on this [bbc.co.uk].

Obviously so do lots of other sites [google.co.uk]

Spread the love!

Help out grassroots advocacy for Firefox @ Spread Firefox [spreadfirefox.com]. This is the community that organised the NYTimes add.

The site seems to be down so here is the Google cache [64.233.183.104] and the Corel link [nyud.net].

Convert friends - add top 10 reasons for FF here

What are the top 10 reasons to use FF over IE? I'll start:

1. Security
Any really good arguments here?

2. Standards
Open standards ensure that independent vendors can compete on fair grounds. The W3C is the de facto standards body for internet standards. Firefox is implemented from the ground up based on those standards. Standard compliant websites will show in any browsers (on any platform) that also complies to the standards, and not just in a specific browser with its own standard.

3. Extensibility
Different users have different needs. For most, the normal Firefox distribution has all required features. For some, a specific extra feature is of considerable value. Firefox has support for plugin's, which is small custom components of code that can deliver near any functionality.

4. Reliability
In firefox, what you see is what you get. No hidden agendas, no spy-ware installing behind your back.

5. Comfort
Do you remember how the internet was a few years back when there were no annoying pop-up's and you didn't have to worry about spyware installing on your machine behind your back? With Firefox, you can once again realize that blissful sensation of using the Internet.

6. Continuity
Firefox is not going to stop innovating at 1.0 or whenever it has market dominance. Firefox is here to stay, and to keep evolving.

7. Slickness
Firefox has stunning looks and sleek controls. You can download a theme with a few clicks, or you can create your own. Firefox is hot, Internet Explorer is not.

8. For the people, by the people
Microsoft [com.com] is not your friend. Firefox, like much open source software, is built for the people, by the people. You'll find that Firefox is surrounded by an enthusiastic community of supporters, not big business. Firefox, like other Open Source Software, is built, maintained and supported by people who believe in sharing, cooperation, and community.

9. ?

10.?

Re:Convert friends - add top 10 reasons for FF her

I don't know what 9 should be, but 10 should be "Profit!"

XUL deserves more light

9. XUL really rocks:
Have a look here: http://www.faser.net/mab/chrome/content/mab.xul [faser.net]

Re:Convert friends - add top 10 reasons for FF her

10. Profit!

"let the downloads commense"

You mean, they should all get together and make themselves equal in size? :-)

Or was that meant to be, "commence?"

ObOnTopicComment: Yes, Firefox is darned good. You should try it.

And not only that

Unfortunately Firefox 1 also comes with a number of 'improvements' that are rather dubious. The two that I personally dislike are:

1. The 'default plugin' which used to be a dynamic library called something like 'libnullplugin.so' is now statically linked in, which means that you can't just remove it. What it does is nag the you every bloody time you go to a page that wants to display something that requires a plugin; these plugins are used intensively in adverts, which is why I don't have them.

2. There has always been a way to search in the displayed page - go to 'Edit -> Find in This Page' in the menu, or press CtlF. In earlier versions you had to press the 'Find Next' button in the search dialog in order to start the search. In Firefox 1.0 the search happens as you type. Some people like it, apparently, but to me it is incredibly disruptive. There are situations where you definitely don't want this functionality; one such is if you, like me, feel it hard to concentrate on the dialog box when the background moves. Another, rather lengthy example is the following:

Assume that you work with a big text that contains a large number of complicated words, like eg (WARNING: its huge):

http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/mss/volume25/ Or chidaceae_coauthoring.htm

This is a botanical text about orchids in China, and it is full of exotic names. Let's say that you have found 'Hemipilia kwangsiensis', and you want to find other occurrences of 'kwangsiensis'. If you are like me, you press CtlF, type the word (none of this mouse stuff for me if I can avoid it) and press [Return]. Except that the wods you are looking for disappears as soon as you start typing, and now you have the problem of finding the original place in a text of about 900 pages printed. And all that just to be cool. It would definitely have been nice with an option that could turn it off.

Apart from that it is a good browser; definitely better than IE. I can recommend v.0.9

Re:And not only that

I'll address your second first, because it's easier. Go to Tools->Options->Advanced->Accessabulity and uncheck "Begin finding when you begin typing." I'm not 100% sure that addresses all your concerns, but it's a start.

On the first one - I realize this is a lot more of a pain than deleting libullplugin, but I think I have solution for you. I presume you are mostly complaining about flash. Download and install the adblock extension. Ad an adblock extension for *.swf, and adblock will block all flash for you, and I'm betting that'll happen before it looks for the plugin and stop the warnings.

Re: Find

First of all, by default, you have to type '/' to activate the search as you find tool. Also, the Edit->Find features are still there. Type Control+F and the field will come up so you can type in whatever you want. And then you type in what you want, and then hit enter. Then to search again you can hit F3 or Control+G. So I really don't understand your gripe at all. If you want to change the search/find utility to automatically search as you type (meaning, no typing '/' first), then you can do that as well via Tools-Options->Advanced->Accessibility->2 nd Option.

So...I'm pretty sure I understood your post correctly, but it didn't make much sense, because you can still do CtrlF, F3 as you did before. That has not changed. If I'm wrong, then reply to this.

Don't be fooled !

It 's shame !

Don't be fooled ! Why you must keep Internet Explorer at all cost [frimouvy.org]

But the real question...

...is when is the Mozilla Suite [mozilla.org] (which is here now, reliable and stable) going to have the new features [mozilla.org] in Firefox like live bookmarks (RSS feeds as bookmarks) and improved tab controls (a pretty killer feature as you can set URLs opened by other programs to always open in a new tab instead of 'raping' your current one). Plus, when is the suite's mail client getting the juicy new features from Thunderbird [mozilla.org] such as RSS support, saved search folders (a real killer feature) and improved grouping?

I don't understand why Mozilla is ignoring the suite. It's a great product and is widely used. I personally have been seriously using the suite since about 0.6 and I can't understand why everyone's gone against it. If you have even 256 MB RAM it's fast. Yes it does take longer than IE to load up, but I start up Moz when I start my PC and don't close it until I shut down.

I think it's sad the development of the suite has really slowed now.

Re:But the real question...

The suite is not being ignored. Live bookmarks are in the Suite, as are all the Thunderbird features you mentioned. Tabbed-browser improvements are being added as well.

The reason you don't see this yet is development happens on trunk (currently 1.8a6), but the current release is on the 1.7 branch. Generally when a version branches, features are not backported to it - only more important and stable updates (crash fixes, rendering fixes, etc) get included. If you download a trunk nightly, you'll find all of these features.

Unfortunately, due to the Firefox hype, there are few users testing the 1.8 alphas, meaning that 1.8 will have to stay in alpha longer (it's on alpha 6 right now) before moving to beta and eventually release. A lot of the developers who work on Mozilla projects don't use, like, or care about Fireofx - the suite is not going to die any time soon.

Use Mirrors

Please people, use the mirrors or the mozilla.org ftp redirect. The plugin finder is suffering from the slashdotting and massive surge in traffic. We don't want to drive people away as the first thing they experience is problems finding/updating their extensions/themes.

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rel eases/ [mozilla.org]

Had to completely uninstall the Preview Release

Using the executable installer to install to the path of my existing Firefox installation (PR1) resulted in the browser's shell completely flaking out when the browser was eventually launched. No start page would load. The Bookmarks menu was empty (clicking on Manage Bookmarks and then returning to the Bookmarks menu solved this). Visiting web pages didn't seem to affect the interface whatsoever (i.e.: no active back button, no loading page animation, no updating of location bar, etc.). In general, the shell seemed disconnected from the application itself.

A normal uninstall, followed by a re-install did not solve the problem. Files were left in the install directory and, when prompted, I chose to wipe out the entire directory. Only after performing a complete uninstall (completely deleting the install path, but preserving the profiles) and reinstalling did Firefox work properly. Your mileage may vary, but I hope this isn't a widespread problem, as a 1.0 release isn't the time for screwups like this.

Might I have been doing something wrong? Installing a new version to the old path seems to be a a well-supported idiom, as I've been doing that for ages without problems with all manners of programs.

Re:Had to completely uninstall the Preview Release

One of the most prominent entries in the Release Notes [mozilla.org] states that you MUST NOT install the new Firefox over an old version. In fact, this has been true for as long as I remember. Just because it didn't cause problems vor you in the past doesn't mean that it will always work.

In fact, it's probably best to create a new profile, the one I've lugged around since 0.4 has probably gotten a bit crufty. :)

Hide and Merge the sidebar?

I just installed Firefox today, and being a Mozilla user there's one thing that firefox doesn't do that mozilla does that I've grown accustomed with.

In Mozilla, you could hide the sidebar by clicking in the middle of the edge of the sidebar. In Firefox they removed that and now to close the bar you have to click on the X
similar to how IE handles them. It also seems that you cannot merge sidebars, such as the history and favorites, so you can't view them both at the same time.

Is there a theme or a way to return that functionality in firefox short of rewriting the whole thing?

Moox Build

Here are the Moox [www.moox.ws] cpu-optimized builds for windows (I've been using these since 0.9.3, and they seem significantly faster on my Athlon XP).

Enjoy

Take the "5 days with Firefox" challenge

This is mainly aimed at Windows users (we know you're there!), but here it goes:

1. Read the "Why Use Firefox? [mozilla.org]" document
2. Go download [spreadfirefox.com] Firefox and install it
3. Use Firefox as you default browser for 5 days
4. If, after 5 days, you're still not convinced that Firefox is the best browser there is, uninstall it [texturizer.net] and switch back

(From an original idea on Spread Firefox [spreadfirefox.com], but the site is -surprise!- currently unreachable)

Up-to-date mirror

I successfully grabbed a copy from here [rediris.es]

The best thing about Firefox (and OpenOffice) is

... that you don't have to give a rat's ass anymore about what opering system you use. I run Firebird on Linux and run Firebird on Mac OS X and would run Firebird on Windows NT at work, except for the fact that my company has a contract with Microsoft that forbids us using anything but their software. Same thing with OpenOffice.org: Who cares anymore what the operating system is? Edit the same files with the same program on different systems. All for free. Oh, and did I mention the Videl Lan Client (VLC)?

The same might be true at some point for ThunderBird, but at the moment, KMail is just so far ahead of everything else that hurts. When that happens, though, Microsoft should be very, very afraid: If you don't need to care about the operating system anymore for 95 percent of the things you do, you don't need to pay all that money to actually buy one from them.

One more mirror

This one is right at the hub of NYC. Big pipes.

http://www.friedneko.com/Firefox Setup 1.0.exe [friedneko.com]

Re:what firefox needs

Firefox for Windows has built in NTLM authentication. Type your username/password combo in and go nuts.

firefox 1.0 installer overwrote my bookmarks

Dammit! I'm left with an empty bookmark folder and to my dismay, bookmarks.bak has also been overwritten after installing firefox 1.0. Be warned!!!

Don't forget

the student/IT worker's best friend, Portable Firefox [nyud.net]. Works great off of my USB keydrive. :D

Not to be a whore or anything but...

If you are a regular Slashdot surfer, you might want to check out my extension, SlashFix [hardgrok.org] which fixes the very annoying Slashdot rendering errors in the Firefox 1.0 branch.

These errors are fixed in the Mozilla trunk source code, but for apparently sound reasons, the developers didn't want to check the fixes into the 1.0 branch, apparently because they caused problems with some other, unnamed web sites. SlashFix is a good interim solution so you don't feel compelled to start up IE just to surf your favorite geek time-waste.

Should I switch from Opera

The big question is should I now switch from Opera? Or even should I download Firefox to try it and possibly compliment Opera?

I dunno, if Firefox is just a better, more secure and more usable IE/Netscape, I don't know what would I get. There was a comparision with Mozilla already in the thread, of course with IE too, but no mention of Opera. Can anyone "spread Firefox" for me? Do I need it as an Opera user?

Optimized official builds?

I've been reading Burning Edge [squarefree.com] and see references to optimized builds. Is there some reason why there is not official releases of optimized builds? I understand wanting to create as generic of a binary as possible, but official optimized builds would be nice. The tin-foil hat person in me doesn't trust these third-party builds nor do I really want to compile Firefox myself.

And example of releasing multiple builds would be the MAME group [mame.net].

Tabbed browsing broken for 2 years

not to be a ninny, but when are they going to fix the tabbed focus stealing bug [mozilla.org]? This is an extermely irritating and confusing bug that affects every user using tabs.

torrent status: Linux vs. Windows

I started a couple torrent downloads from the .torrent file on mozilla's ftp server this morning and now have some interesting stats.

Linux: 1.1 Gig Up
Windows: 54.7 Megs Up

Gig' Em
-Michael

More like pre-slashdotted....

It was already running incredibly slowly BEFORE slashdot posted the article.

Re:New Here's posting record is fanastic

They don't need to learn. At least that's their take on it. They include the browser with the OS. How many people who arent geeks like us will spend the time to download another browser and learn how to integrate it with their os - cuz we all know MS does not make that an easy task.. "Internet Explorer is no longer your default browser? Should I notify the FBI?!?!" etc.

Re:New Here's posting record is fanastic

The only problems I've seen firefox cause are not the fault of firefox, but of poor web design. Those web designers who don't bother to test their work on anything but IE. IMHO, if you are going to be doing web design for anything more then your own personal page, you need to have numerous browsers installed on your machine, and either physical boxes or VMware session to other OSes to test, test ,test. But I suppose that is lost to many.

Re:slashdotted already?

Bad form to reply to my own post, but some more useful links here:

Windows torrent [207.200.85.49] and executable [207.200.85.49].
Linux torrents for installer [207.200.85.49] and tarball [207.200.85.49].

Re:Slashdot

longer if you get the torrent [mozilla.org] (win32).
This one [mozilla.org] for Linux.

I care

Some of us require browsers for work - web developers, researchers, IT people. Firefox contributes GREATLY to producitivity: tabbed browsing with middle click background-opening is unmatched in IE. It makes google'ing 10 times faster.

Plus, it's so much easier as an IT manager, because IE is a friggin magnet for shit - people end up with so much junk on their computer that DOES come from IE. Exploits are written for IE, and IE is more flawed than any other browser and the security fixes take longer than any other browser.

Maybe you SHOULD care!

Re:Too bad it runs like ass on my computer.

No I think it is your computer that is running like ass because I have only half the machine you got and
mine smokes.

Re:address bar keywords

Go to the site that has the search for which you want to create a keyword.

On that site, Right click the form field and choose 'Add a keyword for this search' ... it will prompt you with the save bookmark dialog .. there will be a box labeled 'keyword' - enter the keyword you want to use.

Once added, FF will allow you to use that keyword in exactly the way you described.

You can also add them manually, by mucking with the URL the way you describe, but this UI method allows you to do it and automatically creates the passable fields for you.