Mozilla .6 Released

jensend writes: "Mozilla's .6 milestone has been reached. This should bring the functionality of Netscape 6 without the marketing stuff and performance hit. Details at Mozilla .6 Release Notes."

Re:an offtopic point

[FattMattP]

If you want to get yourself buried with the details as much as you seem, Linux really does not need an IRC client. I mean, my kernel is pretty fine as it is without any extra cruft like that.

Exactly. The IRC client doesn't compile into your kernel. Likewise, the IRC client in Mozilla is no more integrated into Mozilla than an IRC client is integrated into the Linux kernel. It's just some extra XUL and JavaScript code that comes along with Mozilla when it ships. Think of it as getting a Linux distribution and seeing all of the binaries that come along with that distribution. Now think of Mozilla the same way. Is a development platform. You can write code and run it on Mozilla.

Re:*sigh*

[Cid Highwind]

This is exactly the mentality that creates the suck-ass GUIs that are the root cause of the desire to skin apps. An interface that doesn't make the user want to puke is NOT fluff.

I agree about all-in-one clients though. I already have a mailreader, IM client, newsreader, and HTML editor. Why can't my web browser just be a browser.

okay someone said to me once that ..

[josepha48]

.. for a browser that lots of ram and a fast computer should not be reqired. While this may be true. The requirements:

Mac OS
Mac OS 8.6 or later
PowerPC 604e 266 MHz or faster processor, or G3/G4
64 MB RAM
36 MB of free hard disk space

Windows
Windows 9x/ME, Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000 Intel Pentium-class 233 MHz (or faster) processor
64 MB RAM
26 MB of free hard disk space

Linux
Red Hat Linux 6.x and 7 with X11 R6 [Note: Mozilla is certified and fully supported on Red Hat Linux, but will run on other Linux distributions, such as Debian 2.1 (or later) or SuSE 6.2 (or later). The libraries glibc 2.1 (or higher) and libjpeg.so.62 (or higher) are required.] Intel Pentium-class 233 MHz (or faster) processor
64 MB of RAM
26 MB of free hard disk space

Not the memory requirements 64Meg of RAM.

If you are using an old P100 with 32Meg of RAM. Don't complain that it is slow. Read the hardware and software requirements first and DON'T complain.

I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!

Re:Another pathetic milestone reached.

[AFCArchvile]

Actually, I'm looking into Perl. As for the other two, I haven't even seen any application of them (or known it if I have seen them), so I can't make an educated opinion on it. As for Linux, I had Red Hat 6.2, and it stunk. X wouldn't run in true color (not even on an S3 Vision 868 or an ATI Rage IIC), and it took me a month to figure out how to get the box on the Internet. I'd rather spend money on decent programming than spend time trying to patch up such a motley collection of slapdash code.

Re:*sigh*

[Reziac]

I agree entirely. Skins are a waste of a good interface. I've got to where I won't even download a program that I can't set back to the generic Win32 look, because the damned skins and buttons and bows do nothing but get in my way.

They also make some programs (frex, WinAmp) just about unusable for the visually-impaired.

Re:Java runtime for Linux

[smartin]

All I do is create a symbolic link from the mozilla/plugins director to the blackdown
jre/plugin/i386/javaplugin.so file and it works
find. I was unable to get sun's 1.3 javaplugin.so
to work though

Re:No bloat because:

[Anonymous Coward]

Chatzilla has been developed by people in their free time, so it is no waste of resources concerning the developers.
If you don't load it, it won't use your RAM at all, if that is what you are concerned with, and as far as I know, you don't have to install it when installing, so it won't even bloat your HD if you don't want it to. So I don't see any reason why not to give it as an extra, some people (liek me) like it actually.

Re:*sigh*

[giberti]

• "skin"-ability might be nice, too.

<rant>

• Why do we care if we can change the skin on a software package?
• Is it really necessary to put some akwardly designed UI over essentially functional package?
• Why can't the UI be thought out from the get go?
• Do I really need a skin to match my favorite superstar/sports team/softdrink?
• Do I really have time to spend looking for all these "skins" or better yet should I stick with the branded one that will eventually come with my computer (gateway/dell/compaq/ibm)?
• Why do we insist on throwing out all of the design research that has been put into things like "windowing" technology by Xerox, Apple and M$, in favor of things like ie's new "head" skin for viewing streaming media?

Perhaps we should focus on more important tasks such as security, speed and _actual_ functionality and stop developing fluff like see through windows, skins and all in one clients!

</rant>

crappy version numbers

[knuffelbeer]

Mozilla 0.6: split from Netscape Communicator 5.0, milestone M18, same as Netscape 6, evironment variable MOZILLA5_HOME... When will there be some consistent version numbering for this? (it's worse than java or even solaris)

Otherwise: great software, use it at home all the time (M18). The rendering is cool. Love it how it rebuilds the page while loading.

Problem is I need about 600Mb to build it from source... and then it fails due to some weird configuration thingy in a Makefile/configure script/whatever.
Allso has the same problem that staroffice has: it tries to do all things you ever wanted (and a lot more you don't ever want) in a single application. Do one thing and do it well: make ghecko a seporate library! (go galeon go!)

Re:Interesting...

[b0z]

Any substantial piece of software written in the last 3 years will run like a dog on that sort of configuration. I'm afraid the answer is to upgrade or stick with the stuff you're running now.

I do intend to upgrade next year sometime when I get some money that doesn't need to be spent on other things...however, I view a web browser as a device that should only show text. It really should not be that complex unless you include plugins, java, etc. I don't see why a web browser has to be so complex. Sure, it is good to have features like css, javascript, etc built in, but even then it shouldn't be as slow as the browsers are these days. I don't see what a browser does that should reall need all the resources that a browser uses. It's not like I am trying to run Unreal on a P133, just a web browser.

Anyways, the reason I haven't upgraded is because I have spread my computer money out to multiple devices. Rather than having one kickass computer, I have two older machines, an older laptop, a palm pilot, dsl, small home ethernet network, etc.

Is it worth the upgrade?

[FroBugg]

I've been running NS 4.5 for as long as it's been out, and I've been able to tolerate the glitches and problems.

I think it's finally time to start giving the upgrades a serious look, and right now I'm trying to decide what exactly the difference is between NS 6 and Mozilla .6.

Is there anything that this Mozilla is missing that would make me need to use another browser? I need support for several different people's emails, the occassional secure page, cookies, and all the other goodies that the web has now (shockwave, flash, java, etc.)

Keep in mind that I'm running Win95 on a P100 (which has been very good to me for the past 5 years).

I just want to know if there's one good reason that this new Mozilla won't cut it for me. If not, then I'lll go for it.

Re:BlOAt

[Black Parrot]

> Why the hell does Mozilla need an IRC client??

Because Netscape is now AOL's equivalent of MS's "integrated desktop", the average AOLer is happy to be spoonfed, and AOL is happy to oblige them on that.

Look forward to Galeon and its ilk, if you want a barenaked browser.

--

Re:Slow machine

[giberti]

Because not everyone has money to throw into a state of the art dual/quad processor workstation to run software on, but would like to see what the web has to offer them without waiting 15 minutes for the browser to load.

Mozilla X IE5.5

[Pac]

I have been using only M18 for a month (.06 is downloading while I type). Except for some problems with dialog boxes that won't go away, I have had no major problems. Sometimes it will crash and burn (twice when trying to render /., probably caused by a rogue banner), but it mostly works well.

It is also quick enough, at least. I have a list of behaviors that I am still deciding about. I do not know if they are bugs, if they bother me because they are different from IE or if I just find them wrong. The velocity problem applies here too. I am not yet sure if mozilla is slightly slower than IE or if it just renders HTML differently.

I do not remember having any show-stopper problem in ANY site (besides not having plugins I didn't bother to install).

Both at work and at home I mostly forgot IE.

Re:First Experience's w M6

[cuijian]

Thanks alot. That took care of the problem. I assume this is a known bug that they are working on? This seems like a good way to turn off lots of potential users.

shell script I use to get nightly builds

[gsherman]

#! /bin/sh

cd /usr/src
rm -rf package/
wget -q http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/latest/ mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz
tar -xvzf mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz > /dev/null
rm -f mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz
echo "Finished...!"
if [ "$1" = "-run" ]; then
echo "Booting Mozilla...!"
moz &
fi

here's that "moz" script:

#!/bin/sh

cd /usr/src/package/
./mozilla

Re:Yawn...

[Cap'n enigma]

Fuck you! I am not a nerd. I am a Geek!
Fuckin lowbrows.

Re:*sigh*

[f5426]

<rant type=reply>

I hate skins. I like simple, well conceived user interfaces. And I am not alone. Unfortunately, this is not the ideal of the everyone. There are people that like those ugly cool desktops (with Jennifer Lopez as a background image, Enlightment with a StartTrek look, and translucent terminals)

Even latest apple OS sacrified usability to coolness factor [For instance, scollbars don't hilite when you click on them, or transparency of window title bar make non-focused windows more wisible (on the default background) than the focused one]

At least, skinnability works in both ways. If all the ugly coolness is made via a skin system, then it is possible to download a skin that don't sucks [ModernGray, in the Mozilla case]

Sure, it would be (IMHO) better to have a hard-coded usable default GUI first, but at least we are not locked in a hard-coded unusable default GUI...
</rant>

Cheers,

--fred

Re:Unacceptable limitation

[Eil]

You ought to have done a bit more reading before jumping off the cliff, there sonny.

I actually did some work to find out the details of this bug. It started from some guy who just untarred everything and tried to run it as a user, and it failed. Upon further investigation, it turned out that when being run for the first time, mozilla creates some files in it's binary directory, which naturally a user has no write access to.

The workaround is deceptively simple: run mozilla as root or whoever owns the directory first. Then after the required files are created, you can run it as any user you choose and no problems will occur.

I did that and am now replying to your misinformed post using 0.6 as a regular user. Good day.

Re:Slow machine

[davebo]

Considering IE 5.x runs well on such an old machine (under W95) . . . . it might be nice for Mozilla to do the same.

Anyone get PSM working?

[rm -rf /etc/*]

I installed it, and it works fine when I tried mozilla as root, but for non root users, mozilla locks up hard core when I hit an SSL site. Wierd...

It's EVIL!

[Mike Connell]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this - I just downloaded the installer version for windows, and it's 6,666 Kb.

I also thought it would be IE that had that size ;-)

Mike.

Re:Netscape

[democd]

Actually the latest Mozilla Nightly builds render large pages a lot faster than IE 5 on My P2-400 128 MB running Win2k.

My Initial experiences - posted from .6

[Flavio]

I had been using Netscape 6 since it was released and I honestly don't see any difference between it and the .6 build.

My complaint is that Mozilla is SLOW. And every time I complain about this, people ask me "have you ever check out the latest night builds? They're a lot better!". Well, I don't think so! I've been testing night builds for a long time now and they're dog slow.

I just hate it when the "New Message" window takes 3 seconds to appear, among other things.

I have replaced Netscape 4.76 for Mozilla mainly because it doesn't crash as much, but I certainly haven't deleted 4.76.

Flavio

First testings

[gerddie]

Actually I am writing this with the Mozilla beta.

When you start it for the first time, it will copy most of your netscape profile: the mail folders, bookmarks, ..., but not the SOCKS preferences.

At first glace it makes a good impression. Thou I can't see any speed advantage over netscape 4.75.
Maybe my machine is simply fast enough - Dual PIII 700 :) on linux

After viewing some pages it eats up 40M RAM, netscape 4.75 needs only 28M

To use java it wants to download a plugin from netscape. So far I didn't try it.

more to come ...

BlOAt

[bluebomber]

<rant>
Why the hell does Mozilla need an IRC client?? Whatever happened to the idea of doing one thing and doing it well? If I want an IRC client, I can find a good one that works and fits my needs!!
</rant>

Sorry. Just tweaks me when I see this crap and think about the bloated mess that is Mozilla...

-bluebomber

Re:*sigh*

[Petrophile]

After Netscape 4.0, 4.01, 4.02, 4.03, 4.04, 4.05, 4.5, 4.51, 4.51, 4.52, 4.53, 4.54, 4.55, 4.56, 4.6, 4.61, 4.62, 4.63, 4.64, 4.7, 4.71, 4.72, 4.73, 4.74, 4.75, and 4.76 (none of which were particularly stable), what on god's green earth would make you think that a Netscape 4.80 would be a stable program? Did you just start surfing the web yesterday, or did you just somehow miss the last 4 years of the horrid quality of Netscape browsers? What is left to patch?

Re:*sigh*

[Hard_Code]

Um, the whole point of XUL was to have a cross-platform GUI. With that came "free" skinnability. People who skin and program aren't necessarily mutually inclusive! There are plenty of artsy graphics people who love to skin and show off their work, who haven't touched a line of code in their life. And there are plenty of programmers who will continue working hard on mozilla, and not spend their time working on skins. It's not like everybody on the Mozilla project has now decided "Hey guys, this skin stuff is really cool. Drop everything! Let's create skins instead!". And while skins may have the potential of creating confusing user interfaces, they also have the potential of creating much better, or customized ones. Instead of bitching over some programmer's brain-dead UI, you can make your own, or rely on some Really Smart UI or graphics guy to make one for you. If you don't like skins don't use them! That's why there is such a thing as "default" skin. Many people probably won't even change this skin, let alone realize that they can.

Re:Java runtime for Linux

[jck2000]

I have also had problems downloading and installing the Java plugin. One "dummy" way to do this, however, is to (i) download the official Netscape 6.0 version with Java, (ii) copy the plugins directory to a safe place, (iii) delete NS 6.0 (which is not as good as the more recent Moz versions and is filled with advertising-related links, etc.), (iv) download Mozilla (w/o Java) and (v) copy the saved NS 6.0 plugins directory over top the Mozilla plugins directory. This has worked fine for me on a number of post-M18 nightlies. I haven't checked on Moz 0.6 yet, but will undoubtedly do so tonight.

One Java plugin issue: When applets launch, System.out messages are spilled into the applet box, which is probably regarded as a "feature" by many /.'ers (including me, when I am putting together my own applets), but I think most non-Java-programmer users would regard this as a "bug".

Anyway, Mozilla is excellent and I highly recommend that everyone check it out. I am ready to delete NS 4.73 in its entirety.

Re:Where to get it

[ajs]

The announcement points people to the nightly builds directory. Someone on the mozilla site should change that!

Thanks for the info, and perhaps someone should moderate your comment up so that it shows up right under mine for people who are threading.

Re:Another pathetic milestone reached.

[jilles]

I really hate it when systemadministrators fuck up good machines like this. You can use the plugin on IE just as well. The default jvm included with netscape is just about the lousiest version out there (the IE version is way better than that) so I don't follow your argument. As far as standards are concerned netscape 4 implements the html 3 standard pretty well (not perfect though). It might even outcompete ie 3 in that area. However, the rest of the world has moved on and netscape 4 is pretty lousy at all the other relevant standards.

I agree that Netscape (or really mozilla) did the right thing by kicking out their crappy JVM. If they had done that four years ago, applets might have actually become popular.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:*sigh*

[Hard_Code]

Erm, NO! I mean mutually INclusive: The set of people who skin and the set of people who program aren't necessarily mutually INclusive. Which was the assertion the poster was trying to make: that since these people are one in the same, skinning necessarily means taking time away from programming.

"Yep. You do."

I know you are but what am...oh nevermind.

Re:Java runtime for Linux

[DeadSea]

I have yet to see java working in Mozilla under Linux. I periodically install it, but I always get errors starting up. Today when I tried I got the following error:

There was an error trying to initialize the HPI library.
Please check your installation, HotSpot does not work correctly
when installed in the JDK 1.2 Linux Production Release, or
with any JDK 1.1.x release.
Could not startup JVM properly!
java_vm process: could not start Java VM
INTERNAL ERROR on Browser End: Could not read ack from browser
System error?:: Resource temporarily unavailable

Now I'll have to go and delete it from the plugin directory. Anybody else have this experience? Does anybody know what I need to do to fix this? It looks like it may be trying to use one of the other java runtimes I have installed rather than the one that it installed. I couldn't find a bug report about it.

Not a Milestone release

[pawal]

This version is not a Milestone release, it is a Netscape/Mozilla compatibility release, for developers doing stuff that is supposed to be compatible for both Mozilla and Netscape versions.

Re:Interesting...

[FatOldGoth]

...and have yet to find a browser that has the features I want.

telnet www.foobar.com 80

GET / HTTP/1.0

--

Fixed it - Re:Edit|Preferences [...] else?

[Malc]

I found the problem. I hadn't deleted my profile, which was buried in that really annoying "Documents and Settings" tree.

Bugzilla bug 62592 [mozilla.org]

Grrr!

[shippo]

The last major thing I downloaded was Netscape 4.76, which took some time. Now this appears!

Doesn't matter as I have to reinstall everything anyway. My root filesystem went belly-up on Sunday, causing many major things to either disapper or become corrupted. May be due to an IDE/DMA bug, a hardware failure, or dual-booting into Windows. I'll be doing a thorough disk scan tonight,

Re:My Initial experiences - posted from .6

[phutureboy]

Very much agreed. I've got 192M RAM on a K6-2/350, and it runs slower than a one-legged dog in the snow. Way too slow to use for my everyday browsing.

Can anyone speculate as to what makes the Linux version so much slower than the Windows version? I can see Mindcraft jumping all over that :)

--

Not a true Mozilla milestone release

[Platinum Dragon]

As another poster mentioned, and as pointed out in the Mozilla roadmap [mozilla.org], Mozilla 0.6 is a build from the Netscape branch, not the Mozilla trunk. It's something for people who want to extend or develop for Netscape 6 with some added fixes and updates from the trunk.

I'm personally going to stick with Mozilla trunk nightlies, considering the mess that was the NS6 release. I imagine Moz0.6 incorporates many fixes, but the trunk nightlies are just beautiful at this point. Speed is nearly (if not already) equal with IE5 in Win9x, and the speed under Linux seems to be increasing slightly. At this point, there seem to be more regressions than new bugs cropping up.

Go to the nightlies directory [mozilla.org] and grab the latest build for your platform. Scroll down to get the absolute latest build for your platform, and be amazed. I should note that, at least in my experience, using the installer seems to allow some strange bugs to creep in - grab the main tarball/zips if you can and be blown away. It's become a good browser at this point.

Re:Running on Windows

[mrfiddlehead]

I'm in windoze now, and I can say that it definitely loads more slowly than IE5.5. The delay in opening windows is almost annoying enough to prevent me from using it. The quality of the browsing experience (tm) offsets the delays. Be ready to close and open the beast regularly though because it still eats ram like a ... a ... ram eating app. With three browser windows and a mail window open I'm over 45MB now ... just opened another window and it took about 8 steamboats ... memory now at 47.5MB ... it's almost enough from keeping me using. I'm so fscking sick of Netscape 4.7x though and I'm loathe to switch to IE so I guess I'll just stick wit it.

Why no release builds outside of Mac/Linux/Win?

[softsign]

This is something that has bothered me for some time now. Arguably, Netscape's biggest userbase is probably in the Unices now - since IE is clearly a far superior browser (free, don't start spouting Opera propaganda at me) for everyday use in Windows and Mac. Hell, the Mac IE is probably the best browser I've seen, bar none.

However, Netscape has yet to release a Solaris build, or an HP-UX build, or anything aside from a Linux 2.2 build. Now I see that the Mozilla folks are taking the same approach - which is disappointing.

Is there any reason for this? I mean, they're building a Solaris 2.6 nightly every day and it works beautifully (on 2.7, for me). Are they ever going to officially release a version or is the onus going to be on admins to compile their own version for anything other than the 3 big platforms? This kind of approach seems awfully shortsighted. I thought part of the whole point of Mozilla was platform independence and the ability to easily build a new port.

I'm not flaming the Mozilla folks here, I recognize quality work when I see it, but I'm just curious why they don't have a Mozilla 0.6 (or a Netscape 6 - yes, I realize that's a different story) for Solaris.

--

On the Mac, also

[update()]

Like a lot of Mac users, I found Mozilla versions before M17 utterly useless on MacOS. They have made tremendous progress since then, and recent versions are reasonably usable. (The browser, at least. I haven't tried the mail or news.) I'm suspicious about the people who respond to every criticism of Mozilla with "Oh, but the latest nightlies are much better!" but users who are disappointed with M18 should try recent nightlies, which are much better.

When you find Mac-specific bugs, report them!! My impression is that for all the emphasis on cross-platform, the Mozilla core only really pays attention to Win32. and to a lesser extent, Unix. If users don't report and vote for those bugs, they'll never get noticed or fixed.

There is Netscape 6 for Solaris

[linuxci]

Sun is helping them with the porting for it:
http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/netscape/ [sun.com]

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

How its going so far

[DaSyonic]

Mozilla has really come along way. Ive been using the nightly builds for the past 3 months (upgrading daily, missed very few builds) and the quality of Mozilla is really improving

Ive now just gotten .6 and tried it out. The first thing I tried to do is install the Java plugin from netscape. Amazingly enough, went without problem. This has been kinda tricky, even in the last few nightly builds. PSM (to enable SSL) installed nicely, but thats nothing new. Then I fired up Mozilla mail and the filters still work (my filters died for some reason a few nights ago)

In conclusion, Mozilla is very stable. Its not perfect, it might just crash on you, but it does it, and does it well. I have not used any other browser in several weeks. I get all my email (including a subscribtion to linux-kernel mailing list among others) through mozilla mail, and it filters it nicely and loads the spool (sometimes over 1500 messages) quickly. Even if your not ready to throwout Netscape just yet, give Mozilla a try. Im glad that this Milestone is stable, the past Milestone (M18) was really awful, and I recommended against it and told others to just use the nightly builds. This one seems to finally be the one to work, and work well.

Re:BlOAt

[suffe]

Things like this is stated over and over and over again. To a part I agree with this - there is no need for this and that in mozilla but the fact is you do not need to use it. you don't even need to have it. Just download the source and tell configure no to include it. I can't say for sertain that this is possible with the irc-client, it is however possible with the news- and mail-clients. If they bothered to set the option for these I'm pretty sure they'll let u skip the IRC and other clients.

If they had energy enough to make the software then ppl could at least gather the energy to compile it.

Re:Another pathetic milestone reached.

[^chuck^]

This is a pile stinking fetid dingoes kidneys. I installed a linux nightly build about a week ago, installed the java plugin and others which I keep locally on my harddisk as I am a compulisive nightly builder. I can say it runs better than ever, especially if you don't install the java. The reason loading times are so long with java are the same reasons why it took forever with netscape 4. Once that damn java is loaded though, no wait times on any web page with it, unlike IE which starts crunching away. But linux users don't shut things down, now do they?
As to flash, runs fine, don't know what your talking about.

and the last part of your argument, well thats just mean man! If you find this sort of stuff irking you, don't run it! or if you care, which its obvoius you do, then try to help in some way, either by downloading nightly builds and submitting bug reports, or actually changing the code to your liking (i don't, but i don't whine about useless things and complain when they don't get fixed when all the tools are laid out before me either)

Re:*sigh*

[ChristianBaekkelund]

All I want is a Netscape update of 4.76 which:

• Is far more stable. I mean 4.76 still crashes like CRAZY for me on almost every platform I've used it on.
• Is far faster. Comparatively, it's still slower than I somehow seem to feel it *should* be. Especially after using IE every once in a while.

If Netscape released a MUCH faster and MUCH more stable version of Netscape 4.76, I'd love it. Three more minor feature requests to make it "perfect":

• Had better bookmark management.
• Was Navigator-only. I never use all the mail/newsgroups/composer/address book fluff. I got better apps for all that stuff on my win98 box (Eudora, Agent, DreamWeaver, and Outlook, respectively). I know I used to be able to just download Navigator, but didn't seem to see such last time I checked (could be wrong though).
• "skin"-ability might be nice, too.

Netscape 6 <= Mozilla 0.6!

[gburgyan]

If you think about it it's pretty amazing -- what Netscape considers good enough for release barely makes a blip on Mozilla's charts. Makes you wonder what Netscape was smoking when they shipped.

Re:Not a Milestone release

[DaSyonic]

It actually is.
Take a look at the Mozilla Roadmap [mozilla.org] to see what releases are planned, the time frame, and all that good stuff.

Web Standards Project Applauds Netscape 6

[Chuck Chunder]

In related news it seems that the WaSP [webstandards.org] have changed their minds [webstandards.org] about Netscape [netscape.com] 6.

Re:Interesting...

[Doc Hopper]

My gateway machine at home is a Pentium 133 with 128 MB RAM. I downloaded .6 last night before the news appeared on Slashdot; although rendering speed is not quite as fast as Netscape, start-up time is noticeably faster. Also lots of visual glitches with Netscape on Linux are gone. The Preferences screen on a 133 is pretty slow, but not intolerably so as it was in previous releases. There are some noticeable weirdnesses comparing Mozilla on my faster machine versus this, but I cannot say with authority that it is due to the speed difference.

Matt Barnson

Slow machine

[Kohath]

Sometimes I don't understand. Why should a brand-new browser run well on such an old machine?

Re:BlOAt

[Throw Away Account]

Which "Mozilla people"? If somebody who isn't being paid by Netscape to work on the browser and who otherwise wouldn't be working on Mozilla at all decides to write an IRC client based on Mozilla, so what?

Re:BlOAt

[Throw Away Account]

Netscape wanted Mail/News, since they had to duplicate the functionality of Communicator 4.7. The IRC client was written by volunteers who chose the project themselves and otherwise would not have been working on Mozilla. And the GUI stuff is 100% forgivable if you're running anything other than Windows, because otherwise you wouldn't have Mozilla for your platform yet.

Re:Edit|Preferences screwed up... anybody else?

[big.ears]

Those are mail/composer/newsgroup prefs. I have them fine. Maybe you didn't install the full version.

Re:Unacceptable limitation

[Karora]

The Debian packages manage to avoid this problem. I think it's probably just easier for them to say this than to write the installer stuff to work around it.

No doubt you can get RPMs somewhere which bypass this as well.

Certainly, the nightly builds, which I have been using for at least six months, and which have been my only browser for the last three, write user-related settings into your home directory, with the software itself just needing to be "on path" somewhere.

Similarly, the Windows version which I use on NT installs in a perfectly fine multi-user way, with my settings associated with my profile, and the executables in a shared location.

Andrew.

Re:*sigh*

[Throw Away Account]

Mozilla 0.6 has skins for one and only one reason -- to make porting easier. By rendering the widgets with the browser's page renderer, you don't have to write a whole new batch of front-end code for Windows, X, Mac, OS/2, Be, etc.

A side effect is that it makes it easy to replace thw widgets with a new set, since your widgets are in a browser-renderable format instead of your OS libraries. Thus, with a dozen lines of code to create an interface less clumsy than copying over interface files, you wind up able to easily skin Mozilla.

In short,"'skin'-ability" didn't cost developer time in Mozilla, it saved time to focus on security, speed, and actual functionality.

Re:Mozilla with shockwave flash

[kramergr]

I've been using the Mozilla nightly builds for months and www.jibjab.com works just fine. This site uses lots of flash animation. I've just done the install by hand of the flash files into the mozilla plugins dir.

Re:Unacceptable limitation

[amorsen]

RedHat 7 versions of nightly builds [redhat.com] are available. There are also builds for RH6 there, and those work on at least Suse 6.4.

Benny

Re:Why no release builds outside of Mac/Linux/Win?

[Tet]

However, Netscape has yet to release a Solaris build, or an HP-UX build, or anything aside from a Linux 2.2 build.

That's only half true. While Netscape themselves are only offering Windows, Mac and Linux, they're still supporting Solaris and HP/UX, but you have to contact Sun and HP to get it. See here [netscape.com].

Unacceptable limitation

[rknop]

From the release notes:

If you are installing Mozilla on a multi-user operating system such as Linux, Unix, or Windows 2000, you should install it separately in the user directory of each user who plans to use Mozilla.

Forget it, I'm not even going to try this. The last thing I want to have to do is have a HUGE program installed once for every user on the machine. Sure, at home, I'm mostly the only user, but not entirely. And at work, we can't afford that kind of disk space in everyone's home directories.

Why is it so hard to get a Mozilla with SSL working with a true multiuser install? I mean, hell, Quake 3 has a true multiuser install nowadays. Older browsers never had trouble with it. I like what I've seen of Mozilla, but I'm not going to consider it a viable option until the thing works on my Unix system like a Unix piece of software, not like a hacked-over piece of Windows 95 or MacOS 7 software.

-Rob

Where to get it

[ajs]

The site doesn't do a good job of telling you WHAT to download (it just points you to the uber-confusing nightly download directory).

Here's what I know. The build comments page [mozillazine.org] points you to a Linux [mozilla.org], Mac [mozilla.org] and a Windows [mozilla.org] version. These all live in the same download directory from 12/6/2000 [mozilla.org].

Hope that helps people out.

Fixed link (I hope)

[Chuck Chunder]

here [webstandards.org] (Mozilla screwed that up, not me. Honestly!)

Have they fixed XDnD?

[wowbagger]

(and I don't mean some strange version of the TSR game....)
Have they fixed the X Windows system Drag and Drop protocol? I use an external program to do my downloads, and with NS4.7x I could drag a link to the program and start the download. Mozilla M18 won't do this: It copies the data to the X clipboard, but then doesn't notify the target application that it needs to read the clipboard.

A browser story,and nobody mentioned konqueror yet

[cyberdonny]

Done.

The new 2.0.1 version [kde.org] looks real nice. The jittery display while loading Slashdot is gone, it now understand E*Trade's [etrade.com] protocol-less relative URLs, and no longer gets confused by localhost:10000. Give it a try.

Oh, and for those who wonder: yes, it does Java, Javascript and NS compatible plugins. And it handles those mazes of nested tables from hell [luxusbuerg.lu] perfectly well, unlike netscape.

Re:Another pathetic milestone reached.

[Shimbo]

Well, that's probably because I have IE5 that was already installed for me when I installed Windows 2000. Therefore, the 4.5MB argument is moot.

Well, yes. Still, the 1.1 JVM that ships with IE is so out of date as to be worthless, and you have to download the Sun plugin anyway.

No wait, I've just got a message from Bill telling me that nobody needs Java 1.2 or greater.

*sigh*

[green pizza]

All I want is a "Netscape 4.8X". A slightly more stable version of 4.76 (which is a LOT better than 4.70) and with some of the motif gui bugs fixed. Then I'd be set for life... or at least another 18 - 24 months.

PNG Transparency!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Mozilla supports 255 alpha layers in PNGs. Once the web designers find that out, we'll see a major leap when they design for Mozilla.

Maybe IE should catch up on that one too?

Interesting...

[b0z]

I'll download it and give it a try. I'm just concerned that it will still run slow on my machine, as it is a P133 with 32MB of RAM. I have been using Netscape 4.x for years now on AIX, Solaris, Linux, Windows95, NT4.0, and have gotten extremely used to it. I've tried IE and Opera and a few others that are not worth mentioning, and have yet to find a browser that has the features I want.

As far as performance, does anyone here have experience with previous versions of mozilla on old equipment like I have? I want to see what others say before I install it.

Re:Netscape 6 <= Mozilla 0.6!

[Shimbo]

Netscape 6 needs to be out there with a product. You could build a flawless browser and it would look crap on 50% of sites.

People are fixing their sites to work in Netscape 6 where they wouldn't have bothered with Opera or Mozilla. And hopefully, after a while, designers will not have to bother going through hoops to work with NC4.

Every site that gets cleaned up will work better with Opera, Konqueror, whatever. There may be better browsers but Netscape is the most likely to give web developers a clue about designing cross-platform pages.

Re:*sigh*

[Angst Badger]

Why do we care if we can change the skin on a software package?

We (that's you and me and others like us, buddy) don't, but the vast unwashed masses do. As in all things, but especially in software, most people don't have the knowledge to understand the underlying substance, nor do they care. They want flash. Apple understands this -- look how many millions of dollars they've made from colored plastic and, looking forward, a GUI that simulates colored plastic. Microsoft sure as hell understands this, too.

Yes, it's stupid. But fashion ain't exactly a new force in human affairs, and until we outgrow our primate brains, it isn't going anywhere. Personally, I'd be happy if the designers of too-hip-to-live programs would just provide a compile-time switch to leave out all that skin code so I can get on to the important stuff without wasting RAM and CPU cycles.

Of course, I'm being completely hypocritical here. I'd pay attention to skins more if someone would cook up an XMMS skin that looks like a Wyse 60 greenscreen terminal display so I could get rid of the Wyse 60 terminal I use to launch mpg123... :)

--

Other Packages

[hodeleri]

I've created a Links Panel [segment7.net] for Mozilla (works with nightlies, Moz0.6 and NS6) and I've wrapped up the History Panel [segment7.net] RFE from bug 32594 [mozilla.org]

Other packages/projects can be retrieved from mozdev.org [mozdev.org] and a very cool forum reader called Forumzilla [zapogee.com]

Enjoy!

--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess

Edit|Preferences screwed up... anybody else?

[Malc]

Does anybody else have this:

I have five top level nodes in the edit preferences dialog:

* Appearance
* Navigator
*
*
* Advanced

The ones between Navigator and Appearance have no labels. When I open them, the child nodes have no labels. When I select any of these, I seem to get random widgets on the panel to the right (well, maybe it's the controls with no labels).

Is this common?

Re:BlOAt

[Alternity]

Because Netscape is now AOL's equivalent of...

Yeah but remember Netscape != Mozilla.


"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...

mozilla IRIX build now works!

[kels]

Another mozilla landmark was reached recently, at least for those of us who use SGI's IRIX. There is finally a working IRIX build, after being broken for about a year. Check out this page [sgi.com] for a script and the latest information, and go get an IRIX mozilla at long last.

Posted with nightly build ID 2000120521 under IRIX 6.5. Haven't tried .6 yet.

Re:My Initial experiences - posted from .6

[Skeezix]

I know what you mean. I hear "Mozilla is bloody fast now that I'm using the nightly builds!" Well, I download the nightlies every day. In the morning at work I grab the Windows version and in the evening I grab the Linux version at home. The Windows version *is* fast. Unfortunately, the Linux version is not. The UI is just very unresponsive. Menus in particular are slow to update and feel very sluggish and unresponsive. popping up a new window is a slow process. It's very unfortunate. I believe I have an adequate machine, too. I'm running Linux on an AMD K6-2 450 with 256 Mb RAM. The widgets are just very very sluggish compared to the version I run on Windows.
----

Re:Unacceptable limitation

[swordgeek]

"but I'm not going to consider it a viable option until the thing works on my Unix system like a Unix piece of software, not like a hacked-over piece of Windows 95 or MacOS 7 software."

That "Win or Mac" comment is hardly fair--this sort of behaviour is unacceptable on any platform for any software. Mozilla just sucks, plain and simple. It's stuck in a perpetual alpha-test stage.

Re:Another pathetic milestone reached.

[cybrthng]

Actually Internet explorer doesn't come with a jvm, it is a 4 1/2 meg download ontop of the 18+ meg download that entails the whole "Internet Explorer".

To be on the safe and official side i have replaced all IE boxes with Netscape 4.76 and Java plugin 1.2.2 because that is the only standard that works. Ever try running a real Java application under IE? It doesn't work! It will crap out, cause problems or simply run slow or not at all.

The move to a true JVM is a blessing, it just shows ignorance on your part in that microsoft re-packages it. Would it make you feel better if netscape renamed it to javigator and installed it for you?

Mem-Eater

[Eloquence]

The main problem I have with Mozilla is that it is a huge memory-eater. Whereas my Netscape 4.7 eats 12-20 MB with 10 windows open, Mozilla right now eats 32 MB, with a single window open. At startup, it "only" takes up 20 MB, but once you open and close a few windows, it's up at 32. There are some huge leaks in there.

--

Running on Windows

[pigpogm]

I know no-one here admits to running Windows...

I've just installed this on my NT machine - it installed first time without problems, and seems to work pretty good on the whole. Not had time to do much real testing, but i'm impressed so far. It copes with /., Blink, Microsoft.com and MSN.com (just to add it to their logs ;).

Quicker than i'd been lead to expect too - i can't say as i can tell much difference in speed from IE 5.5.

(-1: Admitting to running Windows)

Re:Where to get it

[havardw]

Stable releases (like 0.6) live in the "releases" direcory, try http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozill a0.6/ [mozilla.org]

Figures

[ResHippie]

I just got around to installing M18 last night. Now they have a new version. Then again, who knows how stable .6 really is?

btw, is there a way to only get the browser for mozilla? I don't need, or want anything else.

Re:Grrr!

[Psiren]

This would be the same Windows 95 that when booting on a new motherboard I bought, completely trashed the BIOS? Twice. Linux worked fine. Go figure.

congrats to mozilla / netscape

[small_dick]

Look forward to trying this...congratulations mozilla and netscape (and others) for keeping the dream of freedom-based computing platform alive.

Java runtime for Linux

[mtsirkin]

Hi! To get Java running, you need the java VM plug-in. And the Nescape page linked to from the Mozilla release notes does not seem to work in netscape nor explorer (maybe they want me to use Nescape 6? :)
Anyway, download JVM plug-in here:

• windows [netscape.com]
• Linux [netscape.com]

Mozilla with shockwave flash

[Calle Ballz]

Mozilla is great and all, but every version I run into problems with Shockwave flash files. I am a frequenter of the simple humor on www.joecartoon.com [joecartoon.com] and it Never loads the site correctly. Has anyone else run into this problem?

Re:Anyone get PSM working?

[tweek]

Install mozilla to your home directory and then run the install for PSM. It's a permissions issue.

Initial experiences - posted from .6

[voop]

Wow! I managed to get Mozilla .6 just before it was announced on /. and before the servers are /.'ed.

Anyways, contrary to previous milestones and nightly builds, this version installed smoothly on my laptop (running Debian) - and seems to run moderately fine. I have tried on some otherwise troublesome URL's, which look surprisingly good.

There are small rendering glitches, such as when writing this text in the "Comment" textfield on slashdot. If I fill out a line, ending a word exactly on the last character in the field, then the "space" before the next word will be in the beginning of the next line. It looks funny, but is hardly annoying.

The browser looks slick, as does the mail&news component. However mail&news seems to be something I will leave with pine for a while. I tried to connect Nozilla .6 to my local leafnode (no, don't bother...it's behind a filtering router). Nozilla read fine the grouplist, I subscribed and even read 3-4 postings. Then everything got stuck, mozilla eating up all the cpu-time it possibly could and I had to -9 it. I tried a few times with roughly the same result. I didn't bother to check the mail functionalities.

So while it may not be ready for prime-time on all fronts, then it cirtanly seems to have replaced Netscape as my browser. Ohh, wait - Mozilla IS netscape. Nevermind, it is a fine product thus far.

Long release notes

[beebware]

Phew - very long page of release notes (and quite difficult to make out the relevant information).
Seems there are still quite a large number of bugs in it, but I can't give first-person results as I couldn't see a download link. Can anybody point me in the right direction?
Richy C. [beebware.com]
--

Re:Another pathetic milestone reached.

[cyber-vandal]

Hah! A Microsoft troll complaining about Linus adding extra features and bugs to his code. How long did W2K take to come out, and how many open issues did it have? Would the kettle please refrain from commenting on the colour of the pot. Thank you.

Nested tables is NOT the problem w/ NS

[Reziac]

The "nested tables from hell" is NOT the problem with Netscape. The most insane nested tables by themselves will render just fine. I've been following this particular problem for several years and have it pinned down pretty solidly. The bug (which has likely been in all Netscapes since at least 3.04, but to my knowledge has only *seriously* _manifested_ in 3.04 and 4.6x) is actually this:

If you have a lot of links *inside* tables, and IF those links consist of a lot of characters, then it triggers a resource leak which can become fatal. If you cut down on the number of links inside the tables, or halve the number of characters in each link, the leak doesn't occur.

It wouldn't surprise me if the bug is in Mozilla as well (since it's apparently in the rendering core) but only manifests in certain builds.

Re:My Initial experiences - posted from .6

[Tridus]

Oh well they are a lot better, Mozilla now is way faster then Mozilla back then.

Which just goes to show you how insanely slow it was back then, because its still slower then hell.

Its also a memory pig, but you know...

Seems fine - nioghtly builds are still better..

[benmhall]

I doenloaded the Linux version, it seems fine. I'd like to say that the nightlies are still better.

I had Mozilla 0.6 crash on me a time or two trying to import my Netscape profile and then installing Java. I don't have this problem with the nightlies.

Here's a tip: I got a nightly working perfectly with Flash, Java, SSL, etc., now I just untar the new nightlies over the old one. That keeps my themes and plugins intaact.

I use Mozilla for 80% of my browsing, and Konqueror for the other 20% (Like when I know I'm going to hit a pdf file - konqueror is just amazing with its plugin architecture.)

Mozilla's REALY fast now, I honestly don't notice much dofference between the speed of Mozilla and Galeon/Skipstone anymore. It's also roughly equivalent to the speed of Netscape 4.76 on my dual-466/256MB RAM. This hardware is okay, but I wouldn't call a dual 466 anything to screem home about anymore.

Anyway, the nightlies are awesome, mozilla is great. I never use Netscape anymore. Honest. Is it ever nice to have a standards-comliant Open Source web browser. It really makes Debian complete. And at the rate Konqueror is moving forward pretty soon we'll have 2!!

Cheers,

Ben

Re:Figures

[cyber-vandal]

Depends on what OS you have. Try here [sourceforge.net] for Linux and here [kmeleon.org] for Windows. Both are tiny browsers based around the Gecko rendering engine.

It's still a pain on low colour displays

[wangi]

It's still a pain on low colour displays - the interface grabs every last colour and the rendering is poor when few colours are free.

Netscape had the -install option to install a custom colormap, and IE autdetects this...

This really makes Mozilla unusable on 8 bit displays (i.e. like on my Ultra 5).

More votes on bug #22337 [mozilla.org] might help...

How to Replace Nescape with Mozilla

[HomerJ]

For those that want to finally kill off Netscape 4 and use Mozilla. Actually, it's alot easier then people make it out to be.

1. untar the package somwhere. (duh!). But here's the tricky part. If you want to install software though it(plugins, themes, etc.) you have to have write acess. So do two things. Install it in /home/username , if you're the only one that uses your machine. Or make a mozilla group.

2. set two envioment variables. MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME and LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Both should point to where you installed Mozilla, eg. /home/username/package

3. copy mozilla-bin to /usr/bin , or somewhere in your path. Then make a symlink called netscape that points to it.

Have fun. I've been running nightlies for awhile, with varying success. Some are really good, then you get one the next day that's just dog slow. Then three days later it's ok again, with a couple more bugs fixed. So if you get another nightly, don't delete your old mozilla install before you try it for a few minutes.

Re:*sigh*

[voop]

All I want is a "Netscape 4.8X". A slightly more stable version of 4.76 (which is a LOT better than 4.70) and with some of the motif gui bugs fixed. Then I'd be set for life... or at least another 18 - 24 months.


So what you want is Mozilla .6. My experiences thus far is, that if you stick to the www-browsing part, it surpasses Netscape in stability. The pages I have tested thus far (which usually crashes Netscape 4.76 giving one of those "Xvidget size incorrect" or whatever messages) have not managed to kill .6 - yet.

Re:BlOAt

[FattMattP]

Why the hell does Mozilla need an IRC client?? Whatever happened to the idea of doing one thing and doing it well? If I want an IRC client, I can find a good one that works and fits my needs!!

This comment shows that you don't understand Mozilla. Mozilla isn't just a browser; It's a new development platform that happens to have a powerful HTML,CSS,XML,etc rendering engine at its core. Your comment is equivilent to asking why Linux needs an an IRC client.

The IRC client was written by outside developers. There are games written using Mozilla [mozdev.org], also by outside developers. Are you going to complain about that, too? If you don't want the IRC client, then don't install it, just like you wouldn't install an IRC client on your system if you didn't want it.