Mozilla is going to final 1.0. How do you rate this good free browser?

[Doom9]

except for the first logout I always selected to keep the session.. now for some strange reason it keeps my desktop settings (of course I always applied them... in fact the kde control center keeps bugging you if you don't press the apply button in the first place).

as for udma.. it's on for my HD, and I used YAST2 to activate it for the DVD-ROM. But the result is always the same.. you can no longer access the drive if UDMA is turned on. I also tried "hdparm -d1 /dev/dvd" with the same result... "hdparm /dev/dvd" shows that UDMA is on.. but I can no longer access the drive.. setting it back to PIO mode and I can again access the drive.. but accessing the drive takes a lot of I/O (and a lot more than PIO mode in Windows.. it effectively freezes the system).

as for compiling stuff... I think I already mentioned that I want to this to be a desktop setup... regular people don't compile. That doesn't mean I couldn't... I've been compiling hundreds of MBs of open source softwares last summer when I had to help port a windows app to solaris.. and enjoy all the benefits of not having root access (major pain in the ass) on a solaris box. And.. I have to be the devil's advocate and ask "why don't we all compile VDub and co on our own?". Because we know that the guy doing the compilation is doing a good job.. so why bother? Can't linux developers make a good compilation? And can't distro makers check the avaible hardware and only install the kernel modules that are needed? That is what I expect from a desktop OS ;)

Now I'm going to have some USB fun...

@edit: guess what.. YAST found the USB printer and I'm already printing. While it's not exactly plug and play it's at least up to the pre-USB on age on Windows and miles ahead of the last time I was seriously using Linux (Suse 6.0). Same goes for the scanner.. it works without problems. Now I just need a place where I can actually download 3d game binaries without getting a server full message and some installation instructions.

urgh.. found and installed ut4linux.. but it's a slideshow.. then I found out that the 3d acceleration wasn't activated but when I try tht I get a black screen and nothing goes anymore

[c0p0n]

yeah, but remember that linux cannot be a pure desktop at this moment, maybe on a couple of years...
but it is true that compiling applications for linux is much easier than for windows. you only need gcc, few libraries and "configure", "make" and "make install" in most of the cases. if you have this advantage... why not using it? it would be ideal to compile every program for your box, to ensure that it is optimized for it... but on almost every soft web you always find a binaries link.
but as you know, linux is not very centralizated, opposed to windows. on windows you have almost closed libraries, but the nature of linux make the libraries to being upgraded constantly, fixin bugs, making improvements and so. and here it is the need of compiling software on linux. if you download a binary it expects you to have certain versions of certain library, which you may have outdated. but if you compile your sources you are using the libraries you have installed, avoiding such problems. how many programs are failing on their first versions because wrong vb or vc runtimes? in linux the problem is much higher. yeah, this is a problem, but also a big advantage. yes, the guy would make a good job compiling... but for his box. another box with another libraries would not benefit of his compiling.
another thing is that you compile your soft to your proper cpu arch, you do not have to deal with almost outdated pentium routines (or even 386, for compatibility reasons) that happen often on very badly optimized windows programs. vdub is one of the few honorable exceptions. avery lee is known of his purity on his code and optimization. on the other hand we have that divx 4 versions that crashed on amd k6-2 cpus because of bad instructions set. maybe compiled properly on your box would have solved that problems (but on a closed source soft...), maybe not but the problem would have been solved by a single programmer on few hours... not having to downgrade divx to 4.
I use linux as a desktop operating system, but the truth is that it is NOT a desktop OS. it is becoming to be. but it is mainly oriented to servers and developers, and computer freakies.
an easy proof of this. KDE. it is TERRIBLY slow. and memory eater. much more than WinXP, if you want to know. on WinXP I always have my free memory on 300 MB or more (except when I am doing heavy work on it, that's the point of having 640MB of RAM). KDE alone eats 120 MB of RAM on startup, with wallpaper, icons and so. and the OS eats some megs too.. solution? other window managers, like blackbox or (my favorite) IceWM.
having linux with more stable libraries versions to be more user friendly... would convert it to the same as windows. with the exception of open source, of course. the problems would get solved, yeah, but much slower. security holes. you will have to wait forever for a partially bugfree version of any program, as happens on windows (well, bugfree... lol).
this is the nature of linux. the truth is that if you want to have a linux box, you have to know more than a bit of computers (I think that the ppl that posts on these forums are more than able to do so, or at least have the base to). now and for a long while.
for ppl don't used to linux: you would think that using linux is a messing on compiling at every moment. This is not true. I installed my distro, recompiled the kernel, downloaded the soft I need as base, compiled and installed it on an evening (3 hours). Then I have a linux that allows me to navigate the internet, making some office work (openoffice), huge compiling tasks (for my studies, I work on telecom), multimedia (seeing videos, music, even transcoding dvd). I have a huge software collection by default (xmms - winamp a la linux, openoffice, some 3D games, several mail clients, navigators, news readers, disk tools, editors, calculators, image processing like the gimp, documentation, configuration tools, text editors...). I have all I need on just 1 evening... how much time do U spend on having an optimum win system? not much less. even the winXP installation would take more than 1 hour, maybe 1h30m.

well, you need for compile mplayer few things, apart from gcc. these are libraries that you should have installed on your system anyways since a lot of proggies does need them (libungif, gtk...). and if you dont have them, they would be on your distro cds


about your UDMA problems... hmmm... can U check if you have the file "ide-scsi.o.gz" or similar on your /lib/modules/yourkernel/drivers/scsi (try also on IDE)?

[Doom9]

well.. I have to strongly disagree on the taking time issue.. I have my windows properly set up in 1h... and I've already wasted countless hours on that linux stuff. And I'm by no means a linux virgin.. I've used it on and off for 3 years now... and I'm not particularly afraid of compilation issues.. I've learned my way around makefiles, rpath and co... the thing is just that I don't have that time it takes. For each soft you have the read the README file for installation instructions, and if you're lucky you get away iwth a simple ./configure; make; make install... but in my experiences 8 out of 10 times you won't.. and when you have to go looking for additional programs, libraries etc you you easily spend several hours. Some people might have that.. I have to study and run a website.. both rater timeconsuming tasks.. so I need an OS that is up and running in no time. And if I want to play a game I don't want to bother with rpm intricacies, crashing X-servers, etc.

Admittedly, coming from an engineering background (I have one more semester to go until I start with the master thesis) I've done my share of programming for both school and semester jobs and I know that the way many things are being handled in windows are less than ideal.. and they are not always logical from a programmers point of view. That is certainly a strenght of linux but at the same time one if its major weaknesses.. just take the /dev directory for instance.. it allows you to access every device the same way.. that's nice for a programmer.. but extremely confusing to a regular user.. I couldn't care less to have hundred entries and even the directory in my root... for all I care it could be made invisible. Who else but a programmer cares about these devices? I could go on and on ranting for ages.. but the bottom line is.. it makes sense to developers.. but not the rest of the world. Now if governments want to put their employes on Linux that has to change. Just look at the install procedure.. of course you can get thru just accepting the defaults.. but then you have hundreds of megs of pretty much useless stuff. Just as an example.. I installed an additional package (was it xine, I don't recall) and I was forced to also install procmail and sendmail. Who gives a rat's ass about these programs? I know I don't have any use for them.. but all the dependencies can drive you crazy. You have to install perl, python, etc etc. There's at least a thosand different packages on a relatively small linux installation... most of the time you don't even understand what they're for. When I first installed linux (still in high school) just seeing the dependencies drove me towards madness.. now I have an idea what many of these things do but it still drives me crazy how there cannot be a base set of libraries that come with every system and that isn't even listed because it's needed everywhere. Additional programs can assume that these libraries are there.. and bring the rest that's required for an installation. Then when you have to fix one of these libraries or programs you give the user an executable patch, via an online updater, and in 3 months you have the next version of your favorite distro anyways.

you can clearly see.. I'm thinking from an end user perspective here... but even as a developer (the company I was working for last summer had some custom extension for an open source program written.. this work was outsourced and the people were working on windows and it was my job to get the extensions running on solaris) libraries and external programs that are required for a simple compilation job can drive you crazy (as non root I learned to hate ld which simply doesn't indicate some crucial errors forcing me to truss the compilation and gdb for a day until I found out that the library path I specified in the makefile simply got ignored for unknown reasons).

currently I'm taking a class in usability engineering.. now even more than ever I'm critical when I see things that aren't done in a very userfriendly way. And unfortuantely almost all open source software provides excellent negative examples for usability. but what's even more frustrating is that if you talk to the developers and try to get them to make the stuff better by giving them concrete ideas they turn you down. Best example.. I've been using mozilla for over a month now.. and one of the most annoying usability bugs I found is linewrapping.. do a search for "psyche" and have a look at his signature.. in IE it gets nicely wrapped.. in mozilla it creates a horrible horizontal scrollbar... horizontal scrollbars are completely against the nature of every western language. But.. the developers won't bother to change the code simply because the wrapping isn't in the HTML standard. So.. correctness goes over usability. Another excellent example is the ogm issue.. some people wanted to make us use the ogg extension just for the specs sake completely ignoring that on windows extensions are used for associating files to applications and that you can't use double extensions. But stuff like that makes it very hard for me to tell people to use more open source software. From the very start I've always tried to write guides in a way that they don't use too many commercial software, and tried to use open source software whenever possible.. my site was also the first major ripping sites to offer sources for download. But the mere fact that something is open source isn't a strong enough argument to use it over something close sources.. I'm way too pragmatic for that.. if a program is good and easy to use I will use it.. if it's open source that's a bonus. But how can you tell anyone to use mozilla when it looks horrible on every page that uses long strings? Once they've gone to such a page they'll come back asking me why it looks different than in IE... That doesn't mean that mozilla is a bad browser, on the contrary, I like it a lot but when such a thing comes along and I'm running in a brick wall trying to talk to the developers I feel very frustrated.

I think that diversity is only a good thing up to a certain degree. I have some firsthand experience in this. I still recall having a dozen links at the end of the dvd2avi guide.. linking to the various encoding procedures for divx, vcd, svcd and miniDVD. People got CONFUSED about this beyond reason. That's why now there's one main page per guide leading to the various subguides.. and even that is only a compromise.. ideally you wouldn't have to come back... I'm sure there's much room for improvement (one of these days I'll put the new navigation online).. but at least I think I'm listening to feedback I'm getting and try to do my best to use it. The linux community is developing for their own.. it's rather easy to convince a fellow programmer of your ideas.. it is much harder to convince a casual user that is not an LLG and speaks in regular expressions ;)

[c0p0n]

well, being sincere I can have a fresh winxp system installation in just 7 mins, thanx to norton ghost but... also for linux. a new complete winxp installation will take me up to 2h30m, maybe 3h, only the win install process takes forever.
hey! I didn't say in any way that you're a linux noob! I was speaking on a general way.
I can have my linux system up and running on such small time just because I've spent before huge hours learning the linux ways. at the beggining it can be very confusing. some of us come from DOS times, so cli is not a big problem (at first), then windows, so when we come to linux we have a bit of mess at the beggining until we get used to the new interface again.
linux requires about 10x times of the learning time of windows. not only that, your hardware may be not supported, specially if it is very new (take the audigy cards, only partially supported). the shell may be a bit confusing at first, but once you've learned some easy commands (not very distant at the beggining from DOS) it is a very powerful tool. I usually have 3 or four tty's running on background, but my case is not extreme.
you have a better example of user "friendliness" that you've pointed before. have U tried to run the audiogalaxy satellite on your linux? this is very far from user friendly. it's an horrible application. it's hard to setup and to get it running.
sometimes I do not understand why programmers do not use of tools like tk, tcl or gtk interfaces, they're very easy to implement.
some programmers (for example) keep using lbapng instead libpng, even when the first is used only on the 98% of the cases between the two libraries. it is sad that it is generalizated, and just to compile a single 3k program you've to download 3mb on libraries. but these are extreme cases. My installation has a size of 1200 mb, and the last time I had to install a library needed for compiling was last month.
there are tools that allows you to automatize this process. the mandrake software updater is a cool example of this. it has a database of the programs of the mandrake installation CD, so installing a new proggie is easy: just select it and the updater will ask U for the appropiate disk, and you can configurate every internet source U want. the problem? only for rpm. for source codes I know that there're several efforts on this way, trying to make the process like an installshield wizard, or a vise installing program. this is great for the normal user, you only have to point the program at the downloaded file and it works on decompressing and compiling it, and downloading additional stuff as necessary.
but the main disadvantage of linux is a descentralized control. the only control that exists is on linux itself (the kernel). all other tools are not standard, with the exception of some applications that has become a standard de facto.
what would be the benefit of more control on gnu/linux systems? (note for ppl dont used to linux: gnu/linux system is a complete linux system: kernel+apps. there's no linux redhat, or suse, there're redhat or suse gnu/linux. linux is only the kernel).
well, a centralized control would allow more friendliness, more standards and more ease of use. but this would stop the linux community. because this is not the linux philosophy.
if somebody wants an easy linux system, s/he should wait at least one year. the distros are becoming more easy to install, they have gorgeus and usable configuration tools. at this moment, a normal user does not have to go down to console, the software packaged with the distro is more than sufficient (on most cases).
just a curious case. the government on my region (something like a state on the us) has made a linux distro (linex), intended for the government administration, schools, social centers and so. but the local governments are still using windows, because they don't know how to use it (although there're free courses on the matter). the system is the closest approximation to windows I've seen on linux, but it's hard to ppl that only use the computer occasionaly to convince that, in the essence, it should be run exactly like windows.
I think that some programmers do not understand the end user point of view, on linux fields. they designed the program, and they of course know all that is needed to known about their creatures but... it is a real pain to dig through 30 man pages to see a little modifier of that program that makes what U want, because of a capricious syntax (do U remember the apache tips to avoid leech? I remember that it was solved more because of trial and error than because logic).
this allow you total control of the program, of course, and can make it very powerful but... at which cost? 2hours to know how activate DMA on disks? maybe 4 days to make lilo to understand that you *really* have 2 ide hdd installed?
and knowing all this, how can I still use linux?, well, I have to use linux on my university yes or yes. I had to spent a lot of hours to learn how to make the most simplest thing. and after that, I can use it as a desktop system with no troubles at all, but I understand that a lot of ppl can't do. after all, a computer is made for being used, so I do not blame anybody against using windows, because windows is easy and can do every task applicable to a computer. so I recommend to my friends windows always. it has the best media players, all the games, most of the software and it's easy to use, so... want multimedia? want games? want office work? use windows, without any doubt. but hey! I use linux because I love to learn new things, not because of it's powerful and stable. open source? well, I have not time to look to sources. free? it is not free, time is money, and you have to spent loads of time on it. but is that not good? yeah, it is.

[avih]

1.1 alpha released...
http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.1a/#new

* Download Manager has been enabled (with many improvements) for the 1.1 Alph arelease.
* Mozilla now takes advantage of Quartz rendering for users of Mac OS X 10.1.5
* Viewing HTML mail messages as plain text is new.
* Quote original message has been implemented for 1.1a
* We have new layout performance enhancements targeted at DHTML.
* There have also been performance enhancements for the application startup speed.
* Viewsource for MathML and view source for selections have been implemented.
* Mozilla now has support for the display of XBM images.
* Autocomplete in the addressbar has an improved sort order.
* Browser tabs now close left to right (they used to close right to left).
* The cross-plaform File Picker now has a button for creating a new directory.
* Redundant backup of preferences files has been implemented in 1.1 Alpha.
* Mozilla's drag and drop support has been greatly improved.
* Image blocking for Mail & News has been implemented.


btw, i'd like to point out a feature i've started to use recently, and is really usefull:

when u visit regularily sites with ads, you can right click on the ad and select 'block images from this server'. VERY efficient. i use it for yahoo games. no more annoying ads that takes bandwidth with my 56k modem ;)

cheers
avi

[Doom9]

hmm... I've been using dailies even post the 1.0 release (because that crashed on my for the first time in my mozilla testing history 2 minutes after installing)... and the version number has recently said 1.1 so I guess I've been using 1.1 ever since it came out.
All the bugs (linewrapping, quicklaunch being closed when you close the last open browser instance - a bug that was introduced in the june buiilds which are younger than v1.0 - , the address selecting bug) are all still there.. haven't checked for the multiple mail accounts to one set of folders thing but as bugzilla contains no word I'd assume that nothing has been done there either. But at least I can now disable the download manager without having to edit .js files.
for those intersted here's the links to the bugs mentioned:

linewrapping: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99457
quicklaunch: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149408
address line: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149415
mail accounts: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=126341

and even more importantly: they haven't separated the applications from each other.. when one freezes they all freeze, when one crashes they all crash.. and the preferences or other popup configuration menus show up as another window in the task bar (both windows and linux version) which sure isn't the default behavior of every other app I use.

[Teegedeck]

Originally posted by avih

when u visit regularily sites with ads, you can right click on the ad and select 'block images from this server'. VERY efficient.
:) I've been waiting for that one. It's the only thing I dig about iCab on a Mac.

[Doom9]

hmm... effectively I was using a later build than 1.1alpha.. the dl manager is a fraud.. it has been part of mozilla all along.. maybe it was disabled for the 1.0 release but it's been there for a long time and has upset many people because it could only be disabled by adding a secret line to prefs.js (later on they changed it to user.js).. I've had these switches in these files for a long time (profiles don't get deleted if you uninstall and install a new build) so v1.0 never showed the dl manager.. but even builds prior to v1.0 had that dl manager and it didn't really get any new features..
new features would mean they'd implemented the following rfe: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75364

[mrbass]

I know what you feel like. I started a long thread about using copy and paste for file management in Eazel like a year before 1.0 was released. It was knocked down by developers since it wasn't technically correct. So then when it was released you could only drag and drop to manage your files. Eventually it was implemented but I think management told the hackers to implement it even though it's not hacker technically correct.

A few other gpl programs I've helped out with (bug testing, ui suggestions) and the developers listened extremely well. So sometimes you get lucky other times the hacker is always correct..don't forget that.

[Doom9]

ther times the hacker is always correct..don't forget that. I'm currently taking a course in usability engineering.. we had the final presentation for our project yesterday and will have the final exam next week. During the project creation phase we had to perfom several usability tests with potential users... and the other teams also got to judge all projects twice.. if a poor fool was stupid enough not to listen to the user feedback he'll sure get an E as final grade. Sometimes I get the feeling that the whole open souce community needs such a course.. bottom line is that the user is always right and it doesn't matter how much the code has to be bent to get user-friendly.. better start thinking about user friendlyness in the design phase of a project.. then you won't have to write ugly hacks to make a program usable once you've programmed the main functionality and found out that your potential users are not capable of handling your program.

[mrbass]

my sister told me tonight she might start dating this dude that used to work at Eazel. Stan Christensen (the dude standing up in the pic). She meet him last week and they exchanged phone #'s, etc.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/02/24/eazel/
Anyway if she does I'll tell him what a PITA it was trying to communicate to hackers the way the perspective the average joe has when it comes to user friendliness.

Don't you remember that usability report (http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/ut1_report/report_main.html) on GNOME by Sun a little while back. I thought it was excellent...stuff like being able to manuever around with just the keyboard (which you couldn't do). If the mouse didn't work then you were screwed.

[smokeslikeapoet]

Just thought I would post to say that I installed the Intellimouse drivers and the back an forward buttons work find in Mozilla now. The scroll lock feature doesn't work, but there is a Bugzilla report on the issue and it should be fixed soon. Mozilla still crashes when I try to set it to be the default browser, but as soon as the World Cup is over I plan on doing a OS reinstall, with the notorious "corp" files to disable product activation.

[avih]

mozilla 1.1 beta released 2 days ago (22-Jul)
http://mozilla.org

[chemmajik]

Wow I freaked out on how big the Linux version of Mozilla was, almost 90megs sheesh... Its a bummer Galeon requires Gnome correct? Its a much smaller download, I chose KDE for this setup, no room for both, because I need the room for a more robust development setup.

ps:AVSForum is taking a poll on whether to start a Linux htpc dedicated forum, if you are interested please make your vote count!

Surprised Doom9 never made one, but I'm sure it might have added alot more to the bandwidth costs.

[Doom9]

avih: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23366&perpage=20&pagenumber=2 and the way this long url is being handled in the textarea in mozilla settles the question if I am to use it or not... for weeks I've been trying almost every new mozilla release in the hope that some day they would finally fix that problem.. but eventually I've given up hope and since I reinstalled windows I have been using IE6 again.. there I don't have to bang my head against a wall whenever there's a long url or a screwed up table, or want to manage my 4 mail accounts as one entity (send and receive for all 4 and have one set of folders for all 4 accounts). Sadly, since the day they've put the dl manager control in the settings there have been ZERO changes in mozilla for me. I've given up lobbying for the usability improvements I deem important since nobody would listen to a windows user.

and as a closing remarks the quicklaunch tool problem still hasn't been fixed.

[MaTTeR]

Yeh the quicklaunch issue is still exisiting in the last million daily builds I've tried. For me this issue causes Mozilla to crash 50% of the time when I exit on either of my SMP boxes:angry: Stability is still an issue for me, Mozilla will sometimes do an infinite loop while I'm downloading files.

I've got to say also, I'm seriously thinking of going back to IE6. Anyone noticed how much slower Mozilla loads a page compared to IE6? Anyone noticed how sluggish Mozilla will be if you minimize the window for about 10mins and then try and restore it? I could go on for awhile unfortunately but like Doom9 my support is dwindling very fast. I just dont see any of the major problems being addressed by the devs. The hope is that these issues will be addressed soon but then again I've been saying that for the last 5 months or so. What will I do if I have to give up my tabbed browsing:mad:

[Doom9]

What will I do if I have to give up my tabbed browsing I know what you're talking about.. but I still live but the first few days without tabbed browsing were rather hard.. I always wanted to open new tabs but they just wouldn't open. I guess I could try Opera but I was much more comfortable with the mozilla interface and IE is much closer to that. I'll still believe that eventually mozilla will get there but not as confident as when I first tried out RC1.