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Mozilla Firebird 0.7.1 Released For Mac OS X 62

Posted by timothy from the sense-of-urgency dept.
An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine is reporting that Mozilla Firebird 0.7.1 has been released for Mac OS X only. The release - coming just over a week since the last one - fixes a number of bugs that made 0.7 frankly unusable on Macs. There's more info in the release notes. All MacBeards should upgrade immediately."
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Mozilla Firebird 0.7.1 Released For Mac OS X More

Mozilla Firebird 0.7.1 Released For Mac OS X

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  • Serious Question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Llywelyn ( 531070 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @10:31PM (#7316578) Homepage
    Is there any reason to use FireBird over Safari?

    Choice is a good thing, of course, but what are the advantages/disadvantages?

    • Re:Serious Question (Score:5, Informative)

      by agent dero ( 680753 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @10:37PM (#7316603) Homepage
      One of the reasons I use Firebird and Mozilla on MacOS X, is because of Safari's quirky Java support, some applets just don't work, while others crash the browser.

      Something that Mozilla & Firebird have pretty good, java support

      • Re:Serious Question (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bat'ka makhno ( 207538 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @10:53PM (#7316656)
        That's interesting, the one complaint I have about Mozilla on MacOS X is lack of support for Java 1.4.1 applets. Mozilla is stuck using the 1.3.1 default, even if 1.4.1 is available on the machine. That bug's been open for months now, still without resolution. Safari supports 1.4.1, but, as the parent says, it is quite quirky. As an example, Hushmail doesn't work with either Mozilla's 1.3.1 or Safari's 1.4.1.

        Maybe it's not an issue in Panther anymore. I'll check once I get it.

    • Re:Serious Question - advatages (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hrbrmstr ( 324215 ) * on Sunday October 26, 2003 @11:07PM (#7316718) Homepage Journal
      I Just tried 0.7.1 and it is definitely faster for the sites I go to. It's especially faster for SSL sites (that's a big Safari complaint I have - SSL is s...l...o...w; Ive whined about it before on /.).

      I use Firebird/Mozilla on WinXP/2K/2K3, Linux, BSD and Solaris and would love to see Camino base itself off of the Firebird fork and make it more Mac-like, but, until Safari get's an SLL clue, I'll take the fast rendering, good SSL performance and standards' compliance that seem to be there with 0.7.1.

      One other thing it has over Safari is the ability to *not* wait for the whole stupid page to load before continuing. It's not a problem on all sites, but it happens more oft than not, again, especially on SSL sites.

      Lastly, the best thing about it is that it doesn't use the brushed metal theme (it was nice for a while, but it really grates on ya over time).

      I still don't know why Apple threw the KHTML folks the bone when they should have supported Mozilla.

      • Re:Serious Question - advatages (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Ster ( 556540 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @11:34PM (#7316829)
        KHTML was chosen over Mozilla because it was smaller, which means it was easier for them to learn, extend, and test. Look back at the press releases and articles from back in January 2003, when the Safari beta was released; they go into their reasoning for choosing one KHTML over Mozilla.

        -Ster
        • The question was directed at performance. I realize Mac folks (I am one, but I don't use one exclusively) tend to value other things besides performance, but I would think that having decent SSL speed would have been a big motivating factor.

          I have a dual-G4 tower (867MHz) with 1.5GB RAM and just cannot believe Apple didn't bother to get that part done better.

      • Re:Serious Question - advatages (Score:4, Interesting)

        by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @03:20PM (#7321541)

        One other thing it has over Safari is the ability to *not* wait for the whole stupid page to load before continuing.

        I was testing out some progress-bar code and I've discovered that Safari has a 16k buffer. It will wait until the buffer is full, then draw, then fill the buffer again.

        So in order to make my progress bar update on safari, I'd have to send 16k worth of spaces every time the bar moves.

        In comparison, IE and Mozilla will draw the page as soon as it receives a closing body tag.
      • I still don't know why Apple threw the KHTML folks the bone when they should have supported Mozilla.

        Oh if ever. Gecko apps might take longer to load, but seriously: Safari cannot hold a candle to Camino.
      • One other thing it has over Safari is the ability to *not* wait for the whole stupid page to load before continuing.

        This is a diffy one, and I think Camino does it too, and it really irks me to no end and has done for some time with all browsers.

        I think the key is learning how to ignore threads you already have out there. You can't kill them, so you have to ignore them. There's a performance trade-off, but it need not be so bad.

        I've done something similar with a network utility and it seems to work OK.
    • Safari (like Internet Explorer on Windows boxes) will have the benefit of tighter OS integration.

      The tabs are also better in Safari, but it wouldn't take much for the Mozilla folks to "get it right" (grin).

      There is (at present) no nice way to do font stuff in Firebird. That will catch up before 1.0.

      No SnapBack support in Firebird either.

      Safari "feels" like a polished, professional application; Firebird still has a bit to go, but it will get there, especially if they take the fork for Camino suggestion i
    • I like camino, is there any reason to use firebird? What features does it have, not have. My basic usage is: safari, unless safari dont work right, then I use camino. last resort IE for those evil webpages.
      • Personally I think Camino is better than this Firebird. Firebird lacks in user customizable preferences. Firebird would probably come around though. Not just yet. Camino do crash more in my experience.

        Didn't Camino development freeze a while ago?

        • Re:Serious Question #2: Firebird verus Camino (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          It froze and then unfroze. The latest nightly builds have a new bookmark system. http://rums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=12
        • "Didn't Camino development freeze a while ago?"

          I sincerely hope not. Camino (formerly Chimera) has been the browser that I use the most on my G4 for a number of reasons. I'm posting in it now. Would like the live spell-checking from Safari, but that's a Cocoa feature. (hmmm.. a Cocoa rewrite? Nah, it'll never happen. Or maybe that's what they've been doing with their time lately, yeah, that's it)

          Firebird is getting better, but Camino has the best tabs.
    • I have been using Safari and Mozilla in the past simply because Firebird 0.7 (MacOSX) could not save webpages... at all! I normally use Safari for browsing but when I want to save a webpage, I switch over to Mozilla because Safari does not save any image, css, etc files when saving a webpage (only html).

      Firebird is a nice and very fast browser. I'd consider using it as my primary browser if they manage to fix a few really major bugs. I'm hoping that the save has been fixed in 0.7.1!
    • The one thing I really, really like about Firebird on the Mac is the single button to make all the toolbars disappear.

      I have an older iMac with a small (1024x768) screen. Often, after navigating to a web site, I want to switch to some approximation of "full screen" mode.

      In Safari, that is four steps: the three keyboard combinations to make the status line, bookmarks bar and navigation bar disappear and then click the "zoom" button to re-expand the window to full screen. (Why does the window shrink when

      • "The one thing I really, really like about Firebird on the Mac is the single button to make all the toolbars disappear."

        Use Omniweb then. It also has a single click to kill toolbars, and an excellent plug-in which allows both full screen and "max screen" use (you can get the same for Safari, actually).

        Oh, and Omniweb is a UI delight after ANY other browser.
    • If you like fine-grained control over cookies like I do, use Firebird or Camino. You can set the browser to only accept cookies from certain sites, and you never have to fiddle with those sites again. In Safari, you have to manually turn on and off ALL cookies blocking to use sites that have cookies. This means that you can't block ad company cookies while allowing cookies for a shopping site, for example.

  • Excellent news... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Karma Sink ( 229208 )
    I use Safari in Mac OS X, as a rule, but I haven't used anything but Firebird for Linux or Windows since I first downloaded it. It's an impressive program, and I love the fact that there's no installer to deal with. Everything's in one folder. It works well for the "Power User" type, but I've been passing the word among even my less tech-savvy friends.

    Now it can be my browser of choice on all of the machines I use.
  • Does it use native Aqua controls yet?
    Until it does, I'm sticking with Camino and/or Safari. There's little enough difference (especially compared to Camino) to me, that how the controls look is a big deal to me. Aqua = pretty and blends in, other = UGLY.

    • Yes! (Score:5, Informative)

      by michaelggreer ( 612022 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @11:31PM (#7316815)
      Actually, the Pinstripe theme [kmgerich.com] has achieved this for some time for Mozilla, and evidently will be standard from the next release on in Firebird. I care for native controls too, and we have 'em in Firebird.

      • Re:Yes! (Score:4, Informative)

        by ahector ( 656079 ) <andy @ 1 5 01.net> on Monday October 27, 2003 @01:42AM (#7317272) Homepage
        Not exactly. I mean, you are right that the theme makes Firebird (and Mozilla, for a while now) look like aqua, but it's not actually using real OS X widgets. Get a copy of Moz or Firebird for Windows and you can do the Pinstripe theme as well; it doesn't rely on carbon or cocoa for ui elements. Good, I say, that the Pinstripe theme helps the browser fit in better-- it's just not the same, exactly, as other OS X apps. Even though I'm nitpicking here, it's kind of useful and interesting info. Right?
        • From the pinstripe webpage:
          "The Pinstripe theme uses an API provided by Mozilla called nsTheme to draw the widgets. This API allows Pinstripe to draw the widgets and some backgrounds using the Mac's Appearance Manager. So the operating system draws most of the theme."
          So, its somewhat native in drawing, even if not precisely like Camino (fully native widgets). The page says that Windows and Linux are not supported because of this.

          • Re:True, but its not quite that bad (Score:4, Informative)

            by bengoodger ( 253439 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:46AM (#7317423) Homepage
            That's correct. If you work around the site's OS check and install the theme on windows you'll get the Aquafied icons but not the actual pin stripes, UI controls (buttons, scrollbars etc)... they'll look like Windows controls to an extent since the Windows implementation of the theme renderer is doing the drawing.

            FWIW - many apps on MacOS use highly customized widget sets that are not part of the collection of "stock" widgets provided by the OS, including Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Internet Explorer and even Safari. These "owner draw" widgets are effectively the same concept as Firebird with its native theme renderer + XUL. The deal with Firebird is that because it's in its pre-1.0 state on MacOS X not all of the rendering glitches have been corrected.
        • I kind of prefer mozilla using it's own widgets to safari's use of native widgets. It's annoying to have a webpage that tries to style a submit button to fit the rest of the page only to have this big blue pill jump out at you in safari.

      • Re:Yes! (Score:3, Informative)

        by lpontiac ( 173839 )
        To me, it seems that the Pinstripe theme only affects controls drawn in config dialogs, the address bar etc, but form elements in actual web pages are still drawn in Firebird's default look. Or am I doing something drastically wrong?

  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Odd -- the files for 0.7.1 appear to be missing from the download site. Are they afraid of being slashdotted? :^)
  • It is cool and all since it IS mozilla which is the browser I use exclusively anywhere else. But it doesnt have the right feel compared to safari. Not being brushed metal is part of that of course.
    • Forgive me if this is OT, and forgive my ignorance since I'm not a Mac user or developer, but if the program is creating its windows with standard API calls, shouldn't it get a 'brushed-metal' look and feel 'for free'?

      Or does Apple build that custom look into all its apps rather than adjusting the back-end API to do it for them?

      Mabster
      • OS X apps can use Aqua or brushed metal (or their own nonstandard GUI, of course). This is a choice made by the developer, but apps can be tweaked by users with either a third-party app called Metallifizer, or with the developer tools. I personally can't stand the brushed metal, but some people seem to like it.

        Oh, and just a note, a lot of Apple's apps are nonstandard brushed metal (iTunes, the Finder in 10.3). This means that you need a lot of workarounds to change them to Aqua. :(
      • I believe that two window APIs for OS X exist, the normal "Aqua" one and the "brushed metal" one. It just comes down to which of the two the app calls.
      • Problem is that Mozilla DOES NOT use standard API calls, at least in the Mac version though I believe this is correct for all platforms. Mozilla uses it's own XUL language and widgets to do windowing renders... instead of the native UI widgets, etc. again at least on Mac.


  • I've had problems with .7.0 under Windows XP. I had to go back to .6.1. I submitted a Bugzilla report.

  • Pros and cons... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 27, 2003 @04:28AM (#7317648)
    As a Mac user, there are four major browsers from which I can choose. Each has their little quirks that annoy me. For example:
    • Camino: no way through the GUI to disable image animation; relatively little information about cookies if you ask for cookie prompts.
    • IE: bloody ancient. No tabs. Poor cookie control. No way to disable image animation.
    • Safari: no way to disable image animation. Poor cookie control. Metal interface (although that's fairly easy to fix).
    • Mozilla/Firebird: Proxies aren't linked to the Mac OS network preferences. (You'd be amazed at how annoying that is when you're shuffling a laptop between work and home...) Non-native widgets (minor irk from my point of view).
    If somebody could change Firebird to link proxies to the network preferences, it'd be ideal -- I'd live with the non-native widgets quite happily. Or a cookie manager for Safari...
    • What about Omniweb [omnigroup.com]? Now that it's using Apple's WebCore, it's faster, though not like Safari. Excellent cookies and animation control; I'm not sure if it does tabbed browsing.
      • Unfortunately, it doesn't do tabs (I think they're planned for version 5 though). Kind of funny that a browser that prides itself on advanced features doesn't have tabs.
    • Mozilla/Firebird: Proxies aren't linked to the Mac OS network preferences. (You'd be amazed at how annoying that is when you're shuffling a laptop between work and home...)

      It's doubly annoying since there's an obscure bug with squid transparent proxy/cacheing not working. With my squid server at work, it works fine. With the squid configuration that my ISP has, it's broken and I get nothing but timeouts. It works great with every other browser, though... :-(

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

  • macbeard? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Suppafly ( 179830 )
    What the hell is a MacBeard?

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