Mozilla Reloads Firefox - Open source group releases new release of next generation browser

MOZILLA RELOADS FIREFOX

Open source group releases new preview release of next generation browser

June 14, 2004 (The Internet) - The Mozilla Foundation today announced the immediate availability of a new preview release of its next generation web browser, Mozilla Firefox 0.9. Faster, more secure, easier to use and sporting a new look, this latest Firefox release sets a new standard for web browser innovation.

Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation's first product squarely aimed at end users, has been met with glowing praise from reviewers, web authors, the blogging community and the more than three million users who have left behind web nuisances such as pop-up ads, security holes and spyware by installing Firefox. "This new release brings Firefox closer to its much-anticipated 1.0 release, which will mark a milestone in the history of the Mozilla Foundation," observed Mitchell Baker, President of the Mozilla Foundation.

A number of key improvements in this release make this the best time yet for users to reload their browser experience and migrate to Firefox. "Months of development and hundreds of open source developers contributed towards this release, working within the Mozilla Foundation's proven development model," commented Ben Goodger, Firefox' Lead Engineer.

New features in Firefox 0.9 include:

• Easy migration: Switching to Firefox has never been easier now that Firefox imports data like Favorites, history, settings, cookies and passwords from Internet Explorer. Firefox can also import settings from Mozilla 1.x, Netscape and Opera.
• Smaller Download: Continuing efforts to make this the most efficient browser, the Windows version of Firefox is now only a 4.7 MB download, making downloading Firefox a breeze for dial-up and broadband users alike.
• New Default Theme: A new default theme provides a bright new look for Windows and Linux users.
• SmartUpdate: A new SmartUpdate feature notifies users of new versions of Firefox to ensure that the browser is always up to date.
• Help: A new online help system makes this one powerful, friendly browser.
• Extension/Theme Manager: New Extension and Theme Managers provide a convenient and secure way to manage and update the hundreds of add-ons that set Firefox apart from other browsers.

Mozilla Firefox also includes numerous bug fixes and incremental improvements, including faster page load speed.

Later this week, the Foundation will also release a new version of its Internet suite, Mozilla 1.7 (including a web browser, mail client, Internet Relay Chat client and web page editor), and a new preview release of Thunderbird, its standalone email application.

GETTING FIREFOX
Firefox 0.9 is available as a free download from www.mozilla.org. Users can also purchase an affordable CD edition from the Mozilla project's web site. Mozilla applications run on a wide range of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and are translated into dozens of languages. All source code and documentation is freely available under the open source Mozilla Public License.

SUPPORTING MOZILLA
Individuals and companies from around the world support the Mozilla Foundation through voluntary contributions of time, money and resources. To discover how you or your company can join in and help support Mozilla, please send mail to donations@mozilla.org.

ABOUT THE MOZILLA FOUNDATION
Established in July 2003 with start-up support from America Online's Netscape division, the Mozilla Foundation exists to provide organizational, legal, and financial support for the Mozilla open source software project. The Foundation is based in Mountain View, California and is the heir to the great legacy and tradition of the Internet's first widely used browser, Netscape. Mozilla and the Mozilla logo are registered trademarks of the Mozilla Foundation.

Mozilla indeed has a vast selection of extensions you can install to make your life easier.

My favorite extension: "All-in-One Gestures 0.11.1". "This extension allows you to execute common commands using mouse gestures, rocker navigation, scroll wheel navigation and page scrolling." For example, returning to the previous page and moving back to the next one is accomplished by two consecutive clicks of left and right mouse buttons. Single click of the mouse wheel opens links into new tabs in the background. And a whole host of other handy gestures which make your online life much easier.

And did I mention the built-in search bar? No longer need you go to google.com, just type in the keyword in the search bar and see the results. You can also add in dozens of other search engines and other online services, such as the Webster and Cambridge online dictionaries.

Highly recommended.

Is there an extension to shrink an open window ? The maximize function doesn't do anything but shrink it a pixel or two.

Also firefox comes with something called DOM inspector, can you explain how to use that ?

Other then that I had held back on firefox because of the amount of bugs being reported, but this new version I started using a week ago and it has better stability then IE. I had been using Avant Browser which is a plug in for IE, it has tabbed browsing, rocker navigation and other stuff as well, and it is a tad faster, but it uses much more system resources and is unstable and undependable, and it doesn't load images as well as firefox. Firefox seems very stable, although I prefer the bookmark function in Avant Browser, it presents all links without having to scroll, the scroll function on firefox bookmarks is a bit buggy. The extensions in firefox are very handy, with one you highlight url on a page that is not a live link and then right click and you can use that link. Also there as a link making extension, just highlight the url and then you can right click and press create link, they give you a few types of links to create, then you can just paste that. The google tool bar extension is very handy, just right click for some of the functions. The image zoom extension is also cool. Also if you are writing something and accidentally leave the site and then go back the stuff you typed is not lost.

Just go to any corner and resize it from there, the same is with most other Windows programs.


Haven't looked into that yet. There's some documentation here.

Thanks, is there a way to resize a tabbed window ? So I can have a tabbed window within a window ?

No, not as a default feature anyway. There might be a plug-in there.

I'm not very tech knowledgeable, but I tried this browser and I like it. Can anyone tell me if it's possible to put AIM in as a toolbar or somehow displayed in this browser like I had it in Netscape? Or how about a link to where I could find out? Thanks...

There's also a very handy extension available if you want to have an IRC chat client. Check out this extension.. Once installed, joining our IRC channel is a matter of a couple of clicks:

1. Tools > ChatZilla
2. There's the text, "Available networks are [dalnet...", click on the DalNet-link.
3. Once connected, type "/join #gaudiya". You're in. The left-side bar shows you who's logged in.
4. You can change your nickname with the "/nick MyNewName" command.

Once installed, you can also connect just by typing irc://dalnet in the address bar of your browser, and it'll automatically open ChatZilla. Then just join the channel.

I would expect the Netscape version to work with Mozilla.

I don't mean the Netscape messenger, I mean using AIM in Mozilla...

I tried the irc chat but the connection kept timing out. Any more help? Thanks.

Yes, I figured as much. I'm saying that whatever you had that did the trick with Netscape should also work with Mozilla.



There are a number of other servers for DalNet you can try. For example, one/many of the following should work:

irc://irc.dal.net
irc://irc.eu.dal.net
irc://mozilla.se.eu.dal.net
irc://dragons.ca.us.dal.net
irc://broadway.ny.us.dal.net
irc://jade.va.us.dal.net
irc://loyalty-r.ix.us.dal.net
irc://novel-r.fl.us.dal.net
irc://serverpronto.fl.us.dal.net
irc://genesis-r.uk.eu.dal.net
irc://powertech.no.eu.dal.net
irc://slimey.uk.eu.dal.net
irc://hotspeed.sg.as.dal.net
irc://mesra.kl.my.dal.net

Sometimes a particular server may have the connections maxed out, and some servers only accept connections from the same continent. Try it out and see what works for you.

Thanks for your patience Madhava... I'm still not getting connected to the IRC chat though. Everyone of those servers you gave me tries to connect 5 times and fails. I must have something set up wrong. Feel up to helping me?

if this helps, this is what I'm getting...

[INFO] Network view for “irc.dal.net” opened.
[INFO] Connecting to irc.dal.net via irc.dal.net:6667, attempt 1 of 5...
[ERROR] Connection to irc://irc.dal.net/ (irc://irc.dal.net/) timed out.
[INFO] Connecting to irc.dal.net via irc.dal.net:6667, attempt 2 of 5...

on and on for 5 tries then it gives up.

Do you have a firewall installed? Check that out first.

would you laugh too hard at me if I said I have no idea? I'll keep working on it. I want to join the club!

Here's a handy little tutorial on how to make the transition from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/switch.html

While I'm at it, I would like to again recommend Mozilla Thunderbird for all of you who are still using Outlook Express. Some good reasons why:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/why/

I have been especially happy with the junk-filter that trains itself over time. I find that the junk filter, after being in use for a couple of months, busts around 95% of the spam I get and automatically files it into a junk folder. Whenever you get a junk mail, you click to mark it as junk, and the filter examines it to detect similar junk in the future. And as junk mail tends to follow similar trends, you get to eliminating a fair deal of it without having to bother with it.

Bug-Me-Not




The script will still automatically transfer the information to the web site's fields and submit it after you close the pop-up window. You can change various settings in the extensions' options menu if you use Firefox. Mozilla and Netscape's auto-fill and auto-submit are on by default.

BugMeNot 0.5 ( Size: 18kb Release Date: August 20th 2004)

Microsoft security chief uses Firefox

I just started using mozilla on friday..and love it!

Thanks Madhava

Just downloaded the bb code extension...

This is just the best..!

bangli

I've been using Firefox for over a year and wouldn't recommend any other browser.

Now that I have it installed, first off I notice the improved popup blocker. It intercepts unprompted popups and displays a vertical bar at the top of the screen from which you may either allow the popup on the fly, allow popups from the site altogether, or edit your popup preferences. Excellent!

Now also featured on CNN.

My main gripes with Internet Explorer, aside security issues, is that with its what appears to be knee-jerk opposition to implementing common standards and adhering to W3C standards, it brakes down the pace of the entire online revolution, as features that would allow new and innovative solutions lack support with many essential issues. The classic example being support for transparent PNG-images with an alpha-layer, and heaps of unconventional solutions, or worse even, entirely lacking support, for CSS2-features, or even some CSS1-standards. In addition to disabling possibilities for smoother solutions, this often adds hours of work to sites we (coders and designers) need to work with, which translates into additional costs for the customer, and onwards to the end-user. Make the world prosper -- change your browser.

[attachmentid=1045]

Add to the list the fact that Firefox has a very flexable 'plugin' (or extension, as they call it) framework that allows developers to easily add functionality to the browser, while keeping the core browser relatively unbloated.

For example, there are extensions to replace the google toolbar, extensions to help format BBCode , extensions to manage bookmarks and on and on...

My wife switched to Firefox last weekend, after months of my bugging her... and she has already switched three co-workers Oh.. and she can't believe tabbed browsing... (something I've been telling her she would love for months now... )

Best. Browser. Ever. (at least for now)

BTW, I did web development for 2 years straight.. I remember the days of pouring over these tables of what version of which browser supported various CCS-standards... so painful...

The look and feel of Mozilla is also very customizable.

https://update.mozilla.org/themes/moreinfo....n=firefox&id=72

That seems to be my current favorite theme, but there are dozens of others for you, too. Given the quantity of hours I watch the screen per day, I don't mind having the framework look nice, too.

I should develop a Krishna-ized theme. Anyone interested?

I love Firefox, although sometimes I cannot load certain pages I am able to normally on IE. Why is that?

bangli

Some pages just contain real corrupt code, totally out of specifications. If you come across such a page, drop me a link.

Dandavats. All glories to the Vaisnavas.

That would be awesome. I went to Firefox about three weeks ago. My web usage is rather simplistic so it hasn't enhanced my life too much. In one respect I don;t like it as much as IE simply because I primarily use Outlook Web for quick work checks and the way it displays Oyutlook Web is a bit less conveinant as I need to either view folders or e-mail as opposed to both at once. Being that I get and need to up to a hundred e-mails a day it can be a bit of a pain. At the same time I do prefer it over IE just because it isn't Microsoft...

Aspiring to serve the Vaisnavas,
Rasaraja dasa

I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with.. most 'topic specific' themes look cheesy, but if there is anyone that I think could pull it off, it would be you.

Personally, I stick with the default theme, set to small icons & lose the bookmarks bar to maximize the web space I have... so make it look good with small icons too!

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 has now been released! Consider this as an excellent replacement, and more, of your Outlook Express.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4 has just been released. Grab yours while it's still fresh.

Speaking of which, Firefox has broken the 50 million download barrier a while back.



Help make the lives of everyone trying to develop the web easier: Grab a safe, functional and standards compliant browser.

It really is that good. They even have some ads to prove it:

http://mozilla.mirrors.tds.net/mozilla-video//portable1.swf

http://mozilla.mirrors.tds.net/mozilla-video//jeune1.swf

http://mozilla.mirrors.tds.net/mozilla-video//bureau1.swf

(Thanks to /. for the links.)

Another reinstallation (thanks to Windows gone defunct), I'm logging my extensions here again. There's a ton of useful stuff you can add into Firefox. Some of it makes you wonder how you survived without.

* * * * * * * * * *

Adblock
An extremely easy tool to get rid of all those annoying ads. Right click and add to block list, add complete URLs or use wildcards to block ads.*.* or adserver.com/* and so on. The other day I was browsing and there was a banner with a game of farting monkeys, and the flash-piece actually blasted out the sound effects to the whole house through the loudspeakers. Now, how annoying is that. Well, it isn't any more!

All-in-One Gestures
This extension allows you to execute common commands using mouse gestures, rocker navigation, scroll wheel navigation and page scrolling. Mouse gesture means for example holding down the right button and moving up & down -> page reloads, holding down right button and moving up -> page is duplicated, and so on. Also customizable.

Archive Search Toolbar Button
Displays an archived versions of the webpage. First click: Internet Archive Second click: Google cache Third click: Yahoo Fourth click: MSN

BBCode
Adds BBCode/HTML/XHTML formating to the context menu for forums like Gaudiya Discussions. Select words and bolden them, italicize them, add color and so on. Paste URLs directly into links from the clipboard, paste in image links directly with image tags. Comes very handy when you use much formating in your text.

ChatZilla 0.9.68.3
A simple, straightforward Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client.

Copy URL + 1.3.1
The Copy URL+ extension enables you to copy to the clipboard the current document's address along with additional information such as the document's title, the current selection or both.

Disable Targets For Downloads 0.9
Prevents sites spawning blank windows when clicking binary downloads.

Down Them All!
Filter the extensions of all the links present in a page and download the selected files in just a click!

lget 0.1
Allows you to initiate a direct download of a file given a url. For example, helps you download that flash bit you wanted to store but couldn't. I coded a small PHP utility for myself to do this a while back, glad to see someone did the needful and turned this into an extension.

PDF Download 0.4.1.1
Allows to choose whether you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML) or you want to download it!

Download Manager Tweak 0.6.3
A modification of the Firefox download manager that changes its appearance and allows it to be opened in a separate window, a new tab, or the sidebar.

FormFox 1.4
Do you know where your form information is going? This extension displays the form action (the site to where the information you've entered is going.) From search boxes to order forms, mouse over the final Submit button to reveal the destination.

Image Zoom 0.1.7
Adds zoom functionality for images.

Plain Text Links
With any text that can be treated as a URL, using this extension you can select the text, right click, and select "Open this URL in a new tab" or "Open this URL".

Resize Search Box 0.0.5
Allows you to use a resize thumb to resize the search box. The resize thumb can be enabled by customizing the toolbar. A small tweak that does a great deal if you are in the habit of using longer search queries.

Scribe 0.21
Ever lost a form you submitted after typing in for fifteen minutes? This extension adds Word Processor like functionality to web forms, including opening and saving form entries as files.

SessionSaver .2 0.2.1.027
SessionSaver restores your browser -exactly- as you left it, every startup, every time. Not even a crash will phase it. Windows, tabs, cookies + scrolling -- they're all saved.

* * * * * * * * * *

And some geek stuff that isn't probably of much interest to your average user:

Add N Edit Cookies 0.2.0.4
Cookie Editor that allows you add and edit "session" and saved cookies.

Checky 2.5
Easy to use interface to many free and commercial Online Validation and Analysis Services. Validate and analyse HTML, XHTML, CSS, RDF, RSS, XML, WAI, Section 508, P3P, Hyperlinks, Metadata and many more. Adds a context and tools menu.

ViewSourceWith 0.0.6
View page source with external editor. It's helpful to get the source code directly into your favorite editor.

Web Developer 0.9.3
Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.

This Slashdot story on Greasemonkey convinced me to check it out--amazing! Once you have it, the next step is to get Platypus to build your own scripts to use in Greasemonkey based upon modifications you might want to make to any site that you visit regularly.

I downloaded the new version and dig it, I also use the walnut theme which has a cool look!

namaskar,

jijaji

* * * * * * * * * *

Mozilla Firefox is now IBM preferred web browser @ techwhack.com

Mozilla Foundation would be rejoiced to hear this news. International Business Machines Corporation has decided to adopt Mozilla Firefox as their browser of choice. They are making the nifty open source browser available to their 300,000 strong workforces. Microsoft is a competitor and this goes to prove how Firefox is being adopted by the corporates around the world. Mozilla Foundation has already received the blessings from Google and this would make it even more interesting.

Internet Explorer on its part is continuing to lose market share. More and more consumers and corporate users are moving on to alternative offerings. Microsoft has just launched the final of its MSN Toolbar Suite integrated with Desktop Searching. The lack of passion for the alternative products is visible from the fact that people cannot use non Internet Explorer browsers for desktop searching using the MSN’s desktop search engine.

IBM is also said to be migrating its entire infrastructure to Open Source solutions especially Linux so Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox fits in perfectly into that scenario. The browser has till now seen more than 50 million downloads from the official website and they are working hard on promoting the browsers to more people around the world.

Mozilla Firefox has also nearly reached a market share of 10% depleting mostly Internet Explorer’s market share. It has also single handedly led to a stage that Microsoft had to rethink their strategy about Internet Explorer and announce that a new version 7 would be released for the current Operating Systems as well along with the Longhorn release.

* * * * * * * * * *

Yep greasemonkey is going to be something very very special I think. Every day the control is taken away from the designer and given to the end user..RSS feeds, My desktop..you name it. Lots of 'personalization', people getting pickier about how they get and what is in their content.

Did you read an article on this in WIRED on GMonkey Braja?

Brajamani

Anyone using portable FFox or TBird on the USB drives?

I do and I love it cause i have a few computers here in the office and its easier to just pop it in one and use it for the rest.

TBird crashde out on me though, the portable ne may not be fully ready yet.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.5 has just been released.

1.0.6 is the lastest version. I'm on 0.7.3, and will all my stored emails be erased if I download 1.0.6 and install (overwrite) it?

No, your mails won't go anywhere. I've upgraded a dozen times without a single glitch. Of course, it is always wise to err on the side of caution and take backups just in case something goes wrong.

Some more essential firefox extensions

Dictionary Tooltip
Press ctrl+shift+D (or) double-click after selecting a word to see its meaning. This extension is ideal for those who doesn't like to switch their window to see the meaning of a word.

Adblock Filterset.G Updater
This is a companion extension to Adblock and should be used in conjunction with it. This extension automatically downloads the latest version of Filterset.G every 4-7 days. Filterset.G is an excellent set of filters maintained by G for Adblock that blocks most ads on the internet. In addition, this extension allows you to define your own set of filters that you can add along with Filterset.G during an update. To report missed ads or problems with the extension visit the support forums http://forum.pierceive.com/.

PDF Download
Allows to choose whether you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML) or you want to download it!