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Mozilla The Internet

Mozilla 0.9.3 Released 418

Posted by michael from the faster-slashdot-fix dept.
nexex writes: "Shamelessly ripped from Mozilla.org, "Talkback data shows that recent 0.9.2 branch builds are more stable than Netscape 4.78 and we expect even better results for 0.9.3. Now is the time to try Mozilla again if you've been waiting for stability to improve." Translation: Mozilla is better than ever. Get your copy here."
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Mozilla 0.9.3 Released More

Mozilla 0.9.3 Released

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  • I've been using Mozilla as my main browser for months. 0.9.2 is great (except for a tendency to crash while writing a K5 diary for some reason). But the mailer absolutely *sucks*. I've never seen anything so slow. It takes literally a full minute (or more!) to do "compose....type addresses, type subject". Has that improved at all?
    • Seems to be snappier in 0.9.3 compared to 0.9.2, but I never saw the slowness you're seeing... At least not to that extreme (and I have an LDAP directory that will slowdown addressing)...
    • But the mailer absolutely *sucks*

      The mailer is a bit behind the browser in terms of development it seems, but I've found it works VERY well for where they are. I've used it as my primary email client for all of my 6 email accounts (personal, business, spam), IMAP and POP together. Its been great.

      Yes, it took forever to close in 0.9.2. Windows took a second or too to pop up. And once it a while, it seemed to lose its mind talking withteh imap daemon - but a restart of the client would fix that. And I only encounter this on RARE occasions (maybe a couple times a month) I've only been using 0.9.3 for a little while and I can already tell the mail client is faster. WIndows pop up fatser, preview of IMAP mail is almost instant, vs the slight lag of 0.9.2

      Remember people, this is beta code, beta code is ALWAYS slower then the released code. I think the Mozilla team is making huge strides in performance - the difference in teh last few reelases has been huge.

    • I'm running one of the latest 0.9.2+ nightlies, and I don't see any slowness in the mailer. I don't use mozilla for my email so I can't really say if it has improved over time, but it at least here with my current build it works quite well
      so grab that 0.9.3 release and try for yourself.
    • I use pronto:

      http://www.muhri.net/pronto/

      It's a pain to install the first time, but a joy to use. Try it. You'll like it.

    • Call me crazy, but I have been using Mozilla as my main Mailer since last December. Apart from a few quirks, I am extremely pleased with my choice. So far, Mozilla has been succesfully managing my every day life, with 20-30 outgoing emails, 150-200 incoming emails and some mail folders containing hundreds and thousands of messages.
      But the most awesome feature is definitely Mozilla's ability to use multiple profiles, either IMAP, POP or local folders. When you used to be stuck in one single profile with NS4.xx, this is definitely a blast!
      I used to run the Mozilla nightlies, but 2 months ago I decided to stick to the Netscape 6.1 branch because the Netscape 6.1 mailer comes with a spell check. Very comfortable feature, especially when English is not your mother tongue or when your religion forbids you to use the MSOffice suite.
      The only two things that I treally miss in the Mozilla/Netscape6.1 mailer are:
      • Encryption support for PGP, GPG, SMIME, or whatever ... I don't care which one. I'll use the first that makes it into the build (yeah, I would definitely switch back to the nightlies if they had encryption support)
      • I want to be able to embed remote URL document in my mails as a reference, not as a mime-encoded object. Especially images. That's Bug 59535 [mozilla.org] for those who want to know, or vote!

  • coolfeatures (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BroadbandBradley ( 237267 ) on Friday August 03, 2001 @11:24AM (#2111002) Homepage
    text sizing:
    CTRL+
    Or
    CTRL-
    to enlarge text or make it smaller. great feature
    Keywords:
    edit bookmarks, pick a bookmark and pick properties, add a keyword. say 'sd' for slashdot.org. then type in the location box (ctrl L gets you focused on the location box) type sd and hit enter, you'll be whisked away to slashdot.org.
    SideBar Tabs:
    A great way to have quick acces to web tools like mapquest or an online dictionary. see the sidebar directory at:http://dmoz.org/Netscape/Sidebar/ [dmoz.org]

  • Why not use the same installer? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by generic-man ( 33649 ) on Friday August 03, 2001 @09:48AM (#2111997) Homepage Journal
    I happen to like the download-on-demand installer, where you pick the components you want to download and install. The odd thing about this is that it's completely tied to the version available when you click "download installer." The Mozilla installer for build 2000073108 looks and works exactly like the one for build 2000073109, but each one has the version number pre-written in the .ini file. Can't there be an option "download latest version" instead? That way, instead of downloading and untar'ing a new installer every day, I can just run it every day and let the installer I already have do the work.

  • What's up with the crappy installer? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Malc ( 1751 ) on Friday August 03, 2001 @11:09AM (#2113263)
    On days like this when the server is busy, this network installer crap is useless. Where's the 9MB installer download, eh? I've had to run setup 15 times because it keeps timing out on the download of individual packages. I've basically run the installer once or more for each individual package. The setup program doesn't remember my settings from the last run, so I have to go through modifying every screen of the wizard every time. And after all that, I've still got to manage the downloaded files which aren't where I want them so that I can install on other machines easily.

  • Word of caution to existing Mozilla users... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Caduceus1 ( 178942 ) on Friday August 03, 2001 @09:34AM (#2113264) Homepage
    Don't dump 0.9.3 over a 0.9.2 Windows installation - things get pretty funky because something isn't compatible.

    I got around it by blowing away the existing Mozilla folder and then unpacking the new one fresh.

    • RPM's seem to work great under Linux... (RH 7.1)

      5 minutes so far, Seems good!
    • I got around it by blowing away the existing Mozilla folder and then unpacking the new one fresh

      Which is exactly what you are supposed to do - there are disclaimers all over Mozilla.org asking you NOT to install over old version during hte beta due to teh problems that arise

      • I used to blow away my previous Mozilla install directory every time I downloaded a newer release, then I decided it was too hard to "downgrade" to the last (working) Mozilla if I hit a snag. So now I download the newer Mozilla in a different directory under Windows. Mozilla 0.9.2 is under program_files/mozilla_0.9.2 and Mozilla 0.9.3 is now under program_files/mozilla_0.9.3. I unzip the install package from there, and everything works fine. I have done this since Mozilla 0.8, and everything works as expected.

        Oh yeah, I use the zip install packages. I find it is easier to install, since I know everything is there. I'm also a command line guy [freedos.org] so I don't mind using unzip from the command line.

        Installing the newer releases in a separate directory has made it very easy for me to roll back if I don't like something in the newer release. It also makes it easier to report bugs - is this a bug that appears only in the new version? I close the new Mozilla, and open the old one, and re-test.

        I recommend this to anyone who is running Mozilla on Windows.

    • I think it's always a good idea, if one is not using the installer, to unzip the build to a new directory . I keep 3 directories on my machine for mozilla:

      Current Release
      Previous Release (to compair)
      Nightly

      The current and previous releases both have different profiles for a little bit but then I merge them and just have 2 total profiles: nightly and release. This may seem like a lot of work, but it's been very usefull.
    • Very good. Now go RTFM [mozilla.org]: The first line says "Install into a new empty directory. Installing on top of previously installed builds may cause problems. "

  • And it's FAST (Score:2, Informative)

    by bconway ( 63464 )
    I'm thoroughly impressed, at this point Mozilla never crashes on me, and rendering is instantaneous. Great job, guys!
    • The flash plugin will crash it hard and fast.
      and Macromedia said that it will never release a flash plugin for it.
      • I've actually been using the standard Netscape Flash plugins in 0.9.1, .2, and .3 now, and they all work great. There was some scratchy sound at one point, but that was an unrelated kernel bug with my sound driver. What problems in particular have you been experiencing?
      • Flash works fine for me. Mozilla 0.9.3 (Build 2001080104), Shockwave Flash 5.0r47.

        Macromedia said they'd never support Mozilla, they never said anything about not supporting Netscape 6, and Mozilla uses the same plugins :-)
        • Yup!

          And it supports ESD properly now too, so I don't have to disable my esound daemon just to go check out joe cartoon when I need a laugh.

          I've been playing the joecartoon stuff on mozilla all day, no problems :)

          http://www.joecartoon.com/

    • Re:And it's FAST (Score:2, Informative)

      by Heem ( 448667 )
      I as well am really impressed with the speed.. running a speed check from bandwidthspeedtest.com on netscape 4.7 reports 165KB/s - IE 230KB/s Mozilla - 865KB/s Gotta love no overhead.
  • Please update the mozilla graphic, I note that the nose is not depcited correctly given the latest reasearch data.

    :)

    mark

  • Getting closer... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by riggwelter ( 84180 )
    This is good news (and on the same day as beta 2 of Evolution - who said the Linux desktop was dead?)

    I use Galeon, but until there's a Moz 0.9.3 optimised release I've decided to use Moz again for a while, and I honestly can't get over how much faster this release is to start and to render than 0.9.2!

    Also seems to be using less memory (based on my unscientific approach of looking at my bubblemon_applet) which has to be a good thing.

    It's also nice to be able to upgrade version without it killing my chromes. Even skypilot is running fast.

    So, the race is on - what'll reach 1.0 first, Mozilla or Evolution? :)
  • The only thing it doesn't do yet that I'd like is allow the user to use a helper app to handle things (jpeg images, specifically) that the browser normally handles itself.

    Has anybody gotten that to work yet?

    BTW, in addition to everything they tell you to disable in javascript on the compenent security page, I've also disallowed the irritating window status changes (remove the space after 'status'):

    user_pref("capability.policy.default.Window.status ", "noAccess");

  • No spellchecking (yet) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by abischof ( 255 ) <alex&spamcop,net> on Friday August 03, 2001 @10:52AM (#2132627) Homepage
    Mozilla doesn't currently have spellchecking (it used to be that you could install Netscape 6's spellchecking into Mozilla, but that no longer works [mozilla.org]). So, if you're interested in spellchecking, please vote for [mozilla.org] bug 56301 [mozilla.org] (of course, you'll need a free Bugzilla account [mozilla.org] to vote).

  • *Groan* (Score:2, Informative)

    by Jodrell ( 191685 )
    Every new release of Mozilla fills me with both joy and dread. Joy because it genuinely gets better each time, dread because I'll have to fight with Ximian Redcarpet and Galeon RPMs to install it :-( Why does Mozilla have to be such a crucial part of Ximian? Mozilla's being developed much quicker than Ximian is, but those of us lazy folks who use packages have to wait for the Ximian distribution to catch up before we can try the latest Mozilla builds. Which sucks.
    • I'll have to fight with Ximian Redcarpet and Galeon RPMs to install it

      Dude - save yourself the headache. Grab the full installer and use that. I run Ximian, use Red Carpet often. But I install Mozilla with the installer in /usr/local/mozilla all by itself - clean directory. Never had a lick of trouble.

      I love RPMs and Red Carpet - they save me time and trouble, but sometimes its just not worth it. Grab the installer and have a go at it. Just make sure you install it as root, run it once as root (good time to grab teh Java plug in which also must be installed as root) and then quit. You should be able to start it as any user after that - works great here.

  • No Bank Access!! Argh!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Preylude ( 29076 ) on Friday August 03, 2001 @11:00AM (#2135251) Homepage
    The only real thing stopping me from using Mozilla as a primary browser is its lack of support for secure connections. It simply won't connect to some bank and credit card sites.

    I'll give it some credit. It now works (more or less) with my my two most frequently accessed accounts. But still, one of my primary bank accounts won't let me log in

    What annoyed me most was reading the comments on the related bugs. Developers saying that ABC Webserver doesn't support the exact SSL specification here or there. That's life! Slight incompatibilities exist all over the internet. You have to work around them. Emailing the webmaster and having them upgrade their software is NOT the bug fix. Patch, kludge and work around the problem, please! Then, I can start using Mozilla instead of dumbass NS 4.78746372...

    • Re:No Bank Access!! Argh!! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What's your bank name, account and pin number? I'll see if I can get it to work. :-P
    • If you have problems with a particular web site, try turning off TLS in the prefs. Some servers have problems with Mozilla's full support of SSL/TLS.
    • The only real thing stopping me from using Mozilla as a primary browser is its lack of support for secure connections. It simply won't connect to some bank and credit card sites.

      Yes you can access banks. Mozilla does 128 bit encryption, SSL, the whole 9 yards, and it even does it properly. (or at least as properly as any other browser...) I'm fairly confident reason you are having trouble with the banks is not because of the browser. It is because of the banks. I have been using Mozilla nearly 100% of the time for close to 5 months now on both a Windows 2000 box and an SGI Octane. (and a lesser percentage of the time since M16) Yes I've run into problems with some of my banks but since version 0.9 the problems were because of the bank. They didn't parse forms correctly, or they programmed circles around the Netscape 4.x oddities but never updated it when Mozilla/Netscape6 started doing it right or other issues.

      Now granted I'm just one person but I have yet to be able to trace any problem with secure connections I've had to Mozilla since version 0.9. It has always been bad coding on the other end. YMMV obviously but it does work and works pretty well if the folks who designed the website have a clue.

    • Re:No Bank Access!! Argh!! (Score:3, Informative)

      by BZ ( 40346 )
      Try turning off TLS under Preferences > Privacy and Security > SSL

      If that worked, then the "slight incomnpatibility" in question is that the reply from the web server is broken in such a way that it looks like a man-in-the-middle attack on the connection negotiation.... Now consider whether you want your browser to keep connecting under those conditions. :)


  • While I have Mozilla 0.9 installed I've found myself dropping back to using Netscape 4.77 most of the time. So I jumped at the chance to try out the new 0.9.3 [mozilla.org] build, maybe it puts right all the things that make me uncomfortable with Mozilla!?

    So I have a look at mozilla.org [mozilla.org] and see that there are some nice spiffy new binary RPMs [mozilla.org] available for RH7.x, excellent, don't even have to bother compiling it. Download and install, open a new window, rehash, and, err...

    % mozilla
    /usr/bin/mozilla: line 156: 3018 Segmentation fault (core dumped)
    $MOZ_PROGRAM -remote "openurl(about:blank,new-window)" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null
    Error sending command.
    %

    Oh well, I guess I'm going to have to compile it after all...

    Al.

  • Still slower (Score:2, Informative)

    by SiliconJesus ( 1407 )
    I'm hoping that this version starts to work faster than previous versions. I've done some simple benchmarking of IE vs Netscape vs Mozilla on both Windows (2000 Advanced Server and 98) as well as Solaris 9 2/01 build. I click open up a new page in the browser that's not cached, and start the stopwatch. I do this for all 3 browsers for the same site. Not surprisingly IE spanks Netscape / Mozilla on both Microsoft platforms, but it also ourperforms them on Solaris. I really like a lot of the mozilla stuff, and if they can get the speed down, its going to be the premier web browser. As of right now, Lynx is the only browser faster than IE.

    I'm going to download the new Mozilla build in the next few days, I still have my fingers crossed.

    • Wrong (Score:2)

      by GauteL ( 29207 )
      Opera and Galeon are both faster than IE. They actually start up about as fast as IE, without being preloaded on login.

    • Try Galeon or SkipStone! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by gmz ( 320638 )
      Yeah, on my P5@200MHz, Mozilla is *slow*. I don't have IE, but if you want a fast browser on UNIX, try Galeon or SkipStone [muhri.net]; they both use Mozilla's embedded rendering component, and esp. the latter is nearly as fast as Lynx (really! ;)
    • Some of us would argue that Lynx isn't a browser at all, but merely an HTML-to-ASCII transcoder... :-)
  • Does anyone know if there is a way to get Mozilla
    to send ie's user agent code so that it can access those stupid ie only sites?

  • Interesting bug (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Friday August 03, 2001 @09:31AM (#2141472) Journal
    Mozilla requires glibc 2.1 or later. (Bug 44787)

    The question is, why is this called a bug? It seems that requiring glibc 2.1 is fairly common in other programs. Library dependencies are normal, as later versions have APIs that earlier ones lacked, and expected. (Also, annoying if you are not warned, but here we are)

    So, why is a dependency a bug?

    • Re:Interesting bug (Score:3, Informative)

      by alanjstr ( 131045 )
      Bugzilla 44787 [mozilla.org] has been marked as a Won't Fix. It was originally entered as a bug (as in Bugzilla) and has been established as a minimum requirement. "The linux builds are built on RedHat 6.0 systems which use glibc 2.1. Therefore, the minimum required version of glibc is 2.1. Builds have been known to work (occassionally) when built under glibc 2.0.7 but they aren't officially built nor supported (due to known race problems with the 2.0 dynamic loader). "

    • Re:Interesting bug (Score:5, Informative)

      by ChrisCampbell47 ( 181542 ) on Friday August 03, 2001 @09:44AM (#2134262)
      Why is [requiring glibc 2.1+] a bug?

      Because they use Bugzilla to track all issues with Mozilla. Since people complain daily about the symptoms that turn out to be glibc problems, it's best to include the info in the bug report and just point people there.

      That's also the place to debate the issue.

      There are plenty of "bugs" that aren't, including feature-requests, user error, bad HTML/websites (e.g. the TLS mess), et cetera.

      • That's also the place to debate the issue.

        not really, that's what the newsgroups and irc are for. It happens in bugzilla, but it's often discouraged.
    • If it tries to run without the required libs being present, it is a bug.

      Surely there is sonme way for the program to determine this at startup?

  • Dig (Score:4, Redundant)

    by Majix ( 139279 ) on Friday August 03, 2001 @09:34AM (#2142901) Homepage
    I like it. It doesn't crash. It renders pages quickly and correctly. In Windows I can use the "-turbo" command line switch to get IE like startup speed (I hope this makes it to the Linux builds too). But the biggest improvement over 0.9.2 is in my opinion that a window that is done loading doesn't steal my focus any longer! Previously you couldn't really have a lot of browser windows open because they constantly kept stealing the focus from each other.

    I also like that you can open a link in a new window with the middle button. It's always worked like that on Linux, but it now also works in Windows. It's definitely ready for daily use IMHO.
  • Could we please, just once, not have all the dull 'This is late posts'. I could understand them if in the time between Netscape 4 and 6 IE had leapt ahead, and left Netscape in the dust, but the fact is there have been minimal facelifts in that time. In fact, every time someone says 'But IE isn't stable!!!' and someone says 'IE5.5 / 6 is very stable' they just prove the point, that Mozilla is up to speed with the current iteration of browsers. And with the speed (and yes, it is there) of improvement recently of Mozilla, I have every confidence that built on these secure, stable foundations, whatever they come up with next (e.g. 2.0) will be way ahead.

    So sit back, download, and enjoy!

  • switching to (Score:2, Redundant)

    by mrphish697 ( 219802 )
    I'm thinking of switching to Mozilla. I'm interested in the basics. How is it on blocking pop-over/pop-under ads?

  • More stable than Netscape 4.78? (Score:5, Funny)

    by b1t r0t ( 216468 ) on Friday August 03, 2001 @09:27AM (#2147773)
    Talkback data shows that recent 0.9.2 branch builds are more stable than Netscape 4.78

    That isn't saying much. It is my experience that nitroglycerin is more stable than any version of Netscape 4.xx.

  • This may be the one enabling both my wife and I to chuck the famous IE/Outlook Express combo.

    A lot of attention on this site has been on the Linux, etc. platforms, but Mozilla 9.2 on Windows is pretty good, too. Still not quite as fast as IE, but with the Enable Quick Launch feature checked, Mozilla is finally becoming competitive. Perhaps 9.3 will be about equal.

    And the Modern theme is very nice and durable, which makes IE look very tired. Great work by all involved!

    • Re:Windows, too (Score:2, Informative)

      by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 )
      Still not quite as fast as IE, but with the Enable Quick Launch feature checked, Mozilla is finally becoming competitive

      Maybe it's just the type of system, but on my box, the with quick launch enabled, it starts up sooo much faster than IE. I click on the icon in my quick launch tray and the window just displays, about as fast as if I just had it minimized (roughly 1-2 seconds from click to start page displayed). Clicking the the IE icon in the quick launch tray takes a while to load, well, the window displays instantly, but it still takes a few seconds for the start page to display (roughly 5 seconds from click to start page displayed).

      Without quick launch enabled it takes about as long to load as IE from click to start page. Granted that with IE you get the window instantly and then wait for the start page, and with mozilla you wait for the window while watching the splash screen, but when the window displays the start page displays immediatly.
    • And the Modern theme is very nice and durable, which makes IE look very tired. Great work by all involved!

      Just wait until you see IE 6 in XP - it is so much nicer than the "Modern" theme. With all the Luna goodness (minus the messed-up scrollbars - haven't tried RC1, might be fixed), it's really quite a pretty browser.

      MUCH nicer looking than Mozilla, more colorful, better CSS support (well - as far as I can tell, I haven't done a detailed analysis, but so far I haven't run into too many bugs) - P3P support, image blocking support - it's really nice.

      NS6 doesn't stand a chance against IE6.

      • NS6 doesn't stand a chance against IE6.

        Typical FUD - I use both Mozilla and IE6 - Honestly as long as the browser serves up web pages properly and quickly and the associated email client doesn't suck (I prefer Mozilla Mail over OE anyday) who cares what it 'looks' like - its not art.

        While I've always felt IE blew Netscape 4.x away, in this case, MS may have hurt themselves by adding too many things to IE6. The pirvacy thing, while a good idea, seems useless so far - privacy polcieis in cookies? Yeah right. Honestly, IE6 seems no differnet than IE5 to me - it works, so I'm happy. Same goes for Mozilla, it now works great and I'm happy. I honestly use Mozilla instead of IE because of the Mail client - beyond that, I could care less, except for the fatc, of course, is that it allows me to use one less Microsoft product :)

      • I seriously hope this was sarcasm. I'd like to find the child who designed the Luna interface at some point, and teach him or her how to actually design interfaces, minus the crayola.

  • It's nice. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Francis ( 5885 )
    For the longest time, I couldn't stand looking at those crummy Netscape buttons. I like the themes option. Extremely customizable [themes.org].(I realize this has been around for a while)

    And it does seem to live up to the promise of "less crashes". (I've had it running a whole 15 minutes and it hasn't crashed yet ;)

    But there are drawbacks. On Win32, running Mozilla wants 33MB from my heap. That's almost 3 times what IE wants for rendering the same page :P Not sure my RAM-poor laptop can handle that.....

    A nice surprise: Mozilla properly handles true alpha-masked PNGs [uwaterloo.ca].

    But hey, kudos to the mozilla [mozilla.org] folk for making a stable build!
  • Does anyone know where I can find a higher resolution, or (hopefully) a vector based version of that pic? I think it would look so damned kick ass on a t-shirt, that and the commie-moz-star...
  • My only complaints are:

    1) No matter what I set my default search to, I always get that annoying netscape site when using "? keywords" in the address box.

    2) <input type="file"> objects still have rendering problems when applying a style to it.

    Still, I'm going to make a couple of tweaks to our Intranet in order to support this build, and try to get people at work to try it out.

    Unfortunately, everyone I've talked to so far wouldn't even give it a try. They have no problems with using IE. I don't really either, but if me using it somehow supports their effort, then Im more than happy to.

  • I anyone able to browse http://localhost [localhost]? I am not able [mozilla.org] to do so :-(. It just redirects me to Netscape search [netscape.com].

    I'm running Suse 7.1 on Intel.

  • Meaning it only crashes every FOURTH time you load it, instead of every THIRD time, and there's only a 33% chance that your settings will be trashed when that happens.

    Sorry, waiting two years for a project this big and bloated wasn't worth it.
  • How is mozilla for news? It appears that netscape has an O(n^2) algorithm for sorting messages in newsgroups, and very poor multipart support. Things like this are important in the post napster age.

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