Talk:Mozilla Firefox

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Template:Authoronlinesource2005 Discussion on this article has been archived. If you wish to comment on an ongoing discussion, you may quote it here or simply refer to it. Post new comments below the list of archives please.

• Archive 1: Discussion prior to December 13, 2004

Contents

1 Raptor 2 Opera binary compression 3 Security-Secunia reports 4 robust 5 Article length 6 Bugzilla links 7 10 percent of what? 8 Trunk Development & The Mozilla Suite 9 Portable Firefox? (or Portable Mozilla Application?) 10 Chrome 11 When does mirroring considered unsafe? 12 Shall we move some content away from Firefox? 13 Try not to edit war here, guys 14 Confusion 15 BeOS and OS/2 versions 16 Criticisms or compliments? 17 Time to Move or Remove Internet Explorer comparisons? 18 Quit edit warring over the OS list 18.1 BeOS 19 Images 20 Pinstipe? 21 Misuse of "criticisms" to describe differences 22 caret position 23 Screenshot 24 Newer version of the logo 25 Content trimming? 26 We're cited! 27 Sympathy with Communism and Dictatorship 28 Profile on Mac OSX 29 PNG bug? 30 Editing Wikipedia Entries 31 Prune features section? 32 Firefox ignores (violates?) RSS specs 33 Ryan Rollins 34 Request for assistance 35 Red panda versus red fox 36 Release History 37 Future Development section 38 Pop-up blocking -- an ambiguous sentence 39 Deer Park 40 HTML canvas element 41 eye candy

Raptor

'Raptor' was an earlier name for the Gecko rendering engine, not an embedding sample. See for example http://news.com.com/New+engine+for+Mozilla+code/2100-1001_3-210279.html. If I recall correctly, the name was changed due to trademark problems. I don't think it had anything to do with xulrunner, which might be what the current reference to Raptor is about.

Ah no, actually 'Gecko' is NGLayout + XPFE, while 'Raptor' was just NGLayout. See http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/gecko.html. The reference to Raptor is still incorrect, though.

Fixed. --minghong 18:41, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Opera binary compression

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Mozilla_Firefox&diff=8390616&oldid=8389754

What's the deal? Can anyone find any info about the opera binary being compressed? Maybe I've missed something, as I don't know opera that well.

I am pretty sure Opera is compressed with some compressor. Firefox is most certainly not, and for a variety of reasons. If you want, I can find you the bug. Whoever reverted my edit didn't know what they're talking about. See bug #55930 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=55930) and bug #171082 comment #59 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=171082#c59). The installer, for download size, does use UPX - see bug #247115 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=247115). Here's [another page http://list.opera.com/pipermail/opera-users/2002-January/008119.html] that shows that Opera is compressed with ASpack (http://www.aspack.com/). -[Unknown] 23:03, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

I was the one who removed it. The concerned paragraph was about Opera having more features per file-size-unit, but you added the caveat about Opera being compressed without mentioning that Firefox was also compressed. And Firefox is compressed since it contains Jar files (browser.jar, comm.jar, toolkit.jar, etc.) which are themselves compressed. Therefore instead of me adding another caveat about Firefox being compressed too, I decided to remove both since they cancel the point out.

That's actually not true. Firefox does come with jar files, but, as any zip program will tell you, they are not actually compressed (meaning, there is 0% compression). Heck, you can open one in notepad and see for yourself. They're simply a way of storing large amounts of files in a convenient way, without having a lot of directory mess.

Security-Secunia reports

Per Chris's advisory "read the Secunia reports".

For Microsoft Internet Explorer FTP Command Injection Vulnerability -- "The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 / XP SP2." [1] (http://secunia.com/advisories/13404/)

For Microsoft Internet Explorer Window Injection Vulnerability -- "The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP1/SP2." [2] (http://secunia.com/advisories/13251/)

For Microsoft Internet Explorer "Save Picture As" Image Download Spoofing -- "The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2. " [3] (http://secunia.com/advisories/13317/)

For Microsoft Internet Explorer Two Vulnerabilities -- "The vulnerabilities have been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2." [4] (http://secunia.com/advisories/13156/)

For Internet Explorer Flash/Excel Content Status Bar Spoofing Weakness -- "The problem has been confirmed in version 6.0 on a system running Windows XP with SP2 installed." [5] (http://secunia.com/advisories/13156/)

Well I'm convinced, Windows XP Service Pack 2 did rid the world of evil!!! Three cheers for Microsoft!!! Hip-hip... AlistairMcMillan 18:02, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

BTW This is not an exhaustive review of the unpatched vulnerabilities, I just glanced at the top 5. AlistairMcMillan 18:21, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have just done an exhaustive run-through. The most recent ones (the ones that you have looked at) are, of course, most likely to be unpatched in SP2. I found that six of the 19 vulnerabilities are reported as affecting SP2. Of course, most, if not all, of the vulns mentioned by CERT have been patched in SP2 --Beachy

Chris, if you don't have time to make informed edits or to read through comments people have left for you, then please do not make knee-jerk edits.

Read the statements on the Secunia site, "The problem has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2". That means a fully patched system doesn't protect against this flaw. Not "most likely unpatched", DEFINITELY UNPATCHED. Not "most, if not all", DEFINITELY NOT ALL.

I'm assuming you do have the best intentions here but you're beginning to look like a troll. AlistairMcMillan 03:56, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ah Alistair, it appears you're being a touch hypocritical here. Of course I have read through your comments. And nothing I have stated in the SP2 commentary above is incorrect. Read it again. The CERT report was written back in June, long before SP2. If you investigate SP2 more closely you will see it addresses most, if not all of the concerns in the CERT note. Of course there have been vulnerabilities in recent months that are unpatched in SP2 but you'd be a complete liar if you claimed that SP2 didn't address the vulnerabilities mentioned by Art Manion. --Beachy 12:14, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Stop making this personal. This is an article, and you're trying to edit it with your personal vendetta. Do us and yourselves a favor and the both of you quit it, please. Fighting is for trolls, cool calm discussion is what we want here. So you don't agree... compromise, would you? -[Unknown] 19:06, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

robust

I'm notice a distinct lack of the sentence "it remains to be seen how robust ...blank... is in the security field". At the moment we only have it twice, once in the Security section and again in the Market adoption section. I'm not certain how many times we actually need it to appear, so I propose we add it to the end of every paragraph. Just to be certain that we are covering our bases. AlistairMcMillan 19:46, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article length

Given that this article is already way over the 32KB mark, is there any chance that we could go through the article and focus it on version 1 and onwards. Seeing as (I think) the Mozilla people have always been clear that previous versions were considered betas.

Instead of things like "this feature was added in version 0.7 in reaction to this and that and the next thing" just simply "version 1 has this feature". Or instead of "FF did not support this feature until 1.0, because blah blah" to just "version 1 has this feature".

Considering the thing has millions of users now, is it "notable" to point out an "uproar" of perhaps a hundred or so over some feature change here or there? AlistairMcMillan 21:49, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I think it matters naught that this article is so long, and it's not hurting really anyone. Eventually stuff may be branched out or removed, yes, but should that happen so soon after 1.0's initial release the way to describe?

Not only that, but minor changes like what you're talking about wouldn't really help either. I think it would be much better not to talk about completely unrelated things, such as Service Pack 2, for a whole paragraph just to try to POV/NPOV around, than to worry about 1.0 vs. other versions. -[Unknown] 05:34, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Bugzilla links

Could someone please remove the links into bugzilla from this page. Bugzilla is a developers database and not ment as a general forum for users to get information or vent their oppinions. Especially in the cases where it is linking to the wrong bug as in the case of the link about slow back/forward. (that bug is about investingating a internal change that might have a positive impact on performance). Linking to bugzilla is giving us a lot of unwanted, unhelpfull traffic. Sicking.

Every copy of Firefox ships with a link to Wikipedia. It doesn't seem to cause too many problems here. Rhobite 02:13, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your point is? The links into bugzilla bugs are neither helpful to wikipedia (since the bugzilla pages often contain far too technical information as well as seldom give the entire picture of a topic) nor mozill. Sicking.

Jonas (assuming you are Jonas Sicking), if you create an account and log in, you might be taken more seriously. How is anyone to know if you really are a Mozilla developer and not someone just trolling. AlistairMcMillan 03:29, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes it's me. Sicking 13:32, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Rhobite, you are aware that they block direct links from Slashdot. I'm assuming they could just as easily block direct links from Wikipedia too. AlistairMcMillan 03:26, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Jonas. The Bugzilla link doesn't really belong to an article on Firefox. It's not relevant and not really informative. We have a spearate article on Bugzilla, and it's relevant and demonstrative there, not here. --Menchi 23:09, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's not just one Bugzilla link, there are several links to relevant Bugzilla bugs that deal with topics mentioned in the article. I think they should stay. Andre (talk) 23:31, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

10 percent of what?

I changed the sentence...

Firefox has been targeted to grab around 10% of the market share of Microsoft Internet Explorer (the most popular browser by a large margin, as of 2004) by the end of 2005, creating a state of competition that many have heralded as the return of the browser wars."

...after discussion with Andrevan. It's not 10 percent of IE's share that Firefox may reach, it's 10 percent of all web users. (cf, the link in the article [6] (http://news.com.com/Firefox+aims+for+10+percent+of+Web+surfers/2100-1032_3-5425918.html?tag=nefd.pop)) Moreover, it is specifically Firefox boosters (at least in the cited article) who are saying so. Bbpen 15:43, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I believe that it is misleading, as Andrevan has done, to change "Firefox boosters" to the nebulous "it is predicted that." Who is doing the predicting? People who are not impartial observers. In such cases, we owe it to our readers to tell them who is making such predictions. Bbpen 21:58, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood the CNet article. How is it now? Andre (talk) 22:15, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Much better; thanks. And good work on the extra citations. May I suggest though, that WebSideStory's "10 percent goal no longer seems unattainable" is different from our "will certainly be attained." What if we said, "Web traffic analysts at WebSideStory and elsewhere believe this goal is attainable." Bbpen 22:37, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Weighted by traffic, it appears that Firefox is already at significantly over 10%, and it's only January. Am I missing something here? Refs: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2004/12/31/free_fall_internet_explorer_has.htm

This isn't the same metric that Mozilla uses. I think they use the WebSideStory metric. Andre (talk) 20:13, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

WebSideStory, OneStat, and all other web browser stat sources I can think of, refer to usage share rather than market share. Often, especially when reported in the press, the term usage share is replaced with market share. I suppose this is because market share is a familiar term and usage share isn't. I changed all the terminology in the article to usage share, because as far as I know no one has ever defined how to determine browser market share. Without a specific definition, it's a meaningless term. On the other hand, usage share is well-defined and agreed upon. Also, for clarification on why W3C School's web stats are not representative, see this article: http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=5930

Trunk Development & The Mozilla Suite

Firefox 1.0 development was done on a development branch for an extended period of time (May 15 2004 - November 9, 2004) - when the branch was created we did not imagine we would be spending as much time as we ended up spending on that branch. Prior to that, and at this time (2005, and moving forward), all Firefox development is done on the main development Trunk - as such there is no need for "periodic resyncs" with the Mozilla trunk. In addition, while Suite developers may implement some features that the Firefox front end does not have, it's definitely wrong to say that the Suite is where "bleeding edge" development takes place. The majority of the code is in the Gecko layout engine which is shared and advances together since both are developed on the Trunk, and also a larger amount of application-level feature work is done on Firefox than in the Suite. -- Ben Goodger.

Portable Firefox? (or Portable Mozilla Application?)

Shall we create a new page named "Portable Mozilla Application"? Because it is quite important to have Firefox/Thunderbird/Sunbird/Nvu in an portable drive, especially that we are going to embrace the U3 standard [7] (http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-2005-01-07.html). See more details on what these portable applications are different from the original ones [8] (http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=5908). - minghong 10:03, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Chrome

Beachy, please read [9] (http://www.mozilla.org/xpfe/ConfigChromeSpec.html). chrome has nothing to do with trusted zones. Here's a quote: "The chrome is that part of the application window that lies outside of a window's content area. Toolbars, menu bars, progress bars, and window title bars are all examples of elements that are typically part of the chrome." Andre (talk) 20:30, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Your link is about running browser addons, apps, etc. To install a file to the chrome directory, it must have access to the filesystem already - the user has to add the site to the whitelist, and then press the "Install" button, same as IE's "restricted" zone, except it's active all the time. There is no trusted zone for web pages like IE has. Andre (talk) 20:47, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

When does mirroring considered unsafe?

I hate to see this: "Torr pointed out that the many mirrors hosting Firefox downloads were often based on university (or even high school) campuses, and offered no guarantee that the browser files had not been tampered with. He also notes several flaws in the Firefox user interface."'. Can everybody answer this? If so, we shall no longer download from sourceforge since it uses mirror too... (jokingly) --Minghong 20:45, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of why, for NPOV's sake that sentence should probably remain. Apparently some feel that mirrors aren't necessarily trustworthy because what Mozilla chooses to trust isn't necessarily what you trust, and such. Andre (talk) 20:51, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, FYI, the mirroring tool is called "Bouncer" [10] (http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/007414.html). I don't have any more information about it. Maybe Asa can clarify this issue? ;-) --Minghong 20:58, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Shall we move some content away from Firefox?

Since all the layout/security issues are in fact related to the Gecko core, I think it would be better move them to Mozilla/Gecko or create a new page like Mozilla security model (just a suggestion). This article should focus on the usability issues, marketing, usage share, etc. --Minghong 21:29, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Try not to edit war here, guys

This article is not the place to hash out disputes about whether asking people to ( review a piece of software / flood a review site ) is OK. "Original research" and pushing opinions on that matter is just as unacceptable as pushing opinions about the software itself. --FOo 04:04, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Confusion

This may seem like a totally unrelated (and irrelevant) comment, but how does Firefox development acutally work? Do developers at Mozilla bang away at the code and release the nightlies each night, leaving only the users to simply report bugs? Or do users actually contribute to the code? And if so how is this coordinated? Sorry for this irrelvant comment, but I'm really confused as to how Firefox is made.--64.231.222.180 04:48, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Never mind, I found out after digging in the Mozilla website (post patches in Bugzilla, eventually if you're doing a good job you can post via CVS). Funny how you can never find the answer until you put it on paper and ask again...--64.231.227.86 05:17, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

BeOS and OS/2 versions

It has versions of the Firefox for BeOS (http://www.bebits.com/app/2715) and OS/2 (http://www.os2.cz/novinka1114.html).

Criticisms or compliments?

The fact that some people use shell programs to make IE behave more like Firefox is not a criticism of Firefox, and it does not belong in a section called "Criticisms from Internet Explorer users". For the sake of even-handedness, it is often appropriate to pair criticisms with rebuttals of those criticisms, but "Many IE users choose to use an Internet Explorer shell which offers features similar to Firefox" is not a rebuttal of anything. How does it even remotely belong here?

Now, the fact that people like the features of Firefox enough to emulate them in other browsers is a noteworthy point, and very much deserves to be addressed in this article (or a spinoff, if this one is too long.) Perhaps a section called "Impact of Firefox" or something like that, which could cover things like browser shells, the growing industry trend toward compliance with Web standards and away from IE-only sites, higher visibility for open source projects, etc. I'd love to contribute to a section like that. But, please, let's leave the "Criticisms" section for criticisms and direct rebuttals to them.

As it stands now, in fact, the whole "Criticisms" section reads like it's been gone over once too often by thin-skinned fanboys who can't bear to hear any criticism of their object of worship without belting out a rousing chorus of "So's your old man!" Speaking as a confirmed Firefox lover and Internet Explorer hater myself, this makes me kind of embarrassed to be on the team. --Paul 07:04, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It isn't about "thin-skinned" or "thick-skinned". Using IE shell is really not a criticism of Firefox. Using IE shell has nothing related to Firefox, except the similarities in functionalities. --Minghong 08:19, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

IMO, the whole thing about using IE shells should NEVER appear here. Write about that in Internet Explorer please. --Minghong 08:12, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why not? It's a very common alternative to Firefox that deserves equal mention as IE and Opera. That's like saying "IMO, the whole thing about using Opera should NEVER appear here. Write about that in Opera (browser) please." Johnleemk | Talk 13:29, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The "Criticisms" section is about user criticism in using Firefox. The current content is all about criticisms, but the total paragraph about using IE shell is not about critism. It would belong to critism if the content is something like "Some users formerly using XXX IE shell found that feature YYY is missing in Firefox". --Minghong 17:20, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Au contraire, it is indirectly related to the criticisms, as there are many things in shells lacking in Firefox; most thigns which have to be added onto Firefox through extensions are bundled with shells. It should not come as a surprise that IE shell users would have gripes about Firefox. And responding to Paul, these shells are not copying Firefox. I've been using all sorts of web browsers since 1997, and although I'm not too sure who developed tabs and all these cool things Firefox and/or its extensions have nowadays, it certainly wasn't the Mozilla developers. Something about IE shells should definitely be in the article, because it's like pretending Opera doesn't exist; IE shells are basically Opera with IE's rendering engine. It should also be taken as suggestive of IE users' opinions towards Firefox that some would rather install a shell instead of Firefox because although they like Firefox's feature set, they take issue with some of its other features/bugs (i.e. lacking ActiveX support). I would have thought it's obvious to anyone that IE shells are worth at least a sentence or two in this article, especially considering how often questions on them come up at Mozillazine. Johnleemk | Talk 17:04, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree that some mention of shells is appropriate in this article. (Indeed, I see that they are already mentioned in passing, under "Features.") I object to their being mentioned under "Criticisms," except for specific criticisms that certain features of shelled browsers are not available in Firefox. Thus far, discussion of shells here has taken the opposite approach, noting ways in which shells implement Firefox-like features in IE. This is not a criticism of Firefox (although it could be appropriate to use as a rebuttal of criticisms in the Internet Explorer article).

I believe you undercut your own argument somewhat by noting that shells like Avant and Maxthon aren't even copying Firefox's feature set so much as Opera's, which makes it about as relevant in this article as the capital of Uruguay. What would be relevant for the Firefox article would be a passage about how the popularity of Firefox may have driven increased usage of such shells, because Firefox has given some category of users a taste of tabbed browsing--or whatever--and they like it, but they need to keep using the IE engine for various reasons. (But someone should probably try to split up this gargantuan article somehow first.) --Paul 19:40, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

IE shells are used by consumers to overcome the limitations of both IE and Firefox; thus, they deserve some mention in the criticisms here as well, if not as much as in the IE article. A sentence or two on IE shells and how they are chosen by some over Firefox would be exactly the same as mentioning a workaround for a bug in a section on bugs; the verbiage concerned is not directly related to the section, but indirectly, it makes sense for them to be together. Johnleemk | Talk 07:29, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

(Escaping from deeply nested colonization...) Broadly, facts about Internet Explorer add-ons do not seem to me to be facts about Mozilla Firefox, and thus not relevant to this article. It might be relevant if particular IE add-ons were made in imitation of Firefox ... if their authors come out and say so, or if primary sources comment on it. (For instance, if a software review stated, "This IE add-on is a great implementation of ten features formerly only found in Firefox.")

It seems to be very unusual to say that "IE shells are used by consumers to overcome the limitations of both IE and Firefox". First off, most IE users have probably never used Firefox and have no idea what its limitations might be, so they cannot conceivably intend to work around them. Second, it would be equally meaningful to say "... to overcome the limitations of IE and Lynx" or any other browser, since IE add-ons don't do anything to Firefox, Lynx, or any other program but IE.

It's worth noting that we just recently had a major removal of excessive Firefox material from the Internet Explorer article. That seems to be good precedent: this article here is about Firefox, not IE, and should stay that way.

Let's keep in mind, too, that not only is Wikipedia barred from taking a stand on "IE vs. Firefox", it is also barred from taking the position that IE and Firefox are the only important Web browsers, or that therefore every fact about IE is relevant to Firefox and vice versa. --FOo 05:57, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Which is why I advocate only a sentence or two about them. Perhaps I view this differently from other people, but the folks at Mozillazine take quite a bit of flak every now and then from IE shell users who are pissed by Firefox's "features". Another thing is that based on your logic, criticisms from Opera users shouldn't be in this article either, because Opera isn't directly related to Firefox. The key is not to fill the article with random facts about other browsers while adding material where it is indirectly relevant. And anyhow, most people who install IE shells are aware of the existence of Firefox and Opera. This debate is not about whether or not we should have a whole paragraph or subsection about IE shells in the article; it's about whether we should even have a sentence or two about them. Johnleemk | Talk 06:32, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Time to Move or Remove Internet Explorer comparisons?

Guess we should get the discussion started on this one. I agree that the disputed sentence about how Firefox beat IE to market with popup blocking is POV. For one, this isn't a comparison article and generally digs at IE should be removed. Also, is this really relevant? Both browsers now have popup blockers and Firefox only recently came out of beta, anyway. Rhobite 06:09, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, it doesn't make much sense. Johnleemk | Talk 06:24, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hear, hear. And as per the discussion in the preceding section, especially in light of the recent efforts to remove Firefox references from the Internet Explorer article, I think it's time to make this article much less about comparing FF to IE and more about FF, period. I can't believe how many times Internet Explorer is mentioned in this article, and collectively they seem to exist primarily just to persuade IE users to use FF instead. I was trying to think of how it should be done. There's already a browser wars article, and a Comparison of web browsers matrix, but I think a separate article devoted specifically to the IE vs FF/Mozilla war would probably be best, as there aren't many comparisons to other browsers, and there's a ton of articles and op-ed pieces, even in mainstream news sources, devoted to the topic. Thoughts? (how about a good article title, for one?) - mjb 06:29, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This comes up a lot in articles which touch on advocacy debates. It seems a little POV to me if we decide to make an FF vs. IE article excluding other browsers. But then again, it's a real dispute so I guess it could be documented. You'd just have to make sure to document the actual dispute, rather than coming up with a large pro/con list (which nobody really wants). As for this article, IE has its place here but the meaningless jabs and negative mentions should go. Rhobite 06:43, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Nice idea. What about browser wars two? Or just copy all those FF/IE comparisons to browser wars. --Minghong 09:23, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that the comparisons are irrelevant or POV. Firefox is defined largely by its contrast with IE, and the vast stripping of information in the latest edit is extremely inappropriate. What's POV about comparing similar products without taking sides? Consider the Pepsi article, which defines Pepsi mainly as a competitor of Coca-Cola, or the John Kerry article, which mention's Kerry campaign for president against George Bush as a chief defining aspect of him. However, Coca-Cola and George Bush aren't necessarily defined based on Pepsi and Kerry, and removing Fx references from the IE article isn't bad. However, I think it's a mostly undisputed fact that Firefox's identity is shaped extensively by IE and its competition with IE. Would it seem more NPOV if we compare to Opera, Safari, etc as well? Andre (talk) 15:25, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Relevant comparisons between FF and IE are fine, but one-off criticisms of IE are not. This includes pointing out that the FF beta had a feature "long before" the IE release. Firefox betas also had serious bugs and usability issues, but the response from supporters was always "don't complain, it's beta!" I think remarks like the popup one need to stay out. Windows XP SP2 spent a bunch of time in beta, and it was relatively easy to download, so people who were interested did have the IE popup blocker available too. If we're going to mention that the FF beta had this feature, we should mention that the IE beta also had it.

John's other removals may have been a little heavy but I agree with most of them. For instance, I can't see the point of mentioning that Windows Update "is not integrated into the browser itself; it is a web page that uses an ActiveX control". Same functionality. It's like comparison of web browsers, which recently stated that IE does not include a search toolbar. Huh? IE6 has always had a search bar; I guess it wasn't listed because it was a vertical sidebar. My point is that these articles are full of very specific criticisms of IE based on loopholes. Rhobite 18:35, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I put back some security information and a modified remark about pop-ups because I think they are important. I also put back the Windows 95 reference because I think it's a fair and valid comparison - users of Windows 95 are missing out on many modern browser features because IE is not updated. Andre (talk) 21:22, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Quit edit warring over the OS list

There's been some back-and-forth over whether to list "Unix" in the infobox as an operating system upon which Firefox runs. There are quite a few people in the world who do quite successfully run Firefox on Solaris, BSD, and other operating systems. However, some editors apparently believe that only those systems for which there is an official binary release should be listed.

So far, despite the reverting, there has been little discussion of this issue. The following comments have been made in edit summaries:

• "No official UNIX builds. List only official builds!"
• "it works on unix when compiled from source though."
• "If compiles from source, then almost any OS is supported... Then you have to mention BSD, OS/2, AIX, etc. The list will be too long. Should list ONLY official binary."

I see two reasons "official binaries" cannot be a reasonable criterion:

1. It is not generalizable to other pieces of software. The software infobox template is not a Mozilla Firefox thing; it is a standard template for Wikipedia articles about software programs -- even command-line programs like pngcrush. There are many pieces of software which are only distributed in source form, or where the author distributes only unofficial binaries. There are no "official binaries" of qmail for any platform, for instance. So the rule of only listing OSes for which there are official binaries cannot be generalized to other pieces of software without absurdly implying that qmail runs on no OSes.
2. It systematically excludes platforms where source distribution is a preferred method. On some systems, such as OpenBSD, third-party software is frequently distributed as source rather than binaries. Developers presumably see reduced demand for "official binaries" on systems where source distribution is considered normal. Implying that a piece of software is unavailable on a platform where it is in fact available in the preferred form (source code) is backward. (A program that was only available in binary form for OpenBSD would likely be rejected by that platform's users as untrustable.)

I'd like to propose two compromise options:

Option one: All platforms supported natively in the source release should be listed, with "Unix" standing in for all commercial Unix systems.

"Natively", here, means that the platform's native GUI is supported, not a third-party add-on -- for instance, if Firefox only ran on OS/2 if you installed a third-party X11, that doesn't count. (I have no idea whether Firefox runs natively on OS/2; that's just an example.)

This criterion has the additional strength in that it describes what the program (or build scripts) can do, rather than what people say about it. If the Firefox sources compile easily on "Foonix", but the Firefox distributors have not realized this and so don't advertise the fact, then an "official builds" list appears to ignore a fact in favor of a bunch of officious talk.

Option two: All platforms with binaries or install instructions readily available from the distributor should be listed.

On the Web site (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/#othersystems), that means Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, OS/2, and AIX. ("Sun Java Desktop", listed on that page, is a Linux distribution.) On the FTP site (http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.0/contrib/), that means the above plus FreeBSD.

This does not appear to me to be "too long" a list, especially if we permit the condensing of Solaris and AIX into "Unix". At seven platforms, it is the same as the length of the OS list for VLC media player, which likewise uses the Template:Infobox_Software.

I'd like to see some responses to these proposals, rather than a bunch more edit warring on this subject. --FOo 04:18, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I propose a third option.

Option three: If it is trivially easy to install or run Firefox on platform X, then platform X should be added to the list.

If you have to set up a bunch of development tools (GCC etc), apply a bunch of patches from various random sites across the net, then build a bunch of dependencies first, then no that platform should not be on the list. However if installing Firefox is as simple as say... typing two commands into a terminal ("cd /usr/ports/net/mozilla-firefox" and "sudo make install"), then that platform should be on the list. Installing on FreeBSD is arguably even easier than downloading and installing a binary for Windows or Mac, so FreeBSD (under the guise of UNIX) should be on the list. AlistairMcMillan 06:43, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I like this option. Andre (talk) 11:16, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

The problem is it's objective to say what "trivial" means. It could be perfectly easy for a sysadmin to install Firefox on their platform, but hard for someone else. But whatever. I like option 2 best. Jtalledo 21:20, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Problem with Option One is, what is the "native GUI" for an OS like Linux? KDE users might not agree that GTK+ is the native GUI.

Problem with Option Two is, one of the ideas behind open source software is that anyone can take it and produce something from it, so if we only include the platforms that the original distributor acknowledges, then you are ignoring one of the big reasons for Netscape starting this whole extravaganza in the first place by releasing the Netscape 4.x code.

That's why I suggested a third option. AlistairMcMillan 01:32, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Regarding your first objection, well, "Linux" isn't a platform by itself, it's just a kernel. Firefox doesn't run on tomsrtbt (http://www.toms.net/rb/), but it does run on Fedora Core. Both are Linux distributions. I suppose it is mildly erroneous for Mozilla (or Wikipedia) to claim that Firefox runs "on Linux" ... :)

Regarding your second objection, I agree to a certain extent, and your Option Three does fit better with the idea of open source. I intended that option as a half-way point between the "official binaries only" point and Option One.

I have to agree with Jtalledo that "trivial" is a little bit offputting. Here's a brand-new ...

Option Four: A platform may be listed as supporting a piece of software if the software distributor distributes a binary or installation system for that platform, OR if the platform distributor does.

This includes FreeBSD and other systems which distribute Firefox as a source or binary port. However, rather than completely spamming the list, I still suspect we can abbreviate the set { Debian, SuSE, ..., Slackware, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, AIX, Joe's Monkey Unix ... } to the set { Linux, BSD, Unix }. --FOo 04:06, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What about the possibility of a third party, porting software to a platform that is just as stable and usable as it is on a "native" platform. Option Four does not even approach covering this. For example I use MPlayer to watch movies on my Macs. MPlayer was not ported to the Mac by Apple (the platform distributor) or by Alex Beregszászi's team (the software distributor), however it works flawlessly. AlistairMcMillan 06:34, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What about adding "and more"? Or simply remove all OSes and replace with "cross platform"? --Minghong 08:51, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Changed to Cross-platform. That was the intention of the developers right from the start and it avoids us having to come up with some arbitrary rule that decides which platform deserve to be included. AlistairMcMillan 11:16, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And there was much rejoicing. (Yaay.) --FOo 16:44, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

BeOS

It's worth mentioning the BeOS version (http://www.bebits.com/app/3143) as well. Andre (talk) 03:02, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

I don't see a current Firefox release there, only 0.8. Sorry dude, I have a BeBox in my basement and I don't think it's too widely supported. *sigh* As with Internet Explorer on Mac and Unix, i think we'd have to consider that a discontinued port. --FOo 04:06, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If you are interested in running Firefox on BeOS you may want to look here [11] (http://www.bebits.com/app/2715) and/or here [12] (http://www.livejournal.com/community/bezilla/). AlistairMcMillan 06:09, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Images

Just poking my head in here real quick. I noticed that someone else's edits had knocked out the large image displayed of the ad placed in the New York Times. I was about to fix the error when I realized how much shorter the article was. Do we really the full image displayed or can we use a smaller version to save space and lay-out? Coolgamer 23:16, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Another problem, by the way,is that you're still using the old logo... View Spot the Difference (http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/spot-the-difference)

Just replaced the logos. --minghong 13:48, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pinstipe?

Coolgamer says that Pinstipe and Winstipe aren't typos... how is that so? --Jtalledo 23:41, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not sure what Coolgamer is talking about, but he is wrong. http://kmgerich.com/archive/000063.html AlistairMcMillan 01:13, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I am an idiot. I researched it briefly on Google, unsure of the correct spelling, and came up with several official looking pages refering to Winstipe, including some on Firefox pages. Thought it sounded wrong, but figured the sites knew what they were doing. Sorry for the confusion. Coolgamer 18:30, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Misuse of "criticisms" to describe differences

Recently added to the article:

The action of Firefox in saving webpages has come in for some criticism. The good news is, like the Internet Explorer browser, all images and other files can be stored in a folder associated with the web page which is being saved. The bad news, however, is that, unlike in Internet Explorer, which inserts a line at the beginning of the HTML code which shows the URL of the page (i.e. where the page came from), Firefox does not. This omission is important, for Firefox's History only works when the user is online. Therefore, keeping track of where the page came from is important. The only way to retrieve a page from the web if the URL is not known is via a search engine, and this may bring a cached page and not the original page being sought after.

This is not so much a criticism as a difference in functionality between the two systems. Indeed, there are some very good reasons for Firefox's behavior here: specifically, to save the downloaded file unaltered. In some cases, it may even be illegal (a copyright violation) to produce and distribute altered versions of a Web page, even so trivial as to add a URL on the top. In many other cases, I would consider it a bug if I instructed a program to save a copy of a file, and it instead saved an altered copy of a file.

I thoroughly object to the misuse of "criticisms" to describe deliberate differences in design or functionality. Doing so implies that the design difference is a mistake, which is clearly not the case here. --FOo 14:37, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Firefox doesn't save the page unaltered if it saves images in a seperate folder - it has to modify the HTML code to point to the different image path, otherwise, there would be no point in saving the images in the first place. So claiming that it's done to save the file unaltered isn't a valid point.

Besides, there's absolutely no reason that a deliberate difference in design or functionality can't be the cause of criticism. In fact, it can be the cause of even MORE criticism if people relied on that feature, and learn it isn't a mere oversight. --Pidgeot 16:00, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

caret position

With the new 1.0.1 release, the caret issue has been addressed; I am now removing that section.

It was a concern in older releases, and should be preserved (although I envision eventually getting around to spinning various sections of this article off to other pages). Johnleemk | Talk 10:14, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, OK. But I am changing the text that says it is an unaddressed problem.

Screenshot

Despite prior discussions it was never mentioend that using Wikipedia Main Page for screenshot clerly conflicts with the Wikipedia:Avoid_self-references policy. ed g2s • talk 13:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, it does not, what is meant by the avoid self-references reccomendations is that people should not write something like, some web pages, such as the one you're reading etc. However if you're going to take a screenshot with a random webpage you might just as well pick wikipedia. —User:Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason/Sig 16:46, 2005 Feb 25 (UTC)

Agreed with Ævar. Andre (talk) 19:34, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

The screenshot shouldn't be of a random page, but the product page. This usually includes the product logo as well. A self-reference could be of the form "such as this encyclopaedia", so any reference to Wikipedia itself should be avoided. Also choosing Wikipedia as a "good" page to take a screenshot of is arguably not NPOV. A screenshot of the product page is NPOV and works in any context. The Wikipedia front page is also full of current affairs and so is not timeless. A product page is effectively part of that product (or at least that build), and is relevant information with respect to the article. ed g2s • talk 21:27, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Discuss this issue in software screenshots's talk page, not here. --Minghong 09:49, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Newer version of the logo

J. Hicks created a more detailed version of the Fx logo for use in the NYT ad some while ago. The main difference is the glossy globe. Article should have it instead of the old one.

Content trimming?

Johnleemk is trimming content like there is no tomorrow. Is he authorized to do so (based on discussion here)? --Minghong 16:07, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Summary style is definitely a requirement for an article originally more than double the recommended the size of 32kb. No content is lost; it's merely summarised and pushed off to subarticles. Johnleemk | Talk 16:14, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Surely this help to reduce the file size per page. But I see one big problem is that there are too much overlapping between this original article and the spinoffs, e.g. Firefox features. Any updates and corrections need to be done twice (or more) as the same information is scattered over several articles, which is bad IMO. Perhep you should reduce the overlapping. --Minghong 17:50, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

See article size - the idea is to spread detail across several articles. I avoided removing too much overlapping content because it seemed to me a lot of the detail was needed for the main article. I'll cut a bit more here and there. Johnleemk | Talk 05:51, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We're cited!

Congratulations, gentlemen. Our Firefox article has been cited on Howstuffworks.com[13] (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/firefox7.htm). Andre (talk) 21:03, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

Sympathy with Communism and Dictatorship

I added the sentence: Also Firefox is accused of communism and dicatorship sympathy ,because of a extension called "About Firefox: Soviet Edition".

This is outrage. Stalin killed hundred of thousands people,he was a dictator. And this browser show a image of him and the Soviet sign. Just outrage.

What are you talking about? I've never heard of this extension or any association of Firefox with communism, other than the accusations of Microsoft against the open-source community in general. Unless I see some evidence the article should be reverted. KramarDanIkabu 19:01, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay....

You DO know that extensions have nothing to do with the core code, don't you, besides everything else? ANYONE can write an extension! Reverted - SoM 19:05, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I know,but why make this person such an extension? And almost a offical firefox website extensionmirror.nl take this in its collection? Is this cool,is it funny? No. I think this issue should be put in this article in some way.--ThomasK 19:13, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

There are a number of pointless extensions out there for Firefox. Also, having it listed on an official website makes no difference. There is an extension called Hemp Cookies or something like that on Mozilla's official site. As others have also said, anyone can make an extension. KramarDanIkabu 19:20, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And anyhow, extensionsmirror.nl isn't in any sense of the word an official Mozilla website. I could easily write a theme involving the swastika and gruesome pictures of concentration camps. Would that give us license to include a sentence about it in this article? Johnleemk | Talk 19:32, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I noticed this amusing extension and wondered that it might have been inspired by a graphic I made for an article (http://www.chrisbeach.co.uk/core/scripts/entryViewer.php?ID=5596) I wrote last year on the open-source/communism analogy:

Missing image
FirefoxCommies.jpg
Image:firefoxCommies.jpg

hehe! --Beachy 16:20, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Obviously,there is an misunderstanding on your side. Anyway, that Fx probably allows the installation of potentially-offensive 3rd-party extensions should be a valid criticism. So maybe this should be put in the article.--ThomasK 20:06, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

IE allows the installation of potentially offensive 3rd party extensions, too. Should we mention that there as well? And Microsoft Windows lets you set an offensive picture as the wallpaper, as well. Damn M$. Johnleemk | Talk 20:33, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I now regret having invented the phrase "allows the installation of potentially-offensive 3rd-party extensions". ThomasK also seems to think this belongs in the main article on this subject. android↔talk 20:23, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

You must not regret this. It is actually a "neutral phrase".--ThomasK 20:25, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Neutral or no, I still don't think it's a valid criticism until you can verify that it's a widespread problem. android↔talk 20:29, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

I must agree. Johnleemk | Talk 20:33, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I must not verify this. If anyone ask for this issue in the mozilla zine forums (not only the soviet edition) you will get the confirmed answers.--ThomasK 20:40, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

If you're making unsourced additions to articles, the onus is on you to provide verification of such claims when challenged. Besides, the question is "Are offensive 3rd-party extensions a serious widespread problem?", not whether or not some forum-goers happen to think so. android↔talk 20:43, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

What android said. Also, you haven't answered my question above. Honestly, this borders on ridiculousness. Until someone makes such a huge fuss out of it that it's widely reported, we shouldn't cover just one of many possibilities. Otherwise we might as well put in George W. Bush: "In addition, the possibility exists that Bush may have sired or may sire in the future an illegitimate Hispanic child currently residing in Cape Canaveral, Florida." When you boil this whole controversy down to its basis, that's basically the same thing. Johnleemk | Talk 21:03, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Alright.You confident me. I withdraw my statement.--ThomasK 06:42, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Profile on Mac OSX

Has anyone ever tried using a Firefox profile from another OS, like Windows, with the Mac OSX version of Firefox? What about other platforms? All I've tried is x86 Linux and Windows. Reub2000 06:50, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

PNG bug?

I commented the part about PNG problem because there is no prove. Can someone provides the bug report of this "problem" or discussion thread of this "problem"? --minghong 12:33, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I found the bugs myself [14] (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=267412) [15] (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=220574). One of the bugs is UNCONFIRMED. And the confirmed bug affect Mac OS X only. This is probably GFX bug. However I don't think it is notable. --minghong 12:38, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Editing Wikipedia Entries

Firefox needs a "search inside textbox" feature, or (on this page) someone should provide a link to a plugin that will enable this.

Agreed, but I don't see how that's relevant to this article. -Grick(^{talk to me}) 01:35, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Agree. P.S. It's bug 252371 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=252371). --minghong 08:55, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Prune features section?

It's the same as Features of Mozilla Firefox.

It is intended. Maybe you can shorten the feature description in this article (giving an overview of the various features), but don't prune it. --minghong 08:55, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well that's what I meant.

Please don't take complete sentences and rewrite them as lists of sentence fragments. I think the rewrite by Yahoolian removed a lot of useful information from the section. Some of them are wrong. For instance, I can't imagine how it's accurate to say "Most Firefox features are unavailable in Internet Explorer". Certainly Internet Explorer can view web pages, save bookmarks, go back to old pages, etc. Rhobite 23:10, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Agree. You should rewrite the feature section as paragraphs, not lists. --minghong 11:36, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I'll remove that part. I meant to say most Firefox features are available in the other browsers.

All of the information is available on the Firefox features page. I don't see a need to go in depth on all the features when it is all available elsewhere. Furthermore, I fail to see the need for complete sentences, when fragments deliver esentially the same message with much less verboseness. What does repeating 'Firefox' many times gain people? Same goes for 'feature,' 'extension,' etc.

What is the point of splitting the article into sections if the main article is to maintain it's previous length? The article is too darn long and wordy, so I'm trying to shorten it.

You're right, that information is included in the features article. Feel free to summarize it here, using complete sentences. See Wikipedia:Embedded list: "Having lists instead of article text makes Wikipedia worse, not better." I agree strongly with this sentiment, and I know others do too. We write prose here, not fragmented sentences and contextless lists. I'm reverting. Rhobite 00:37, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

And prose is necessarily superior? All it does in this particular case is add fluff words like 'its,' 'this,' 'that,' etc. The definition list combined with the nested list enables the reader to see at a glance what the relationship between the information chuncks is, and resuls in a more concise, superior text. I'm going to revert, unless you have something more well thought out than blindly saying use prose in this case because prose is somehow necessarily better. And how exactly are the lists contextless? It's in the context of that particular item. Is there something necessarily wrong with a list with one element? Please say what it is.

Uh, words like "its", "this", "that", etc. are part of proper grammar. They're not "fluff words". As I said, sentences are many times better than lists, stylistically. This applies to almost all cases. The fact that this is a computer article and not a Shakespeare article does not excuse you from writing complete sentences. This is a featured article, please don't muck it up again. And could you sign your comments please? Rhobite 13:30, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Still, you give zero reasons why standard english is better for giving a Firefox features summary. A list of definitions for each feature is what it is, wrapping that in a lot of verboseness only hurts. Yes, I would sign my comments, but the skin I'm using doesn't seem to have an add comment link.

Full sentences are more readable, they're more understandable, and they're more professional. I suppose you're just going to continue accusing me of giving "zero reasons" for this. What do you want? Statistical proof that sentences are better? Should we have a national vote about this? It's a stylistic preference, it's very obvious that we should prefer correct grammar, and I honestly can't believe you are arguing about this. Rhobite 22:43, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

In all cases? Surely something that is definately a list of definitions should be marked up that way. So you want Firefox supports popup blocking, which blocks unrequested popups instead of

Pop-up blocking

Blocks unwanted popups.

</dl>

How is the former easier to read and understand, by any measure? Go check out pie menu and compare that with the old version (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pie_menu&oldid=8399115). More readable, understandable, and professional? Not always. Would you want a dictionary to avoid fragments?

I don't think pie menu is particularly attractive or readable. The old version is much better, it appears you removed quite a bit of information in your quest to turn the article into a huge nested list. Chopping articles into mere pro/con lists is rarely a good solution. Yes, I believe sentences are always the best way to describe the features of software. Rhobite 02:23, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

So your dictionary has complete sentences? A list of features, with a bit of text describing each feature, is a list of definitions and should be marked up that way. What information is gone in the new version of pie menu?

Wikipedia isn't a dictionary. Rhobite 18:17, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Firefox ignores (violates?) RSS specs

From [16] (http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=5930&message=15&state=reply)

A guy called Webfeet sent us the following comment, which I'm reproducing here:

"Beware!

"I've seen a substantial growth in Firefox traffic on my non-technical site as well. *However* it traces back to RSS feeds, not 'content'.

"Firefox seems to do an unconditional GET (rather than If-Modified-Since) for RSS plus it GETs once an hour and does not follow a 'syndication updatePeriod'

"So, a few people watching RSS feeds and leaving Firefox running can make a large impact on the traffic!"

Alex

Is this accurate? 163.1.136.61 14:24, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if that's accurate, but it's important to remember that RSS isn't a standard. It was pretty much hacked together by Dave Winer and others, over time. From what I've heard, Firefox will only fetch a feed when a user clicks on a "live bookmark", and never more than once per hour. I don't believe it fetches RSS feeds while the browser is idle. Rhobite 18:20, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

You're completely right. Firefox only ever updates an RSS feed when a user activates a live bookmark, thus eliminating the need for an If-Modified-Since, so the only RSS traffic webmasters will ever see from Firefox is a GET. Andre (talk) 20:07, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Ryan Rollins

Has anyone heard of a Firefox developer called Ryan Rollins (or RAWDAWG)? A page was recently created about this guy making out that he was heavily involved in Mozilla development, but I can't find a single source mentioning his name or nick-name in conjunction with Mozilla. I've pulled all mention of Mozilla from the page for now, so you'll have to check the history to see what was said about Mozilla. AlistairMcMillan 20:49, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Never heard of him. Andre (talk) 17:52, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

Request for assistance

Can someone start converting those [1] etc links to footnotes links. Use Template:Ref and Template:Note. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:58, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Nice. But when to use footnote and when to use inline reference? P.S. Should footnotes belongs to reference? --minghong

I'd say, have a reference section - make it like a bibliography, and for footnotes make them additional information as well as just enough information to identify the source (the reader can refer to the references section for further info). - Ta bu shi da yu 04:04, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Done. The next step would be removing some footnotes that are not really needed. --minghong

Red panda versus red fox

I realize that the comment about the a panda conjuring a nice image for the public was made by a Firefox developer, however, I feel the following may be addressed:

According to Firefox (disambiguation) and Red Panda, "firefox" is also a nickname for the Red Fox, which is what most people refer to when speaking of a fox, I believe. Thus, the Firefox logo does indeed accurately represent the Red Fox.

Also, even disregarding the Red Fox issue, the "panda" the developer was referring to would be specifically the Giant Panda. It could be argued that the Firefox logo also represents the Red Panda, considering the animal depicted in the logo does, in fact, look like the Red Panda, largely because the nickname "firefox" was given to the Red Panda because of its resemblance to the Red Fox. -- An unregistered Wikipedian, May 21 2005

Release History

I'm not wild about the Release History section of this article, but I wanted to disucuss it before I made any major changes.

The first sentence editorializes without providing any information, and then the paragraph proceeds to give very little useful information about previous Firefox versions: Pre-1.0 versions had problems with backwards compatability and extensions, and after 1.0, they released a few security updates, each about a month apart. Then the section discusses Firefox's internal code names for two paragraphs. Who cares?

What does everyone else think? Can we do something about that section?

Starwiz 18:30, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Maybe, but these are extracted from the main article "History of Mozilla Firefox". --minghong 18:12, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Future Development section

I'd like to think I'm a moderately savvy computer user. But this section is so gunked up with what I assume to be CVS jargon that I'm having a great deal of difficulty understanding it, much less cleaning it up. For example:

Targeted for June 2005, Firefox 1.1 will resync the code-base of the release builds (as opposed to nightly builds) with the core "trunk" which contains additional features not available in 1.0, as it branched from the trunk around the 0.9 release. As such, there has been a backlog of bug fixes between 0.9 and the release of 1.0, which will be made available in 1.1. Version 1.1 will also implement a new Mac-like option interface, which has been the subject of much critisism from Windows and Linux users

"resync the code-base of the release builds with the core 'trunk'"? "A new Mac-like option interface"? Am I the only one who's confused? If someone can edit the section and make its meaning just a little more clear, I think I can make it readable to the lay person.

Starwiz 18:46, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Compare Firefox 1.0.x with 1.1 (current nightlies) and you'll notice the difference of the option panels. It is now more Mac OS X-like. And basically there are two "lines" of codebase: aviary (Fx + Tb) and trunk (Moz?). Core changes including the Gecko engine are done on the trunk and application patches are done on the aviary builds. Correct me if I'm wrong. --minghong 18:12, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Pop-up blocking -- an ambiguous sentence

I'm trying to clean up this article's wording, but the last sentence in the paragraph below is so ambiguous, I have no idea what to do with it. What browser does "it" refer to? Firefox? Mozilla? SeaMonkey? Does anyone know for sure what this is supposed to say?

Firefox supports tabbed browsing, which allows users to open multiple web pages in the same browser window. This feature was carried over from the Mozilla Suite, which in turn had borrowed the feature from the popular MultiZilla (http://multizilla.mozdev.org) extension for SeaMonkey. It is also one of the early browsers that integrated customizable pop-up blocking.

Starwiz 19:01, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any problem here. "It" refers to Firefox. --minghong 18:12, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, in general and in absence of all other factors (this is English, after all; we can't be too specific about grammar), pronouns take the place of the most recently stated or implied noun that they could take the place of. (Does that make any sense?) So I just thought "it" might refer to SeaMonkey or Mozilla, since they were mentioned far more recently than Firefox. And I didn't want to replace "it" with the incorrect word... I'll go ahead and change the article now. --Starwiz 04:22, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Deer Park

Just to let people know, the new nightly builds of Firefox, have changed in name and logo to Deer Park, the name fire fox is now obsolete, just like firebird and phoenix. --Cloveious 07:12, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

well that's simply not true. Deer Park is the "nickname" of the 1.1 line of Firefox. These nicknames have been used to prevent ordinary users from using alpha-quality builds. - Xorx77 10:04, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

HTML canvas element

"It uses the latest Gecko core (1.8b) as a basis, and features numerous bug fixes, partial support of SVG 1.1 and support of HTML canvas element."

What exactly is this?

Google yourself (http://www.google.com/search?q=HTML+canvas+element). ;-) --minghong 04:28, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

eye candy

I'm fine with rm my input from that section, you're right it didn't quite fit there: I was trying to make note of how firefox will 'fit itself' into different OS - a small eye-candy issue I know with not a great deal to do with software, maybe in third para. of Customizability Alf 11:17, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)