Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released [LWN.net]

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 15, 2004 16:14 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
In reply to: Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released by horen
Parent article: Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Edit:Preferences:Downloads doesn't allow one to add new File Types, or to edit existing ones.

It does allow you to edit existing ones, and I guess you'd add a new one when you click on an unknown file type, so that's ok.

I haven't tried the installer, but

Tools:Themes doesn't work, period

Yes, this is very annoying, especially after they've chucked the Qute theme -- are they deliberately making it harder to install it? The new one looks subtly wrong on my screen, at least -- too much empty space about the icons.

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Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 15, 2004 17:09 UTC (Tue) by drathos (guest, #6454) [Link]

And why are Extensions under Tools, rather than Edit:Preferences? And why is Download Manager under *both* Edit:Preferences AND Tools???

I would imagine because the options under Tools are launching tools. Tools->Extensions should launch the Extension Manager, Tools->Themes launches the Theme Manager, and Tools->Downloads launches the Download Manager. Edit->Preferences->Downloads is for adjusting the options for the Download Manager, not for launching the manager itself.

NOTE: I could be wrong about this becuase I haven't tried 0.9 yet. I'm still waiting for some of the extensions I use to be updated for it.

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 15, 2004 18:20 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

But my version of firefox-0.9 (linux/x86) lists the following file types: bz2, gz, rpm, tar, xpm

Probably imported from your previous profile.

There isn't any "unknown file type"!

What I'm saying is, if you clicked on a link going to an unknown file type (say, pdf) it should prompt you for what to do, and if you then click on "automatically take this action next time" it will do that next time. (I do have xpdf set up for pdf, but not automatic, so it doesn't appear in the download extensions menu; however, it remembers my previous choice of xpdf and shows that in the prompt.)

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 15, 2004 18:23 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

If you want the Qute theme installed, you can install it from here: http://quadrone.org/graphics/

Well, that site redirects me to update.mozilla.org... but well, it seems to be working now, though rather slow.

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 15, 2004 18:28 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

And it looks ugly... why are the icons so big? Firefox 0.8 looked good, they've somewhat undone that now

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 15, 2004 21:26 UTC (Tue) by pointwood (guest, #2814) [Link]

It amazes me how quickly people seem to forget that this is free software.

Anyway, you can change the size of the icons easily - I'll leave it up to yourself to figure out how.

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 16, 2004 2:56 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

It amazes me how quickly people seem to forget that this is free software.

Your point being? The Mozilla folks aren't trying to be some hobbyist system like lynx or OpenBSD. They're trying to compete with Microsoft. I don't see a notice on their page "If you don't like something, you have the source, fix it yourself." (In fact, I don't see that on lynx's or openbsd's pages, either.)

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 16, 2004 5:27 UTC (Wed) by darthmdh (guest, #8032) [Link]

Extremely poor troll there. I'll ignore the pointless ones ("hobbyist system", "compete with Microsoft") and concentrate solely on this:

I don't see a notice on their page "If you don't like something, you have the source, fix it yourself."

That's because it's implicit with the definition of Open Source software. Mugs don't come with notices saying "grip handle and lift to mouth, tip slightly to enjoy beverage" because most people realise they were given a brain in order to use it, and do so.

Drastic measures were taken with 0.9 to ensure that the entire Firefox release remains completely open source, including the removal of the proprietary Qute theme. I look forward to *stripe improving in due course, just like Qute originally looked pretty darn crappy too.

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 16, 2004 13:25 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

I don't see a notice on their page "If you don't like something, you have the source, fix it yourself."
That's because it's implicit with the definition of Open Source software.
My point is that this is all very well if the target audience is programmers (as is the case for GNU Emacs). The target audience for a web browser is most certainly not programmers.
Drastic measures were taken with 0.9 to ensure that the entire Firefox release remains completely open source, including the removal of the proprietary Qute theme.
FYI, the Firefox logo is itself proprietary (trademarked by the Mozilla foundation) and they don't allow using it on non-official builds. This became a big issue with the Debian project, for instance. Debian now uses a different icon for firefox, which has no connection with Mozilla at all.

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 released

Posted Jun 24, 2004 9:23 UTC (Thu) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]
Hardly.

Don't forget that you are not allowed to compile Mozilla Firefox yourself
unless you use your own icon and rename the software.

How the distributors do it is a mystery, I bet they have to get special
permission from the Mozilla Foundation. If that's Free Software then that
definition must be changed.