The browser wars are well underway. Apple released a beta for Safari 4, Chrome 2.0 is in beta, Internet Explorer 8 has just been released, and Firefox 3.5 is almost here. Still, that isn’t stopping the Mozilla team from looking ahead, beyond Firefox 3.5. They call it Firefox 3.6, but since that version number is likely to be bumped higher, they actually prefer the code name Namoroka, or the alternative name Firefox.next. A new roadmap for Namoroka has been published, and it details some interesting goals.
Namoroka will continue to improve on performance. However, the focus will be on the interface and the application itself; startup times, time to open a new tab, and user interface responsiveness. “Common user tasks should feel faster and more responsive,” the roadmap reads. To me, Firefox has always felt a bit sluggish in this area, so I certainly welcome the effort.
Another area of focus will be personalisation and customisation. For instance, the roadmap speaks of lightweight themes, which do not require a restart to be applied; this could build on the Personas project. They also want to introduce lightweight add-ons, which do not require a Firefox restart. They also seem to be taking a good look at Chrome’s empty tab features, as they are thinking about implementing simple navigational controls in empty tab pages.
Other areas of focus will be better web application support, task based navigation, and better system integration; after Chrome and Safari 4, Firefox wants a Windows theme that makes use of Aero. They also mention Windows 7 support, which hopefully means support for Windows 7’s new taskbar features. On the Mac OS X side of things, they want to make use of Mac OS X’s native dictionaries (finally!).
Namoroka is set to arrive somewhere in 2010.
Having read the goals, there is not one mention of improving the performance, integration and more for Linux.
Classic.
Firefox already fits quite well into a GTK desktop. Firefox for Mac OS X is absolutely horrible with Growl and a lame Safari-ripoff theme being the only aspects of “integration”.
For me, it would be enough if Firefox just adds support for system-wide notification systems on X11 platforms.
Edited 2009-04-06 23:12 UTC
It does, until you try to use something like the global menu bar. Believe it or not, it’s the main reason I use Epiphany instead of Firefox. If Firefox ever uses GTK (instead of XUL? whatever it is) for Linux, then I would go back to it, because it really is an amazing browser.
XUL is a Gecko-specific markup language used to build the interface of Firefox. The Linux implementation of XUL already uses GTK+ AFAIK. And a lot of extensions depend on XUL and it is because of it that they run on all supported platforms without (or minimal) changes as the Mozilla developers do all the heavy lifting in XUL to make it multi-platform compatible.
What are you talking about? I’ve been using OS X for a month now and it looks and behaves just like any other OS X app. The only difference that I can see is that dragging the toolbar doesn’t drag the entire window along with it.
This is something I’d love to see as well. As well as an API to provide websites with access to the notification panel.
No you’re right, there isn’t and it’s to be expected. Some people want to sit down with a cup of coffee when they have a quiet five minutes and ask themselves why that is, rather than talking about opportunities more in hope than with any kind of workable ideas.
Everything in there is talking about taking up native features of Windows or OS X – Aero themeing, using OS X’s dictionaries, using OS X Keychain – all features that are designed to help developers and users. What do many Linux desktops have there? Not a lot that interests Firefox’s developers, that’s for sure.
Depends on how much they care for X-based desktops in general, vs one single one. Firefox already has some code to integrate better with Gtk+/Gnome, and if they chose to go further down that path, things like theming, keyrings, and spellcheckers/dictionaries are reasonably standardized, just as they are on other platforms.
But obviously, choosing to focus that much on a single desktop is a big decision to be making…
I really don’t like the GTk file dialog and would wish they would use KDEs file dialog under KDE. However, what they really should do, would be using xdg-open! Under my KDE Desktop Firefox opens files with all sorts of wrong Gtk/GNOME Apps. If it would use xdg-open it would always use the right App, no matter what DE. And it would be easy to implement, too!
The problem is though that we’re all told that Firefox being cross-platform is an advantage for the Linux desktop and it clearly isn’t because it is at the back of Mozilla’s priorities.
Not using a cross-platform toolkit to take the load is also a mistake, because most of what is listed is merely integration work with Windows and OS X that could be handled within an adequate framework.
Mozilla does use a cross platform toolkit: XUL. It’s one they wrote themselves and you can argue that it’s not very complete (if you like) but the options available to them at the time XUL was chosen were limited. It’s really a fine piece of software on which Firefox absolutely depends.
Galeon did what Firefox did, and sooner, in that it made a light browser based on GTK+Gecko, but where is Galeon today? Epiphany is (used to be) another GTK+Gecko browser, but other than a minority of GNOME nuts nobody uses it. Why? If it’s really better not to use XUL why do these also-ran browsers not gain more popularity?
XUL just makes sense. The only alternative these days is QT, but it would not be simple to convert to that. It’s much more useful to complete the dangling bits of XUL.
I don’t know, KDE has quite a few of those things and I would like to see Firefox integrating in to that.
I’ll be happy when it isn’t such a bloated pile of crap. I know that won’t happen though.
A selection of WebKit-based browsers is on the way. FF will soon be toast.
Firefox has one advantage … xulrunner. That means the Firefox extensions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xulrunner
What we really need then is for someone to port xulrunner to use a webkit/squirrelfish backend and a qt4.5 front end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webkit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webkit#Further_development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SquirrelFish#JavaScriptCore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(toolkit)
The result would be a browser with Firefox extensions and flexibility but with webkit standards compliance and squirrelfish accelerated javascript, and also with Qt4.5 file dialogs and cross-platform portability. In other words, we could get a best-of-all-worlds scenario. This is part of the beauty of open source.
AFAIK, none of the WebKit-based browsers on the way has this functionality. Therefore, Firefox is not (yet) toast. In fact right now and for some forseeable time to come, Firefox is still the most attractive non-IE browser.
Edited 2009-04-07 03:06 UTC
I don’t want xulrunner or FF plugins anywhere near any other browser I’m going to use. That’s part of the problem as well.
Well, of course, YMMV. Firefox extensions aren’t for everybody … but nevertheless they ARE a large reason why Firefox is as popular as it is, which is arguably eight times as popular as any other non-IE browser.
That fact, to me, is very relevant in any discussion of a prediction that it might soon be that “Firefox is toast”.
Edited 2009-04-07 03:13 UTC
Proof? Do you have the statistic which gives the percentage of users which use extensions?
Of course this number is artificially inflated by making spell-checkers extensions..
I need only *one* function in Chrome before switching to it: Flash blocking.
I suspect that many other are in the same situation..
renox wrote:
–“Proof? Do you have the statistic which gives the percentage of users which use extensions? “
No I don’t have any percentages showing the Firefox/Extension ratio, but looking at the actual downloads of the prominent addons shows that they’re very popular:
noscript ~45 million downloads
adblock plus ~45.5 million downloads
Personally I’m looking forward to Chrome getting their extension framework up and running since I think that with the advent of these third party extensions Chrome (or perhaps rather Chromium) will have a large upswing in their userbase which in turn will make for even more heated competition in the browser market, time will tell.
As my webdev-college at work sometimes says: IE isn’t a browser, it’s war !
well I dont agree that FF will all of a sudden be toast, BUT I do agree with what you’re saying.
Chrome and Safari will be very similar browsers (aimed at slightly different markets?) and both are already showing a lot of promise.
I personally think FF will face tougher competition from google chrome than from IE. My only reason for not switching yet is lack of a linux version. As soon as one of these major browsers fixes the linux integration issues – I’ll be sold. That said, konqueror is very nice these days but it really needs better support for multimedia stuff. it works most of the time but sometimes the nspluginwrapper just doesn’t want to work – i realise its not all their fault but it is stopping me from using konqueror 100% nonetheless.
Really looking forward to chrome reaching v1.0 for linux.
I’m already looking forward to WebKit Epiphany and while on Linux hoping KDE Konqueror moves to WebKit via QtWebKit.
Otherwise, I’m on OS X, but still have to test against Camino, Opera while targeting Safari and Firefox.
Keep a look on Arora, a Qt 4-based minimalistic Webkit browser.
It’s still not production quality, but it’s getting there.
Yer, it would be more sensible for KDE to wait and see where Arora ends up in its development and then inherit a KDE web browser from it. Most of what needs working out know is annoying things like plugins and integration of stuff like Flash.
As for Gnome, don’t let your heads drop Epiphany guys and don’t buy into the hype that Firefox is Gnome’s browser. Create a great browser that can be shipped as a part of Gnome.
Thanks for the heads-up.
You’re hoping for far too much – best to give up and go for some other browser. Mozilla developers have basically turned their Linux and Mac OS X builds into little more than, “if it compiles, ship it” with all their focus now on Windows. I wish things could change but given that they have ignored the two other platforms since the release of 1.x – I don’t see a sudden change in direction anytime soon.
I know I know. I’m very much aware of that. My browser of choice otherwise is Konqueror. The only reason I use FF is the need for a browser that can deal with a few poorly designed sites I have run into over time and I find it annoying having to switch between browsers. But lately FF has been bugging me so much I’m getting to the point of just wanting to use Konq full time and say screw it with the sites.
I used to have the same issue on FreeBSD where my preferred desktop (and in turn browser) was KDE. I tried Mozilla (except I compiled the browser only component) and it seemed to have this amazing ability to bring an otherwise fairly robust machine to a slow crawl.
I’m hoping that once Chromium gets off the ground that we’ll start to see mind share outside of Google to get it working on FreeBSD and other platforms as well; Firefox has been on the wrong path ever since they developed XUL as a core component of it and its been a mess for alternative platforms since.
Well I don’t run the KDE environment, as in KWin/Kicker. I’m running Xfce 4.4 at the moment but I doubt that will last much longer now that 4.6 is in ports. I don’t like how Xfce is turning into a mini-GNOME and just as bloated. But I like a number of KDE apps like Konqueror, Gwenview, Kaffeine (although I’ll probably switch to VLC once I’m done with my update to 0.9.x. I *hate* wxWidgets), KOffice (don’t get my started on how bad OOo is), KPDF and KMail.
Edited 2009-04-07 07:32 UTC
The Linux community nurtured Mozilla and Firefox back when no one else cared about them. But once it became popular in the Windows world, the FF devs dumped the Linux community. Like a needy and emotionally dependent old girlfriend, we in the Linux community continue to try to regain their affection. Why we bother, I’m not sure. Personally, I decided to move on long ago.
Edited 2009-04-07 02:17 UTC
sbergman27 wrote:
“But once it became popular in the Windows world, the FF devs dumped the Linux community.”
Really, when did they dump the Linux community? I’m happily using Firefox on Linux and I have for a very long time.
I would think that the comment from sbergman27 possibly arose from this observation (from tuxradar):
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/benchmarked-firefox-javascript-linu…
and this follow-up:
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/browser-benchmarks-2-even-wine-beat…
The explanation for this is given by a Mozilla developer in the comments of the second article:
The answer is that the Linux distributions did not do the “profile-guided optimization” that Mozilla did do for the Windows build of Firefox.
Firefox 3.1 for Linux will apparently address this issue.
All in all, if this is what sbergman27 was indeed talking about, I can’t really see that it makes a case for a claim that “the FF devs dumped the Linux community”.
Once again, however, YMMV.
Edited 2009-04-07 03:38 UTC
Yes I know about the PGO optimizations and the impact they had on Firefox’s javascript engine (profile guided optimization can have a big impact on code that does alot of branching and looping due to better loop unrolling and branch prediction). I’m using the Firefox pgo build from aur (arch linux) and it’s indeed fast and I don’t notice any difference between Windows and Linux Firefox performance on the same machine (not that I’ve really paid it much attention though).
But what has that to do with lack of Mozilla Linux support? If your distribution chooses not to build pgo optimized packages then how is that the fault of Mozilla?
Exactly so. My point exactly. If your distribution chooses not to build pgo optimized packages then how is that lack of support for Linux by Mozilla?
The issue is likely soon to become moot anyway with javascript performance being addressed by the inclusion of tracemonkey in firefox 3.5.
Another factor that some time ago adversely affected Firefox (and OpenOffice) performance on some Linux machines was the poor 2D performance of Nvidia’s binary drivers for Linux. This started circa 2006, but has been addressed since the beginning of this year. If Firefox (and OpenOffice) on Linux is jerky when scrolling and slow to redraw for you, and you happen to be running Nvidia binary Linux graphics drivers older than a few months, then you should update your Nvidia drivers.
Yeah…it really is kind of sad how poor the performance is on Linux. Its actually faster to run FireFox for Windows nested inside of VirtualBox than it is to run it on Linux.
I remember reading somewhere that this has to do with it using a FrameBuffer on Windows or something like that.
So I keep reading that they have no plans for official 64 bit support until 4.0, but I can’t track down the source of those statements. Anyone know where to find them?
Firefox 3.x is based on Gecko 1.9.x. Within the 3.x/1.9.x release set, there won’t be gigantic core changes. So even though I don’t speak for Mozilla, it makes sense to me that changes like these have to wait until FF4.0/Gecko 2.0.
When Mozilla (the suite) was younger, all themes applied without restart. I never understood why they changed that.
Mozilla seem to be atrocious when it comes to predicting when their browsers would come out.
Firefox 3 was about 8/9 months late. Firefox 3.1 is coming so late that they decided to rename it Firefox 3.5. They also did the same with 1.1 – renamed to 1.5.
If they say early 2010 for the release, I would not expect it before Christmas 2010 *if* they manage to get it released in 2010. And it will be called 4.0 (atleast they acknowledge this by calling it “at least 3.6”).
Almost everyone is atrocious when it comes to predicting when their products will come out. Take Vista, for example – wasn’t Longhorn originally supposed to come out 2003 or so? Other projects nail down the dates, but allow features to slip – I seem to recall the last Gnome release was supposed to include the WebKit port of Epiphany and others, but that got deferred to the next release.
It’s basically an industry-wide problem – hardly anyone can reliably commit to a fixed release date and feature set, and those that do usually end up shipping a rush job with a billion bugs in it.
Does it really matter? As long as it’s done when it arrives?
That is, in my opinion, the very thing that makes OSS great! The best projects don’t arrive till they’re done. So what if they make guesstimates when they think it should be done – as long as they don’t deploy it till it’s ready, it’s all nice and dandy if you ask me.
It’s not Vista you know. They don’t have to deliver cr@p just to get it out of the door early to please the stockholders….
I sometimes pity Microsoft’s developers, when it’s clear that the function in question is really brilliant, but is poorly implemented because they do not get enough time for QA and bug removal. Don’t let that happen to FF.
Just let them deliver a product they think is good enough for prime time, and I will (im)patiently be waiting.
Nalle Berg
./nalle.
The way things are looking, it will probably still beat the release version of Thunderbird 3.
That’s pretty pathetic for the Mozilla project, but that’s nothing new at all.
The multi-function new tab concept is a good idea , but I really hope they don’t go down the same path as IEee.
Do a simple test, start IE7 (or above) and Firefox side by side. Start a new tab in IE (with the ridiculous “You’ve opened a new tab” feature enabled), and then start a new tab in Firefox. Notice the speed difference?
And that’s just with IE loading a useless page of text.
“Firefox wants a Windows theme that makes use of Aero.”
anyone using glasser already has this
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7336
From the majority of comments above, I glean that users hate Firefox because it is slow and bloated. Seriously? Have you been smoking Chrome and Safari to the point you can’t tell them apart? Its like comparing a feature packed DTR laptop to slim pretty featureless notebooks and claiming the DTR is bloated and it sucks.
Firefox is much superior in features and has far greater flexibility than both Chrome and Safari combined. I don’t like having to use input manager hacks with Safari and neither do I like having to load banner filtering proxies with Chrome to even get simple ad filtering. If you are forced to using a PAC proxy to even gain Internet access, you’ll quickly appreciate why having to load a banner filtering proxy in between is hell!
Firefox will be the superior browser for a long time to come. It is easily extensible and runs on more platforms than any other browser. Whining about it not living up to your expectations on only platforms of concern to you, is overlooking the realities that Mozilla has to deal with on a cross-platform code base.
Like in the real world you can’t have it all for nothing, somethings gotta give! Firefox is about options!
-Ad
Edited 2009-04-07 07:10 UTC
As for the bloated comments, is there any evidence backing this up? I found this on google :
http://dotnetperls.com/Content/Browser-Memory.aspx
and while I think it lacks in it’s testing method I don’t think it paints Firefox as bloated compared to the other browsers, anyone have any other memory benchmarks? And if not, on what are you basing your statements that Firefox is bloated?
And what if you don’t give a rat’s bum about all that and just want your browser to show – gasp – web pages?
Thom Holwerda wrote:
–“And what if you don’t give a rat’s bum about all that and just want your browser to show – gasp – web pages?”
Then the flexibility of Firefox likely holds no attraction for you. But given the huge popularity of Firefox addons (particularly adblock/plus and noscript) it would seem that it is indeed one of Firefox’s selling points.
Great. Then let the community coordinate and finalize the plug-in API with Mozilla around a couple of architects whose jobs focus on such. Let the rest focus on making Firefox lean and able to run well-formed documents fast; and if there are abortions of code just fail quickly so the user can help convince the site owner to clean up their code.
Exactly. I want a lean browser that doesn’t chew so much bloody CPU time way too often doing literally nothing, doesn’t eat memory like no tomorrow, doesn’t have horrible internal threading issues which cause performance issues all over the place and……………. displays web pages. I don’t use essentially any of these “features” of FF.
Edited 2009-04-07 07:57 UTC
Gasp! Really!? You mean you don’t watch streaming videos, download files, block phishing sites and perhaps block those annoying ads and pop-ups? Have you considered using lynx? I thought of suggesting Amaya and Dillo, but realized that these might be too much for your requirements.
-Ad
Get a clue. From one extreme to the next… bloated to not fulfilling basic requirements.
Edited 2009-04-07 09:51 UTC
He only wanted his browser to show web pages. Thus in that context my suggestion is valid. You might want to either re-read his post or get someone else to do it for you.
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Chrome gives me a browser with a minimal interface, focussed on browsing, which is both fast on the responsiveness end, as well as the rendering end. It comes with a process-per-tab design that is infinitely more robust than the single-process Firefox design. Chrome also loads in an instant, whereas Firefox takes several seconds. Chrome also has the superior tab implementation.
I don’t care about ads. They don’t bother me. The only ones that bother me are annoying Flash ads, but for those, I just load up the Chrome task manager, and kill the Flash process.
I hate it when people assume that just because they like the extensibility Firefox delivers, that EVERYONE must like it. Firefox comes with too many useless features that I JUST DON’T NEED.
And its interface is simply far too slow and unresponsive.
Hey, there are a plethora of other browsers out there with different goals that may meet your expectations. Therefore, demanding that Firefox meet your expectation is not necessary. By the way, yourself and a minority of people that visit this site ISN’T everyone either!
Again your needs do not primarily translate to the needs of everyone. If you want to limit your freedom on what you can do with your browser, then that is up to you, don’t expect that for everyone else.
Running it on my T43 on WinXP. See no difference between FF and Chrome here. So that could be your subjective experience?
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Edited 2009-04-07 10:22 UTC
????
What are you on about? Where am I demanding that Firefox tailor to my needs?
Huh? Then what do you mean by this comment of yours?:
-Ad
What I mean by that is that I don’t like it when people project their own needs onto others, like you did in the comment it replied to. That’s not rocket science, you know.
Edited 2009-04-07 10:31 UTC
You clearly stated this:
Useless by whose standards? Why are your needs (or the minority for that matter) more important than everybody else?
If it does not fit your needs, move on to some other browser that fits in with your niche. They are catering FF for the masses and their features are what the masses want.
Rocket science ain’t got a darn thing to do with it either. Need an even simpler explanation?
-Ad
Edited 2009-04-07 14:56 UTC
Yes, so I clearly sate that it comes with features that I deem useless, and therefore, don’t need. That still hasn’t got anything to do with me saying that Firefox should cater to my needs – which is what you originally claimed.
You claimed 2 things:
When you read the above sentences one after the other, as you have written, you are implying that you do not like the extensibility to be forced upon you and that Firefox features are useless because you don’t need it.
I then replied that they are not catering to your expectations, because you are a minority among their users. So your above comment/rant is pointless. Clear now?
-Ad
No, because you clearly don’t understand what I said.
What I mean is that I do not like it when people assume that just because THEY like it, I MUST like it as well. That is namely exactly what you were doing in your comment I replied to:
I could not agree more with your assessment. My first installs trying out Chrome gave me a really bad impression. But I gave it another shot, and have come to appreciate a lot about it. When I need to load up something quick, Firefox is the last browser I want to select. Chrome can load up and get me to the specific page I want faster than any browser.
The only thing Chrome does not have is flash block, otherwise it would become my browser of choice. My biggest concern with Firefox has been the overall stability the past few versions. It seems more and more common now for me to have to go into task manager to close Firefox, regardless of what I have been doing. Of equal annoyance I have noticed more and more if I leave the browser up and running for an extended period of inactivity, it will become completely unresponsive loading any page.
Firefox may have a lot of cool and neat addons, but what good are they if the browser is unusable or undesirable?
I’m sorry, what’s the problem?
It sounds like you’ve got your cake, but can’t resist pouring poison in everyone elses.
Firefox has faults, but then it can do thing other browsers can’t. I don’t know what you expect of it..
Edited 2009-04-08 15:33 UTC
Well, yes, it is slow and bloated. But it also has an obnoxious user community which doesn’t take criticism well. And an obnoxious developer community which doesn’t take criticism well and who whose vocabularies sometimes seem limited to the words WONTFIX and NOTABUG. And then there is the fact that the project turned upon the community which nurtured it in the first place. It’s not that we’re hateful. It’s just that the Firefox community is so hateable.
sbergman27 wrote:
–“And then there is the fact that the project turned upon the community which nurtured it in the first place.”
Please elaborate, I don’t get this at all.
sbergman27 wrote:
–“It’s not that we’re hateful. It’s just that the Firefox community is so hateable.”
Lol, generalizing much? Not to mention sounding borderline psychotic. Sure hope you don’t have access to any guns.
I recently installed Firefox 3.1 B3, and now we are alread upon 3.5, planning for 3.6. What year is this, have I been cryogenic frozen all these years?
FF 3.1 is no longer and the next release is going to be 3.5. They’re now planning for 3.6, but most likely it won’t be 3.6 but more like 4.0. That’s marketing people for you.
Edited 2009-04-07 08:11 UTC
Coincidentally, Safari 4 Beta hit the street and instantly with the fact that Firefox was developing a new version of their own Javascript engine they probably wanted to make a bigger splash [market lingo] so not to seem limp next to Safari 4.0. Firefox 3.0.x-> 3.5.x has a much greater numeric impact behind it.
Safari 3.1.x -> Safari 4.0 won’t look as big against Firefox 3.0.x -> Firefox 3.5.x.
Does anyone know if they’ll ever implement Chrome’s sandbox concept?
Has the mozilla foundation ever even spoke about it?
With adobe’s products sucking so bad on practically every platform (flash on top), this is one of the key features I can’t do without anymore.
I can see why one would think that Mozilla has turned it’s back on Linux but I don’t think that’s really the case.
Firefox for Windoze/Mac needs a little extra attention because it is something extra that must be downloaded and installed. Firefox for Linux ships with the distro and will always be slightly remixed anyway; for example: Iceweasel.
The reality to me is that its harder to get people to change their browser than to change thier OS, so I encourage Mozilla to pull out all the stops on Windoze; because switching from “The Blue E” to Firefox is the tough sale, but after that switching from the “The Blue Screen” to Linux will be much easier.
The only thing I really demand of the Linux version is no themes as hideous as the Mac one and Stability, which is something that I get in droves with my Ubuntu+Firefox combo.
I don’t get this love for Webkit at all. It will always be tarnished by Apple to me. Take Safari for OS X 10.3, reset its homepage to http://www.apple.com/startpage/ and watch it *crash*. What’s up with that??
I would just like to point out to everyone that Chrome is in the progress of supporting GreaseMonkey scripts and extensions (like those in FireFox).
I’ve just loaded up the 2.x dev builds with the extension support on. It is slow as hell. I think ironically users that are expounding the benefits of Chrome are going to be caught in the same situation as they had with Firefox. It is just a matter of time.
By the way, great Chrome extension for blocking ads:
http://www.adsweep.org
-Ad
Edited 2009-04-08 09:46 UTC