Why Mozilla?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Coutts
  • Start date Start date
J

John Coutts

A few days ago, someone asked the question on this news group "How do I make
IE6 secure? In the responses, several people suggested Mozilla. Not being very
happy with the bloated nature of Internet Explorer and all the configuration
issues to make it somewhat secure, I thought I would give it a try. After only
a few days of use, I am pleasantly surprised by Mozilla Firebird. It is a good
performer without all the bells and whistles.

And the footprint is the part I like. There seems to be a genuine effort on the
part of the developers to control the size of the code. And that got me
thinking about what is different about this piece of software. For those that
remember, Mozilla was the original creator of Internet Explorer for Microsoft.
Researching <www.mozilla.net>, I found that it was spawned from the ashes of
Netscape Navigator 5.0 back in 1998, and created as Open Source.

Therein I believe lies the answer. Open Source programs or operating systems
tend to be more efficient but less responsive with new innovation. Commercial
Proprietary software (eg Adobe Acrobat, Norton AntiVirus, Microsoft
Explorer/Outlook/XP) tends to be more innovative, but suffers badly from code
bloat. There is a constant drive to add more and better features and get it to
market. Complexity is built upon complexity, which in the end results in a
bloated product that suffers from reliability issues, and in some cases
security issues. And once started on that roller coaster ride, it is very
difficult to stop.

Just an observation!

J.A. Coutts
Systems Engineer
MantaNet/TravPro
 
Therein I believe lies the answer. Open Source programs or operating systems
tend to be more efficient but less responsive with new innovation. Commercial
Proprietary software (eg Adobe Acrobat, Norton AntiVirus, Microsoft
Explorer/Outlook/XP) tends to be more innovative, but suffers badly from code
bloat.
Click to expand...

Actually, Open Source tends to be more innovative.

OpenOffice allows you to save documents as PDF unlike MS Office.
Mozilla has tabbed browsing and popup blocking, unlike IE

etc etc etc.
 
Conor said:
Actually, Open Source tends to be more innovative.

OpenOffice allows you to save documents as PDF unlike MS Office.
Mozilla has tabbed browsing and popup blocking, unlike IE

etc etc etc.
Click to expand...
Not to mention the large volunteer force finding and then actually
fixing bugs.

The 1.5 release is very stable too.
 
A few days ago, someone asked the question on this news group "How do I
make IE6 secure? In the responses, several people suggested Mozilla. Not
being very happy with the bloated nature of Internet Explorer and all the
configuration issues to make it somewhat secure, I thought I would give it
a try. After only a few days of use, I am pleasantly surprised by Mozilla
Firebird. It is a good performer without all the bells and whistles.

And the footprint is the part I like. There seems to be a genuine effort
on the part of the developers to control the size of the code. And that
got me thinking about what is different about this piece of software. For
those that remember, Mozilla was the original creator of Internet Explorer
for Microsoft. Researching <www.mozilla.net>, I found that it was spawned
from the ashes of Netscape Navigator 5.0 back in 1998, and created as Open
Source.
Click to expand...
Actually, Explorer was based on Mosaic, not Mozilla. Explorer and
Netscape/Mozilla have always been based on different engines.
 
Actually, Explorer was based on Mosaic, not Mozilla. Explorer and
Netscape/Mozilla have always been based on different engines.
Click to expand...
*************** REPLY SEPARATER ******************
You are 100% correct. My memory isn't what it used to be, and the names are
similar. Still, I am impressed with what they have done.
 
Dan Shackelford said:
Actually, Explorer was based on Mosaic, not Mozilla. Explorer and
Netscape/Mozilla have always been based on different engines.
Click to expand...

Wasn't Netscape the purloined commercial version of Mosaic which was
developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign?
 
Earl F. Parrish said:
Wasn't Netscape the purloined commercial version of Mosaic which was
developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign?
Click to expand...

Actually, some of the people involved in building Mosaic at UIUC split
off on their own and started up Netscape. IIRC - they initially used the
same basic rendering engine as Mosaic v1 for Netscape versions 1 & 2,
then moved to a different engine with v3. I seem to recall IE starting
out with the core of a later version of Mosaic (v3?). Mozilla was
initially based on a new rendering engine that Netscape had been
tinkering with after their v4 products. When AOL bought out Netscape,
they allowed the new code to branch out into Open Source and supported it
indirectly. In return, Netscape received the rights to use whatever code
was developed at the core of their new versions if they so desired.
Netscape versions 6 & 7 were based on earlier Mozilla cores.
 
John Coutts said:
A few days ago, someone asked the question on this news group "How do I make
IE6 secure? In the responses, several people suggested Mozilla. Not being very
happy with the bloated nature of Internet Explorer and all the configuration
issues to make it somewhat secure, I thought I would give it a try. After only
a few days of use, I am pleasantly surprised by Mozilla Firebird. It is a good
performer without all the bells and whistles.

And the footprint is the part I like. There seems to be a genuine effort on the
part of the developers to control the size of the code. And that got me
thinking about what is different about this piece of software. For those that
remember, Mozilla was the original creator of Internet Explorer for Microsoft.
Researching <www.mozilla.net>, I found that it was spawned from the ashes of
Netscape Navigator 5.0 back in 1998, and created as Open Source.

Therein I believe lies the answer. Open Source programs or operating systems
tend to be more efficient but less responsive with new innovation. Commercial
Proprietary software (eg Adobe Acrobat, Norton AntiVirus, Microsoft
Explorer/Outlook/XP) tends to be more innovative, but suffers badly from code
bloat. There is a constant drive to add more and better features and get it to
market. Complexity is built upon complexity, which in the end results in a
bloated product that suffers from reliability issues, and in some cases
security issues. And once started on that roller coaster ride, it is very
difficult to stop.

Just an observation!

.... also as software becomes more user-friendly(aiming for the lowest
Click to expand...
common denominator of user)the more bloated & inefficient its code - thats
why Windows is that way. Linux will never make great inroads to the desktop
till it becomes like Windows(i.e. true plug & play capability). But that is
something the techno geeks will fight to the bitter end.
 
John Coutts wrote:

....
Therein I believe lies the answer. Open Source programs or operating systems
tend to be more efficient but less responsive with new innovation. Commercial
Proprietary software (eg Adobe Acrobat, Norton AntiVirus, Microsoft
Explorer/Outlook/XP) tends to be more innovative, but suffers badly from code
bloat. There is a constant drive to add more and better features and get it to
market. Complexity is built upon complexity, which in the end results in a
bloated product that suffers from reliability issues, and in some cases
security issues. And once started on that roller coaster ride, it is very
difficult to stop.

Just an observation!
Click to expand...
Your are absolutely right! THX for the excellent summary of the situation!
Many of us tend to switch towards Linux, OpenOffice &c. - and find out
that e.g. SuSE's distros grow, too...

Roy
 
Actually, some of the people involved in building Mosaic at UIUC split
off on their own and started up Netscape. IIRC - they initially used the
same basic rendering engine as Mosaic v1 for Netscape versions 1 & 2,
then moved to a different engine with v3. I seem to recall IE starting
out with the core of a later version of Mosaic (v3?). Mozilla was
initially based on a new rendering engine that Netscape had been
tinkering with after their v4 products. When AOL bought out Netscape,
they allowed the new code to branch out into Open Source and supported it
indirectly. In return, Netscape received the rights to use whatever code
was developed at the core of their new versions if they so desired.
Netscape versions 6 & 7 were based on earlier Mozilla cores.
Click to expand...

Are there any functional differences between NS 7.1 and Mozilla? I have
both installed and, from a user standpoint, can't see any differences.
Additionally, if NS is started with Mozilla Quick launch running NS says
it's already running.

-B
 
Are there any functional differences between NS 7.1 and Mozilla? I have
both installed and, from a user standpoint, can't see any differences.
Additionally, if NS is started with Mozilla Quick launch running NS says
it's already running.
Click to expand...

Not sure about "functional differences". NS is always built on a
earlier version than the latest release of Moz. If I recall, NS comes
with Java while with Moz you d/l Java directly from Sun if you want
it. NS installs a bunch of AOL crap that Moz doesn't. Moz is a much
better choice IMO.


Art
http://www.epix.net/~artnpeg
 
(e-mail address removed) a écrit :
Not sure about "functional differences".
Click to expand...

There was a time when some of Mozilla's functions were "censored" and
not available in Netscape. Well, it was possible to use them but it
required fiddling around with some configuration files. I think the
pop-up blocker was not officially available in some Netscape builds but
it could be enabled by modifying some files.
Moz is a much better choice IMO.
Click to expand...

Netscape isn't a choice anymore since it ceased existing. By the way,
anyone using Netscape 7.1 on Windows 98/ME and experiencing weird GDI
problems should consider switching to a more recent Mozilla version.
 
Are there any functional differences between NS 7.1 and Mozilla? I have
both installed and, from a user standpoint, can't see any differences.
Additionally, if NS is started with Mozilla Quick launch running NS says
it's already running.

-B
Click to expand...
"We are Microsoft, resitance(sic!) is futile."

What!? The Borg have been assimilated by Microsoft!?
 
The Borg said:
Nope, they're the same. Can't spell too.
Click to expand...

Why...I thought your folks would have invented a keyboard to take care of
that menial spelling task for you by now. If you ever do, it might be worth
being assimilated.... ;-)))
 
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