Thoughts on browsers

[klhrevolutionist]

I am upset at the firefox team for their "safety" implementation in version 3.xx It has to do with showing a red url bar with a slash through the padlock. While I have not upgraded to version 3.xx I did upgrade to the latest 2.xx version and it has this feature as well. Some folks told me that firefox 3 simply does not show the page at all if firefox 3.xx & friends deem it to be unsafe.. Not only does the government, isp's and the many other people and organizations want to keep us safe from the internet tubes but now we are getting the safeness routine from the applications we use. Well, sadly firefox has not hinted at reversing it's policing decision and so like so many others I must move on.

So many choices I don't know where to begin. Of course I could always use iceweasel which I think they are going to undo this policing action implemented in brand X (ff3) .. And netsurf is starting to make some real progress in that it is building components that not only a browser can make use of but other applications can also make use of. I am very excited to see where that goes. The Midori browser has teamed up with xfce and I suspect that we will see some improvements done in time for the next major release of xfce. HV3 is steadily fixing bugs and continues to impress me with each new nightly build. The google makes a stand and looks to create a browser that can do it all, though it's nowhere complete and the google os creeps in slowly but surely...

Browser market is looking good:

Lookout for Opera if they decide to open source version 10.0

Lookout for Netsurf if they ever manage to get a pr campaign that shows not only
users but developers what they are doing.

Look for firefox to drop in the gnu/linux scene unless they stop trying to police the web. We will see more and more derivatives of mozilla / firefox like swiftfox, iceweasel and others to start gaining users as a reaction to the policing/intervention of mozilla/ff.

Look for midori to start gaining usership once it kinda assimilates into xfce and more people realize it exist. And unlike konqueror it will not be dependent upon the xfce base so it will keep it's portability.

Other webkit browsers like arora, epiphany will continue to pop up but where they will go is anybody's guess. Will they gain stability and attract a user base or continue to be known as that browser..

Many great things happening in the browser world that can go right and wrong. It would be in Opera's best interest to open-source and try and steal some thunder away from the open source projects gaining ground like webkit and googles V8 js engine. In the end we users have some interesting choices on what to use to browse the web. One thing is for sure being proactive can have an effect not expected so let the internet tubes
be and allow the participators to decide what website is good and which is not.

chat.freenode.net #tuxhelper #gotux #linuxoutlaws

[urban soul]

Well,

mozilla has some strange policies: too much google interaction ($$$), eg. I use FF 2.00.11 but I will not upgrade. If I have to, I will go for ... uhm, Safari, Konqueror or Opera. Cool thing about FF is its addon management though.

Greetz,
Urban

[Bruce B]

Well,

mozilla has some strange policies: too much google interaction ($$$), eg. I use FF 2.00.11 but I will not upgrade. If I have to, I will go for ... uhm, Safari, Konqueror or Opera. Cool thing about FF is its addon management though.

Greetz,
Urban

Klhrevolutionist, urban soul beat me to it. That's the reason why.

But there is no reason we can't have what we want. All we need to do is contribute more money than Google contributes. Hopefully, substantially more money.

The poor man's solution, the one I use, is trimming out bad files and configuring. It seems to work okay.

Bruce

[ttuuxxx]

As Firefox goes, series 2 is more stable on puppy, Thats why I keep the pet package on Eric's server, Plus It still will update until Dec, But lately its been asking to update to 3 series, Theres even a "Never" button, thats my button of choice.

Its funny I've always hated Seamonkey, The look and feel. As skins go for it, theres only a handful and not all of them work.
But I must say it is a stable browser and I actually prefer it over FF3.0, now thats a first.

Iceweasel 3.0 isn't as buggy as FF3 is and its smaller in size. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to use FF3. It still has some issues but not as many.

People have reported in the past That Opera has problems opening a lot of secure pages, I do like the look of the new Opera its pretty sexy for a out of a box browser.

Midori is a nice browser, but its a real pain to build for puppy, it took me a couple of days the first time, and now I can do it in about 4hrs. The reason for a couple of days is because puppy was missing the default icons, locations, and I couldn't even find out what to name the icons, midori didn't have any faqs on it. But in the future I think this will be a great stable browser.

Netsurf is a surprisingly nice browser and some new work has been done one it, The problem with Netsurf is that the developers either won't or don't know how to make it recognize file extensions. So when you download a pet package you get the packages code running down the screen, yes you can fix that on a server, but really every server? or would it be simpler just to have it download the file like it should, If I can download a pet package on Seamonkey, Firefox, Opera etc why not on Netsurf!! Bigbass has ask the developers to look into it but its been months without any fixes. I personally think if Netsurf could have a downloader plugin like multiget that would make it a strong contender for a Seamonkey replacement. If you think about it, Netsurf 400kb + wxgtk&Multiget 2.5MB = 2.9MB Now thats space saving with a excellent new library addition. I do find that Netsurf does render pages a bit on the slow side compared to Seamonkey. But Hopefully in the future this will change. Blus I think this browser needs Bookmarks.


HV3 now that a funny browser, I used in my Fire Hydrant 3 retro release, I hacked the homepage code to display Links to various Puppy sites, Like every time you boot up, you need to see the HV3 homepage that never gets updated, Plus they don't give any menu options to change the homepage. That needs to be changed.
Also it ran a bit slow and had a terrible time trying to download with it.

As new webkit browsers emerge just keep in mind, That they all have to built and aren't that simple to do. Unlike the mainstream browser.
But I'll try them out when I get time to build them or someone else does
ttuuxxx

[klhrevolutionist]

Thanks for the replies. As you may have noticed some websites decided to run with (part 1) which is the post "Thoughts on browsers". I can see why one might think I'm being this or that.. But, once I submitted (part 2) it became clearer what I was trying to pass along. and so w/out further delay I give you (part 2).


I am not sure that I have made myself clear or not. And so to get my point across I will keep pushing till at least the issue can be out in the open allowing people to see the issue in full. I tried to make it clear that the recent move by firefox to start policing the web or taking proactive measures as some have pointed out is nothing more than rubbish.
We can not allow applications such as firefox to do this. It is something reminiscent of a move out of the microsoft playbook and it deserves to be booed as such.

If firefox default search can be lobbied and paid for (google) then why does it seem far fetched that the big ssl providers would lobby the browser ? Should I the small owner / operator of a website have to go through xyz company in order to get my ssl cert ? Or should I have choice ? And what if a popular browser shows a new user a warning or error page if I choose the latter ? Does this stifle my business ? Of course it does.

It has been through user experience that many of today's websites and applications even continue to exist! If people ten years ago had seen a warning page when they attempted to visit google.com do you think that would have had a negative impact on the direction google went ? Of course it would have!

All I can say is to make an issue of it and try to get firefox to reverse this decision or to use a different browser.

[ttuuxxx]

Thanks for the replies. As you may have noticed some websites decided to run with (part 1) which is the post "Thoughts on browsers". I can see why one might think I'm being this or that.. But, once I submitted (part 2) it became clearer what I was trying to pass along. and so w/out further delay I give you (part 2).


I am not sure that I have made myself clear or not. And so to get my point across I will keep pushing till at least the issue can be out in the open allowing people to see the issue in full. I tried to make it clear that the recent move by Firefox to start policing the web or taking proactive measures as some have pointed out is nothing more than rubbish.
We can not allow applications such as Firefox to do this. It is something reminiscent of a move out of the Microsoft playbook and it deserves to be booed as such.

If firefox default search can be lobbied and paid for (google) then why does it seem far fetched that the big ssl providers would lobby the browser ? Should I the small owner / operator of a website have to go through xyz company in order to get my ssl cert ? Or should I have choice ? And what if a popular browser shows a new user a warning or error page if I choose the latter ? Does this stifle my business ? Of course it does.

It has been through user experience that many of today's websites and applications even continue to exist! If people ten years ago had seen a warning page when they attempted to visit google.com do you think that would have had a negative impact on the direction google went ? Of course it would have!

All I can say is to make an issue of it and try to get Firefox to reverse this decision or to use a different browser.

I think it was located in the about:config where you can change the default search engine in FF3. Wouldn't that fix your issue?

The only Time I ever seen a warning message from FF is for malicious Warez websites. but they usually give a warning which you could ignore and still visit the site.

The main culprit is Google. They caved for the Chinese government, by removing/blacklisting websites to Tienanmen square, and other Chinese blackeyes so its hidden from the Chinese mainland population.
Information is power, 200 Billion Google dollars worth can buy you a lot.
ttuuxxx

[Botanic]

I'm sure klhrevolutionist points out something very real. Yet the real danger will come very soon, and it's Google's web browser, Chrome. Google can't just own your webmail, docts, pics, vids and agenda. Google wants to know about every single mouse clic you make.

[shroomy_bee]

I was very disappointed at Firefox when I read this, back when it was posted.

Reason I'm replying here is just because today I find out that Slysoft that makes the DVD-ripper AnyDVD is hiding files even after Uninstalls, which is basically trojan-behaviour (installing hidden files that are called upon later, and lord knows what else they are doing - spying on everyone that copies DVDs perhaps).

So anyway - what is it about censorware and in Slysofts case, copyright infringers who then try to claim they own copyrights, and using the logo of a fox? In real life, foxes just run around eating scraps and sometimes hunting like most other predatory animals; I see them round here. Why are those sad people that make software using foxes in their logos.

[106498]

For me opera is still the browser of choice. Looks very nice out of the box. Highly customisable. Has some features I can't do without, like mail, fit to width button, and the best mouse gestures, And lately; i can synchronise all my bookmarks using opera link. This is ideal for when testing puppies because there is now no need to backup my bookmarks and speed dial. Just login and bingo! All this without any resource hogging extensions. Small and beautiful, just like puppy.