Author Topic: Firebird (Read 397 times)

flakbait · « **on:** August 26, 2003, 07:38:30 AM »

No, not the car; the browser. Being a die-hard Netscape nut, I figured I'd head over to the Mozilla themes site and swipe another one for my collection. Instead, I ended up checking out this new doohickey they call Firebird. It's basically a stripped and gutted version of Mozilla/Netscape designed to be small and run fast. The UI takes a little getting used to, and the options are few and far between, but it is VERY functional.

After having it for a day or two, I noticed that it loaded and ran faster than NS or IE. No junk, no garbage code, and no bloatware! Apparently they managed to speed up load time by cutting down on the code bloat. Which is very evident when you see the download size of 6.8 megs. There's no IM, no mail, no built-in media players, no HTML editor, and no waste. You've got tabbed browsing, hit the / key and it'll search the current page as you type, built-in search bar (search current page, dmoz, or google) and full pop-up control. Some of the plug-ins are pretty handy too; I snatched one earlier that'll check all your bookmarks to see if they're still valid. All told, it works great for a 0.6 release!

http://www.mozilla.org has the latest copy. Since I tried this little screwball and had some luck with it, I thought some others might like to give it a shot.

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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High

Trell · « **Reply #1 on:** August 26, 2003, 12:40:56 PM »

I heard about this awhile back but never got around to trying it out.

Will defently have to try it.

Thanks for the info.

Staga · « **Reply #2 on:** August 26, 2003, 06:34:43 PM »

Been using Mozilla Firebird for uh... month or two, and it sure beats the crap out of IE.
It loads websites much faster than IE and is easier to manage.

Oh and it looks like the compatibility is pretty good too; haven't got any problems with nay websites I've been visiting lately.

bloom25 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 27, 2003, 02:38:52 PM »

Have you guys tried Opera? http://www.opera.com

I haven't tried this new Mozilla variant yet, but I do run Mozilla under Linux.

flakbait · « **Reply #4 on:** August 28, 2003, 12:48:57 AM »

Uhmm, Bloom? Why would anyone want a payware or ad-supported browser when browsers like Mozilla are free?

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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High

Trell · « **Reply #5 on:** August 28, 2003, 09:50:44 AM »

I used to opera. before they added the email part it used to be a great small and fast browser.
I still use it now but it has really gotten worse.

I am playing with firebird right now and so far it works great

bloom25 · « **Reply #6 on:** August 28, 2003, 10:59:29 PM »

I decided to give it a try. It's certainly an improvement over Mozilla 1.3 (the last version I used under Windows).

There's a couple things that I've noticed:

Like Mozilla, Firebird uses none of the standard Windows GUI libraries, which means its interface is a little different than a standard Windows App. (Though it's much improved over Mozilla.) I'm sure this is done for portability between OSes. Unlike Mozilla, Firebird's GUI is fast as well.

Very clean install (in fact no install, just unzip and run the .exe). It looks like Firebird only uses its own libraries. (This makes it fast, but does add to the download size, though they have managed to keep it very small.)

Compared to IE, Firebird is definately faster. It seems to render most pages pretty well.

Compared to Opera, it's almost as fast. Opera is the only browser I know of which will display individual elements in an HTML table before it has downloaded the whole table. For modem users this means Opera will start displaying content on some webpages before Firebird or IE. Firebird finally has an integrated Google search, Cookie Management, tabbed browsing, and integrated search functions. Those were some of the reasons why I use Opera. I think Firebird renders pages better than Opera overall. (Though it does seem to have a bug with the cursor on this text entry box...) Opera still has some features that Firebird lacks: The ability to identify as IE (which allows Opera to work with some pages which supposedly require IE), referrer logging control, the ability to open only requested pop up windows, mouse gestures, the ability to disable animated images (flashing banner ads), a quick preferences (F12) window, and a text only browser mode to name a few.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed. It definately has potential and should be very good by version 1.0.

flakbait · « **Reply #7 on:** August 29, 2003, 02:08:18 AM »

Actually Bloom, you can set which sites can activate pop-up windows, and block the rest. If you set it to "block all" only pop-ups you click on will appear. Though I've had a problem with a few sites that use an odd method of user-activated pop-ups; those never seem to work (and they generate a javascript error in the process).

Yup, it does have it's bugs. Don't right-click on anything in the Bookmarks; it prevents you from accessing the fly-out if you do. To get at those again, you have to reboot the browser. I've had the "vanishing cursor" bit happen on a couple of places, too. Both are known bugs on the buglist and should get fixed. NS 7 had a text box bug that would highlight a chunk of text every time you unfocused, then refocused on a text box. Thankfully, Firebird doesn't have that one. Don't install Flash either: Firebird's all.js file uses Unix lines instead of DOS, and for some reason the flash installer deletes 'em. Macromedia and Mozilla know about it, and one of the developers said he'd try to get whoever codes it to change those lines from Unix to DOS.

I've been using it for almost a week now without any major mishap. Just the odd bug now and then, usually it's already been reported too! And the unzip-then-run bit I love, even if it does make installing stuff like Java or Shockwave a PITA.

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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High

llama · « **Reply #8 on:** September 01, 2003, 02:09:59 PM »

I really love Opera in terms of features, and I really love Mozilla in terms of interface, but unfortunately, there are at least three sites I deal with on a regular basis that don't look right/work with these browsers, forcing me to revert to IE.

I recently found MYIE2 (http://www.myie2.com/html_en/home.htm), which currently has me very happy. It is basically a multi-tabbed browser with most of Opera's features (and some nice extra plug-ins to boot) with a feel like Mozilla, but it uses the MS IE rendering engine. It has pop-up blockers, mouse gestures, form-filler-outers, and all the power tools you'd want.

Oh, and it is free.

I still have Opera (I PAID for verson 6 AND 7) and Mozilla, and my Mac still has Safari, but I gotta tell you, MYIE is my primary browser these days.

-Llama
(who is a professional software reviewer for two magazines in real life..)