Talk:Mozilla Firefox/Archive 1

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Contents

RSS / Atom

In the article it mentions that RSS / Atom is supported by Firefox with the 1.0PR release, but I understood that this support was added to the *email client* Thunderbird version 0.8. Can someone confirm this?

I can personally confirm that both Thunderbird 0.9 and FireFox 1.0PR have RSS support, but that the mechanism and interface is completely different between the two.
FireFox 1.0PR has RSS support in the form of "Live Bookmarks". You can bookmark an RSS URL and it behaves like a bookmark sub folder, showing a recently-polled version of the link titles from the RSS feed whenever its opened. For some sites, FireFox is able to locate an RSS URL on its own, and it displays an "RSS" button in the status bar that can be used to add a Live Bookmark. (The full-featured Sage extension still works, and provides more powerful features, but isn't as seamless as the new built-in support.)
Thunderbird 0.8 has RSS support as well in the form of an "RSS" account type, in which can be created RSS folders. These folders act just like read-only mail folders, with the article title as the subject, and configurable as either the article summary or the actual article web page as the message contents. Saucepan 03:31, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Not sure about thunderbird, but it seems to me that the Firefox "Live bookmarks" (RSS feeds) have to be manually refreshed. Attaching the thing to Slashdot or Special:Recentchanges doesn't change things nearly fast enough for my taste. Maybe I'm missing something in about:config. --Ardonik.talk()* 03:42, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
I think its also due to the feed itself. I had issues with Slashdot that even after updating it was not showing the top story that could be seen at the site itself. Probably find that the sites are only updating the RSS after a set amount of time not after a change--enceladus 10:54, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think Slashdot will IP ban you for a day or so if you request the RSS feed too often. Rhobite 21:51, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
I would like to see a link from the Firefox page to Live bookmarks, but I'm not going to do it on a day when it is the featured article.

off-topic: non-platform native UI

This probably is the least useful place to discuss this, but I feel that the incorporation of non-platform native UI is what will forever doom Mozilla/Firebird to geekdom, rather than mainstream acceptance. Mac users (for example) simply don't want Windowsy UI on their systems! They want what the OS provides. Anything that looks wrong will be forever branded a second-class citizen, no matter how great the functionality. Call it shallow, but there it is. Why the XUL stuff can't simply call up native widgets on each platform I don't know. GRAHAMUK 11:37, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Three things:
  1. Yes this is probably the least useful place to discuss this - discussion on Wikipedia which won't lead to an improvement in content is discouraged.
  2. That aside, the first mistake I'd like to point out is that Mozilla doesn't have a "Windowsy UI". XUL is, by its very nature, highly skinnable, and many of the skins out there bear little resemblance to any [unmodified/skinned] OS I've seen.
  3. Furthermore, the idea of calling up native widgets on each platform is exactly the purpose of projects like Camino, K-Meleon and Galeon. But obviously, once you start doing that (to a worthwhile extent), the program's not cross-platform anymore (in quite the same way - you can't just add support for a new platform with a few bindings).
- IMSoP 12:44, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Reference removed, but the citation remains

In the article, there is a reference to Keating (2004), but someone removed the reference itself! It's beyond me why anyone would do that; someone should bring it back.

—Vespristiano 04:12, 2004 Feb 11 (UTC)

Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is that it's easy to find out who did it. The bad news is that apparently you'll have to look in a mirror.  :) Go to the page history and look at your two changes on the 8th. Scott McNay 06:39, 2004 Feb 12 (UTC)

Screenshot

I honestly can't believe someone went for the trouble of changing the screenshot from one of Firefox running under Windows to one of Firefox running under Gnome. I mean, seriously. -- Timwi 01:41, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The other thing being, that we must be gradually filling up the wikipedia server with unused images, all under seperate names, which seems rather a waste (and yes, I'm guilty of this too, see above). I must say, I don't like the current one, though, since neither Firefox nor Wikipedia are shown in their default state. Perhaps we could come up with a set of criteria that we would all agree on, and upload a carefully contrived shot once and for all. How about:
  • Firefox in its default configuration (i.e. no toolbar customisation, default theme, default set of toolbars visible)
  • Wikipedia in its default configuration (i.e. skin, link colours)
  • Seemingly, we need a decision on what OS - I see nothing against Windows, but GNOME or KDE if people insist on Free-ness.
  • taken at a screen resolution of 800x600, and then scaled down (?)
Listing this all out seems a bit over the top, I know, but otherwise it's just going to change every other day when somebody disagrees with the current picture. Hmm, maybe we need a Wikipedia:Using software screenshots policy page? - IMSoP 02:11, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
In this case, the OS thing is basically irrelevant; just use your favorite picture editor to crop off the window border. If you redid the current pic with default toolbars, and cropped the window border, I suspect that only a masochist would be able to tell the difference between it and the previous picture sans border, and even then, considering that FireFox is supposed to be platform independent, you'd probably have to report it as a bug.
My opinion is that the previous picture was just fine; it met all of the requirements; just crop the OS's window border off in order to keep the OS bigots quiet (and if you don't like being called an OS bigot, then don't replace one biased pisture with a MORE-biased picture).
This name calling is completely unnecessary, Scott. Take it easy. I broadly agree with you, though. Mr. Jones 15:39, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
As for newer versions of Firefox, I'd say don't change the pic unless there's a noticeable difference... and I don't mean merely a different default skin. Just document what skin is used, and note that it's basically the same for version 0.8, 0.9, etc. Scott McNay 05:47, 2004 Feb 15 (UTC)

Ok, I took the previous pic and cropped the title bar off, so that you really can't tell what OS it is. It's probably about as close to generic as it's going to get. And if it isn't, well, at least it was originally rendered on the OS used by the large majority of the population and the rest of the population almost certaintly is halfway familiar with, so it still satisfies NPOV reasonably well. Scott McNay 06:43, 2004 Feb 15 (UTC)

Although this discussion has gone quiet, I've gone ahead and created Wikipedia:Software screenshots to centralise discussion on this, as well as the currently hot-topic of copyright issues. Please read and comment there. - IMSoP 15:41, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I have uploaded a new shot to conform to the suggested serving outlined in Wikipedia:Software_screenshots.
It is located at Image:Mozilla Firefox 1.0 front page screenshot.png, like the previous one. Any objections?
Boffy b 22:53, 2004 Nov 30 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to be showing the Wikipedia main page... though maybe it's just my cache. Andre (talk) 23:02, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
I had to refresh for it to show, try clearing your cache if all else fails. Boffy b 14:36, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

IE, cross-platform, etc

David Gerard, the change that you made implies, to those of us who have seen the prior text, that IE does support XML, which I don't think is correct. Since it is the most widely-used browser, I think it's appropriate to specifically mention it. Scott McNay 18:07, 2004 Feb 15 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow you there, Scott: if you're talking about this change, it is saying nothing about XML, only that Firefox is unusual in being cross-platform. I can see reasons for and against citing IE as an example, but the current text certainly doesn't imply that IE is cross-platform. - IMSoP 18:20, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
After looking again, I agree; the text specifically mentions Mozilla-based platforms, so in that context, it would not be proper to mention IE.
I was also looking at the mention of XUL (I meant that instead of XML), and apparently didn't realize that it was modifying cross-platform.
Scott McNay 20:49, 2004 Feb 15 (UTC)
I wasn't referring to previous versions from the history; just tuning the paragraph as it stood. Though possibly it could do with further tuning. IE gets what cross-platform nature it has from the Unix versions porting chunks of Windows infrastructure with them. (IE for Mac is a completely different browser of the same name.) Opera uses Qt on Linux/BSD, not sure if it uses Qt on Windows. Possibly everything past the first sentence of the paragraph as it stands should be removed - David Gerard 23:28, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

Screenshots, again

I reverted from the version by Cgs to my last version because his screenshot does not have the default settings, and there was no need to change the image I posted. The current image is OS independent and Wikipedia:Software screenshots says thats ok. Perl 17:06, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, as the Wikipedia:Software screenshots page clearly states, it is not an existing consensus - I set it up more as a request for comments than anything else. I suggest that people don't waste time, bandwidth, and disk-space creating more and more screenshots until some conclusions have been reached. - IMSoP 17:12, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought those were the conclusions reached from discussion. CGS 02:02, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC).

I have a better idea: let's stop beating the dead horses. The picture may not be perfect, but I think that only someone looking for something to nitpick about will find a flaw. Let's drop the subject and find something productive to do.

I'd say that unless a picture is WRONG somehow, it should be left alone. Scott McNay 08:17, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)

Well in general, I agree, but over the last few months about half a dozen different people have decided that this picture was indeed "wrong" in some way - so I figured it would be a good idea to define what "right" was. Hopefully then we can all spend our time on something more productive. - IMSoP 11:18, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Firesomething

The Firesomething extension isn't just some personal extension, so I don't see why it was removed. I know that not every extension needs to be listed, but this one is getting some attention recently [1]. -- LGagnon

You'll also note that I tried to edit the mention in such a way that its relationship to the official product, and the official changes of name, was clearer - I only didn't go further, because I didn't want to use up a disproportionate amount of the article explaining who'd written it and why. - IMSoP 23:29, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Opener Change

I removed the "mozilla/browser" reference from the opener as it wasn't a public name for the browser. Internal development names in an opener don't seem encyclopedic. The public knew it as Phoenix, followed by Firebird, then Firefox. -- Stevietheman 16:43, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

External links

The number of external links in this article is gratuitous. Compare to Internet Explorer. I'd like to go and remove wholesale all links which are non-notable, perhaps using Alexa traffic ranking or some other agreed-upon standard as an objective criterion. But I feel that the linkspam must go. --Ardonik 00:20, 2004 Aug 4 (UTC)

Ditto. Why not be bold? Johnleemk | Talk 09:36, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think this is because there is most of these links are very useful yet hard to find, as no popular community site seems to list them. The links here are (or should be) the pick of the best. ··gracefool |☺ 13:14, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
So what? I don't see lists of ActiveX controls or links to developer weblogs in the Internet Explorer article. Just because it's a nice piece of open-source software doesn't make it any more worthy of this extra fawning and attention. I mean, come on. A link to Firesomething? To developers' weblogs? (Open source software can have hundreds or thousands of developers!) To lists of extensions? To the minutes of the Mozilla.org staff meetings? To a history of the Firefox logo? It's too much. I'm transferring some links to Ben Goodger, keeping the most official and notable ones, and discarding the others. --Ardonik 16:59, 2004 Aug 4 (UTC)
Agreed. Wikipedia is not dMoz. External links, to bother putting in, had better be either canonical, actual article references or very good indeed - David Gerard 19:52, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I just got a message asking why I had the Spreadfirefox.com link. I didn't realise that it had already been added twice and reverted twice. --enceladus 03:14, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It's all good. It's not that we have anything against the site; it's just that we have to keep non-notable links in check at some point or we'll end up with a mess like this. Even if all these websites mean well, there are just too many people who try to use the Wikipedia to boost their pagerank with Google. We've had similar problems in the past (with real spammers rather than eager enthusiasts) in list of search engines. --Ardonik.talk() 03:59, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Spreadfirefox.com

I've never seen so many attempts to add a non-notable link to a page before. Completely different people each time. Why? And then I saw this. Apparently, some TechTV people are encouraging people to visit spreadfirefox.com and that somehow translates into deserving a link from the Wikipedia Firefox article. Can't say I'm impressed; linkspam is linkspam. But it does give me some indication of the number of people contributing to this encyclopedia who also watch (and obey) TechTV.  :-) --Ardonik.talk() 06:06, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

I take it you haven't downloaded PR1. If you have then go to Help --> Promote Firefox and guess where it takes you. And I don't watch TechTV--enceladus 07:03, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I still consider myself new here and so offer no opinion about the spreadfirefox.com link's suitability. But if I did think it was non-notable, a stream of different, apparently-well-meaning contributors adding the link back in would cause me to wonder, even a little, if I mightn't be wrong. Saucepan 07:28, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I used to be and still am (but not as much as before) quite involved with the Firefox community, and I can assure you that spreadfirefox.com isn't non-notable. It's the centre for marketing Firefox. Perhaps one could argue it does not merit a link, but regardless, it's not non-notable. Johnleemk | Talk 09:39, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It was just launched 3 days ago (thus the low google pagerank), and is the new center of the marketing efforts for Mozilla Firefox. I would argue that it's the second most important external link there, just behind the product homepage. The problem occurs when people replace the generic link with their own referrer. And I don't have cable, but I do keep up with mozilla development (watching nightlies) and this is huge. The second most marketed open-source product ever (behind linux). --Gregb 16:25, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It is notable. I don't watch techtv (because techtv isn't in my country), but it is a promotion site for firefox and should be definatley in the article. Thanks to this campaign there are alredy over 500 000 downloads. Firefox 1.0PR is just to good not too download. I too am part of the spread firefox movement (see my user page). This should be in the article, but prohibiting individual referal tags. Norm 16:38, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Okay. I won't resist its inclusion into the article anymore. I had no idea the site was considered that important. Sorry, everyone! --Ardonik.talk() 17:10, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
How about adding when (if it is known) the NYT ad will (was) be published? Nrbelex
It is currently unknown when the ad will be published but it is expected to be within the next week or two as they decided to save money on it by being more flexible with possible dates for it to go out on. --Chrisblore 18:30, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Updated Release History Table

Hello all, I have updated the release history table. I have added some rowspans and also colour-coded the versions for a clearer indication of where the project is at.

(Appreciate that colour-coding may not be a good idea, opinions please...)

In doing so I came across a Firefox table layout rendering bug. This had already been reported in bugzilla so it is kind of a known issue.

To reproduce do the following (using Firefox): - Load the Mozilla Firefox page. - Note the vertical borders/lines within the table. - Hit F5 / reload the page. - Note the vertical borders/lines have now disappeared.

If you would like this issue fixed please vote for bug 244135 on bugzilla.

Regards,

RichCorb 23:47, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Media awareness/social history

Shouldn't there be some mention of how the product has entered the consciousness of the general media, and a bit of its adoption history? Or are these mentioned elsewhere? A-giau 04:15, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I use firefox every day, but to be quite frank, I don't think this browser has a large enough slice of mindshare or marketshare to justify having either section. We must actively resist using the Wikipedia as a tool for the promotion of any project, and in this case, reporting on something so insignificant seems tantamount to promotion. --Ardonik.talk() 04:22, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
That was almost certainly true a year ago, but something unexpected seems to have happened in the past few months (well, since CERT recommended against running IE, anyway), and suddenly Mozilla is on the radar of the mainstream press. I've been pleasantly surprised by the amount of coverage Mozilla/FireFox has been getting. In fact, the tech section of Google News has been listing FireFox as a top story continuously for several days now, pretty much since the 1.0PR release. Wikipedia isn't an ad agency and should avoid cheerleading, but mention of the increased media attention may well be factual and warranted. Saucepan 05:01, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
What would be interesting is mentions in the non-tech press - see talk:Linux where I used this as evidence that Linux did in fact deserve to be called "the most famous example of open source development." I've been following Mozilla closely for many years, and I'm amazed at the sudden upswing. As far as I can see, it started with Download.ject - that really frightened people - David Gerard 09:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Actually, there has been a lot of press over the last few days, look at Google news. Plus Mozilla Firefox is promoting Wikipeda! Look in the "Firefox crew picks" bookmark folder :). Mindshare is increasing very fast, in fact the download count for 1.0PR has hit 750,000 already. As long as we are NPOV about it why not? [[User:Norm|Norm]] 12:03, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
A social (or cultural?) history might talk about the kinds of people who have (or have not) used the browser, how they used it (as only browser? for "risky" sites only?), how those trends have (or have not) changed, how the user-base is perceived by one or another group, whether that perception is changing and if so, how, etc. A-giau 23:15, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Whangamata

I'm not that flash on North Island geography (having lived in Invercargill all my life) but I would have said that Whangamta was in the Coromandel and not the Bay of Plenty. Anyway with more knowledge willing to comment--enceladus 10:37, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Note: User's problem with Wikipedia on Firefox moved to User talk:Gbog#Firefox problem - IMSoP 17:50, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Whangamata is definitely in the Coromandel [[2]] Onco p53 11:49, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Deer Park

Is Deer Park is not Deer Park, Victoria, but just a symbolic name. I was riding LIRR a few weeks ago and saw the name go by and I thought it sounded nice.

-Ben

Since your IP resolves to h162.mozilla.mv.meer.net, and meer.net states it is located in Mountain View, I guess you're really Ben. Ever think of signing up for Wikipedia? It's free... --Me at work 17:13, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

External links

Wikipedia is not dmoz! That's why I removed some links. --Albert Feller 17:47, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't think there was an overage of links... --Me at work 22:01, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"one shouldn't link externally to anything that we would like internally" - I'm sure you appreciate the irony of providing an external link. The point is: link only if the page provides useful information that is not available here. Onco p53 23:30, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Advocacy"

Hey Tannin - rather than having a revert war with you, can you please tell me specifically what's Firefox "advocacy"? Andre (talk) 23:16, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

I am not Tannin, but I can guess what he meant by "advocacy" - sounds like he thought the changes were to "pro Firefox".... in other words, not NPOV. Well, I'll agree it's hard not to like Firefox, but personally I don't agree... -[Unknown] 07:40, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

I agree, Andrevan. The entry as a whole has all the right ingredients, but it's let down by a whole stack of fan-boy advocacy stuff. It reads like a press release put out by a PR firm. For example:

  • in the very first paragraph, it says: Even before the 1.0 release ... Firefox garnered a great deal of positive acclaim.
  • Or, Firefox has attracted attention as an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer, since (various things wrong with IE). This, strictly speaking, is true, but it is highly misleading. So far as better, more secure browsers that improve on IE go, Firefox is only a johhny-come-lately: it's treading a path already pioneeered by Opera, Mozilla, and others. The article reads as though Firefox pioneered all this better-than-explorer stuff.

There are others, but these are the worst. Tannin 07:55, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Tannin; I've always felt uncomfortable with this article, but I couldn't put my finger on it till Tannin expressed it so eloquently. Johnleemk | Talk 09:20, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've rewritten the page; how is it now? Johnleemk | Talk 09:31, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good edit, Johnleemk. Much better. Tannin 09:37, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Are you going to support the article's candidacy for featured status now? ;-) Johnleemk | Talk 09:40, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No. But I'll either withdraw or modify my opposition. (I thought of doing that before, but quailed at the thought of finding the right place in that huge page. It's way too long.) To my way of thinking, a featured article should be really outstanding. Just "pretty good" ... well ... call me an optimist or a perfectionist, but I believe that the typical article should reach the standard of this one, and I don't like awarding "featured article" to entries that aren't damn near perfect. That's what the featured articles page is for - the extraordinarily good. Tannin

I'm not sure why this edit is better, but I think it's just as good. Andre (talk) 15:12, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Free Software v.s. Open Source

I changed "open source" in section 0 to "free software" because that is the term the mozilla foundation uses (see: http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/faq.html ). Chmod007 pointed out that the defenition of free software "is contested" which is simply not true in this case, the mozilla foundation specifically uses free software a defined by the FSF (see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html ) -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 13:51, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

To a layperson, "free software" means software that one does not have to pay for. I'm quite aware what definition the Mozilla Foundation and FSF use, but "free" is an ambiguous word (even in the free software movement, people are having trouble telling "free as in beer" from "free as in speech"). Saying that it is the most used "open source" application is just as correct as saying that it is the most used "free software" application. — David Remahl 14:09, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
One thing I've always thought makes it a tiny bit clear is to say "Free Software", rather than "free software" - at the very least, it implies that this is a specific term with a specific meaning, not just an adjective and a noun. I don't know how obvious it is to anyone else's mind, but to mine it seems like the distinction between "Conservative" and "conservative", or "Republican" and "republican". - IMSoP 14:24, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Whatever you may think of the ambiguity of free software might be right, regardless that is the word the mozilla foundation use to describe their projects and products we should use that in the article. The two terms to not mean the same thing. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 14:32, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)
I'm, as I said, quite aware that they do not mean the same thing. In fact, "open source" is the more _inclusive_ term, and the statement still holds true. There is therefore no need to restrict the statement to just free software. Besides, favouring the foundation's definition of the term simply because it's the foundation's is POV. Using a word in a way that is foreign to any non-initiated reader is not appropriate for an article intended for a general audience. — David Remahl 14:47, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yes the statement is true, but just because a term applies to a given thing does not mean we should use it, especially when there is a more precise term avalible.
Besides, since when did "open source" become easy to understand to a non-initiated reader? There is alot more to it than just access to the sourcecode (see: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php ). -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 16:13, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)
To differentiate, 'Free Software' (The FSF's definition) involves freedom in the sense of liberty: you can do what you want to the source code, but if you distribute binaries you must provide the source code. This is different from 'Open-Source' software, which merely means that the source is open and people are given permission to do what they want with the source. In reality it's a bit more complicated than that, but an example is the old Windows TCP/IP stack, which was taken directly from one flavour of BSD (I have no idea which one actually). All that is required under that license is credit, and MS gave Berkeley that. MS is not required to publish the source code to windows, or to that module of windows. Were MS to rip off (don't accuse me of bias: that's what it is...) something licensed under the GPL in that manner, they would be legally required to publish the source code to their changes, or they would not have permission to use the code. - rernst 13:49, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Your statement is simply false, the BSD licence is a free software and open source license, you've confused free software with one implementation of it which is the GNU General Public License. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 20:48, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)
I fail to see what is the problem with the word "Free." Firefox is both "free as in free beer" (since you can download and use it without paying anything) and "free as in free speech" (since the source code is available in the Internet under both the Mozilla Public License, the GPL and the LGPL -- see [3]). As I see it, it doesn't matter what your definition of "free" is, Firefox fits it. MCBastos 14:45, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Popup blocker

Firefox no longer "blocks all JavaScript-based links from opening a new window while a page is loading." This was fixed before the Preview Release.

I also changed it to reflect that you can start a safe list of sites allowed to use popups. GregNorc 20:01, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry

I think I screwed up the page when editing earlier. Not sure what happened. Sorry. Andre (talk) 19:56, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, it appears to have been User:Will2k who deleted the features section, here. Andre (talk) 20:07, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Delicious Delicacies

As it is not particularly relevant to Firefox, and especially since this article is over the desired size limit already, I think the section about cookies/"delicious delicacies" should be omitted. Perhaps a parenthetical reference or a sentence or two is merited (i.e., talking about "That OSS is usually oriented towards technically-inclined users, and that change represents a change in focus towards a less-knowledgable end-user" (-User:Rernst)), but certainly not as much space as is given to tabbed browsing. -Grick 03:08, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I, personally, feel it deserves to be included. It was previously a separate article and consensus was to merge it, so I'm kind of annoyed by the whole concept of the size limit. Andre (talk) 00:46, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
I'd prefer it as a separate article. Oh well, then. How do you sign these things? -Grick 03:08, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I found it quite interesting and think it should be kept, furthermore the size limit should be totally ignored, just because NS4 or some other lame browser cannot handle pages over 32KB is no reason to split a page. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 20:51, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)
Agreed. Andre (talk) 20:54, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Firefox = Panda?

I really doubt that you will find any printed information in a reference book that firefox is another name for the red or little panda. The only prove I could find was a webpage from the zoo of Wellington with the obviously wrong information about a Chinese word hunho, which they claim is the Chinese word for the red panda. I checked several Chinese dictionaries; I'm very sure this information is wrong. The only possible meaning for hunho (hunhe) I could find is "mix" or "blend". They must have misunderstood a Chinese visitor in the Zoo. Wellington Zoo

As Wikipedia and more and more other websites carry this information, we can watch now the origin of a myth in the WWW, which at one day will be very difficult to correct. 2004-12-03

This guy is as confused as you are in terms of the link to the Chinese name. I wonder if he ever figured it out. Andre (talk) 02:03, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
Hm, interesting. I went and looked in the complete Oxford English Dictionary, and indeed got no joy. However, I can find plenty more references to the term which pre-date Mozilla's, including more support for the "Hon ho" = "Fire-fox" claim:
So, nothing very authoritative, I'll be the first to admit, but if it's a myth, it's a reasonably wide-spread one, and one that predates the Mozilla Foundation's use of the name, and has taken in various zoos around the world. I'm no expert in Chinese, but maybe there is a dialect in which that translation "works", and a region in which that name is used... - IMSoP 02:18, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Good findings. Andre (talk) 02:26, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
I guess, they all got it from the same wrong source. And it will be more and more, because Wikipedia is also spreading the incorrect information.
Of course I can live with Firefox = Litte Panda; I just don't like the incorrect information about a Chinese origin.
Anyway, the logo looks like a redfox, Firefox in Chinese (火狐) means redfox, the browser is as smart as a fox; what do we need the stupid bamboo eater for?
(2004-12-04 Heinz Lohmann in Danshui.)
I don't think that's correct; Chinese red is chì (赤), hóng (紅), zhū (朱), or dān (丹), and in this case probably hóng (which has nothing to do with fire). But since red foxes are native in China, red fox should probably be translated as just hú (狐). I expect hǔohú (火狐) would simply be interpreted as firefox. --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ]] 07:22, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, yes, I guess it could have spread from one wrong fact somewhere (although the diversity of links I found doesn't make that seem entirely likely, IMHO). Perhaps we should ask the mozilla folks where they got the name from, since we're only spreading the information because they did.
Which is an interesting point: if "nobody" calls the Red Panda a "firefox", why does the term exist at all?
I can't imagine they all just invented the word, so what did they think it meant? I've seen no other definition. In other words, Chinese or not, it's clearly a common name for something, and the red panda's the only candidate we've got.
As for the logo being a fox, that's explained in the article: "A firefox is actually a cute red panda, but it didn’t really conjure up the right imagery." (Jon Hicks) But the name was already chosen by then.
Oh, and BTW, I've posted to the Reference desk about this too, to see if I can intrigue some more eye-balls. :D - IMSoP 05:40, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
PS: Not to mention the movie, the eponymous fictional aeroplane, and the books it was based upon. - IMSoP 05:48, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There are 2 dictionaries (漢英大辭典 - 上海交通大學出版社 and 新漢德辭典 from 商務印書館) giving the same information, also 3 other Chinese-Chinese dictionaries, among them the 漢語大詞典, which comes in 12 volumes and is, to my knowledge, the most comprehensive one:
火狐 huohu = red fox.
So I'm very positive: It's definitely not Chinese. The zoos must have got it wrong. But beeing an expert in Chinese is normally not expected from a zoo director.
Anyway, to cite a Chinese proverb that really exists: 三人成虎 three men make a tiger; or in other words: If something is repeated often enough, it will be accepted as truth. - 2004-12-03 Heinz Lohmann in Danshui.

Regardless of the Chinese origin, Firefox definitely somehow has meant red panda for a while. Andre (talk) 15:37, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

I would like to correct you: Firefox will mean Little Panda in the future, regardless of the origin. The name is already too widespread. - 2004-12-04 05:13:21 (UTC) Heinz Lohmann in Danshui.

The comprhensive OED doesn't have these entries at all: firefox, fire fox, and fire-fox. So...it's probably a very obsolete word, considering how OED includes basically every single English word ever in use. --Menchi 00:19, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I was surprised to draw a blank in the OED too, but not even that can contain everything. I'm also not sure that "very obsolete" is the likely reason (there are plenty of obsolete terms catalogued in the OED), and would in fact suggest the opposite: to my knowledge, the full OED isn't updated very often (the version I have is the "second edition", published some 50 years after the first) so it may be that the term has entered English too recently.
Nonetheless, I repeat my assertion that the term must have existed in order to be used by multiple unrelated companies, websites, and novels over the last 20-odd years; therefore, unless you believe that all these entities coincidentally used the same meaningless neologism, it must mean something. I have seen no definition other than Red Panda, so draw the logical conclusion, in lieu of new evidence, that the term "firefox" has been used in English for some time as a name for the "red panda". If this was once based on a misreading of a Chinese name, it would be no rare happening - there are places in the British Isles which have been ignorantly renamed by subsequent invaders who didn't understand the existing names, and are therefore effectively called things like "hill-hill hill" (with each "hill" being in a different once-local language).
Thinking about it, it seems the oldest reference we have so far is to the fictional aeroplane, from the novel which Amazon lists as first published in 1977. Now, real NATO reporting names, such as "Foxhound" and "Foxbat" appear to use real (but often obscure) words, and it seems likely that the author would use something as true to this as possible. However, it may be that it was Thomas who first popularised this term in English, having himself misunderstood something, or seen the error in one particular reference. This would explain the recurrence of the term for other uses (who may themselves not have known its meaning), and (if, say, the claim was made in the text of the novel, or the dialogue of the film) could even be the source of the myth (if myth it is) as to it being a Chinese translation. Not a very water-tight deduction, I admit, but possibly the best explanation we have so far. - IMSoP 16:24, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
About a month ago I wrote an email to the Mozilla Project, because at that time I saw, they or the designer of the Firefox logo claimed, that firefox actually was a Chinese name for the red panda. At that time they also had the link to the Wellington Zoo (that's where I got it from), but now Mozilla doesn't show the link anymore. Therefore I think the designer [4] is responsible for spreading the wrong information: firefox = red panda from the Wellington Zoo to the bigger WWW like SARS. It's probably to late now for any flu shots. 2004-12-05 Heinz Lohmann in Danshui.

The Mandarin Dictionary published in Taiwan does have an entry on "fire-fox" (火狐 (huo-hu)). It is also known as "red fox" (赤狐 chi-hu) But it does not describe Lesser Panda. It is just a species of white-tailed red fox from Manchuria (Chinese Northeast). Note that both kinds of pandas are in the Chinese Southwest (Tibet). Total geographic opposite. --Menchi 02:14, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Just noticed that Heinz Lohmann found the same thing above. --Menchi 04:03, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Heinz Lohmann, you seem to be completely ignoring much of the information I have posted to this page. It is 100% clear, as evidenced by my links above, that the claim that firefox = red panda existed in more than one place long before there was a browser by this name. Yet you continue to suggest that one designer got the information from one zoo; not that it matters, exactly, it's just frustrating to go to the effort of researching something and then have someone draw the same conclusions as though there was no new information. As far as I can see, the mistake (if such it is) was made several years ago, and had already propogated reasonably widely before the name change prompted the designer(s) to look up the meaning of the term (presumably, there search would have turned up on top the links I had to really dig for, since they wouldn't yet have been buried by software references). - IMSoP 19:57, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm really sorry that I gave you the impression I didn't check the links you kindly gave in your posting. I'm kind of new to Wikipeidia discussions. I did check the links, but hadn't explicitely referred to them because I still think, that the designer actually got the information from the Wellington Zoo. The reason: the first time this firefox/panda matter came to my attention was on the Mozilla Firefox page several weeks ago. At that time they still gave the link to the Wellington Zoo as a reference from where the information is from. This link has been removed in the meantime.
It's still very interesting for me to know that the mistake had already propagated (maybe by the WWW) for some time. Thanks again for your effort. 2004-12-06 Heinz Lohmann in Danshui

I'm not a chinese expert but a native mandarin speaker(though I speak cantonese fluently and know taiwanese, Hokkian, Hakka), the "hunho" doesn't lead to firefox from any point of view, as stated above for "火狐"or"Firefox" should be "huŏhú", but anyway it doesn't refer to the red panda(Ailurus fulgens). Since the mozilla team use the term Firefox for their browser(which is a great one), it's fine, because it's just a product name. And for the cute little red panda as their mascot, it brings no conflict at all. And if there is a chinese name for the Firefox, I would love to call it "火狐" which is kinda cool name in chinese from the point of the meaning and the pronunciation of the phrase itself. But definitely "hunho" is nothing related to any of the foxes in chinese(mandarin, cantonese, taiwanese, hokkian or hakka),the zoo either got it wrong or misspelled it. By the way red panda(Ailurus fulgens) is nothing to do with the big black eye panda(Ailuropoda melanoleuca) though they both eat "stupid" bamboos. 2004-12-13 小蓋 in Keelung P/s: hello Heinz Lohmann, are you 羅海恩副教授 from 東吳大學?

Yes. BTW, who are you? 2004-12-13 HAL-Guandu
guten Tag! Nice to meet you professor, I came across some website long time ago and notice you. We've never met before, but it is really nice to "meet" you here. 2004-12-13 小蓋

Opera users criticism section -- Huh?

I quote from the article:

Opera users may be perturbed at the fact that Firefox does not have cross-session browsing — where the tabs that were open when the browser was closed remain when it is reopened by default.

"Where the tabs that were open when the browser was closed remain when it is reopened by default"??

It may just be me, but I can't make heads or tails out of the meaning of that phrase. It seems somewhat grammatically ambiguous. Again, could be nothing. Perhaps including slightly more detail on this criticism and from what points it stems from could help clarify the meaning? --66.120.156.159 03:14, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

    • It means that if I have two tabs open to two different websites in opera when I close it, when I open it again those same two websites will be in tabs upon startup. - rernst 12:39, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I had edited the Opera criticisms section to better reflect that not all features in Opera are indeed available through Firefox extensions. Someone edited it again and took out that exact clarification... I'm not about to start an edit war, so let's form a consensus about it here. Among the features I'm alluding to are the email and IRC clients, the ability to place the tabbar vertically, sidepanels, much of the bookmark management behavior, and some other things someone else may comment on. Are they ALL available through obscure extensions I've never seen, or were my comment correct? flip 11:57, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Well, update.mozilla.org hosts a tiny fraction of all the extensions out there. Have you seen Tabbrowser Extensions? IIRC they have support for s vertical tab bar. I'm kind of busy right now, but I guess you could try http://extensionsmirror.nl and http://mozdev.org for starters. Johnleemk | Talk 12:00, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think most if not all Opera features are available as extensions. However, of the ones you mention, e-mail is separate - Mozilla Thunderbird. Andre (talk) 01:36, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Firefox more multilingual than IE? Opera??

How many language packs does Firefox support? Are there languages only supported by Firefox? If it's much more than other browsers, I'd call that a feature. It'd mean some language users have to use Firefox and only Firefox to have an Ordinary Experience (rather than the Extraordinary Experience one gets by using an interface in a foreign language). A-giau 06:33, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Comparison of web browsers doesn't say (just checked). A-giau 06:34, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I count 26 localized builds, slightly more than that if you count previous versions, and about 30 official and 30 unofficial l10n teams. How this compares to other browsers, I don't know; perhaps similar information could be found for open source efforts, and something on microsoft.com advertising availability? - IMSoP 20:10, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The Economist had an nyurl.com/47dqc article (long URL) (registration required) that claimed 65 langpacks for Mozilla (Suite?) and another 34 in development. A-giau 22:48, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Just a note for anyone wondering, as I did, why everything below this paragraph seems to have become indented, it's apparently because the external link to the economist article above ends with "%0a" - which is an escaped form of a newline character. This appears to be confusing MediaWiki's parser somehow, but obviously if I remove it, the link won't be correct any more. - IMSoP 15:05, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
URL shortened with TinyURL. - minghong 15:59, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Please don't. Tinyurl is a Bad Idea, on so many levels. a) it makes it impossible to see what site you're going to -- a practice we want to *encourage* in tyros, not discourage. b) it means you can't see if you've already been there. c) it is disposable -- there's no guarantee how long tinyurl will last, and we may well outlast them. -- Baylink 16:51, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I added back the longer link so that at least we'll know when the bug in MediaWiki is fixed. -- Skyfaller 18:13, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC)
I've reported this issue as bug 1114 - IMSoP 13:39, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Naming: Why "Mozilla Firefox" and not just "Firefox"

Why is it that the page Mozilla Firefox is the main page and Firefox is a redirect? If you go over to the product page for Firefox, you'll see that it's called "Firefox 1.0" Not once on that page do I see "Mozilla Firefox." Additionally, when I download the App is it called "Firefox" and then when I go to the get info window, it says "Firefox 1.0" Additionally, isn't it in the naming conventions of wikipedia to take the most common name? Firefox is used much more frequently than Mozilla Firefox (the latter returns one fifth of the results on google).

And frankly, it's just a pain to type that out every time I want to link to it.

Taken from the Firefox brand name FAQ:
Is it Firefox or Mozilla Firefox?
The official name is Mozilla Firefox. We will often shorten that to Firefox.
I wouldn't suggest that Firefox is more common than Mozilla Firefox, either. The full name is in the title bar of the browser, and it's at this CNET page as well. I think the article's good as it is. Andre (talk) 03:33, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
The "offical" name of North Korea is the Democratic People's Repubic of Korea, but that doesn't mean that's what the article is titled. Just because a few people writing articles at CNET doesn't mean it is the most popular name (besides lots of articles call it just "Firefox" [5]): just do a google search. Firefox returns 20,300,000 results, while "Mozilla Firefox" just 4,200,000. --Ctachme 04:24, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, but Korea returns more results than "North Korea". Perhaps the title of that article should be further resolved? Obviously, that's tongue-in-cheek - Firefox does still mean Mozilla Firefox, not something different. However, look at Dreamweaver, Word, Flash, Outlook, Visual Studio, Windows, OpenOffice, GPL... -[Unknown] 06:30, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
The situation with Firefox is much the same as that of Windows. Obviously "Windows" gets more Google results than "Microsoft Windows," and in any computer or technology publication/website if you say "Windows" your readers know the Windows you mean. Similarly, saying just "Firefox" in a computers/technology publication or website obviously doesn't mean the animal or the movie. But for Wikipedia, I think it makes more sense to redirect or disambig this. Andre (talk) 17:49, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Re-organization

The current page exceeds the page size limit. Also, the content is a mess, e.g.:

  • External links scattered all over the page
  • Repeated materials like reference to old browser name, market adoption, etc.

I suggest to scan over the page and remove the repeated stuffs, so as to reduce the page size. And if possible, put some of the content into a new page.

--User:minghong 18:36, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Although, in general, I agree that this page is somewhat large, I would like to note that the "page size limit" is just a minor technical problem regarding editing the page in some browsers, and nothing to do with the optimum length of a piece of content (which, as far as I know, has never been "officially" agreed/defined). It doesn't affect reading the page, and if you have an afflicted browser, you can edit section by section (see Wikipedia:Section). - IMSoP 20:36, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Agreed. Andre (talk) 20:53, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)