Mozilla???

[VooDoo]

Any good news about Mozilla port for AmigaOS?

[mikeymike]

Moved to 'software issues & discussion'.

Mozilla for AmigaOS and compatibles development is advancing like an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping.

[lempkee]

mozilla...sure might happen...but its more likely that ibrowse will have the features before we see mozilla port...

and it seems its possible even..

[lorddef]

yawn

[mikeymike]

yawn

What an incredibly insightful contribution to this thread.

[dslcc]

What I'd like to see is a port of the source for Mozilla Firebird.
Very streamlined and good. Blows IE away in regards to speed.

[mikeymike]

I recently changed from Mozilla to Firebird (browser) and Thunderbird (mailnews).

I used to not like Firebird, but now I've managed to find out enough about it to customise it to be as close as possible to Mozilla the browser, and avoiding the IE-a-likeness about it.  Thunderbird is good enough to replace Mozilla Mail, IMO, and my requirements for a mail client are many :-)  I thought I'd explain that as people might be pointing fingers at me, as I have been a strong Mozilla (and not Firebird) supporter in the past.

Anyway, back on point.  Firebird/Thunderbird /might be a more practical option for AmigaOS, if there is a GUI toolkit capable of providing everything they need.  I'm not sure there is.  Admittedly some of the features, like the way toolbar customisation is implemented, could be reworked, so that it isn't a 100% accurate port, but hmm.

[danamania]

Definitely! the smaller & lighter browsers feel to me more Amiga than a hulk like Mozilla (for all its good points)

KHTML as the background with a GUI that matched Amigas could work well too. I'm impressed with it in Safari (meaning it works for what I want it for

dana
--
http://www.danamania.com/

[lorddef]

What an incredibly insightful contribution to this thread.

Well I'm fed up of threads saying that we need mozilla for amiga, and just getting to the conclusion that it's not going to happen untill the amiga becomes more popular and we get a big enough joint effort on it. That said, in all fairness I had no right to yawn at this thread.

At this point in time I think it would be much more usefull to focus on improvements to the browsers we already have. I myself havent checked out aweb recently as ibrowse is fine, but surely people that want certian features should look into how we can implement them into aweb?

[Cyberus]

I use firebird here, wouldn't go back to IE!!!

Wondering if M$ will poach tabs from Mozilla in next big release of IE?

[mikeymike]

At this point in time I think it would be much more usefull to focus on improvements to the browsers we already have.

I think this is important, but IMO what is more important is to encourage variety.

Eg.  If Mozilla for Amiga was released and worked acceptably, it might encourage others to push development on a bit.  IBrowse hasn't had any significant functionality additions for as long as I've used it, which is a good few years.

Innovation slows to a standstill without competition.  IE is a perfectly good example of this.  While it had competition, it became better and better.  Once the competition had been wiped out, MS didn't want to know anymore.  Look at IE now.  MS have officially said that they are not going to release any new versions of it.  It will only be developed per operating system shipment.  IE hasn't had anything usefully new in years.

I realise that IBrowse doesn't have a large team of developers with it.  TBH I don't know if IB3 is in active development or its situation at all, I've just heard some promises of new functionality and nothing further.  I heard for a while that IB3 was going to be shipped with OS4, but since then I think I've heard only v2.3 will be shipped with OS4.

Let's not turn this into a browser "this versus that", or "this feature is really needed" argument, because it's been done many times before.

Variety is the spice of life.

[mikeymike]

Wondering if M$ will poach tabs from Mozilla in next big release of IE?

There will be no new version of IE for legacy operating systems, ever, so MS have officially said.  This includes WinXP.  IE is only going to be developed for a new OS release, and no upgrades, just security patches.

I've seen a couple of screenshots of Longhorn which has IE and tabs.

I think MS may have to revise their strategy, because "upgrade fever" is one thing that has kept users using their web browser.  However upgrading OS is an upgrade too far for most users.  Plus it typically costs money.

From the browser stats of a number of websites I monitor, IE's share is decreasing by about half a percent per month.  All of the competitors seem to be benefiting.

[lorddef]

I guess so, although I don't expect anything of IBrowse, I don't even have the latest version my point was that it does what I need it to do, nothing else. My point was that seeing as aweb is open source and it is at the stage where we can implement new features it would take conciderably less time to get an up to date browser than starting from scratch with mozilla.

Although I do agree that variety is a good thing, and we should have people working on mozilla.

[mikeymike]

I guess so, although I don't expect anything of IBrowse, I don't even have the latest version my point was that it does what I need it to do, nothing else.

IMO IBrowse is seriously lacking.  I'm not sure its featureset is even on par with Netscape 3, and that's saying something :-)

I don't like AWeb's "buttons in the right hand corner", and functionality wise it seems to be the same as IBrowse.

The other good thing about Mozilla development is that for potential users migrating to Amiga/compatibles, they have a direct compatible stepping stone.  They might then choose to change to a more Amiga native web browser, but that choice is open to them.

[GadgetMaster]

mikeymike wrote:
Let's not turn this into a browser "this versus that", or "this feature is really needed" argument, because it's been done many times before.

Variety is the spice of life.

It certainly has been done many times before.

That said, I just want to see what people think of the situation if you look at it from a different perspective.

Think from the angle of a prospective newcomer to the Amiga scene. Mozilla would be the only browser that this user would be able to instantly familiarise with. It would be the only mainstream-ish browser that would be running on the Amiga. All the others have roots only in this community and might be a little daunting to a newcomer.

Say I just decided that I was going to be an active Amiga user from today. I would want the transition from PC to Amiga to be as smooth as possible.

I am familiar with Mozilla so I can instantly start browsing with ease. If the bloated Open office was available it would again make the 'Switch' more comfortable. This software may not be efficient or optimally coded, but it has the advantage of a large user base.

Anything that can make the Amiga community "seem" a bit more mainstream and up to date will increase the chances of attracting new users.

One problem we have is that we do not have a concerted effort to try and address the problem of the shortage of applications. Developers should not be overlapping their skills.

If ten developers are making browsers that might solve the problem of browser shortages but where will all the office apps, financial software, children’s software, simulation software and educational titles, to name a few, come from?

A reference list should be compiled which contains every category needed and it should list what is currently available in that category and what is lacking. It would also list how many programmers are involved in projects for that field.

Developers could then select a category that has too few programmers or one that has none at all and could start a solo or joint effort to address the problem of shortages in that particular area.

Hmm this post is getting way too long and off topic..sorry. ;-)

*/EDIT... MikeyMike managed to post the exact same sentiments about migrating users while I was still typing away.... :-D