Firebird. Discuss

[piersk]

Mozilla Firebird 0.6 has just come out. Opinions please.

[Bunkermaster]

ermm what do we think about what m8?

[Weedpacket]

Originally posted by Bunkermaster
ermm what do we think about what m8? The fact that the Mozilla Browser Project has become so large and comprehensive that it has to have its own browser project?

[matt_4013]

I like it. It seems to be compatible with almost all of the w3 standards I can throw at it, it's reasonably quick and it doesn't play with your source like IE does. I'm a big fan of tabbed browsing, although this isn't unique to Firebird, it's still pretty funky. There are some really cool extensions for it (like StumbleUpon (http://www.stumbleupon.com/))
which create a better browsing experience :) One thing i do find annoying is that it's beginning to use quite a bit of resources. Unfortunately at work, I'm running on a POS machine, and I'm having a bit of trouble with it taking too long to do anything.

Anyway, overall I think it's pretty good, up there with the better browsers.

[piersk]

Sorry, I meant just the Firebird browser.

[largo]

for people running debian (unstable), packages and info is available at :

http://pryan.org/phoenix/joshk/

About to start download piersk, should update this post soon.

[coditoergosum]

I love it. I think it's a god send. I've been using it since about .4 (when it was still called phoenix), and it's come a LONG way in the short time I've been using it.

It's very standards compliant. It won't render crap code for you... which means you learn to write good code. The user interface is amazing. I've gotten so used to using mouse gestures now that when I try to use IE I get extremely frustrated. I absolutely love tabbed browsing too. All this and it's more efficient than IE too. I did some benchmarking, and on my win2k system it usually takes up between 10%-40% less memory than IE.

It is still in "beta" though, so there are some bugs. You can get info about them up front though by reading the info on the firebird project site.

The only thing about it that I don't like (and I'm sure it'll be fixed soon), is it doesn't handle flash so great. An example is this site: http://www.cloud10.org (not work safe!). After browsing the site a little pages stop getting rendered, and eventually it crashes completely. The other minor annoyance is it takes about 2-3 seconds longer than IE to start up. It's hard to compete with IE in that area though, since it's actually built into windows. I'm sure the developers will make improvements in these areas soon though.

Just my $.02.

[largo]

Thumbs up.

It's clean, fast and presents customization options very well. I didn't try plugging in java or flash just yet, will try that soonish.

[goldbug]

I've yet to have a problem with it.
However, it would've been nice to be able to use my old profile from 0.5 (you can, but it's not recommended).

Still have yet to see if it has the same bug that pissed me off in 0.5 (some flash-laden websites constantly reloading/refreshing). I haven't noticed it yet. Maybe it's been fixed.

[Sxooter]

Warning, the following post has been deemed OT. Since this is a very common occurance in the Echo Lounge, nothing has been done about it at all.

Really, the Firebird was a great car back in the day, before GM turned it into an econobox in the early 80s.

Take a look at this beauty:

http://www.users.qwest.net/~debstan/firebird.jpg

Of course, a 1964 firebird beats them all. Back in that period of time Gibson was making some truly awesom stuff:

http://www.bestguitars.com/collection/64RedVII.html

Of course, 1934 was another banner year for the firebird, this time it was again a form of transportation:

http://www.springersmusic.co.uk/images/photos/cars/Alvis%20Firebird.JPG

[goldbug]

What about a '73 firebird?
A girl I dated in high school drove one:
http://www.hemmings.com/carshow/getsinglephoto.cfm?HMN_ID=2976&CURRENT_ALBUM_ID=2976&wordlimit=120

[coditoergosum]

Har har har.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Sxooter]

Sorry, I really did have a point. It's that naming one piece of software firebird when there's already a well known piece of software named that can lead to confusion.

[Bunkermaster]

ok, i installed it and to my surprise it is great :)

one thing is missing (or i didn't find it), the ability to change language in http header... Would hate to recompile the whole thing...

[goldbug]

Is there something in the prefs.js (home dir) to change that? I've noticed since they changed the preferences dialog, it's missing all kinds of "important" stuff, ability to shut off (in that dialog) the auto image-resizing, change control of tabbed browsing, for example(s).


I just realized, you're probably talking more about the interface than the http accept languages, which, I'm not sure if the Mozilla language packs are drop-in compatible with Firebird or not.

If you are talking about the http accept languages, as you probably already know, you can try putting:

user_pref("intl.accept_languages", "en-us, en");

into your prefs.js file, changing en-us,en to whatever you like.

[coditoergosum]

I'm not sure if it's possible to change those specific things, but you can expand the capabilities greatly by installing extensions. You can get all the available extensions here: http://texturizer.net/firebird/extensions.html

I assume one of them should give you what you're looking for.

[goldbug]

Bunkermaster, if you find the language packs are somewhat compatible between the two, perhaps add:

user_pref("general.useragent.contentlocale", "US");
user_pref("general.useragent.locale", "en-US");

to Firebird's prefs.js (changing locales obviously).

Note: these are only guesses, I'm not going to bother to find if they work :)

Correction
It looks like Firebird rewrites prefs.js at load time, but those things can be changed by going to about:config in the URL bar.

[goldbug]

Okay, enough of my non-working hacks. (Installing mozilla language packs in Firebird doesn't seem to work)

try this:

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/l10n/mlp_otherproj.html#fireb_0.6

[Bunkermaster]

What I really need is a way to easily change language in accept so I can test my multi language web solutions... Thanks for the research though :D

[goldbug]

Yeah, the setting I mentioned before (intl.accept_languages) can be set in about:config
(And it works, at least with fr-fr, fr, en-en, en as I've tested)

[coditoergosum]

That about:config thing is a cool trick. Thanks! :D

There's no chance we'll ever see that kind of control over the browser from the Redmond boys.

[goldbug]

Yeah, but we get a nifty blue page with about:mozilla in IE.

How helpful!! :p

[Bunkermaster]

\o/

Posted with Firebird... the CODE surrounding lines look odd...

[blitzwing]

OT

Originally posted by Sxooter

Really, the Firebird was a great car back in the day, before GM turned it into an econobox in the early 80s.


Some of the firebirds that pontiac was putting out until recently were rated at well over 300 horse power, and were probably faster than anything pontiac made back in the day from the factory.

The late 80s Trans Am turbo was no slouch either.

[coditoergosum]

... and were probably faster than anything pontiac made back in the day from the factory.

Hello? Can you say GTO? http://www.gtoheaven.com/images/GT0/65gto.gif

[Sxooter]

Originally posted by blitzwing
OT

Some of the firebirds that pontiac was putting out until recently were rated at well over 300 horse power, and were probably faster than anything pontiac made back in the day from the factory.

The late 80s Trans Am turbo was no slouch either.

I was actually referring primarily to the fact that they started making all the firebirds / transam / camaro were all the same basic car. I.e. it lost all it's individuality for the sake of mass production.

There was a magical quality to the 60s flavors of those cars that was lost in the 70s.

Now they're just big heavy anachronisms, since a 1995 4 wheel drive Celica weighing in at 2700 lbs can produce 249 bhp from the factory, and can make 349 with a nothing more than a turbo / exhaust upgrade, and do so for 100,000 miles or so. All while handling much better than the modern transam types ever could with their much greater weight and rear wheel drive.

I love big rumbly V8s, but only in 60s type cars or GT40s.

[goldbug]

Yeah, foreign cars are nice, but where will you find a "Calvin pissing on Honda" sticker? :)

[Bunkermaster]

Originally posted by coditoergosum
Hello? Can you say GTO? http://www.gtoheaven.com/images/GT0/65gto.gif

PIMPMOBILE!!!!


:D

Looks sweet though

[goldbug]

Originally posted by Bunkermaster
PIMPMOBILE!!!!


:D

Looks sweet though

Your use of "though" implies that the quality of "Pimpmobile-ness" (or pimpmobiliality) is something to avoided.

I, for one, like the pimp aesthetic. :)

That car, however, is only a two door, meaning its much harder to throw your *****es an hos (or, if you are Bender, "cheap floozies") into the back seat after you pistolwhip them. Don't make me cut you.

(j/k about all of this, of course)

[coditoergosum]

Hahaha. That's good stuff.

I too am all about the Pimpadelic. I highly recommend everyone pick up one or five of these sweet items: http://www.pimphats.com/pimphats_03pimphats.htm
(careful, some parts of the site aren't safe for work... that link is pretty safe though)



Oh how this thread has degraded. :)

[Bunkermaster]

ROFL!!!

This a jamiroquai fan site?

:rolleyes:

[blitzwing]

Originally posted by coditoergosum
Hello? Can you say GTO? http://www.gtoheaven.com/images/GT0/65gto.gif

http://www.autofacts.ca/classics/fast.htm

The firebird forumla is half way down the list, the GTO is at the bottom. That's just the 1/4 mile, but that's all those cars are really good for in terms of performance, unless you can time warp back to the late 60s/early 70s and do some trans am racing.

The GTO is a sweet car though.

[Sxooter]

Originally posted by coditoergosum
Hahaha. That's good stuff.

I too am all about the Pimpadelic.

Daddy's gotta keep his pimpin hand strong... ;)