30 April 2005
... to a nice, round 100 million Firefox downloads:
Labels: firefox
29 April 2005
It looks like Firefox 1.1 could get pretty solid support for SVG. This is good news, since there are some pretty cool things you can do with SVG.
Opera 8 already has support for SVG Tiny, but as I understand it, the support that has been checked into Firefox goes far beyond that. I may be wrong though, since I haven't studied this very thoroughly.
Labels: firefox
28 April 2005
David Hyatt has now fixed all the bugs in Safari which kept it from displaying the Acid2 test correctly. Now it just remains to be seen who does the first release which correctly renders the test. T'would surprise me though if it weren't Apple.
Labels: browsers
27 April 2005
If you haven't yet tried the Abstract PC theme for Firefox, do so right away. It looks really professional and cool, both as in hot and low temperature.
Labels: firefox, mozilla
26 April 2005
Opera has long had blazingly fast back and forward performance. Now it looks like we might get this in the upcoming v1.1 of Firefox too, judging from the amount of activity in bug 274784.
Labels: firefox, mozilla
I've been thinking for a very long time that I should put together a list of the free software I use. Free in the $0, no nags, no ads, we-want-you-to-use-it-for-free way. (If for no other reason, then at least so as to give them some well deserved Google juice.) So, here it is:
- FTP client: FileZilla
- Drive emulator: Daemon Tools
- CD ripper: CDex (Latest ogg codecs here.)
- Music/video player: Winamp
- Calculator: GraphCalc (For those who feel limited by the windows calculator.)
- Image editor: GIMP (Feels a little strange to begin with, but is pretty powerful once you get to know it.)
- Office Suite: OpenOffice (Will rock even more once version 2.0 is out.)
- Web browser: Firefox (Goes without saying.)
- Email: Thunderbird
- Anti-spyware: Spybot Search & Destroy
- Antivirus: AVG (Not free for businesses. Now even easier to get - no registration necessary.)
- Bittorrent client: Azureus
- Instant messenging: Gaim (Chat without those pesky msn ads!)
- PDF maker: Ghostword (Short guide here.)
- Website/HTML editor: Nvu (The preview release still has some bugs, but v1.0 should be out pretty soon.)
Edit: As I see it there are three levels of free:
- Free: Use this software, but you'll have to put up with enless nags about paying and/or ads.
- Free-er: Use this software without paying, and with no nags or ads.
- Free-est: Use and alter our software in any way you like.
Software classed as free-est can be counted as belonging to the free-er class too, since it to most users is simply free - $0, 0 nags.
Labels: firefox, openoffice
24 April 2005
I was just stopping by at
OpenOffice.org, and saw that they have redesigned there website. Very nice!
Labels: openoffice
19 April 2005
Today I decided I'd have a go at installing SP2 for Windows XP. Having heard of the various problems people have been having with SP2, I made a system restore point before starting.
I wasn't really expecting any problems, thinking "Oh, I'm sure those things won't happen to my computer"... Well, it turned out, SP2 made my AMD 64 3200+ (relatively speaking now) extremely sluggish. Everything that had previously been quick as a flash (like raising and lowering windows) was now excruciatingly slow. Windows were slowly rolled out over the desktop instead of just being maximized. Also, it decided to paint vertical turquoise lines of various lengths all over the screen.
So, after about one minute I decided to get rid of it. Thankfully, that wasn't too difficult. I first went to Add/Remove Programs and uninstalled it from there. After the computer had restarted, I did a system restore back to the point I had saved before starting the installation. Now things are back to normal. And, strangely, the bug which pushed me into trying SP2 in the first place seems to be fixed now. (Dragging shortcuts from submenus of the Start menu to the Start menu itself didn't work.)
So far, I've stayed safe by just using Firefox for (basically) all my surfing, Thunderbird for email and by using the NAT firewall in our WLAN router. (Plus an up-to-date antivirus of course - AVG 7.) That has been enough security to prevent any spyware or adware from getting in. The worst intrusion I've had so far has been a few tracking cookies. (Most of which have got in through Internet Explorer, for some strange reason.) I guess I'll just have to cope without SP2 in the future too.
Labels: browsers, firefox, internet explorer
MacDobe? (Would probably get them sued.) Adromedia? (Sounds like a galaxy.) AdMedia? (May send out unwanted signals.) Macrodobe perhaps? Any more suggestions?
Opera have now officially released version 8 of their browser. I welcome the simplified default toolbar setup, which in version 7 could be pretty dauting even for a nerd like me.
Still, I find that Opera are a little inconsistent when they choose to always show the tab bar as default. The statusbar has long been set to auto-hide as default to maximize page space - why not hide the tab bar when only one tab is open? (I know there is a "show only when needed" option, I'm just wondering why it isn't ticked as default.)
Also, the popup blocker in Opera 8 doesn't seem as efficient as Firefox's. When checking my website stats at my.statcounter.com I get a popup which I never get when using Firefox.
Update: Opera.com seems a little under the weather rigth now.
Labels: browsers, firefox, opera
18 April 2005
It's looking more and more likely that Safari will be the winner of the race towards correct rendering of the Acid2 test. David Hyatt's latest blog post shows that he only has about two errors/bugs left to fix before Safari crosses the finishing line. Although, it will still have to be made a public release to win in my eyes.
Labels: browsers
15 April 2005
David Hyatt is making some speedy progress on fixing Acid2 rendering in Safari. He's already worked out two of the bugs visible when using v1.2.
Safari 1.2 and 1.3 screenshots are available at The SeBlog.
Labels: browsers
14 April 2005
The latest browser stats from W3Schools have just arrived, and I had some fun making a graph: (I love making graphs)
Remember, this only reflects what the tech spear-head internet users are browsing with.
Edit: Does anyone know what can have caused the pothole in the IE curve, back in 2002?
Labels: browsers, internet explorer
Fascinating fact: (Well, sort-of) The soon-to-be 45,000,000 downloads of Firefox will equal about two-hunderd-and-fourteen and a half petabytes of data. Assuming that the downloads were evenly spread out, that equals a constant bitrate of 127 Mbps from the Mozilla mirrors put together. Putting it that way makes it sound less impressive. So I'll just stick with the petabytes.
Anyway. All of this downloads counting reminds me of how McDonalds in the US keep (or kept?) saying "We have now sold X godzillion hamburgers". Still, counting is fun.
Labels: firefox, mozilla
13 April 2005
The Acid2 test is already having impact on some of the main browsers. David Hyatt, who is one of the developers behind Mac's Safari, has just blogged that he has already fixed two bugs which cause Safari to not display the test correctly. More bugfixes are on the way, too. The Mozilla browsers have also joined the party - an Acid2 bug has been created in their bugtracking system, which is meant to make up a list of all the rendering bugs which make Firefox et al fail the test.
Let's just hope these guys also decide to come and join the fun.
Labels: browsers, firefox, internet explorer, mozilla
12 April 2005
Some of you may already have noticed that comments which were posted here during the slashdotting today (and all previous comments too) have disappeared. That's because I had installed the Haloscan comments and trackback system, and I uninstalled it today when I was re-doing the appearance of this blog. Apparently the system isn't smart enough to save the comments.
I know the new look is a little boring and square, but it will do for now. I may get round to improving it a bit more later on.
The counter over at Spread Firefox has been restored. As I write this, Firefox has been downloaded 44,317,787 times. That should probably equate to just over seven per cent web-wide usage according to WebSideStory. We'll see. They should be updating their statistics soon.
Sorry - that's 44,318,415 times.
Edit: Corrected the wording to avoid lying.
Labels: firefox
09 April 2005
Found this enjoyable blog which collects links to Google Maps showing things worth seeing in the US.
So far, I think Rainbow Bridge (Utah) is the coolest sight. This will be even more fun when the Google Maps cover the whole world... (I just presume that's what Google are working towards.)
Update: Corrected the title, replacing the World
with the US
.
08 April 2005
About a month back, Håkon Lie announced the planned creation of a browser technology test page named Acid2. The Web Standards Project agreed to sponsor and host the effort. Now the Acid2 test has been launched, although it hasn't yet been officially announced.
It's quite an ingenious work of art actually. It consists of a complex HTML page which makes use of a whole number of advanced CSS2 features. If rendered correctly, the various divs and spans and what-nots will make up a happy yellow face.
This test page makes me realize that even though Opera and Firefox are pretty good, they still have some way to go before they fully implement the available and useful standards. Here are screenshots showing how three common browsers cope with the test:
Here are screenshots of some old and some yet-to-be-released browsers: (Comparing Netscape 6.1 and a recent Firefox nightly build shows how far the Gecko layout engine has come since August 2001.)
Hopefully the Acid2 will inspire all the browser makers to further improve their standards compatibility. He who lives shall see.
Update: Reduced the size of the screenshots a bit.
Update 2005-11-02: Safari now passes the test! HamsterDeCombast posted a screenshot in the comments.
Labels: browsers, firefox, internet explorer
06 April 2005
The great thing about open source programs like Firefox is the steady, never-ending stream of improvements and bugfixes. Here are some of the recent fixes, which will appear in Firefox 1.1:
- The default settings have been changed to open requests from other applications in new tabs. (Bug 275430)
- The CSS 3 outline property has been implemented. (Has previously been available as
-moz-outline
.)
- Websites can now specify an image as the mouse cursor. (Bug 38447)
- Selecting text on a page with a background colour similar to the text selection colour will now cause Firefox to invert the text colour and the background colour. (Bug 56314)
- When zooming in on an image which has been automatically fitted to the window size, Firefox will now zoom in on the selected part of the image. (Bug 207219)
Of course, this is on top of some fairly major improvements already made:
- The options dialog has been seriously improved and simplified.
- The Sanitize function has been added, making it possible to automatically sweep your tracks when exiting Firefox (or via a key-stroke).
- The Internet Explorer style error pages now work properly. (These error pages are enabled by typing about:config and setting browser.xul.error_pages.enabled to true.) (Bugs 237244 and 157004)
Also, maybe of minor importance, but good for website devs:
- View source now shows exactly the HTML code sent by the server. (Bug 57724)
For up-to-date info on fixed bugs in Firefox, see the Burning Edge
Labels: browsers, firefox, internet explorer, mozilla
05 April 2005
XiTi has updated their European Firefox usage report [fr]. This time we can read, among other things, that the (week-end) usage of Firefox is really quite high in Sweden (14.4%). In fact, I had no idea we had that kind of numbers – I thought Sweden was below the world average
rather than above it. (Presuming that the world average
is somewhere around the numbers presented by OneStat and WebSideStory, something like 6-8%.)
Finland turns out to have an even higher percentage of Firefox usage (22.6%) than Germany (21.6%), which was though to be the prime foothold for the Mozilla browser.
The most intriguing fact is that Denmark only has 6.2% Firefox usage, even though it is surrounded by several countries with very high numbers. (Mainly Germany, Sweden and Poland.)
No doubt, Stats Weenie will have an update on this report too in a little while.
Labels: firefox, mozilla
I realize I was a little slow on this one, but I have just noticed that the iRiver iFP-700 and iFP-800 series, as well as the H300 series, support the Ogg Vorbis audio format. Sadly, iRiver seem to have decided to cut the Ogg support for their newer players. Hopefully they will put it back, because, since I discovered the greatness of Ogg a while back, I decided to rip all my CD's using Ogg instead of MP3. Maybe I'll have to hurry up and get an iFP-700 or 800 before they stop making them...
01 April 2005
It looks like Google have done it again. That is, they have even further increased the uber-ness of their free e-mail service. Oh, if only all the millions of Hotmail users knew what they are missing. My girlfriend, for instance, is too stubborn to switch...
Among the important improvements this time around are:
- Increased storage, which will be climbing slowly to 2 GB over the coming days.
- Rich-text editing. It's now possible to use fonts and colours in your g-mails - independant of which browser you're using. (Hotmail and Yahoo!'s rich-text editing only works with Internet Explorer, probably due to the use of ActiveX.)
GMail is just so wonderful to use. If you want an invite, I've got about 49 to dish out. Send me an e-mail at d .(dot) naylor _a@t telia dott com.
Labels: browsers, internet explorer
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