Subj : Firefox ?
To   : Holger Granholm
From : Peter Knapper
Date : Mon Apr 04 2005 06:39 pm

Hi Holger,

 HG> Is Firefox v1.0.2 a complete version because the description
 HG> states that it is a preview of the next generation browser?

Well... there is good news... and unfortunately bad news...

Firefox is a complete browser only, a seperate program is used for Email & 
News, etc. It looks and acts pretty much like Mozilla in that there are shared 
DLL's, but with News & Mail as standalone, not integrated, client. The same 
goes for Composer etc. In reality, think of Firefox as just a customised 
Mozilla, personally, I don't think there is much difference beytween them on 
the inside, its just the external nbts that I find annoying...

The down side to Firefox (and Mozilla) is memory usage, ALL of the Mozilla 
suits consume memory like its going out of fashion. 

I played with Firefox for a few weeks but junked it, to me it was simply a 
dumbed down version of Mozilla with fewer options and functionality than Moz, 
almost designed for Windows weanies, I prefered Mozilla that I could modify to 
my liking more. And user modification is the big plus with Mozilla, you can 
really fine tune it to do what you want.

I stuck with Mozila 1.4 for a long time, but moved to Mozilla 1.8 about 3 
months ago and while I am not at the latest level (I am on A5 and its at B1 or 
B2 now I think). It works very nicely for me.

Moz 1.8 chews up about 24MB RAM at load, and will slowly consume more and more 
as you browse (all versions of Mozilla from 0.9 onwards do this). If you end 
it, it will return 99% of that RAM to the machine and the next start begins at 
24MB again. Currently its been running in this machine for about 14 days 
non-stop and is now consuming about 90MB, but I have plenty of memory to spare 
so its not an issue for me.

 HG> IWB could be an alternative but I don't know anything else about
 HG> it than the name. 

IWB is almost identical to Moz 1.7 but made by IBM. You need an IBM 
subscription service to get it. All of the Mozilla series are freely available 
so I wouldn't bother with IWB unless you have the subscription. Its also a bit 
behind the rest of the Mozilla releases...


 HG> A newer (than v4.61) version of Netscape that doesn't eat memory
 HG> for lunch could be another possibility. Same questions as above.

No such beast exists sorry......;-(

 HG> I want a working browser that I don't have to be a betatester for.
 HG> See how long NS 2.02 has served me.

The later builds of Mozilla 1.7 onwards are really good, I would recommend 1.8 
A5 (released 24/11/04) or slightly later, but stay away from the absolutely 
latest stuff.

Cheers...............pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01
 * Origin: Another Good Point About OS/2 (3:772/1.10)

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