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New version of Fizzilla posted

updated 03:00 pm EDT, Thu May 31, 2001

Fizzilla, or Mozilla for OS X, has been updated with yet another progressive build gathering the efforts of the open-source community. The new release offers improved stability and speed, as well as some polishing of web standard functionality. Despite the new OS X build, Mike Pinkerton, lead developer of the Mozilla team says that Netscape's primary mission right now is to ship Netscape6 for OS9 and "we cannot do anything to jeopardize that plan."

by MacNN Staff

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05/31, 03:31pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
netscape 6

Netscape already did ship netscape 6 for OS 9 and it sucked. :-)

I do however like mozilla. .9 is pretty good. And I'm greatful for Mike Pinkerton taking his time to keep Fizzilla going.

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05/31, 03:45pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Agreed.

I think the only reason we have Fizzilla is due to the hard work of Mike Pinkerton. Thanks! I am using Fizz right now and I can't believe how much faster it is than IE or Omniweb.

Now if we could just get some gumdrop widgets! :o)

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05/31, 03:48pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
6 of 9?

WTF? I thought M6 was already out for 9. I'm sure that I downloaded it and then deleted it.

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05/31, 04:03pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
N6 on 9

Perhaps they are waiting for Mozilla 1.0 and releasing a new Netscape 6 for Mac OS 9 before looking at Mac OS X.

Hopefully they'll look af FizzillaMach and not FizzillaCFM.

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05/31, 04:26pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Corprate vs. Mozilla.org

Ah the joy of an open source project sponsored by a corporation.

Netscape 6 was released long before Mozilla.org felt it was ready (ie, current Mozilla release is 0.9 working towards 0.9.1, goal being 1.0). NS6 was released for media attention @ InternetWorld during Steve Case's keynote. It wasn't ready. Mozilla.org knew this. However they had little/no say in the NS6 release.

There is curently a debate going on in the news.mozilla.org.netscape.public.mozilla.macosx newsgroup about wether to procede with FizzillaMac or FizzillaCFM as the primary version of Mozilla for OS X. The problem being Netscape/AOL feels that OS 9 support is the most important thing to focus on. Thus Fizzilla as a Carbon port looks like the best option. However there are some issues about making the same Carbon port work on both 9 and X. Thus the discussion.

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05/31, 05:39pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Such a mystery

This whole Netscape6-Mozilla/Fizzilla issue mystifies me. As everyone knows, Netscape6 is an utter dog ? with apologies to dogs. Mozilla/Fizzilla has been a fine and stabl browser for quite sometime. If N6 is based on Moz/Fizz, why is it so incredibly inept????

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05/31, 05:46pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Fizzilla usable?!!??!

I can't get the damn thing to stay running past 5 minutes on my G4 dual-533 with OS X 10.0.3 and 384 megs of RAM.

I un-stuffed it, launched the app and it wouldn't even let me highlight the URL in the URL field. I kept trying and then it crashed. Then browsing a simple web page crashed the browser. I couldn't even get it running for long than 5 minutes.

So I'm amazed that people are saying this is a usable browser and even more so when they say it's better than OmniWeb.

I applaud the efforts of the development team and I wish them all of the success. This post is not to thumb my nose at Mozilla. I hope they keep it going and they kick some a**. But this build doesn't seem usable on my box and it doesn't seem near being a useable browser. More like early beta.

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05/31, 05:54pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Netscape 6 vs. Mozilla

As per the previous poster, I do not understand why each build of Mozilla gets better and better while Netscape 6 floats around in the potty like a piss-sodden stool...I still use 4.77 on 9.1, and OW and IE (yuk) on X...But with each build, Fizilla gets better and I hope one day that it will be the only browser I need...

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05/31, 06:03pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Fizzilla usable?!!??!

To the above poster:
If everyone else appears to be using Fizzilla with no problems, yet is crashing your machine, it just might be time to suspect your machine instead of bashing Mozilla. A thought would be to try deleting your mozilla user directory and let it create a fresh one. That usually is the first order of business when working with all of these different builds.

Secondly, I for one love the Mozilla open-source initative! Whether or not people make this their primary browser, it is very important to the computing community as a whole to have one browser that works the same (?) on all platforms. Especially since we have Microsoft who is doing everything they can to take over and dominate the Internet. (I have nothing against MS products, per se, just their closed-minded business tactics).

-Rick

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05/31, 06:04pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Fizzila Usable

There is a known problem with the carbon build running on a Dual G4 machine under Mac OS X. See http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71718. This problem is being looked into and should be resolved in the near future.

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05/31, 06:50pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
fizz is making progress..

...but it still has a ways to go. Omniweb is still a much more usable everyday browser, esp. the latest sneakypeak from this week, running on my Ti500.

fizz shows very nice speed. the lack of stability is keeping it from getting more use, and it's really unfortunate that current carbon apps have no scroll wheel support. that alone (well, that and the vastly superior display quality of cocoa apps, at least on my Tibook) are significant detractors even if they get it to not crash.

I'll keep it on my system, and check up with the newer builds as they come... it shows a lot of potential.

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05/31, 06:50pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
fizz is making progress..

...but it still has a ways to go. Omniweb is still a much more usable everyday browser, esp. the latest sneakypeak from this week, running on my Ti500.

fizz shows very nice speed. the lack of stability is keeping it from getting more use, and it's really unfortunate that current carbon apps have no scroll wheel support. that alone (well, that and the vastly superior display quality of cocoa apps, at least on my Tibook) are significant detractors even if they get it to not crash.

I'll keep it on my system, and check up with the newer builds as they come... it shows a lot of potential.

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05/31, 06:52pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
hehe... oops :)

omniweb needs more traditional cache behavior though :P it's still way smarter than I am. sorry for the double-post.

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05/31, 07:11pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Fizzila Unuasble

Wallstreet PB... the thing never starts up today... last night when i download it did start but it was unable to connect to any server to view a page... even localhost... ie and ow aim and such was chugging along

today (after a reboot) it will no launch...

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05/31, 07:20pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Unstable Fizz

I've got the same setup as the previous poster, and I also (as per the bug mentioned, I assume) had crashing problems. But, as a bit of evidence, the same build (the one previous to the current 5/30 one) runs surprisingly well on a G3 266.

It seems like Netscape is waiting for a major advancement in the Mozilla project before updating N6 (which really is pretty sorry). Hopefully when it hits 1.0, we'll see a N6.1 (6.5?). Maybe they're trying to avoid the embarassment that they already went through.

And in any case, Mozilla has been creeping slowly toward really usable. As of the .8 releases, I started at least considering it as a viable browser, and I'm (sort of) patiently waiting for the day when I'll add it to my regular list of tools.

Oh, and by the way, at least last time I looked there was an aqua-style Moz skin so you can have the pretty widgets. Too bad they're not "real" widgets, but I suppose that's the price to pay for ultimately cross-platform software.

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05/31, 07:32pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Fizzilla--hopeless?

I think Mozilla (for Mac OS 9) is already in very good running shape, and only getting better. Fizzilla, though, is another story. It still has a lot of holes (no SSL support!) and from the looks of things Netscape doesn't feel producing a native OS X browser is very important. This is not a criticism of the developers--it is a big job, and Mozilla and Fizzilla have both come far. However, Fizzilla doesn't seem to be a priority. I can't help but think that Fizzilla might never in as good shape as Mozilla for OS 9 is today.

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05/31, 07:41pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
It ain't ready for Prime

I'm baffled by all the folks who think that Fizzilla is a useable browser. It's so bloody buggy and unstable on my 350Mhz slot-loading iMac that it actually makes IE look good!

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05/31, 08:15pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
A couple things...

If N6 is based on Moz/Fizz, why is it so incredibly inept????

Because for whatever reason netscape just wants to drive its reputation into the ground by (1) releasing N6 before it was ready and (2) not updating N6 to use a more recent version of Mozilla. Then again it's possible that (3) they're going to release a N7 at the same time Moz 1.0 comes out that isn't S***** in a desperate hope that people will forgive them for the N6 nightmare.

--

Also, as far as Fizzilla goes, the cool thing is that it's basically one guy-- Mike Pinkerton-- over at Mozilla who's just doing a carbon build every now and again. Pretty amazing that it works at all.

People were asking "why not just make Fizzilla the OS 9 AND OS X version" -- namely combining them into one and working on that instead of a seperate OS 9, Carbon (Fizilla) version. The reason is that Fizilla will only work in OS 9 if you get the latest CarbonLib extension, which is like 6 MB and I guess no one wants to force everyone to upgrade.

Then there's yet ANOTHER Mac OSX build, and I forget the name, which is more a port of the Unix version than the mac version-- all the back-end stuff comes from the BSD port I think. That's the one that I guess would be cocoa and run the fastest on Mac OS X.

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05/31, 08:18pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Fizi-WHAT???

Is anyone else confused, besides me, by the whole Navigator-Mozilla-Fizilla-whatever story? Whoever is working on these projects have momentarily decided to crawl back into their hole, and rightly so, until they can come up with a coherent and stable story. Just stay in your hole until you're ready to waste our time... or hopefully surprise us. Whatever comes out should either blow people away, in comparison to IE, or find a premature death... Use your few remaining "credibility quarters" carefully.

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05/31, 09:43pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Bad build

This is a quick carbon port of a shakie 0.9.1 foundation. I've seen better builds, this one kind of sucks. however 0.9.1 is currently bad on all platforms. .9 was nice. .9.2 should be nice as well.

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06/01, 02:48am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Netscape 6 vs. Mozilla

As per the previous poster, I do not understand why each build of Mozilla gets better and better while Netscape 6 floats around in the potty like a piss-sodden stool...I still use 4.77 on 9.1, and OW and IE (yuk) on X...But with each build, Fizilla gets better and I hope one day that it will be the only browser I need...

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06/01, 03:59am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Apple need CyberDog!

Apple should just build a native COCOA interface for the Mozilla (gecko) engine and build a browser out of that. It would only take them like a few engineers, Mozilla is Opensource, they could build a lovely Aqua interface (nix XUL), make sure all the plug-ins are there NATIVE on OS X like RealPlayer, WindowsMedia, Flash, Shockwave, QuickTime, Java support and then just have Gecko do all the dirty DHTML, Javascript, HTML, XML work. That would be the coolest browser! They could use CoreGraphics for font rendering and name the thing CyberDog, going retro would be awesome!

-Eric Guerin
eric@atre.net

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06/01, 07:15am | report spam | close Reply | delete
who cares about stability

Even if it was stable, the HI SUCKS!

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06/01, 08:37am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Apple Need CyberDog!

Interesting to see what happens when Apples so called '5 year deal' with Microsoft expires...

...Apple developed, Mac OS X versions of Star Office/Open Office (with Microsoft Office support) and an Apple Mozzilla based web-browser!?

It could happen!

I dont know what has happened to Netscape, I thought AOL MIGHT, grab hold of them and kick some a**... but they dont seem to be able to sort their act out (for one reason or another!) Dont get me wrong, Internet Explorer 5 is a good browser on Mac OS 9, but Internet Explorer has become exactly what Windows is... a Microsoft monopoly!

And that my friends, as you know... is bad for us users regardless your computer choice!!

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06/01, 10:34am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Apple need Cyberdog!

At last, someone with a vision...

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06/01, 12:34pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
OS X is Mozilla's Chance

Mozilla is not going to win over the market share on the Windows platform, no matter how good it is. Not while IE is preloaded with the OS. OS X does come with IE, but the current OS X versions of IE are pretty poor, with performance problems and lack of Java support.

OmniWeb is also a decent browser, but runs into performance problems, especially with many open browser windows. Like IE, it also supports my scroll wheel mouse, a MUST for a browse to become my primary browse of choice (which OmniWeb currently is).

iCab is very fast on most pages, and fairly good with compatibility on most pages. If it had mouse scroll wheel support it would be my primary browser in OS X.

Fizilla seems to be fast, and very compatible with many programs. I don't remember, but I'd assume it has good Java support. The interface could use some work, but I could be comfortable using their Modern theme for browsing. It also lacks scroll wheel support in OS X. I used Netscape 4.77 as my primary browser in OS 9, and if Fizilla/Mozilla can clean up the interface just a _little bit_ and add mouse scroll wheel support, they stand a good chance at winning over me and probably many other users, giving them the dominant hand on OS X, which is a platform that is only going to grow in the next few years, which also happens to be a very critical time for Mozilla adoption....

-bliz

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New version of Fizzilla posted

updated 03:00 pm EDT, Thu May 31, 2001

netscape 6

Agreed.

6 of 9?

N6 on 9

Corprate vs. Mozilla.org

Such a mystery

Fizzilla usable?!!??!

Netscape 6 vs. Mozilla

Re: Fizzilla usable?!!??!

Re: Fizzila Usable

fizz is making progress..

fizz is making progress..

hehe... oops :)

Fizzila Unuasble

Unstable Fizz

Fizzilla--hopeless?

It ain't ready for Prime

A couple things...

Fizi-WHAT???

Bad build

Netscape 6 vs. Mozilla

Apple need CyberDog!

who cares about stability

Apple Need CyberDog!

Apple need Cyberdog!

OS X is Mozilla's Chance

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New version of Fizzilla posted

updated 03:00 pm EDT, Thu May 31, 2001

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netscape 6

Agreed.

6 of 9?

N6 on 9

Corprate vs. Mozilla.org

Such a mystery

Fizzilla usable?!!??!

Netscape 6 vs. Mozilla

Re: Fizzilla usable?!!??!

Re: Fizzila Usable

fizz is making progress..

fizz is making progress..

hehe... oops :)

Fizzila Unuasble

Unstable Fizz

Fizzilla--hopeless?

It ain't ready for Prime

A couple things...

Fizi-WHAT???

Bad build

Netscape 6 vs. Mozilla

Apple need CyberDog!

who cares about stability

Apple Need CyberDog!

Apple need Cyberdog!

OS X is Mozilla's Chance

Login Here

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