I just built and ran 0.8.1 (NT4 on 700mhz/256MB notebook), which is my first
experience with Mozilla. I've done a lot of webreading before actually
trying it, and I wasn't sure what to expect since I have very positive
expectations from reading about its design/functionality, tempered against a
*lot* of negativity from third party reviews/commentary (esp. on NS 6).
I'm coming at it from the perspective of a technical lead who wants to base
his company's future product (distributed transport management systems)
direction on a rich, componentised, open source and portable platform, and
started out (after a lot of research into many alternatives) really hoping
that Mozilla would shine through as "it".
My first impressions are generally positive, with some reservations:
1) It looks fantastic, and the functionality is way beyond what I expected -
though see 4) below. Everything else I run now seems dull and boring. If
this gets really finished, its going to be AWESOME and, because its a
next-gen platform, not just a browser, IE/MS better watch out. It makes me
wonder what an open OS desktop would look like if done entirely with XUL.
2) Performance needs to be improved maybe 20-30%. I can't say I noticed much
difference in actual download/rendering speed compared to my existing
browsers (NS4 and an IE 5.5 extender), but the overall feel of it is rather
cumbersome (feels like Java!). It's still usable though
(if a little irritating) and, of course, I totally understand that the UI is
based
on the rendering engine (that's the beauty of it) not standard OS controls,
and the relevant code base and makefiles are probably still
unfinished/unoptimised.
3) Its not yet robust enough for something which is supposed to be
fairly near completion. I've had numerous start-up and crash problems in my
first hour using it, in which I didn't really try anything very complicated.
I understand that 0.8.1 was originally going to be 0.9, which was one stop
from the "gold" 1.0.0 sometime quite soon. My gut tells me 4-6 months to a
truly solid, mass market-ready product - of course I say this without much
underlying knowledge, but my gut is usually reliable (unlike my brain,
which takes a couple of months learning to catch up!).
4) This is my one "real" gripe:
<fireproof trousers on....>
It ** really ** needs a multiple browser window interface (I avoided saying
"MDI" because it doesn't have to be, per se, though it certainly could be).
You only have to look at all the IE-wrapped multiple-window browsers out
there (and MDI coming back in the next MS Office) to see that this is
important,
and they don't have functionality/UIs which are as "concentrated" as
Mozilla.
After 30 mins of typical browsing/mailing/newsing I was drowning in open
windows, and changing a theme (which then has to be applied to all of the
open instances) took forever. I know there are many "SDI" advocates out
there too, but I can only say that, having used an multi-window IE wrapper
for a few weeks, sometimes with 150 pages open, I would no more go back
to single-window browser than I would eat my own shorts.
Maybe a sub-project should be spawned to look at this, if there isn't one
already.
<....fireproof trousers off>
5) The build process is horrible. I've never known anything need so many
tools and emulations to build, and I lost track of all the compile/link
warnings spat out (isn't this against the official rules?). I can't help
wondering if there's any correlation with 3) above.
Anyway I don't want the above to sound too negative - IMHO they are
not significant in the big picture and, if things like these are properly
straightened out, Mozilla would get my vote as the pinnacle achievement of
the open source movement so far (Linux included). Maybe it can even put some
sugar in Microsoft's tank.I don't know if the actual developers and main
helpers look in here but, if so, great work!
Just my few Euro's worth.... is that still around 10 cents?? :o)
Cheers,
Chris.
