This is an attempt to hear more about what lang has to say on this (i respect his opinion). I decided to take a look at the w3c site (i havent been there in a while...). I noticed that Firebird does not display the page correctly. I'm sure its a css issue, because I looked at the source. Then I attempted to look at the stylesheet to see what the page is *supposed* to look like. Oddly enough I couldn't find the elements responsible for the style imperfection. I did however, open w3c in IE, where the page displayed a more consistent style.
I don't want to bash Firebird, because I like the idea of a browser that is better than IE (better being a relative term... i know). I also would prefer a more strict interpretation of w3c standards, instead of addicting users to IE-specific renderings. However, I have had problems with Firebird, and I only downloaded it this morning. It crashed the first time I used it. (Complain number 1). It doesn't display the bold, italics, underline, and link buttons one the entry form. (very minor complaint...), it doesn't display my blog correctly, and it won't stop prompting me for remembering form input (and then disregarding my preference). Ok, so I realize that my blog is probably not w3c compliant. I apologize to those who think that's a sin, and I do intend to work on that.
If Firebird *IS* only a release candidate, I can easily forgive. I do look forward to the stable version (whenever that may come out), and I promise that If they fix the two complaints I have, I will become a new convert. Until then, consider me a skeptic...
Posted by kposey at August 22, 2003 05:16 PM | TrackBackFirebird is still very much a work in progress. They're in the process of stripping it down to a bare-bones, extremely fast, extremely memory efficient web-browser. Considering what they're moving from (the uber-browser that is mozilla), it's no wonder that it's taking alot of work, AND has alot of bugs.
I tried Firebird for a day or two, but as it stands, IE is faster and more memory efficient. Along with the Avant Browser mod for IE, there's no reason to switch to Firebird just yet, unless you ABSOLUTELY must have type-ahead-find.
Posted by: JosiahQ at August 23, 2003 03:02 PMLooking at Mozilla.org I see the current front page downloadable version of Firebird is 0.6.1. That doesn't sound like even a release candidate to me. To quote this page
Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1 is a Technology Preview. While this software works well in most cases, generally well enough to be relied upon as your primary browser, we make no guarantees of its performance or stability in its pre-1.0 state and it should not be relied upon for mission-critical tasks. See License Agreement for more information.
Sounds like what you're using is little better than a prototype. You could always get involved if you wanted to help out.
Posted by: mkrueger at August 24, 2003 02:38 PMAww crap... it double posted.. why'd it do that? Sorry bout that Kyle, why dont you go delete the first incomplete commment?
Posted by: mkrueger at August 24, 2003 02:40 PM