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Firefox beta 3 released

By Chris Williams. Published: 24th Jul 2005, 00:43:54 | Permalink | Printable

Oh my, it actually works

A CSS website in RISC OS FirefoxA third beta version of Firefox for RISC OS was made available this evening. According to developer Peter Naulls, this release includes more speed enhancements and uses the latest source code from the mainstream browser source. This new version also hopes to cure "minor problems that may prevent Firefox starting", which is perhaps the reason why Firefox is now working for the first time on my StrongARM RiscPC. As other users also found, previous versions would die during the program's initialisation.

Consuming around 30MB of memory after viewing a couple of lightweight CSS based websites, the mammoth application responds as expected on a 202MHz system. Background images are disabled to mitigate a memory handling related bug, and there are noticeable glitches regarding redraw as well as the occasional crash. However, as those who have been enjoying Firefox for a while now have attested to, the progress made so far on the popular web browser is potentially a massive leap forward for RISC OS software.

Links

RISC OS Firefox port (announcement)

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Discussion

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Good work - thanks everybody helping with Firefox and especially Peter Naulls.

An icon bar icon so that I can close the browser window without unloading it would be nice.

is a RISC OS Userhzn on 24/7/05 7:27AM
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Speed tip If you're not particularly concerned about layout you can turn off css support in Firefox through the view - page style - no style menu option.

is a RISC OS Usergazza_fp on 24/7/05 7:30AM
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hzn> you can iconise it to the pinboard (shift-click on the Close icon) or the iconbar (use the Iconise icon, after enabling it in the Windows pane of Configuration) in the same way as for any other window.

is a RISC OS Useradrianl on 24/7/05 7:43AM
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Has anyone tried it on an Iyonix yet?

is a RISC OS UserRickCB on 24/7/05 11:06PM
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rick: I'm pretty sure a lot of people have, given that a) Peter owns an Iyonix, and b) Iyonix users have shown that Firefox works better on an Castle's machine.

is a RISC OS Userdiomus on 24/7/05 11:43PM
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RickCB Firefox seems to work fine on our Iyonix, and (not surprisingly) runs considerably faster on the Iyonix than on our SARPC.

hzn Yup an icon on the iconbar would be great. I keep on closing the last window and then have to reload Firefox again :) I have the same problem when using programs under Windows.

is a RISC OS Userblahsnr on 25/7/05 9:17AM
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Various: "I'd like an iconbar icon" I believe the Firefox Integration thingy does this: [link]

is a RISC OS Useradamr on 25/7/05 9:48AM
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I have concerns over FirefoxI that I've already expressed to Jon R. Apart from its copyright attribution to an unknown group, I feel that too much effort is being spent on it rather than proper solutions that would benefit not only Firefox, but possibly many other programs too (e.g. X clipboard support). There are also support issues when the features it tries to implement are added to RISC OS Firefox properly.

Of course, it doesn't really add a icon for it, but for itself, and then launches a fresh copy of Firefox, which isn't an entirely satisfactory solution. A similar effect for just that feature can be had with *addtinydir.

Making Firefox act like other RISC OS apps wrt to the icon bar is actually somewhat complex as there are lots of layers of code relating to close of windows and creating new browser instances, etc. Of course, anyone wanting to have a go is welcome to grab the source.

is a RISC OS Usermrchocky on 25/7/05 10:02AM
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Many thanks to Peter and everyone involved for the continued development on this project! :-)

is a RISC OS UserJGZimmerle on 25/7/05 1:35PM
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Oddly this would be the first release not to run on my SA, whereas Release 2 and 1 does (From fresh startup.

Im obviously doing somethign wrong ;@)

keep up the good work Team!

is a RISC OS Userem2ac on 25/7/05 1:38PM
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FireFoxI is a very good stopgap, as with two other browsers permenantly on my iconbar, anything that enables me to get a URL in to Firefox quickly and without the pain of retyping it, means the more I'm going to use it, and compare its strengths and weaknesses with the alternatives.

is a RISC OS Userdruck on 25/7/05 5:02PM
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Beta 3 works fine here on my A9home.

is a RISC OS Usersa110 on 25/7/05 6:07PM
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Sadly firefox didn't work yet on my sa-rpc (Select 4.29)

Dunno what i do wrong :-(

is a RISC OS Usercrow on 25/7/05 10:18PM
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The first two betas did not work on my Omega (yes, I know...) but the third beta worked and fetched the "default" page but www.drobe.co.uk crashed Firefox...

I still think it's a great acheivement to get this far so quickly anyway. BTW I'm on RISC OS 4.03 here, and I haven't yet tried Firefox on VRPC.

Alex.

is a RISC OS Useralex on 26/7/05 12:47AM
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Quick follow-up: Firefox beta 3 doesn't work on VRPC (RISC OS 4.02). Not on mine anyway.

Alex.

is a RISC OS Useralex on 26/7/05 8:45PM
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Little bit tears in my eyes, i cannot run FF on my Risc PC (RISC OS 3.70) with SA-233 together with raFS 1.16. It worked a little bit till it crashed on the first screen with beta1 and with beta2, it was working for one half hour, till i moved the FF main window. With FF beta3 it was also working, but crashed when i did opened a subwindow and pushed on a new item. Hopefully it works with beta4 - I look forward to it.

is a RISC OS Userdatawave on 26/7/05 9:45PM
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datawave: "I cannot run FF on my RiscPC"

Since you are a RISC OS dealer, do you have any RISC OS 4 computers on which you can try out Firefox?

dgs

is a RISC OS Userdgs on 26/7/05 10:52PM
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In reply to dgs: Sorry, i cannot help you with this. I have no RISC OS 4 computers here, only RISCOS 3.70 and RISC OS 3.71 ones.

is a RISC OS Userdatawave on 27/7/05 5:20AM
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alex: Works fine for me on VRPC, with RO 4.02. My experience with FF and 4.02 (VRPC and a RiscPC) is that it isn't as stable as with an Iyonix, but it does work. I've not been able to try beta 3 on an Iyonix yet due to that computer being back with Castle, which is a pity because the first two versions were (unsurprisingly) a lot nicer to use on it :-(

is a RISC OS UserSimonC on 27/7/05 9:54AM
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I have not had any problems with the other Beta issues on a RiscPC but I´m reluctant to try this one soon as I´m on a boozy holiday in Menorca and I am reluctant to fly home:-))

VRPC gave problems with poor text display - I suppose their´s an answer to this but I must have missed it.

is a RISC OS Userjlavallin on 27/7/05 10:27PM
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In reply to Alex: Firefox betas 1, 2, and 3 have all worked beautifully on my VRPC-Adjust machine. Beta doesn't seem to scroll pages correctly for me (not even on a genuine RPC) and all versions quit on me on my brothers RISC OS4.02 RPC. But thats his problem :D Cheers!

is a RISC OS Userfwibbler on 27/7/05 11:55PM
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Beta 4 now available.

is a RISC OS Usermrchocky on 28/7/05 3:56PM
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mrchocky: Already? Progress on this is impressive!

is a RISC OS UserSimonC on 28/7/05 6:04PM
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Simon: People were so busy speculating why it might not be working on a given setup (to no practical purpose I might add) that they hadn't noticed that it's been 5 days :p

Sadly, such speculation continues on usenet, and only serves to confuse those with genuine problems - hopefully a lot fewer with this release.

Unless you've got a repeatable and provable situation, can I please suggest that people restrict themselves to queries rather than assertions about Firefox. It's better for everyone that way.

is a RISC OS Usermrchocky on 28/7/05 6:15PM
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SimonC: when you get your Iyo back you should find beta3 runs just fine on it; but as beta4 is now out (slobber) you probably won't want to bother ;-)

is a RISC OS Userbucksboy on 28/7/05 8:03PM
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Having just checked the download site it appears that beta4 is simply a version of beta3 intended to run on those systems that had problems with all earlier versions. As all the betas up to -3 have run without problems on this Iyo I shall stick with beta3, but it's obviously good news for those who've experienced problems. This is an excellent, reliable browser, which I cannot recommend too highly.

is a RISC OS Userbucksboy on 28/7/05 8:12PM
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It's already solved two major problems I've been having with the axis of cheeziil Fresco-WXL. It crashed when using the bookmarks system (not a helpful bug report I know) however. Nice to see at least some effort is being made to make it fit within the RISC OS system but for it to be such a bonus in its beta form bodes well.

is a RISC OS UserAW on 28/7/05 10:04PM
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Testing reports from my users suggest that all the startup problems have now been solved. There is still a problem under RISC OS 3.7 with threading that has yet to be resolved, however.

is a RISC OS Usermrchocky on 30/7/05 7:24AM
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FireFox beta 4 Crashed a bit later, when trying to load the deerpark/alpha.html page

is a RISC OS Userdatawave on 30/7/05 3:58PM
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datawave: I wish you'd read what I say. I stated quite clearly that there are problems under RISC OS 3.7. And since you refuse to upgrade to RISC OS 4, as we've seen in other instances, it'll continue to crash until I can figure out what can be done.

is a RISC OS Usermrchocky on 30/7/05 4:20PM
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Just downloaded beta4 and it fails to run on my Risc PC 4.02 Strongarm 144M memory. Beta3 works fine.

is a RISC OS UserAlistair on 02/08/05 4:25PM
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In reply to chocky: "I refuse, you said" - Wrong - I just bought RISC OS 4.02 Only i have to install it, when i have the time to do this.

is a RISC OS Userdatawave on 19/08/05 9:28PM
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