Mozilla v Phoenix

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
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jyost
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Joined: December 9th, 2002, 2:09 pm

Mozilla v Phoenix

Post by jyost »

I'm a recent Mozilla convert and have been urging all of my friends and colleagues to give it a try. I just love it. As soon as my bank (citibank) realizes that Mozilla is secure, I don't plan on using IE ever again.

After browsing these forums and some of the mozilla.org pages, I see how enthusiastic people are about Phoenix. However, I'm confused about the differences between Phoenix and Mozilla, and also about the future of the two browsers. If you can, please help me understand a few things about the two. Is any of the following correct?

From what I understand, the two are completely separate software applications, albeit two using the same open-source renderer (is this gecko?).

Are they are part of the same organization, and is this why they share forum space, pages at mozilla.org, etc.? Or is this togetherness just an open-source friendliness thng?

What are the merits of Phoenix over Mozilla, and vice versa? From what I understand, the idea of Phoenix is to make a "pure" browser, one that is small, fast, and adheres to all standards. Is this correct? And, if so, is Mozilla not doing this?

What are the plans for the two? Do they "compete" for users? Does using one hurt the viability of the other? Is Mozilla the test bed and as soon as Phoenix becomes official (1.0), will Mozilla then be dropped?

Sorry if these are too many questions. I'm just trying to figure out the order of things here.

Thanks for any help.

Jeff
Kamui
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Joined: November 7th, 2002, 8:10 am

Re: Mozilla v Phoenix

Post by Kamui »

jyost wrote:From what I understand, the two are completely separate software applications, albeit two using the same open-source renderer (is this gecko?).

Are they are part of the same organization, and is this why they share forum space, pages at mozilla.org, etc.? Or is this togetherness just an open-source friendliness thng?


Phoenix lives inside the same source tree as Mozilla, and yes, the basic common component is Gecko; but Phoenix also uses an interface language developed by the Mozilla people, XUL, and probably many other parts from Mozilla.

jyost wrote:What are the merits of Phoenix over Mozilla, and vice versa? From what I understand, the idea of Phoenix is to make a "pure" browser, one that is small, fast, and adheres to all standards. Is this correct? And, if so, is Mozilla not doing this?


Mozilla is basically just a code base. It isn't strictly intended to be a complete end user suite of applications. It tries to create all the applications necessary for someone using the internet: browser, mail client, news reader... - these applications then make it into the Netscape release, with changes where deemed appropriate by Netscape.

Phoenix is indeed intended to be just a browser, and a lean one too: all additional functionality comes as an extension. Phoenix is also supposed to be an end user application.

jyost wrote:What are the plans for the two? Do they "compete" for users? Does using one hurt the viability of the other? Is Mozilla the test bed and as soon as Phoenix becomes official (1.0), will Mozilla then be dropped?


Mozilla won't be dropped. It will (probably) always be the base of Netscapes products and, in smaller quantities, of Phoenix. However, it kind of <i>is</i> the test bed, and it furthermore tries to integrate a lot of stuff that isn't absolutely necessary.
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Alex Bishop
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Re: Mozilla v Phoenix

Post by Alex Bishop »

jyost wrote:I'm a recent Mozilla convert and have been urging all of my friends and colleagues to give it a try. I just love it. As soon as my bank (citibank) realizes that Mozilla is secure, I don't plan on using IE ever again.


Good for you!

jyost wrote:After browsing these forums and some of the mozilla.org pages, I see how enthusiastic people are about Phoenix. However, I'm confused about the differences between Phoenix and Mozilla, and also about the future of the two browsers. If you can, please help me understand a few things about the two. Is any of the following correct?

From what I understand, the two are completely separate software applications, albeit two using the same open-source renderer (is this gecko?).


Phoenix and Mozilla share much of the same underlying code including the rendering engine (Gecko), networking library (Necko), image rendering library (libpr0n) and cross-platform user-interface language (XUL). Basically, most of the code is the same. The aspect in which Phoenix differs the most from Mozilla is the front-end (i.e. the bit you see and interact with).

jyost wrote:Are they are part of the same organization, and is this why they share forum space, pages at mozilla.org, etc.? Or is this togetherness just an open-source friendliness thng?


The development of both Mozilla and Phoenix is coordinated by mozilla.org, the organisation set up when Netscape released the source code to Netscape Communicator. These forums are hosted by MozillaZine, which is not officially affiliated with mozilla.org, though many people consider MozillaZine to be the de facto Mozilla/Phoenix news and community site (though there are others, such as <a href="http://www.mozillanews.org/">MozillaNews</a>). The Phoenix forums hosted here are kind of official because the Phoenix project does not yet have its own newsgroup (though since these forums launched it has gained its own mailing list and IRC channel).

jyost wrote:What are the merits of Phoenix over Mozilla, and vice versa? From what I understand, the idea of Phoenix is to make a "pure" browser, one that is small, fast, and adheres to all standards. Is this correct? And, if so, is Mozilla not doing this?


Mozilla is designed to be a complete Internet suite encompassing a browser (Navigator), mail client (Mail & Newsgroups), IRC client (ChatZilla), web page editor (Composer) and address book (er, Address Book). Phoenix is designed to be just a browser. Both aim to have world-beating standards-compliance (and do).

Phoenix was started for a variety of reasons. Some developers were concerned about the direction Mozilla was going in, others felt that there were problems with the development process and some just wanted to experiment with new things. There are much fewer developers working on Phoenix than on Mozilla but changes to Phoenix don't require the same review and super-review process as changes to Mozilla, leading to much faster development. Of course, Phoenix also gains most of Mozilla's improvements 'for free', as each new build is built straight off the main Mozilla development trunk.

jyost wrote:What are the plans for the two? Do they "compete" for users? Does using one hurt the viability of the other? Is Mozilla the test bed and as soon as Phoenix becomes official (1.0), will Mozilla then be dropped?


There are no immediate plans to drop Mozilla in favour of Phoenix, though some people want to see this happen eventually. I'm not sure if anyone really knows what the eventual outcome will be; it's more of a 'wait and see' situation. In the mean time, we get two world-class products to play with, so I don't think anyone's complaining.

jyost wrote:Sorry if these are too many questions. I'm just trying to figure out the order of things here.


Not at all. Your questions are welcome.

You can find more information about Phoenix at <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/">http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/</a>. In addition, a message about mozilla.org's support for Phoenix from Mitchell Baker (mozilla.org's Chief Lizard Wrangler) was featured here a few months back; see <a href="http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=2530">http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=2530</a>.

Feel free to ask if you've got any further questions.
Alex
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AkiAki007
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Re: Mozilla v Phoenix

Post by AkiAki007 »

jyost wrote:I just love it. As soon as my bank (citibank) realizes that Mozilla is secure, I don't plan on using IE ever again.


I also have CitiBank, though I don't use them much, but I do know their site works fine in Mozilla and Phoenix in both Win32 and Linux.
aebrahim
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Re: Mozilla v Phoenix

Post by aebrahim »

AkiAki007 wrote:
jyost wrote:I just love it. As soon as my bank (citibank) realizes that Mozilla is secure, I don't plan on using IE ever again.


I also have CitiBank, though I don't use them much, but I do know their site works fine in Mozilla and Phoenix in both Win32 and Linux.


Me too. I use Citibank online banking in Phoenix on Windows and it works fine (in both 0.4 and 0.5).
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jyost
Posts: 25
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Thanks, and a question

Post by jyost »

Thanks to all for the responses and links. They helped me position Phoenix in the scheme of things.

A question for the Citibankers who responded:

I'm using Mozilla 1.1, and everytime I try to log in, it says my browser doesn't support 128-bit encryption. I tried prefbar to change the user agent string to IE6 XP, and was able to log in, but payments and transfers wouldn't show up.

Should I try Phoenix, update to 1.2, or is there something else I could try?

Thanks in advance,

jyost
tve
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Post by tve »

citibank.de doesnt work for me on Phoenix.. well, the main page is visible, but my account is not accessible with Phoenix, only with IE. it's new for me that it's working for some people, because until now I only heard of people that can't access it with Phoenix...
<i>Latest Firefox Trunk & Thunderbird 1.0</i>
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