Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

What gave you that impression? I just ran it on the current beta build of Opera 9.5. Here are the results.

Also, not too long ago the development version of the Opera rendering engine scored 100/100 on the Acid 3 test. You can argue that the version of the rendering engine in the stable Opera release is bad, but according to the Wikipedia page on Acid3 the stable Mozilla build isn't significantly better at 53/100 vs Opera's 45/100.

If you meant speed-wise, at least for the 9 series my experience is that Opera has very fast JavaScript performance.

Anyway, I'm an Opera fan to be sure, but I feel that devotion is warranted... I've found it to be a very solid browser.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Opera 9.5 will be the first Opera which will support javascript good. Sadly Opera 9.5 has been beta for over a millennium and generally unstable. Try running tthe test in 9.25 or even better in 8.x ;)

Of course i didn't test it so it may run even in 9.25 :)

I'm a web developer, so i'm generally against any buggy browsers and Opera sure is one (not as much as IE mind you). For instance one typical Opera bug which plagued 8.x: if you resize the browser window only vertically, onresize event isn't fired.

However OS2007 uses Opera 7, which is very old and javascript support is almost non-existent.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Opera 8.5, actually, but the statement is still valid. :D

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Um, yeah, OS2006 was with 7.x right?

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Just tried Fennec and Minefield with my N800 on latest OS2008 - Text input is very screwy, but can be done with a lot of playing around. Google spreadsheets, which are hopelessly, even glacially slow to the point of being completely unusable with the regular MicroB, are tantalizingly functional with the new browsers. And yes, having the real Firefox with tabs will be a very nice thing. I don't simply want a finished version for the sugary goodness; I want to be able to get a lot of work done in Google Docs that just can't happen right now.

Aloha,

-Jeff Mings

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Sorry for getting off topic, but I can't let it go when you bash Opera with shoddy info.

The first Opera 9.5 public alpha came out in September 2007. The first Firefox 3 public alpha was released December 2006. Even accounting for the fact that Mozilla is open source and the Desktop Team says they'd been working on 9.5 for over a year, doesn't seem like Opera 9.5 has been in beta much longer than Mozilla has. As for stability, I've used the pre-release 9.5 builds as my primary browser since they started coming out. I'll admit that the early ones crashed a couple times a day with moderately heavy use, and a build will occasionally break something major, but in general they're pretty good.

As for Opera 9.25 being no good with Javascript, I thought I already refuted that? The 9.2x series is the current stable release, and scores 8 points lower than the stable FireFox releases on Acid3. That's not good but hardly seems like the buggy, broken browser you seem to think Opera is. Also, while it doesn't really excuse it, some of Opera's bad behviour is because it tries to be bug-compatible with IE. Maybe not the best design choice, but if you're a browser with a small marketshare...

As for the 8.5-based build in bora, maybe you're right. I'm not going to try and defend the older Opera versions, since it's been so long since I used them. I will say that at least one JavaScript heavy site I use regularly, JellyFish.com, did work for the most part under Bora's browser (a field didn't properly clear after submitting, requiring a refresh to use it again) and worked pretty well. Under MicroB it works more correctly, and I won't deny that, but MicroB has quirks of its own (in my expreience more UI/user expreience related than rendering related) so I was wondering how the older browser would fare in this test. In any case, I've dragged the thread off topic long enough, sorry for that.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Yea, you're right, i didn't have too much trouble with the 9.2x versions, so i guess they fixed most of their problems. Recently i only had major problems with the 9.5 beta (maybe that's why it seems to me like ages), so much that i dropped its support for the time being. Mybe its better now 2-3 months later, but i don't want (or have the nerve) to check. IE compatibility was really a bad decision since Opera in IE mode doesn't imitate the Microsoft's browser too well and only causes further pain to the Web developers.

JellyFish.com uses Prototype, which has good browser support.

Yeah, lets stop this. :)

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Sorry, but the comparison is both valid and useful. If the gecko snapshot used was buggy and slow due to being an alpha relase, that doesn't mean MicroB gets some sort of free pass. Someone somewhere decided to make that gecko snapshot part of the default (released) web browser for the nITs. If that snapshot was so bad, Nokia should have gone in a different direction for the Internet Tablets, even if that meant developing a custom engine.

Also, it is valid and useful because I want to know how the current version of MicroB stacks up against the upcoming releases of Firefox. I am not interested in any Diablo comparison until it is released and installed on my n810.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Ah, I get you -- but that doesn't discount that today the fastest available browsers on the IT's is Fennec/Minefield. For those using a browser for anything meaningful it is worth knowing that Fennec/Minefield is worth checking out for the speed & memory gains over the current microb. This MAY change in the future when Diablo MicroB is released; but Today and for the a while into the future Fennec/Minefield are on the top of the heap. ;-)

Nathan.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Too bad the iPhone's browser is cooler.

Post #50 is spam! BAN!

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Not to put words in his mouth, but I think that GA's point is more that comparing a freshly released Fennec/Minefield build to the browser that's been on our tablet's since... December(?) isn't particularly instructive about the relative efficiency or general "goodness" of the browsers themselves. Yes, we can look at them and say "Fennec/Minefield is faster" but we should try not to get too caught up in it and become "indoctrinated" to that idea (for lack of a better word) or believe it's due to some inherent superiority of the way Fennec/Minefield are coded. The release cycles are so badly out of sync that (to use a bit of hyperbole) it's like you're comparing Windows 2000 to Mac OS 9 back in February of 2001. Sure, one might be faster or better now, but let's not jump to conclusions and abandon ship just yet.

On the other hand, nothing wrong with using it if you like it - consider it the benefit of an open platform. What we probably don't want, however, is to get too worked up about it and have people pushing for Nokia to switch browsers again before we see what they've done with MicroB.

Just look at my discussion with Bundyo - software can change a lot over the course of a release cycle. This is even more true when that release cycle is dependent on multiple other projects.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Yes, that's exactly it. :)

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Does anyone know if there is a browser like NetFront or Universe for the N800?

The improvements with MicroB are nice, but it will never be able to significantly shrink it's footprint to anywhere near the levels of NetFront or Universe because it's still, at it's heart, a desktop web browser.

My biggest problem with the N-series web browsers is that they need more memory than the N-series have in order to run efficiently.
All it takes is a web page with lots of pictures or a few large SWFs and the whole thing crawls to a halt.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

links or lynx ?

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Graphical links (with cookie patch applied) is my primary browser, I switch to MicroB when I need video or javascript support.

It's really hard for me to use anything other than links on the tablet, it's just crazy fast compared to the other browsers.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

While it is very good to say Fennec right now is THE fastest browser for ther NIT, that does not go to say that FENNEC is the BEST stable browset for the NIT today.

FENNEC is no where near complete - crashes out often on large sites (which MicroB handles), kinetic scrolling only works on lite sites and on heavy sites (moderately) there is no way to even scroll up or down since they removed the scrollbars.

Installation memory footprint seems to be pretty big (i doont know about MicroB since its baked in into the OS).

So lets not make such definitive statements here. In fact Fennec/Minefield is stil not a ready app in the true sense. I installed it and had to uninstakll it if I really want a usable browser on my NIT.
Right now it is MicroB, sadly with its shortcomings.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Is that the one in free's repository? Or did you compile it yourself?

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

If you literally mean "to a halt" that can be fixed with certain tweaks. My microb used to do that, but not anymore. It loads any page I throw at it. At worst it takes a while (I don't know, maybe 15 seocnds sometimes) and sometimes to display just right I need to hit reload. I have it always in "Fit width to view" (which slows things down), but as a result it all shows up within the horizontal confines of my screen.

My tweaks include userContent.css, about:config changes, flash block, enabling virtual memory, and a one-time addition to the hosts file (for ad-blocking). Most of the first two types come from brontide.

That said, yeah, faster would be nicer. It always is.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Very interesting, but I can't find it for Maemo. Please post link.

Here is the primary website for Twibright Labs' Links browser. And what I have found of it for Maemo.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Understood that MicroB will be using a more recent engine and, I guess, at one point will have the same engine as Fennec.

Will that bring XUL support too?

Or, putting my concerns slightly differently: Will MicroB and Fennec then have equal XUL and Javascript capabilities?

Roger

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

No, MicroB does not support XUL (cuts down on space and RAM requirements rather significantly), but that's what xulrunner and Minefield are for. ;)

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

I compiled it myself, since I love my cookies :)

The cookie patch was for an old version and had to be tweaked a little to work correctly.. there's also a javascript patch out there, but I think it had some issues.

It seems strange that cookie support was never added officially, the patch was submitted years ago and seems to work fine.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Sure. And it's clear that the current MicroB doesn't. But, just to confirm — you're saying MicroB in Diablo won't have XUL either, right?

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

First, would you want to upload your cookie patch somewhere?

More basically, does the basic Twibright Labs download run on Maemo or did you have to do something more than follow their directions to get it to run on your Tablet?

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

I can't state that with 100% certainty (as I've never used Diablo MicroB), but, due to a variety of factors, I would be both incredibly surprised and very confused if it did. ;)

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

I would appreciate a Prism for the tablets... :)

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

It's not my patch, don't remember where I got it from.. but I've attached the patched cookies.c, I think all I did was comment out this line:
if (c->expires && ! cookie_expired(c))

I grabbed the source, patched cookies.c, compiled, and then just copied over the links binary.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Thanks for the patch and the reply.

For those of us who know nothing about compiling, etc., is it too much to ask someone to turn Twibright Links (and, heck, the cookie patch, too) into a deb and post it? It sounds extremely useful. Please?

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Like I said above, free's repository (http://debfarm.free.fr chinook user) has a version of graphical links2. Probably doesn't have the cookie patch. I bet he'd add it if you PM'ed him.

links2_2.1pre31-1_armel.deb

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

There's an interesting logic leap leap on display in this thread, where the performance of a rendering engine on a JavaScript benchmark becomes "Mobile Firefox is six times faster".

There is more to a browser's performance - and even speed - than JavaScript performance. Yes, the JS engine speed is obviously of great importance to AJAX apps like Google Reader and Google Docs; but the UI is a lot heavier. Scrolling in Fennec is kinetic and shiny, but awfully CPU intensive (who needs battery life anyway) and slow. I'd say Fennec feels like one of the *slowest* browsers on Maemo at the moment.

GeneralAntilles' is right: the fundamental improvements which lead to this headline figure will be coming in later versions of microb. Let's not get indoctrinated into "microb is - and always will be - slow. Mobile Firefox is quicker and better".

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

You are the first person I have seen say that. Must be a pretty subtle indoctrination.


I think it is pretty clear that improvements to Microb are coming as well. Again, it is valid to be excited about the fact that we can expect to have a faster web browsing experience going forward.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

I just wish they would let normal users install the beta version of Diablo Microb. I don't mind beta software testing.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

They will; don't normal users know how to build from svn? :p

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Evidently it depends on some bc-dev package which doesn't seem to exist anywhere.

Has anybody tried compiling successfully compiled from svn?

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

I did, couldn't figure out what patch, script, update goes where... :)

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

I don't even know where to look for the new browser, after MicroB got absorbed into Chinook, they just left the browser web pages over at the garage to grow old and crufty.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

I won't say I've played with Fennec much since I prefer the full UI of minefield to the limited UI of Fennec, but I have played with Minefield and I haven't seen any instability like I did with MicroB. I crashed about 8 times using MicroB last week in one hour; where I have had no crashes in Minefield yet. Now, I will admit I don't do a huge amount of browsing on my N810, but Crashing vs not-crashing on the limited amount of browsing I do do -- minefield is stable for the browsing I've done.

Installation footprint; yes I'm sure they are about the same. MicroB is using Firefox Alpha 5, where Minefield I think is like Beta 2. They should be somewhere close to the same size wise.

Not for me -- on my N810; as I said above; I haven't had it crash even once. Where just before I installed it I had microb crash a dozen or so times. I couldn't be more happy with the stability so far.

Nathan.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

Part of the discussion on the developer's blog was not so nice:

Random Dude:
I’m sorry…but without a build for PocketPC phones ( smartphone or touch-capable ), this isn’t much of a win. Sure, Maemo-based devices will have their place, and if Nokia actually DOES get their act together a release a smartphone based on the Maemo codebase, there could be a nice win there. However, the “heart and soul” is still the WM based smartphones and pda phones.

Mozilla Developer:
Yep, we know! :D We’re working hard to get to a set of real phones. The N810 is a great platform for development and testing but we understand that the real win is on a real mobile platform.

Pfft.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

For serious.

There's a better future with GTKWebKit, anyway.

Re: Mobile Firefox Is Six Times Faster Than Nokia's Browser on the N810
 

I thought Nokia pulled out of Webkit? As for the Mozilla developer, I wonder how much his comments were biased towards WinMobile simply because they adjust their views to whoever they speak to.