News

That's right, folks: the first release of Firefox 1.0 designated for general use rather than being a "Technology Preview" is out now. If you've ever held off from giving it a go because you don't trust beta software, now would be a good time to make the leap.

There are few new visible features in this release; the main focus has been on fixing bugs and improving stability. That leaves my post a little empty, so I'll go over some thoughts about Firefox in general, since this is probably the last milestone post I'll make.

First, it's worth dispelling some illusions that you might have heard from so-called Firefox "fanboys". Is Firefox perfect? No. Does it have every feature you would ever possibly need in a browser? No. (That's what extensions are for, after all.) Now that the version number is 1.0, is it guaranteed to work flawlessly and never crash or behave strangely? No. That's an important one: I've seen too many posts across the Web screaming in Firefox's defence "This is beta software! Everything will be perfect in 1.0!" That's certainly not true. It's as stable as I'd expect from any Web browser, though, and a good deal more so than most of the Internet Explorer releases I've used in the past.

It's also not the amazing all-in-one PC security kit some make it out to be. Mozilla and Firefox have had their share of vulnerabilities reported against them, though few have been as critical as those seen and exploited in Internet Explorer in recent times. It's almost certainly true that the average user is less likely to be duped into installing spyware using Firefox compared to IE, but it's also true that, provided you keep it updated with the latest patches, IE is a suitably secure alternative if you browse the Web with your eyes open, and don't just say "Yes" to everything a dialog box asks you. The Windows XP SP2 version of IE in particular is much safer than previous incarnations, though good luck getting it on an earlier version of Windows.

If you're wondering why I'm not just singing Firefox's praises as usual, it's because there's already been a lot of hype, and I think in some respects it's detrimental. Some new users who've taken in all the good press come to Firefox expecting nothing short of a life-changing experience, and are then naturally disappointed. At the end of the day, Firefox is just a browser. We think it's the best one available at the moment, and urge you to give it a go if you haven't already. It won't cure cancer, but it might make your Web browsing more efficient if you give it a chance.

With that said, what aspects of Firefox might you find particularly helpful? I've compiled a few I personally enjoy and have heard postiive comments about.

Tabbed Browsing

Not really an advantage over many browsers other than plain Internet Explorer, since it's pretty widely implemented, but it's a useful feature. Personally, I didn't see the point for a long time — what was wrong with organising pages in taskbar buttons? The real benefit is actually in background tabs. Try visiting, say, a thumbnail gallery where you want to view several pictures from it. Try clicking them all with the middle button — they'll open in unfocused tabs, so you can click every link that interests you and then go back to see all the results.

Popup Blocking

Even XPSP2 IE6 has this, now, so again it's not a major advantage any more; still, unrequested popups will rarely bother you in Firefox. Little further explanation is necessary, except that if you're new to popup blocking, don't worry about popups you do want to see because you've clicked them on purpose — any good popup blocker will still let these through, and Firefox is no exception. (It is possible to tweak the browser to block them all, though, if you so wish.)

Quick access to clearing sensitive information

Head over to the Privacy tab of the Options window, and you'll find all sensitive information the browser might store (cookies, saved form information, passwords etc.) in one place, where you can clear them quickly and, if you need to, prevent them from being saved in the future.

Extensions

If Firefox's native features aren't enough for you, you can often find an extension to add what you're looking for. For example, if popup blocking alone isn't enough, try AdBlock to get rid of most inline ads too. Tabbrowser Extensions and Tabbrowser Preferences both add more preferences and features to tabbed browsing (though I recommend the latter if you can live without the extra functions of the former, as it's generally more stable and less disruptive of native code).

It only takes a quick Google search to find more appreciated features. As you may be aware by now, our particular platform for encouraging users to move away from IE is based on Web standards. Internet Explorer's standards support is looking very dated nowadays, and it's causing the Web to stagnate in the way Netscape 4 did a few years ago, as authors are forced to keep legacy code for IE compatibility, often at the expense of making pages that look and work better. Just about any browser other than IE works pretty well from this point of view, but Mozilla's Gecko engine is our favourite core, and Firefox the easiest interface to it for migrating from Internet Explorer. If you care about CoN's alternative styles, it's likely that future ones simply won't be available to IE users (some of the current ones already look pretty bad anyway).

Anyway — I hope everyone has a good experience with Firefox 1.0.

• Get Firefox


• Firefox 1.0 Release Notes

In the continuing saga of our "you get what you pay for" hosting, a lot of e-mails sent by the forum (and me) are just bouncing straight back at the moment.

Obviously, this makes it difficult to register. If you've registered for the forum recently and your confirmation doesn't arrive, please e-mail Rangers51 (see the staff page for contact info) and ask him nicely to forward it to you manually. Obviously, for security reasons, we can only forward the e-mail to the address you used to register - if you need it sent to another address, please log in and change your registered address there first.

For all current users, and everyone who's already had a manual confirmation sent, please don't try to change your forum e-mail address until this is resolved, as your account will be deactivated pending response to an e-mail you'll never receive. It'd also be helpful if you could temporarily unsubscribe from any active topics to lighten the bounce load on our mailbox -- it's not like you'd have received notification anyway.

Sorry about that. We'll let you know once this has been resolved, which we really hope is sooner rather than later.

Update 28 Oct 2004: Our host has solved the problem of our mailbox filling up with bounces by preventing any e-mail from reaching us at all. So there's little point e-mailing us now... we won't have your bounced mail, and we won't get your request to forward it, either. Sorry, loves. And a tip: if your webhost ever changes management, leave immediately.

If you haven’t been following my updates on it so far, you’ve almost certainly heard of Firefox by now anyway. That won’t deter me from my usual milestone upgrade-o-push, though.

Though the new Firefox 1.0 Preview Release isn’t as packed with landmark new features as previous editions, the focus has largely been on fixing bugs and improving stability, along with minor enhancements for improved convenience. The bookmarks manager now has a folder pane on the left, for instance, and bookmark icons are much less prone to disappear over time. The default theme which drew much criticism on the initial release of Firefox 0.9 is greatly improved. In addition, there are a number of enhancements designed to prevent spoofing of browser windows and secure sites: the location bar is now highlighted and shows a lock icon on secure sites, and the status bar security area shows the host name to ensure you’re in the right place. By default, the status bar can no longer be hidden in popup windows.

One of the more interesting new features is the addition of Live Bookmarks, which allow you to keep track of news sites, blogs etc. which provide a syndication service. Look for the RSS icon on the right of the status bar to see where this is available. I may even work on hooking up CoN news or recent posts at some point, since there’s basic functionality for it built into the board. Also look out for the new find toolbar, which replaces the familiar old find dialog, searches while you type and includes the ability to highlight your search term in the document.

The popup blocker has been improved, and now allows user-requested popups to open during page load, as well as being better at blocking unrequested popups (though it doesn’t seem to work properly with the popular TBE extension, which probably needs updating). A Windows XP SP2-style information bar now appears when popups or extension installations are blocked, or when plugins are needed to display a page. While these are good for new users, I personally found the popup notification bar to be irritating; thankfully, it can be disabled very easily.

I know I say it every time there’s a new Firefox release, but this really is the best one yet, and a great excuse to try an alternative browser if you’ve never stepped away from Internet Explorer — the browser being able to update itself for future milestone releases is certainly a very promising feature in terms of ease of use.

If Firefox isn’t for you, you might consider trying Opera or the old Mozilla "1.x" Suite before heading back to Internet Explorer. If you’re determined to stick with IE or one of its variants, it’s a very good idea to make sure you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed, which provides security enhancements and, at last, popup blocking. It’s important to note, though, that there’s no way to obtain this IE update on anything other than Windows XP. There is also no improvement to Web standards support either, which is our main platform for bullying you all into changing browser, including the now pretty basic functionality of displaying PNG images correctly; it’s understood that this probably won’t even be improved in the next major release of Internet Explorer, which has been comfirmed only to be in production for the next version of Windows, codename “Longhorn”. In other words: don’t expect anything new from IE for a long time, if ever, and only if you’re prepared to shell out for a new OS. It’s also unlikely that future optional CoN styles will be available for Internet Explorer, if you care about that sort of thing.

If you want a Mozilla e-mail client to go with your Firefox browser, the excellent Thunderbird 0.8 was released at the same time as Firefox 1.0PR, now featuring the ability to import Outlook and Outlook Express messages, as well as store messages from POP3 accounts in a single inbox.

• Firefox Product Page


• Firefox 1.0PR Downloads


• BitTorrent tracker for Firefox releases


• The Burning Edge: Bigger Picture (notable changes in Firefox 1.0PR)
   



• Firefox Extensions


• Firefox Themes


• Warning: old extensions and themes from Firefox 0.9.x may not be compatible with 1.0PR.
   



• Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8


• Opera Software


• Mozilla Suite

A few of you have e-mailed us about the recurring problem with the forums, where a white screen appears instead of the proper forum page, with some SQL and a response "error 28 from table handler".

This is caused by the configuration of our Web host allowing the disk to fill up. We're told that this occurs when other users of the hosting provider use the site backup option in their control panel. We're also told that it won't be disabled, because it would be inconvenient for users not to be able to back up their sites.

Apparently it's not at all inconvenient that users can't use their site much of the time...

Anyway, rest assured that we'll be badgering the host incessantly about sorting this out, or they'll be losing our business before too long. In the mean time, please do keep letting us know when the error occurs, so that we can track how serious the problem is (although obviously it's better that not every member e-mails us: perhaps the folks in chat at the time could arrange for one person to send the e-mail). Keep the subject line "SQL Error" (change the '+' in the default subject to a space, if it's there) so we can filter the messages nicely.

Thanks for your patience, folks.

A news post from Tiddles can only mean one thing: there’s a new Firefox milestone release this morning.

This new version features a new system for extensions and themes; if you installed any previously, you’ll need new, 0.9-compatible versions for this release. Built into the new system is an update manager that connects to the new Mozilla Update site, which should hopefully reduce such problems in the future.

Also included is the Help system intended for release with 0.8 (which, unless it’s been updated in the last few hours, still contains screenshots from 0.8 and a couple of procedures that have changed for 0.9, but is otherwise quite good). Since installation can now also import most data (such as history, favourites/bookmarks, saved passwords) from an installation of Internet Explorer or other popular browsers, now is probably the best time yet to make the switch.

I must also point out a couple of negatives with this version, however. The excellent Qute theme for Windows and Linux is no longer shipped with Firefox; instead, a new theme known as Winstripe is packaged. While far from terrible, the author freely admits that this theme is “a 0.1 release at best”, and the truth is that its early inclusion (and its existence at all) comes down to ugly licensing issues with the previous theme. Not to worry, though: the old theme, Qute, is now available as a standalone theme, and looks a great deal nicer than its 0.8 counterpart (which you can also find as Qute Retro, though I don't have a link for that at present; I also have some tips and tricks to make the new Qute take on some of the better features from its older release, which I'll put up in this topic if anyone wants them). It's also worth noting that some users have experienced instability with builds running up to this release, particularly in the most updated areas of the program, i.e. themes, extensions and profiles.

Overall, however, I'd recommend that all previous Firefox users and anyone thinking of switching give Firefox 0.9 a shot — just make sure to keep your old installation and profile handy in case of problems (but if you want to install 0.9 into the same directory as 0.8 was in, make sure you disable all of your old extensions and uninstall Firefox 0.8 first). Long-time CoN readers will be aware that we've been pushing everyone to move to non-Internet Explorer browsers for some time: Internet Explorer is an aging product for which Microsoft have stated there will be no future standalone versions, only security updates a new version to ship with the next release of Windows, still thought to be some two years off, in which it has apparently been stated that its many problems with Website rendering will still not be fixed. It is, at least, a good job that Microsoft do still release security updates, considering the number of security issues surrounding its browser. You've heard it all before, but my advice is to jump away from Internet Explorer as soon as possible.

Not interested in Firefox? Opera 7.51 was released recently and is also excellent. Version 1.7 of the aging Mozilla "1.x" Suite ought to be available soon (as should version 0.7 of Firefox's companion e-mail client, Thunderbird).

Enjoy!

• Mozilla Firefox Product Page


• Firefox 0.9 Downloads
  (Windows installer now only 4.7MB!)


• BitTorrent tracker for Firefox 0.9 releases


• Arvid Axelsson's Qute theme
   


• New IE Holes Defy Latest Patches (PCWorld.com)


• Opera Software


• Mozilla Suite


• Mozilla Thunderbird

On the 1st of May, RPGOne translations released the first version of their translation patch for the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VI.

If you ever saw Sky Render's project named "End of Fantasy", this is where it ended up. It's a complete retranslation from scratch, foresaking Ted Woolsey's FF3US efforts. The readme claims that the translation is primarily focused on accuracy, with readability second, and that it tries to keep some name consistency with the more recent official Final Fantasy translations where they are sufficiently close to the original Japanese.

Bear in mind that translation is a somewhat subjective issue, and that there's no 100% right or wrong way to translate something between languages. Any comments on this forum from players of this version insisting that they have played a "DIRECT translation" so that their interpretation of an event is bound to be absolutely correct will be met with severe beatings about the face. That said, I'd recommend trying it out to anyone who can do so, as it probably is indeed more faithful to the original game than the official translations (which had to pass through Nintendo's still overzealous censors at the time).

Note that you need a Japanese Final Fantasy VI ROM to apply the patch, and that it can't be combined with modifications for FF3us, such as i90east's expert versions. The download does include an optional patch to prevent Vanish/Doom from working, for anyone who wants a little extra challenge.

Interested? Head over to RPGOne's Final Fantasy VI download page and grab a copy. I encourage you to check out the readme first of all, if only for known issues and patching instructions (though the procedure should be familiar if you've used IPS patches in the past). Finally, please read lead programmer ChrisRPG's message and donate to him if you appreciate his work and have some cash to spare.