When can we expect to see a built in spell checker (like SpellBound) become a standard feature in Firefox?

When did you change the title from "Firefox, Mars and Cats" to "Firefox and more"?
Any particular reason? :)

Hi,
What's the ETA for a release of TBird 1.5 and what about lightning? Any more details on that project available yet?
Thanks.

I'm going to ask a cat question again since I got such a good answer the last time. Once again, the sometimes odd behavior of Tiger is the subject. :)

Very often, just before he's about to drink from the water bowl, Tiger starts digging on the floor next to and around the bowl. I've seen this behavior on other cats as well, but I've never got a good explanation why they do it. My mom once guessed that it's an instinct to dig up water holes, but it just seems stupid to do that when the water is right in front of you, doesn't it? This digging can go on for about ten seconsds, then he quietly starts drinking.

As a side note, Tiger loves drinking water from other places, such as the bath tub, the washbasin, or a glass of water standing next to the bed. I would guess that's just because he's adventurous and just enjoys the thrill of doing something different.

Following on the cat question, why your specific interest in Mars? And what do you think Mars holds for us? (i.e. What do you think we'll find there - or what are your hopes for near-term space findings?) I don't really need an answer, I'm just curious. I love the blog, keep it coming and thanks for sharing!

I know SVG will be part of Firefox 1.5 but I really know little of it and I'm wondering will Mozilla corp have some demo sites that show off Firefox 1.5's new SVG capabilities to coincde with its launch ?

(I'm aware there are third party sites with SVG content but I do not know if these are suitable for the average user, curious about this tech)

a current statis of Tbird 1.5 and Firefox 1.5 ... when will the first real beta be released and the follow up as to a proposed released date (Oct or Nov)?? Also, will both be released at the sametime or is it possible that Tbird will be released before Firefox.

Are there to be beta (Sept), then RC (Oct) with final release in late Oct or more likely early Nov?

later,
Richard

What kind of Animal is Mozilla?

That was a dumb question.. ;)

Since Firefox has gained alot of share and getting so much publicity, Do you think Firefox can be too popular for it's own good?

I'm wondering in what way the new features of Firefox 1.5 will be highlighted, it would be cool if that would be done some Apple-like.

It would be great to see well-documented new features, and a good guide for companies how-to-switch-to-firefox. Perhaps it's a good time to diversify, focus on two different groups: Regular People and (Big) Businesses.

My question therefore is: do you know something / have some plans already about the new campaign to promote the next version of Firefox? I can imagine generating a buzz can start off a week before the Mozilla Corporation/Foundation unleashes the latest and greatest version of Firefox.

O yeah, and why not putting Firefox in beta now (1.4), all major bugs are fixed right now (according to the burning edge)? ;-)

Muah, why are you the most blogging person at mofo... sorry, moco... except to the burning edge probably, but that's not a real blog, is it?

I have a few questios regarding netscape 8.

1. shouldn't netscape release the source code of netscape 8?

2. netscape uses the term "based on firefox" in the about window. this is illegal concerning the trademark policy, when you read the section "Serious Modifications". do they have some special admission from mofo?

3. in mitchell baker's post about the employment of several new people, she mentioned that one of mike shaver's tasks will be to investigate new technologies like instant messaging. does that mean that the mozilla foundation thinks about creating an instant messaging software (or plugin)?

Are there any plans at Mozilla to start agreements with PC/laptop OEMs to ship Firefox pre-installed on their products? Are there any in place right now even? I read somewhere Acer was either starting to or planning on it. I've yet to find proof though.

I'd also like to see Firefox / Thunderbird CDs available freely at electrical retailers (I work for a UK chain), just like you can walk in and pick an AOL CD up from an AOL FSDU (free standing display unit). It would be great for Mozilla, customers and the retailers themselves. Do you think that could become a possibility?

If 1.5 is ripe enough I don't see why we can't try.

I think I asked too many questions... lol.

If most of the coding work I do for Mozilla is wasted because of lack of reviews, why should I even bother?

Sebastopol? Did Nat Torkington invite you to his office, now? :)

Would you revisit Aardvark (which is still at v1.0) and comment on whether it has any basic problem working with recent releases?

I'm in that vague post-meta-branch-pre-stable condition where some extensions work, others won't work nor update nor install no matter how many times I try, and taking a break myself knowing it'll be a week or so before things sort out.

Which do you find more exciting, colonisation of the Moon or a manned trip to Mars? What's the current timeline on each?

When are you going to stop talking about all this boring Firefox crap and get to the intersting stuff (cats, space, etc.)? :-)

What a pity you don't blog about cats anymore. I've wanted to sahre a few of them with you;-)

Why were the plans to create the Mozilla Corporation kept secret until August? Why not tell people what you were planning?roC

@ guest ref - what kind of animal is a Mozilla.

Legend has it that the name Mozilla is made up from two other words, I won't post here what those two words are. I'll leave that to Asa should he wish to ;)

Any internal competetions going on at Mozilla, like guessing the date of when 1.5 is being released, the day Firefox hits 10% marketshare aso.

---

Ian that has to be the best link i have seen this month!

What skin do you use in Fx and Tb?

Hablas/entendes castellano/español?! :D (Do you speak/understand Spanish?)

Is XUL 2.0 going to be ready for Firefox 1.5? And will it have better support for remote apps(example: getting rid of the tree limitations, etc..) or will it be even more strict?

I am probably just misunderstanding the information on the about screen that states “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20050819 Firefox/1.6a1”

But according to the roadmap firefox 1.1 Beta 1 would be running the Gecko rendering engine 1.8b4 (Final says 1.8), but the latest nightly builds seam to be using a newer version (1.9a1). Is this correct and if so what’s the differences between 1.8b4 and this version.

I also find the “Firefox/1.6a1” version number confusing as I would expect the final release to say 1.5 which is lower then the current release number.

Buzz: There are currently two firefox-versions developed: the branch, which relies on 1.8, and the trunk, which relies on whatever is newest. the branch is versioned "1.4alpha1" or something, at least with "1.4", the trunk starts with "1.6". you are currently using the trunk, which will have the new features, while the branch just gets some polishing and bug-fixing as it will be 1.5 ;)

What's the main factor resulting in a quite noticeable difference of quality regarding UI design between firefox and thunderbird? Will MoFo plan to level up the UI quality along the line?

I was, and still is, quite puzzled, hope you can/will answer.

I don't know if you can answer this, but what is going on over at the Calendar/Sunbird project?

I'm perplexed.

I was sure that you recommended Aardvark in May, on this page--

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/008129.html

Reading it today, where I remember it saying Aardvark, the text refers to Platypus, except there's one remaining use of the name Aardvark.

Page is closed to editing so I couldn't ask there.

Hi Asa,

Would you mind giving some statistics on your blog's traffic? Number of hits per day, browser statistics, for example? :-)

Hank the answer as to why they are two similar projects is in the thread below see catbutt's post 5th down from the top of the page (the author of Aardvark), and very uncool behaviour from the *cough* author *cough* of Platypus.

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=254890&postdays=0&postorder=asc&postsperpage=15&start=30

Dave, thanks, I understand the thread you pointed to -- I'm puzzled about the info here -- I was sure I found out about Aardvark here at Asa's log (as I know others did) but when I rechecked, just now, it looks like Asa's topic has been changed, just by replacing "Aardvark" to "Platypus" as though it were a name change of the app. It looks like it was edited, imperfectly, to replace one with the other -- all but one appearance of the word.

I can't find the original pointer anywhere else. I guess I could try the Wayback Machine.

Just trying to get Aardvark working -- I didn't know about the copying/pirating issue til today.

Will the mozilla team continue to deliver security updates for Firefox 1.0? - I'm very happy with Firefox 1.0 right now, but most of my extensions and settings will probably break in 1.1.

Given the popularity of Firefox (and Thunderbird, for that matter) on virtually all major platforms, will we see official Mozilla support for systems other than Windows, Mac, and Linux? Solaris, AIX, IRIX, HP-UX, the BSD's, etc. have working ports (I believe), but these unofficial Firefox builds seem to stay hidden in their respective packages/ports collections, although a few are yet again hidden in the Mozilla "Contributed Builds" page. Likewise, will there be Mozilla releases for particular Linux distros (e.g. Debian packages or Red Hat RPMs), rather than having the distributions compile their own versions? It seems to me that official Mozilla support for more platforms -- most of which already have fully functional ports -- is worth more than just quieting the Opera fanboys who claim that Opera is more portable.

One more thing: I haven't tried the latest TB trunk yet, but will Thunderbird contain valuable offline help (using the Mozilla Help Viewer) like Firefox 1.0 does? If so, do you need content contributors?

Asa, I've been testing the new update system, and I have to say that I'm very imprssed. I recall that at one point there was talk of patched updates instead of downloaded the entire application. Is this feature still planned for 1.5 release?

This question is probably related to a couple already posted: is shaver still leading and working on the lightning project?

Asa, can you tell us about download statistics of localised builds like you did before? Thanks.

Daveb, thanks for pointing out the winstripe theme, looks good...

The icons is only one part of my question; basicaly I want to know why Mozilla is not as responsible and professional on the interface of their mail client as with their browser.

It goes far beyond icons, just look at the new filter dialog. Excellent feature filled with mighty power but the interface for it?! Wush, I've seen kids doing better with VB and a mouse. How come nobody stands up in Mozilla and say to the tb team: "listen, we know you like it, your geeky and all, but being able to close all the application using the exit menu in an address book window might not be the best choice you can offer to everyday users"

Asa was making a long speech with linux and his every-users type, how come he can't stand for his own product?!

Hope that can be answered, really.

Asa, you also said in your linux speech that simplicity is the key. Is Bugzilla going to be simpler ? Even searching a bug is quite complex. I know about the QA blog, but even if you can report a bug in a coment, it has not the same purpose.

How do you deal with the votes, number of dups and number of CC's to items in bugzilla?

Take for instance bug #45375. It has 221 votes, has about 40 dups and has been opened on 13-Jul-2000. So aparently people see this as a real problem en like to see this fixed.

Hi Asa

Will Thunderbird 1.5 is going to get new default theme (Pinstripe) in Win platform?
(http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=291173)

Cheers

What will be done to ensure that patches that land on the branch also land on the trunk (if they are supposed to). It would be nice not to have to re-merge branch and trunk again after 1.5, and also to have everything that is fixed on branch to be fixed on trunk. Thanks.

David Tenser: based on my cats, I suspect that the "digging" is actually scenting...

Asa, do you get that impression too?

Asa, I'm curious about Mozilla security practices. Everyone knows Mozilla beats M$ when it comes to speed of response when security holes are uncovered. The policy of paying for disclosure of security holes is also excellent. But what about other things?

For example, can you elaborate on how you go about planning design securely, and what security practices Mozilla products use at the code level? Whether you perform threat models, whether you plan to eradicate all known reproducible crashers per release, how you go about fuzz testing, whether you use automatic code check tools to detect common integer overflows, automated regression testing, etc? Unfortunately it seems to me (if only from the lack of blogging by Moz people compared to other aspects) that Micro$oft is finally understanding all these issues far better than Moz - that you are much better at applying duct tape, but their product is designed to be less leaky. Is this viewpoint justified?

more sugestion than question

now that we are getting a Dot EU eurid.eu is not time for EU locale!

example: nl-EU for the Netherlands / en-EU for English speaking

but keep the current nl-NL / en-GB

Nutshell question: What's the plan for extension versioning (app.extensions.version) between now and the FF1.5 release?

The transition from FF0.9 to FF1.0 went somewhat roughly for existing FF users, because the version number was bumped from 0.9 (IIRC) to 1.0 at a rather late point. Many extensions didn't get updated for weeks, and a few sites went so far as to start distributing modified popular extensions with a bumped maxVersion. As a result, lots of existing FF users didn't upgrade to 1.0 until weeks after the release.

Deer Park went fairly well, as there was a heads-up email sent out early, and otherwise announced online. And, of course, it wasn't targeted at end users.

But it seems now that there's talk of the 1.5 betas(?) being released soon, and something about the extension versioning being first changed to 1.4, then again to 1.5 for the final release. But I haven't seen that spread very widely, and can't seem to find more info that what I vaguely remember hearing. It seems to me that a repeat of the 0.9 -> 1.0 debacle is likely, but with 80+ millions users.

Something about this just seems wrong. For example, releases of Sun's Solaris OS don't get a version change at the last minute. Incompatible changes are only allowed very early in the development cycle, otherwise they have to wait for the next release. I presume that even Windows operates in a similar role -- I've never heard of problems caused by a last-minute version change. Why must Firefox be so different?

Justin: check this post on the Mozilla developer blog.

Which Firefox releases are going to be long-lived branches that get security updates even after new versions are released?

vfwlkr:
“When did you change the title from "Firefox, Mars and Cats" to "Firefox and more"?
Any particular reason? :)”

Similarly, how come it's no longer a notblog*? That there be good branding.

Asa, what about the Mozilla Visual Identity Team. Is that still an active team? If so, what are they currently working on?

Are you and mozilla planning anything, like with linux? *wink wink- nudge nudge*

1) What do you make?
2) What is your favorite tool/toy?
3) Who are your technology heros?
;)

I´ll take this opportunity to make a desperate roll call:
PLEASE do a complete reversion about your information policy concerning profile stuff and start a information offense about profiles and profilemanager.
To see so many helpful people in all forums, who are fighting this pitiful battle with users which doesn´t have any clue about profiles and all problems resulting from that, is not fun anymore.
If users start to learn to handle profiles as ordinary as folders or files I think more than 50% (60,70?) of all problems will disappear from forums.
And: do not take down the GUI for profilemanager.PLEASE!!

Asa it seems Firefox and cats and mars isn't really blogged anymore, why?

Do you ever miss the coffee banque?

I have a not-so-hypothetical question. Suppose 15 people lose all their personal files as a result of a bug. The bug is well documented and easy to fix, and 15 people each give it one vote. Now suppose 150 people suffer a minor inconvenience. The bug can't be replicated, and it receives 150 votes. Which bug do you fix? (A: the inconvenience -- true story.) Sorry, I know this is supposed to be a question, not an ambush, but I have to wonder sometimes how bugs are prioritized, or if they are at all. Surely it's not by vote total, is it? I know you have put a lot of effort into bookmarks loss, but should Mozilla be taking more interest in data loss?

What's the definitive stance on Mozilla's commitment to Win9x platforms?

In your blog, you previously indicated that Firefox would gain market share thanks to IE7 being available for XP SP2 and upwards. While that's true for Firefox 1.0.x and Firefox 1.5.x, the Mozilla Wiki indicates that this is not the case for Firefox 2.0.x.

"Uniscribe not a problem since we're going to drop Win9x support for FF2."
Source: http://wiki.mozilla.org/FutureGfxWhiteboard

Any comments on this? I personally understand if this is the case, but some people are concerned about this and it would be nice to have clarification.

Will there be a Firefox packaged as msi for easy deployment? That _the_ thing i'm missing regarding Firefox right now. I know there are msi builds floating around done by third parties. But more often than not no German builds are available.

Hello you beautiful people,

When you click on the link in IE or Firefox or Opera you
never know where will it open, in new window or in current
and this is very annoying. In Firefox and Opera this is
even more annoying since we have tabs, so when you middle
click on javascript link you will end up with empty tab, so
every time before middle click you need to check is it link
javascript link. This can be very puzzling for not so much
experienced Firefox or Internet user and it is very
annoying for rest of us since browser should do what we
tell it and we shouldn’t guess what browser is going to do
and adjust our action to it.

My proposal is, make left click to always open links, even
javascript links, in current tab, middle click in new tab,
and shift + left click in new window. Of course make this
optional and configurable. I think that this kind of option
will perfectly match Firefox slogan “Take back the web".

Sorry for my bad English, I hope that my idea is clear
enough. What do you think about it?

3 quick questions related to the download counter

1) When Fx 1.5 is released, will you zero the counter?

2) Any plans to start a counter for Tb?

3) Any plans to release Fx 1.5 to coincide with 100 million downloads? It looks like the 2 will occur fairly close anyway...

Mr. Asa,

I am an avid user of linux. I installed each and every flavor of linux for the past 2 years and want to introduce linux to others(especially home users). But they all want a plug and play OS not a plug and try OS.

I want a Easy to install, light weight, easy to upgrade and with good usability(people who are desinging usability features better read the apple Human Interface Guide lines).

Asa, Can i expect something like a GNU/Mozilla linux based on XUL runner?

Opera supports CSS 2.1, XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.01, WML 2.0, ECMAScript, DOM 2 and SVG 1.1 tiny.

Which does Firefox support?

What kind of weight do you give to bugs that are shown be top sources of questions in the support forums? Do you have some sort of reporting for the top support issues? Would you consider adding a keyword that "support forum leaders" could set to indicate it's a bug that affects a lot of people?

Following up on Jason's question, I'd like to ask if there is any mechanism by which forum leaders can reach you. I imagine you get an unmanageable volume of mail. Do you have eyes down on the ground?

What about focussing the effort of development and especially code review to the footprint issues ???

To reduce codesize (and datasize), one can try to focus the Mozilla/Gecko/Firefox development and especially the patch review process to those bugs that involve codesize and datasize reduction, instead of introducing new features again and again...

For example, bug 214672: Further optimization and correctness improvements of libjar: streamlining nsJarInputStream, is awaiting a long time allready on a patch review.

This patch saves about 5K code for the app, 4K for the installer, and about 400K of allocated memory...

Other codesize optimisations are:
bug 196295: Move GIF2.cpp into nsGIFDecode
bug 58310: consolidate duplicate implementations PRTimeToSeconds() and SecondsFromPR
bug 301594: Remove unneeded row allocation and such from 'BlackenFrame' in imgContainerGif
bug 192790: make imgContainerGIF::BuildCompositeMask useless
bug 230675: nsICacheVisitor.idl can reduced drastically resulting in about 20K codesize savings...
bug 289571: Optimization for nsRecycleAllocator
bug 271386: nsHttpResponseHead: Some functions can be made private...

and of course:
bug 92580: [META] footprint issues (tracking)
bug 143046: Need to Keep GIFs at original 8 bit or optimized.

Are there any chances that the blank window popping up when starting a download will be gone by 1.5?

Hi Asa,
do you know of any extensions that change how Firefox reacts to being called with parameters? Today many applications on Windows open the default browser on Windows with something like this:
$system_variable_path_to_default_browser_exe http://www.site.com/?data=your_private_data_here
This avoids being blocked by the firewall and can get quite ennerving or even allow the application to send confidential data out there. I was not able to find an extension, that simply disables the possibility to open an URL by calling the firefox.exe with a parameter. Is this not doable with an extension or was there simply no one that wanted to realise that idea?