Firefox as default browser in Fedora

Jim Cornette cornette at insight.rr.com
Thu Feb 12 02:21:06 UTC 2004


Steven Garrity wrote:
> In the interest of disclosure, I've worked on the Visual Identity team
> responsible for the new Firefox logo (and more stuff to come). I'm not
> making money on it, but I am involved in Firefox.
> 
> I would like to see Firefox included as the default web browser on Fedora.
> 
> I know the discussion about including Mozilla Firebird has been had
> several times over here on the fedora-devel-list. The general consensus
> I was able to garner from searching the archives seems to be something
> like this:
> 
> 
>> “There are already too many browsers in Fedora”
> 
> This is certainly true. I don't think anyone would advocate adding
> another browser without dropping one of the existing browsers. Mozilla
> 'classic' would be the prime candidate. That said, I would hate to see
> necessities to keep Mozilla prevent a strong browser from getting in.
> 
> 
>> “Mozilla is required for other apps”
> 
> There didn't seem to be any confirmation of this, but there was
> speculation that some other apps in Fedora may depend on Mozilla libraries.
> 
> For example, Karl DeBisschop said of replacing Mozilla with Firefox,
> still called firebird at the time
> (http://redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2003-December/msg00295.html):
> 
>> Can't speak for others, but I'd take that trade. It's probably not
>> really practical, however, because epiphany (and galeon2) both depend
>> on the libs from mozilla classic, so ath that point why would you not
>> have the browser since you already had the libs. Or could galeon and
>> epiphany be made to run on the Firebird libs?
> 
> 
> Can anyone clarify this? It looks to me that Epiphany does require
> Mozilla - but nothing else seems to.
> 
> 
>> “The Mozilla suite is is more complete”
> 
> Well, Firefox can certainly replace the browser component of Mozilla
> (Navigator). I'm not sure if Thunderbird is ready to be included as a
> mail client – but then again, Evolution is already in there and with
> it's move into Gnome, is clearly a strong default. Also, ChatZilla can
> be installed on top of Firefox as an XPI.
> 
> 
>> “It's not ready (1.0) yet”
> 
> This has probably been the biggest hurdle to getting Firefox into
> Fedora, and rightly so. However, I find that the
> latest 0.8 release is a stable release and the lack of a “1.0”
> status is really just nomenclature. Many people have been using Firefox 
> (then firebird) as their primary browser for over six months (myself 
> included).
> 
> Also, from now on, development on Firefox is aimed at refinements 
> towards 1.0. Now would be a good time to get started on bringing it into 
> Fedora, to have it ready and integrated in time with Firefox 1.0.
> 
> Even if it is decided to wait for 1.0 before including Firefox or making
> it the default browser, I don't think it is necessary to wait for 1.0 to
> make a decision. Firefox 0.8 is strong enough to be judged worthy of
> inclusion/default-status as is.
> 
> I think that Firefox is a better browsing experience. It is
> faster, smaller (significantly smaller almost half the size of Mozilla
> Navigator packages).
> 
> Comments/feedback appreciated.
> 
> Thank you,
> Steven Garrity
> 
> 
> 

I started using Mozilla back before it was included with Redhat 
distributions. I like the integration with the mail client and feel that 
it is still a decent browser. I tried Firefox (when it was still 
MozillaFirebird and also Thunderbird.)

It seems that splitting the browser from the email client seems as bad 
an idea as messing up nautilus as it currently is. (A poor and pretty 
worthless filemanager of late).

If Mozilla ever stops getting the support and the seperate browser and 
mail client scheme still keeps compatibility, between the two seperate 
entities, then I have no rants about switching to seperatated programs 
to replace the mozilla browser/mailclient/html editor. I use all of 
these and believe that they are good as one entity or suite.

I will probably download and test firefox in the future, but since it is 
new and probably going to be far from not needing bug fixes on a pretty 
regular basis. I think holding off for awhile, on including firefox and 
Thunderbird, would be a good move. Including it in the development tree 
might be a good idea though, since development is pretty much changing a 
lot, unless frozen for a beta release.

Just my view,

Jim

-- 
A friend of mine won't get a divorce, because he hates lawyers more than he
hates his wife.





More information about the fedora-devel-list mailing list