Google Hires Second Firefox Coder

[sUn]

On the heels of Firefox's lead engineer Ben Goodger moving to Google, a second Firefox developer has announced he's been hired by the search giant.

Mozilla developer Darin Fisher, who ran the cookies and permissions part of the non-profit's browser development efforts, and was also in charge of the portable run-time work, wrote in his blog this week that he's gone to Google.

"I have joined Google as well," Fisher wrote. "Like Ben, I will still be very much involved with the Mozilla project and community."

Goodger also contended that he will continue working on Mozilla and Firefox projects.

Google has refused to confirm or categorically deny that it's working on a browser of its own, or what these new developers will be up to. Speculation, meanwhile, is that the San Francisco, Calif.-based search firm, which has created add-on toolbars for Internet Explorer and has close ties with rival Firefox, is actively working on a Google-branded browser.

The announcement of a second Firefox programmer on Google's payroll led Gary Price, a search analyst with SearchEngineWatch.com to write, "If it wasn't there already, Google browser has now been kicked into overdrive."

~ TechWeb

 

[Solid Fro]

Can I buy Googlezon stock now or do I have to wait?

 

[skip0110]

I wonder what the open source community is going to make of this -- often they don't like buisnesses "buying" away their talent.

 

[Giancarlo]

Can I buy Googlezon stock now or do I have to wait?

Pending it's exsistance, sure you can!

 

[cardude2004]

I wonder what the open source community is going to make of this -- often they don't like buisnesses "buying" away their talent.

Who cares what the open source community says, Firefox and Mozilla stink. This guy is just going to mess up the Google browser.

 

[Taurine]

Who cares what the open source community says, Firefox and Mozilla stink. This guy is just going to mess up the Google browser.

Excuse me? Do we have a Microsoft fanboy? You have no idea what you're talking about..

 

[cardude2004]

Excuse me? Do we have a Microsoft fanboy? You have no idea what you're talking about..

I've use Firefox and it is a poor browser.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

I've use Firefox and it is a poor browser.

How 'bout instead of pointlessly bashing Mozilla, you list some reasons.

 

[Burnout]

How 'bout instead of pointlessly bashing Mozilla, you list some reasons.

👍

 

[cardude2004]

How 'bout instead of pointlessly bashing Mozilla, you list some reasons.

I don't like Mozilla or Firefox mainly because of the look of it. I don't like all of the buttons that are in view on the top. It looks like Netscape, which I don't like because of all of the buttons either. I like IE because there are just a few large buttons, like back, forward, and home at the top of the window. I don't like the tab idea either. I look at the start menu to see what I have open, not at the top of my internet browser. To me it seems that the toolbars at the top of the page are subtracting from the viewing window.

I also don't like the way any of the menu's are set up. I feel that I have less options to control. I find it annoying that the pages in Firefox and Mozilla load from the top down, whereas IE loads the whole page and then displays it, so you aren't waiting half way down the page for the rest to load. Firefox also sometimes changes where pictures and things are located on a website, if the website wasn't coded correctly to its liking. IE displayed the images where the web designer put them. I don't like my bookmarks and stuff coming from a pull-down menu.

Who cares if it is a free product and is open source. IE is free too. I like Microsoft products and don't really like products from other companies. I like the look of Microsoft, a lot of software programs are designed for it, and it works well.

 

[skip0110]

I don't like Mozilla or Firefox mainly because of the look of it. I don't like all of the buttons that are in view on the top. It looks like Netscape, which I don't like because of all of the buttons either.

Firefox/Mozilla are themable.

I like IE because there are just a few large buttons, like back, forward, and home at the top of the window.

You can customize the toolbar any way you like it. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_FAQs_:_Customize_Toolbar

I don't like the tab idea either. I look at the start menu to see what I have open, not at the top of my internet browser. To me it seems that the toolbars at the top of the page are subtracting from the viewing window.

Tabbed browsing can be disabled, if you don't like it, don't use it.

I also don't like the way any of the menu's are set up. I feel that I have less options to control.

Firefox has a whole set (100+) of customizable options. Ask Shannon what to type in the URL bar.

I find it annoying that the pages in Firefox and Mozilla load from the top down, whereas IE loads the whole page and then displays it, so you aren't waiting half way down the page for the rest to load.

The Mozilla engine actually loads faster; the whole page does not have to be transferred before you can see part of it. so you are actually waiting less.

Firefox also sometimes changes where pictures and things are located on a website, if the website wasn't coded correctly to its liking. IE displayed the images where the web designer put them.

This has to be a joke. It's IE thats not standards-compliant, not Mozilla/Firefox.

I don't like my bookmarks and stuff coming from a pull-down menu.

You can have a toolbar for bookmarks. I do.

Who cares if it is a free product and is open source. IE is free too. I like Microsoft products and don't really like products from other companies. I like the look of Microsoft, a lot of software programs are designed for it, and it works well.

The point is not that one software is open source and the other is not--regardless of price, Mozilla/Firefox is the better browser.

 

[cardude2004]

The Mozilla engine actually loads faster; the whole page does not have to be transferred before you can see part of it. so you are actually waiting less.

This is one of the main things I don't like about it. I don't want to see part of the page as it loads, I want it to load the whole page and then display it, like IE does. It loads fine with my 3mb cable connection.

I won't be going through all of that useless work on a useless browser, when I don't have to do anything to get that on IE. Plus, IE is a Microsoft product, which I like, and Firefox/Mozilla are not Microsoft products. I don't care about the free part either.

 

[skip0110]

I don't care about the free part either.

Oh yes, I almost forgot about this bit. IE may be free, but to run it you need software that costs a couple hundered bucks. That's like the dealer giving you a "free" tank of gas after he just made a several thousand dollar profit on the $30K car you bought.

 

[cardude2004]

So what, when it comes to the Windows OS, which costs quite a bit. Most people have it, even if they do have Firefox/Mozilla, why not take advantage of it and use what it has to offer, like IE, rather than putting Firefox/Mozilla on it. Those of you that have Windows and Firefox/Mozilla, just spent a couple hundred dollars on an OS and installed a poor web browser, Firefox or Mozilla, taking up more hdd space, rather than using a product that works well, like IE, if you put it to use.

 

[sUn]

Mozilla = Yummy.

My Firefox.

 

[cardude2004]

Where are the images on those buttons, like IE has?

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

Where are the images on those buttons, like IE has?

That's the great thing, you can personalize it, so if you don't want the images you don't need them. The only time not having images would be bad is if the person couldn't read. 👍

 

[skip0110]

Why not? Here is mine.

Enjoy. Oh yes, IE also cannot handle PNG transparency. That means it has no way to do alpha transparency whatsoever.

 

[cardude2004]

I never do transparencies anyway.

 

[Event]

I never do transparencies anyway.

But a lot of other people do, and you will view them and they won't look as good.

My browser: (default theme)

w00t! Alpha transarecy! I can see it (err.... can't see it )! Can you?

 

[skip0110]

w00t! Alpha transarecy! I can see it (err.... can't see it )! Can you?
http://img137.exs.cx/img137/2554/gt4logo8um.png

I can

 

[sUn]

Uhm. I think if Google creates a Gbrowser it will probably pwn Firefox. Your thoughts and opinions?

 

[skip0110]

Well...it's difficult to speculate, but pay software coming form a company with Google's great attitude is bound to be pretty good.

I wonder what widget set they will use? .Net, Mono (opensource .Net clone), or GTK? (Firefox uses a modified GTK, if anyone is interested...) I think I read that they were trying to hire Mono's lead developer, but he didn't want a job.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

I probably wouldn't use it, because of the possible useless features. I don't want a bloated browser.

 

[CDailey]

I doubt it would be bloated.

 

[Sage]

Enjoy. Oh yes, IE also cannot handle PNG transparency. That means it has no way to do alpha transparency whatsoever.

Actually, it is possible if you load IE's AlphaImageLoader, which is a proprietary IE behavior (IE has all kinds of non-standard behaviors that the team made for no particularly good reason). The problem is that you have to use Javascript in order to load it in a valid way – you can load it through HTML or CSS, but because it's proprietary code, it won't validate. Also, you have to load it for img sources, CSS backgrounds, or both – you can't load it once and have it affect all images regardless of where they are.

Pain in the ass, IE is. I just finished development on a webpage today, and I had to add over 1000 extra characters of hacks (mostly star html selectors) in the CSS file just to get IE to render it, and that's not including the separate images I had to make for it (translucent and opaque varieties). I'd like to personally find members of the IE team and smash their faces with a keyboard… I've figured that I spend more time making tweaks to handle IE's fallacies than actually putting the website itself together. POS.

I probably wouldn't use it, because of the possible useless features. I don't want a bloated browser.

Why would it be bloated? That's the one thing Google is known for – not having bloated interfaces (just look at the Google home page).

 

[iceburns288]

WOW! I just looked at this site in IE for the first time in months. I looked at this thread. Man that GT4 logo looks funny!

The scrolling is weird and so is the look. :s

 

[Stinky Chicken]

I don't like Mozilla or Firefox mainly because of the look of it. I don't like all of the buttons that are in view on the top. It looks like Netscape, which I don't like because of all of the buttons either. I like IE because there are just a few large buttons, like back, forward, and home at the top of the window. I don't like the tab idea either. I look at the start menu to see what I have open, not at the top of my internet browser. To me it seems that the toolbars at the top of the page are subtracting from the viewing window.

I also don't like the way any of the menu's are set up. I feel that I have less options to control. I find it annoying that the pages in Firefox and Mozilla load from the top down, whereas IE loads the whole page and then displays it, so you aren't waiting half way down the page for the rest to load. Firefox also sometimes changes where pictures and things are located on a website, if the website wasn't coded correctly to its liking. IE displayed the images where the web designer put them. I don't like my bookmarks and stuff coming from a pull-down menu.

Who cares if it is a free product and is open source. IE is free too. I like Microsoft products and don't really like products from other companies. I like the look of Microsoft, a lot of software programs are designed for it, and it works well.

I guess I won't mention the holes in Internet Explorer that spyware targets then.

Firefox is completely secure, no more hijacked homepages or porno dialers for me!

I'm also using the default theme, I think it's the best. Kev, can I make an avatar out of that? Cheers.

Cardude - you made a big long spiel about how you don't like the buttons?

Firefox has five buttons. Back, forward, refresh, stop, and home. Then the address bar. Then a Search bar where you can pretty much search anything. There you go, I've outlined two advantages of Firefox in one go.

IE has a whole ****load of buttons at the top, then the address bar. That looks ugly and ungainly.

Then you have a bunch of tabs. No more clicking twenty thousand different windows when you can just tab between them. There, that's three advantages.

Loading - Firefox loads from the top down, fair call, but IE sits there and loads the whole page in one go, so that takes longer. Plus I think IE uses more RAM.

How many more advantages should I list?

 

[KieranMurphy]

I don't like Mozilla or Firefox mainly because of the look of it. I don't like all of the buttons that are in view on the top.

You can choose what buttons are shown and you can move them around to suit yourself.

IE because there are just a few large buttons, like back, forward, and home at the top of the window.

Then just customise it so only the buttons you want are there.

I don't like the tab idea either. I look at the start menu to see what I have open, not at the top of my internet browser. To me it seems that the toolbars at the top of the page are subtracting from the viewing window.

Don't use it then. It's not like you have to use it. You can turn it off.

I find it annoying that the pages in Firefox and Mozilla load from the top down, whereas IE loads the whole page and then displays it, so you aren't waiting half way down the page for the rest to load.

Meh. Either way, you're waiting for the page. I like seeing the page before it's fully loaded, that way I can quickly spot crap I'm not interested in without waiting for it all to finish loading.

Firefox also sometimes changes where pictures and things are located on a website, if the website wasn't coded correctly to its liking. IE displayed the images where the web designer put them.

Firefox is fully W3C compliant. It's Internet Explorer that doesn't play by the rules. That way some lazy or incompetent website designers end up designing web pages that will work in Internet Explorer because it's got 90% of the market and they couldn't be bothered making it compliant with all browsers. Microsoft have abused their browser monopoly by making their product non-standard. That's not a good thing.

Who cares if it is a free product and is open source. IE is free too. I like Microsoft products and don't really like products from other companies. I like the look of Microsoft, a lot of software programs are designed for it, and it works well.

Internet Explorer doesn't work well. When you have Internet Explorer, you need all sorts of extra crap like pop-up blockers, anti-adware software etc. to block all the crap it allows onto your system. When I used Internet Explorer, I was running AdAware and Spybot a couple of times a week because of all the spyware symptoms - countless ad popups, constant page redirects, my home page changing unexpectedly. With Firefox, I haven't had to use them at all.

Firefox or Mozilla, taking up more hdd space, rather than using a product that works well, like IE, if you put it to use.

The disc space is in favour of Firefox. It's less than a 5Mb download. According to Microsoft's Internet Explorer download page, a typical download of Internet Explorer is 25Mb. Not that either 5Mb or 25Mb when unzipped is much space when 80Gb hard drives are the normal, but still, at least you can remove Firefox from your system by uninstalling it if you don't like it. You're stuck with Internet Explorer, it's been grafted onto Windows in such a way that you can't get rid of it. It's always sitting there using up disk space even if you never use it for Internet browsing.

Using Firefox or other alternate browers is good for another reason. Competition is good. Microsoft's near monopoly with Internet Explorer allowed them to get sloppy with it's security and to get away with not using the W3C standards. It's only because of the growing market share of other browsers that they bothered to patch up some of Internet Explorer's gaping holes with their latest Service Pack.


KM.

 

[KieranMurphy]

IE has a whole ****load of buttons at the top, then the address bar. That looks ugly and ungainly.

It also gives you crap like Edit and Discuss buttons. Who uses them? I've customised my Firefox so I've got my Back, Forward, History, Stop and reload buttons as well as my address bar all in the one bar. It's nice and neat and they're the only buttons I regularly use.


KM.