Comparison: Mozilla vs. Firefox / Thunderbird

ozar · 2005-05-16 19:43:03

Would some of you mind sharing your experiences and opinions on the differences between these browsers and emailers? I certainly don't want to start any flame wars, and I'm not interested in hearing that some other browser/emailer is better than either of these, but I would like to know why you prefer one over the other.

In my case, I've been using Firefox since it was first released (as Phoenix) several years back and it's been very good, but I started using the latest Mozilla a few days ago (due to a problem with Firefox) and noticed right away that it seems to render web pages faster than Firefox, at least on my machines. Have any of you found this to be the case?

Also, I noticed that the combination of Firefox and Thunderbird packages together total about 23 megs in the Arch repositories, whereas the Mozilla package is only about 12 megs. There is a notable size difference after installation, too. I thought that Firefox and Thunderbird were supposed to be lightweight, yet they seem bigger than Mozilla. Perhaps someone can help me understand what's going on here.

Thanks in advance for your help and constructive comments.

xerxes2 · 2005-05-16 23:06:01

i'm not an expert on this but i know that mozilla has been left in the dust(no more official versions) and firefox/thunderbird is the future,

i3839 · 2005-05-16 23:25:10

Firefox used to be much smaller and faster than Mozilla, but then it became popular and even the official browser. Since that time Mozilla is hardly bigger or slower anymore.

Mozilla is left in the dust by the mozilla-foundation, but not by its developers. Now it's a "normal" OSS project, and it will get another name, but it's still very alive.

Stinky · 2005-05-17 00:40:10

I can't comment on the mail clients, because I haven't used them. But as far as the browsers go, recently, I've found that on Linux systems, Mozilla is slightly faster and more responsive than firefox. I thought at first, it was only the box I use all the time at home. But it's the same on my other two boxes also. One of those is Slack, so apparently it's not just an "Arch" thing. On windows...yes, i'm forced to use windows on one pc at work...Firefox is faster than Mozilla. I have no idea why, just relaying what I've noticed.

Vinny · 2005-05-17 00:59:24

I don't notice any difference in rendering speed, but mozilla's
UI feels a lot better. Lots of little details like:
The single address/search bar doesn't waste space
The mail/news button at the bottom changes when you have new mail, even if you don't have the mailer open.
And it kinda irks me that ff's tab-close button looks just like XP's window-close button.
Firefox just feels like 'Mozilla for dummies' to me.

iom · 2005-05-17 06:50:43

i never liked mozilla-suite, especially because i _don't_ want any mail-reader running/included. and i don't like those icons at the bottom. the reason why firefox is now bigger than mozilla-suite is that firefox now includes nss-nspr and gecko-dsk : http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … ight=gecko. those files were previously included by mozilla-suite.

i've just installed mozilla-suite and i don't really see any difference in speed. though i did notice a few differences such as: you can't load a page from bookmark-toolbar in a new tab using the middle mouse button, bookmark toolbar doesn't show icons (once you've used them you cannot make a step backwards). and at the first glance i couldn't find out how to install plugins such as Ad-Blocker, if there are any.
btw: the 'x' button (to close tabs) can easily be replaced using your favourite skin.

Vinny · 2005-05-17 07:23:18

Re: adblock and other extensions
go to bookmarks-->mozilla project-->community and support-->mozilla extensions.

ozar · 2005-05-18 03:21:55

Thanks to each of you for your comments and thoughts - - you've all brought up some interesting points.

I reinstalled Firefox but Mozilla still seems faster on this machine. On the other hand, Firefox has some conveniences that I really miss in Mozilla. Hopefully, someone will take over the Mozilla Suite and make it better than ever. It's too good of an application to just let it go.

In the interim, I'm going to keep playing around with them to make further comparisons.

Thanks again! 8)

Arch Linux

#1 2005-05-16 19:43:03

Comparison: Mozilla vs. Firefox / Thunderbird

#2 2005-05-16 23:06:01

Re: Comparison: Mozilla vs. Firefox / Thunderbird

#3 2005-05-16 23:25:10

Re: Comparison: Mozilla vs. Firefox / Thunderbird

#4 2005-05-17 00:40:10

Re: Comparison: Mozilla vs. Firefox / Thunderbird

#5 2005-05-17 00:59:24

Re: Comparison: Mozilla vs. Firefox / Thunderbird

#6 2005-05-17 06:50:43

Re: Comparison: Mozilla vs. Firefox / Thunderbird

#7 2005-05-17 07:23:18

Re: Comparison: Mozilla vs. Firefox / Thunderbird

#8 2005-05-18 03:21:55

Re: Comparison: Mozilla vs. Firefox / Thunderbird

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