Re: Re: decline :(

On 12/07/05, Bear Tooth <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Jul 2005, Bear Tooth wrote:
> On Tue, 24 May 2005 20:14:05 +0800, Gavin Chester wrote:
> [....]
> > Sadly, now the only thing that distinguishes galeon from the rest
> > for me is that I REALLY like to have my tabs down the left side -
> > nowhere else.  If galeon keeps being left behind and firefox keeps
> > evolving, the only thing stopping me changing to firefox,
> > exclusively, is the lack of an extension for tabs down the side in
> > firefox.  Sigh :-(
> [....] Hmmm.... Never thought of that; sounds well worth a try. But
> as one who has only today managed to come back to Galeon, I don't
> see how. It doesn't appear under Tabs nor Edit > Preferences ....
> :-(

(Randomly wanders on-scene. Looks around. Noticing an audience, he
begins in monologue.)

I personally can't believe that Galeon is compared to Firefox in
anyone's mind. I use Firefox under Windows because I have no choice,
but when I'm running in Linux, I would rather gouge my eyes out and
cut my arms off than use Firefox. Firefox's handling of tabs is
definitely below par, with its inability to rearrange or detach tabs.
Also the way Firefox can only append tabs to the end of the list,
makes them small and unreadable when you have more than a dozen open,
and provides no way to select them other than clicking on them (no
menu like Galon has).

And how many people have had their web browser crash, or their power
fail, or even just had to turn the computer off because it's the end
of the day? I'm sure that's a common problem! Why, then, does Firefox
not seek to address the problem? It has absolutely no session
management that I know of! Galeon, on the other hand?---quit it, or
have it crash, and next time you start it up (in two minutes or two
years), you'll be back exactly where you left off! This is *the*
single most useful feature any web browser could have (aside,
possibly, from rendering HTML and CSS well), yet only three browsers
that I know of have it---Galeon, Epiphany and Opera! (Konqie might,
but I generally find KDE as frustrating to use as other environments,
and as I have the choice, I stay away.)

Furthermore, by being based on a non-native toolkit that tries to
emulate another non-native toolkit, Firefox is just odd to use in
GTK-based environments. Although it does have GTKisms here there and
everywhere, it only has enough of them to piss me off. Under Galeon, I
can choose my own shortcut bindings simply by hovering my mouse over
the option I wish to rebind and then typing the key I wish to bind it
to---perfect for using those idle function keys at the top of my
keyboard! Under Firefox? No such luck! Galeon also matches its
look-and-feel to the rest of my desktop, showing the right toolbar
style, for instance. Firefox just has some random arrangement. Then
there's the Options box---Galeon's works like I'd want with its
instant apply and general layout and location; Firefox's is random (or
rather, Windows based).

Firefox, in fact, is almost a personification of everything bad about
cross-platform UI development. Such a thing doesn't make sense, and
shouldn't exist. Firefox is and always will be first and foremost a
Windows application, and touting it as cross-platform is not only
misleading, but damaging. People (should) use GNU/Linux because its
comfortable for them, or because they're willing to make personal
sacrifices for Freedom/their Politics. Any other "practical" reason to
use GNU/Linux (or any other operating system) is going to leave the
user disappointed and alienated no matter how similar it is to
wherever they came from. (This doesn't mean there's no reason to
change nix-based UIs, but that such change should be an improvement in
its own right, and not simply copying another operating environment.)

Firefox's pittiful excuse for a search feature is nothing but a huge
annoyance in my mind, and potentially worse than useless. It takes at
least three clicks in Firefox to search Google, Wikipedia or a
dictionary (unless by fluke you happen to have looked at the one you
now want the last time), whereas in Galeon it takes one click *and* I
get bookmarks to the respective front pages, for free! Setting up new
Firefox engines is also far from the trivial process it is in Galeon,
where I can do it backwards in my sleep!

In short, well done Galeon developers! I love your work, and would
hate to see you all up and leave!

(I apologise for all the exclamation marks, and the gratuitous praise
when I'm sure you've head it all before :)

-- 
Tristan Alexander


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