Looks like Bon Echo is unstable, has problems with Flash, still has many remnants of Firefox in it (such as profile directories, registry entries, and the executable name), and is just not ready. I'm certainly not going to be using it after seeing what it can do for the last couple days. Too bad, I liked the icon. In the meantime, feel free to use the stable release I have of "Take Back The Fox v2.1.0".

Here ya go… if you want my custom install of Mozilla Firefox v2.0.0.20 then click on the icon below to download it. The download should be quite small (less than 50k) and it will download all of the required files when you run it. This installer will not prompt you for anything, it will simply run unattended. To uninstall this application, look in Add/Remove Programs for the bitchin' purple dinosaur.

Oh Jesus, they have two names for it. Mozilla said at one point that version 2.0.0.20 would be the last of the 2.x series. Then, something called Bon Echo arrived. It isn't listed at the projects site at Mozilla. Seems that those of use who like Firefox v2.x have reached a strange place in time, I'm not quite sure what will be happening to FF in the not-so-distant future. The Mozilla Roadmap seems mildly confusing now, and it would appear that we have reached the very end of the Gecko v1.8.1 line.

So what? Well I think I am going to create two Windows installers with NSIS. One will install and config Firefox v2.0.0.20 while the other will install and config Bon Echo v2.0.0.22pre. No more full installer (just the mini one), and we'll see if:

1. Any of the plugins stop working or
2. Any of the download locations drop off or
3. Bon Echo grows an Awesome Bar (aka the Craptastic Bar)

Have a look folks, Mozilla has Firefox v2.0.0.22pre on it's ftp site. I'll have to make a new build of the mini installer. Crap, I'll have to actually upload the mini installer eh?

I'm sure that most people would prefer to read bitching and whining about the shit that sucks but I wanted to quickly jot down a few Linux apps that I *do* like. Don't worry, I'll get to the bitching soon.

1. Pidgin: Sweet little Instant Messaging client that supports plenty of "protocols". I believe that it was once called Gaim and was originally for ICQ. If you're going to use it you'll also want Bot-Sentry which is a nifty little spam reducer.
2. PuTTY: The Windows version doesn't have serial connections [use KiTTY instead] but the Linux one does. I like using it to make an SSH tunnel that I can run all kinds of apps through. Quite useful for adding an encryption layer to insecure apps (say VNC for example).
3. xfe: A light file manager that Windows users will find easy to get used to.

I didn't want to make a Linux category but I seem to be using Linux (or perversions of it) more often. I find that occasionally I have Linux-type problems that I end up fixing (sometimes) and maybe it would be a good idea if I recorded that crap somewhere so that I can go back and look it up eh? OK, here it is bitches!

I'll tell you a secret… I don't like Flash Player. The sad truth is that there are a lot of websites today that require Flash to see anything more than fuck all. Adobe is more than happy to have you go download version 10 of their Flash product, but they won't bother to mention (before you download it) that it might break a few things. Wordpress might have trouble with "file uploads" once you put in Flash 10, and Firefox will have some SSL related problems after viewing a site with embedded Flash objects. Thanks guys.

So what are your options? Well you can download Flash v9 from me [Windows IE] [Windows NS/FF] [Linux] or you can go Google it yourself and download them. Personally I'm going to try out Gnash and see if it is any less crappy.

So for my last post I was having some trouble uploading my little screenshot into Wordpress. Turns out there are other people [link1] [link2] [link3] [link4] [link5] having similar problems. If you chose to read any of those links you would see that the problem stems from a security fix that Adobe put in version 10 of Flash Player. Now I'll be the first to say that Flash player is a bad idea for a browser but my real problem is that Wordpress generally responded to the problem (at least initially) by saying it was Adobe's fault. Are you fucking kidding me? Anyone who claims to have a

"state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability"

might want to keep up to date on security fixes on the software they depend on to make their product! If you are concerned about web standards and usability then you might want to make it so that your users (free or not) can actually USE your software with the CURRENT WEB STANDARD utilities you depend on. Apparently this was fixed in v2.7 of Wordpress which I will check into soon. In the meantime, a nice workaround is to add the following to your Adblocker Plus filters (which will revert you to the old style upload method):

|http:yourdomain.com/*.swf

If you're crazy enough to still be using a browser other than FireFoxv2.x/Adblocker then get on it.