Mozilla

What's New

Here's what's new in Deer Park Alpha 2:

• Software update system to streamline product upgrades (currently disabled)
• Faster browser navigation with improvements to back and forward button performance
• Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs
• Improvements to popup blocking
• Better support for Mac OS X (10.2 and greater)
• Several security enhancements
• List of notable bug fixes

 

Downloading and Installing

System Requirements

Before installing, make sure your computer meets the system requirements. Starting with Deer Park Alpha 2, Mac OS X users must have Mac OS X 10.2 or greater.

Downloading Deer Park Alpha 2

Mozilla.org provides Deer Park for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a variety of languages. To get the latest version of Deer Park, browse the FTP site. For builds for other systems and languages not provided by Mozilla.org, see the Contributed Builds section at the end of this document.

Installing Deer Park

Once you have downloaded Deer Park, follow these instructions to install:

Windows

Double click the Deer Park Setup Alpha 2.exe installer to start the install.

Mac OS X

Double click the Deer Park Alpha 2.dmg Disk Image to uncompress and mount it. Your browser may have already done this for you. Double click the DeerPark Disk Image to open it in Finder and drag the Deer Park application onto your hard disk. Do not double click the icon in the disk image! Be sure to drag the Deer Park application out of the disk image and onto your Hard Disk before running it. Drag the icon to your Dock if you want it to appear there.

Linux/GTK2

Extract the tarball and run the installer like so:

tar -xzvf deerpark-alpha2.installer.tar.gz
cd firefox-installer
./firefox-installer

If you have Nautilus set up to run Executable Text Files you can just double click firefox-installer to run.

Other Platforms

Extract the compressed archive and run firefox

Uninstalling Deer Park

To uninstall Deer Park, follow these instructions:

Windows

From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. When the Control Panel appears, double click Add/Remove Programs. Find "Deer Park Alpha 2 (1.0+)" in the list and click Remove to uninstall.

Mac OS X

Drag the DeerPark application to the Trash.

Others

Remove the firefox folder.

These instructions leave your profile in place in case you install Firefox again in the future. If you wish to remove your profile folder, remove the location described below in the "Profile Folder" section. Note that by doing this you are destroying all of your downloaded Extensions and Themes, Bookmarks, saved passwords, settings and other information and should you decide to use Firefox again you will be starting with a clean profile.

 

Other Information

Profile Folder

Deer Park stores your user data in one of the following locations:

Windows 2000, XP	Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox
Windows NT	WINNT\Profiles\<UserName>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox
Windows 98, ME	Windows\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox
Mac OS X	~/Library/Application Support/Firefox
Linux and Unix systems	~/.mozilla/firefox

Extensions and Themes

Extensions installed under Firefox 1.0 may be incompatible and/or require updates to work with Deer Park. Please report any issues to the maintainer of the extension. When you install Deer Park all of your Extensions and Themes may be disabled until Deer Park determines that either a) they are compatible with the Deer Park release or b) there are newer versions available that are compatible. This is because Firefox/Deer Park changes from release to release and as such the ways in which some extensions integrate changes, meaning there can be problems when running an older extension with a newer version of Deer Park. If you find that your favorite Extension or Theme has not been updated to be compatible with this release of Deer Park, write the author and encourage them to update it.

 

Known Issues

This list covers some of the known problems with Deer Park Alpha 2. Please read this before reporting any new bugs, and watch it regularly (we'll update it as new bugs are found in the release).

All Systems

• If you install Deer Park on a multi-user system in an area in which there is restricted access privileges, you must run Deer Park as a user with access to that location upon installation so that all initial startup files are generated. If this is not done, when a user without write access to the install location attempts to start Deer Park, they will not have sufficient privileges to allow Deer Park to generate the initial startup files it needs to.
• When moving to Deer Park from an earlier version of Firefox, some of your Extensions and Themes may be disabled. This is not an issue, but it may appear to be one (hence its listing here). For rationale, see "Extension and Themes" above.
• Software Update does not request proxy authentication and will fail if you are behind a proxy server. (bug) The workaround is to visit a web page in the browser and log in to the proxy server and then perform Software Update.
• Software Update will not work if Deer Park is installed to a location that you do not have write access to, since Software Update needs to replace or create files in this location.

Windows

• When installing as a restricted access user on a shared machine into a location that you can write to, there may still be negative side effects (default browser/other keys not being set correctly). The browser should still function however. When installing as a restricted access user do not attempt to install over an installaion in a restricted-access/shared location as this may destroy that installation.
• Deer Park may hang when closing after viewing a PDF file in some older versions of the Adobe Acrobat Reader plug in. If you experience this make sure you are using the newest version of the plug in.
• On Windows 98 systems, the Application icon may appear as a Windows icon.

Mac OS X

• Do NOT run Deer Park from the Disk Image! - doing this will cause an infinite restart loop (the symptom of which is a Deer Park icon that bounces briefly in the Dock then disappears and reappears, bounces and disappears, over and over). To break Deer Park out of this loop, open a Terminal and type "killall firefox-bin" and press enter. Install Deer Park to a location you have write access to and try again. When installing on a multi- user limited access system, install it into a shared location as administrator, run it once and then all users should be able to access it.

Linux and Unix systems

• If Deer Park is installed to a location with spaces in the path, Deer Park may not be able to set itself as Default browser and may keep prompting at startup. The work around is to install into a path without spaces.
• GNOME integration does not work properly with Fedora Core 3. Users of Fedora Core 3 will need to download and install linc-1.0.3-3.1.i386.rpm. After installing the RPM, perform the following command in the directory you installed Deer Park into (you will need write permission):

  touch .autoreg

  The next time you start Deer Park, GNOME integration should be functional.

Web Page Rendering

• Deer Park is powered by the same Gecko layout engine as other Mozilla software. If you encounter a problem with a website that does not correctly display then it is usually a problem with Gecko, not Deer Park itself. Such problems should be reported through our feedback form.

The Configuration Console (accessed by entering "about:config" in the Location bar and pressing Enter) gives advanced/experienced users direct control over Deer Park's preferences. This system is for use by people who know what they are doing only, by changing a value incorrectly you may damage or destroy your Deer Park installation! Look to Help sites for handy preferences to tweak to customize Deer Park further.

Troubleshooting

• Poorly designed or incompatible Extensions can cause problems with your browser, including make it crash, slow down page display, etc. If you encounter strange problems relating to parts of the browser no longer working, the browser not starting, windows with strange or distorted appearance, degraded performance, etc, you may be suffering from Extension or Theme trouble. Restart the browser in Safe Mode. On Windows, start using the "Safe Mode" shortcut created in your Start menu or by running firefox.exe -safe-mode. On Linux, start with ./firefox -safe-mode and on Mac OS X, run:

  cd /Applications/DeerPark.app/Contents/MacOS/
./firefox-bin -safe-mode

  When started in Safe Mode all extensions are disabled and the Default theme is used. Disable the Extension/Theme that is causing trouble and then start normally.

If you uninstall an extension that is installed with your user profile (i.e. you installed it from a web page) and then wish to install it for all user profiles using the -install-global-extension command line flag, you must restart the browser once to cleanse the profile extensions datasource of traces of that extension before installing with the switch. If you do not do this you may end up with a jammed entry in the Extensions list and will be unable to install the extension globally.

If you encounter strange problems relating to bookmarks, downloads, window placement, toolbars, history, or other settings, it is recommended that you try creating a new profile and attempting to reproduce the problem before filing bugs. Create a new profile by running Firefox with the -P command line argument, choose the "Manage Profiles" button and then choose "Create Profile...". Migrate your settings files (Bookmarks, Saved Passwords, etc) over one by one, checking each time to see if the problems resurface. If you do find a particular profile data file is causing a problem, file a bug and attach the file.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What can I do to help?

   We need help from developers and the testing community to provide as much feedback as possible to make Firefox even better. Visit this Deer Park page to learn more.

2. Why haven't you responded to the mail I sent you?

   Use the forums. The Deer Park team reads them regularly. We all get a lot of email and your email may get lost.

3. Where can I get themes and add-ons (extensions)?

   Extensions and themes can be downloaded from Mozilla Update.

4. Who is working on Deer Park?

   Lots of people. See Help->About Mozilla Deer Park, Credits for a list of some of the people who have contributed to Deer Park.

5. Where's the Deer Park source code?

   A tarball of the Deer Park source code is available for download. The latest development code can be obtained by cvs. Firefox-specific source is in "mozilla/browser", "mozilla/toolkit", and "mozilla/chrome". Please follow the build instructions.

6. Where is the mail client?

   Deer Park works with whatever mail client is the default on your system. However, we recommend Mozilla Thunderbird, our next generation email client and the perfect complement to Firefox.

 

Other Resources and Links

The following resources contain useful information about Deer Park Alpha 2:

• MozillaZine's Knowledge Base
• Developer Information

 

Contributed Builds

These are unofficial builds and may be configured differently than the official Mozilla.org builds. They may also be optimized and/or tested for specific platforms.

Solaris(Contributed by SUN Beijing team)
deerpark-alpha2-i386-pc-solaris2.10-gtk2+xft+SVG.tar.bz2 (readme)(MD5SUM)
deerpark-alpha2-i386-pc-solaris2.8.tar.bz2 (readme) (MD5SUM)
deerpark-alpha2-sparc-sun-solaris2.10-gtk2+xft+SVG.tar.bz2 (readme) (MD5SUM)
deerpark-alpha2-sparc-sun-solaris2.8.tar.bz2 (readme) (MD5SUM)
~

Other Systems

Builds for platforms other than the trio officially offered by Mozilla.org can be found on the FTP site.

Localized Builds

Many localized builds are now produced and distributed by Mozilla.org on behalf of their authors.

Builds that have not yet been certified as official Deer Park Alpha 2 localizations are available by browsing the FTP site.

• Back to Deer Park Page

• Downloading and Installing
• System Requirements
• Downloading
• Installing
• Uninstalling
• Profile Folder
• Extensions and Themes
• Other Changes
• Known Issues
• Troubleshooting
• FAQ
• Other Systems
• Other Languages
• Other Resources and Links