My favorite new application of the new millennium is the Mozilla browser. But it is much more than just an Web browser. It is my favorite email client, Personal information manager, calender, CSS editor, Spam-filter and the best damn web browser know to the human race. It is a true testament to what is possible with open-source cross-platform software and I have used it on numerous OS platforms. Simply put I love the Internet and Mozilla is the software that I use to access the Internet. It can't do everything but it comes damn close. Mosaic and Netscape were the first web browsers that I have ever used and the reasons why I use the great grandkid of Mosaic is not because of a fixation on the past or forced bundling but my overwhelming choice to use a superior software product. I would pay for Mozilla and I actually will make a small donation every time I buy a bag of coffee beans.
There are two main flavors of Mozilla, The main Mozilla suite of Internet tools and the stand alone Mozilla Firebird browser. They used to call it Phoenix but they ran into some stupid legal situations so the opted with Firebird. The Firebird Browser is a heavily optimized fast and lightweight version of the Mozilla browser. That is not saying that the main suite of Internet tools is slow and bloated but Firebird is as fast mean and peppy as the come.
Update: As Jason pointed out Camino and Firebird on Mac OSX are not the same program but two separate but closely related projects.
So if you are a still a lame Internet Explorer user I have some reasons why you should switch to Mozilla Firebird.
Tab-Browsing
This lets you open multiple web pages in the same windows and toggle between them. I love to open new windows with a middle click so they open in a new tab on the same windows. I know you might think this is a stupid minor feature but once you get used to it will never want to live with out it. The ability to bookmark a group of open tabs allow you to real massive amounts of Internet content and high speeds like flipping through a magazine rather than going site to site with dozens of windows. It is like watching two channels at once and it is damn nice. It is a bit like having multiple books open on a table and visually moving between books.
Bookmark Manager
Editing bookmark lists in Internet Explorer is such a pain in the ass that is phenomenal that so many people use it when they can use an easy to use quick and powerful Bookmark Manager like in Firebird.
The Gecko Rendering Core
Firebird is based on the most standard complaint HTML and CSS rendering tool known to man. It has standard compliance hard coded into it's DNA.
Built in powerful pop up Blocking
It is so damn decadent to not have any damn pop up windows unless you actually want them on a specific site. I would pay for this and I am so glad that I will not have to see one more pop-up windows unless I want to. People should really be asking why the hell Microsoft has not implemented a simple pop up blocker in their browser.
Stability
It does not crash and lock up like some browsers can and it is almost totally impossible to accidentally install spyware in day to day surfing. Put simple it does not pimp out your security to malicious scripts and spammers.
Now you might be wondering what is missing from Firebird?
I wish they had the the form manager and Mozilla master password control that is in the main browser package and it is still under a "One point O" release meaning that they are still actively working on it but still a very powerful user friendly program. Think of it as Mozilla lite but it actually tastes good. In feel it is probably closer to MS Internet Explorer and Apple Safari than the feature rich Mozilla suite. There is no PIM, Email, Spam-filter, Form manager, HTML and CSS editor and calender in Firebird.
What you get is a damn fast and peppy browser that has all the pop up blocking, advanced HTML rendering, tabbed interface and stability goodies that you get with Mozilla Classic but in a light bite size form with the taste of lime!
I'm have not paid too much attention to other browsers. Is Mozilla something that installs over IE or is it it's own true browser?
-Dave
Mozilla's getting better, but the mac version still trails behind Safari. Or Camino, for that matter.
and don't forget that it's also more "strict" when it comes to webdesign, so if you want to make sure your css is good, you can preview it in mozilla!! :)
i'm a total convert...i love Mozilla! (i have 4 tabs open right now ;) hehe) thanks Jake!
It gets along fine with IE and MSIE is the only browser out there that installs and combines with the OS. You do not have to set Mozilla as your default browser and you can uninstall it at any time.
Camino is the Mac project version of Firebird. I should have said that.
I use Firebird for web browsing and Mozilla Thunderbird for my e-mail. A stand alone calendar program is also in development. One of my greatest joys is converting an IE user to Mozilla or Firebird.
On http://gemal.dk/mozilla/mozdev.html I write a bit about using Mozilla in testing and debugging web sites.
been a long time user of firebird and thunderbird and I love them! Great stuff and I don't even think twice about going back to IE/OE.
@ Dave: Mozilla Suite and Mozilla Firebird have nothing to do with IE, except that they also render HTML-pages, but in a much better way.
Mozilla is the successor of the Netscape Navigator, and is available for almost every operating system, not only M$ Windows.
BTW: People who want to try Mozilla or Mozilla Firebird should wait a couple of days until Mozilla 1.5 and Mozilla Firebird 0.7 are released.
I am using the Beta of Mozilla 1.5 and I like it. MSIE was on Windows, Mac OS Classic and Mac OSX but the mac browser development was stopped by Microsoft.
@jake: That's just not true. The real reason the Mac Classic browser was cut was lack of developers. The mac development team has never been large and they all converted over to OSX leaving nobody to do mac classic. If there are any developers that want to work on it, contact the drivers@mozilla.org.
Actually, Camino is not the Mac version of Firebird.
Firebird is a stripped-down browser, built using XUL. Camino is a stripped-down browser that embeds Gecko into a native interface. Galeon and Epiphany (Linux) and K-Meleon (Windows) do the same thing for their respective platforms.
Yeah I said that. I added
"Update: As Jason pointed out Camino and Firebird on Mac OSX are not the same program but two separate but closely related projects."
Quit using the antiquated Internet Explorer late last year after "discovering" Mozilla Firebird, then known as Phoenix.
By far my favourite Web browser; it suits all my needs.
I actually miss the form manager of Mozilla and I hope they add it to Firebird.
Another alternative is www.crazybrowser.com
This gives Firebird-like tabs, popup blocking, and so on... but it uses the IE engine, so it is compatible with everything out there.
The current version is 1.05 - it has been like this for years - and is reliable.
There is also Opera and Safari but I still love the Mozilla browsers.
When I first got the Internet in 95-96 Netscape was my browser of choice on my old 486DX4-100. When it started to suck I used IE & dreamt of the day a good Netscape replacement would come into town. Last year sometime.. when the Mozilla suite was around 1.1-1.2 I was instantly converted by the author of the now defunct http://beandizzy.com (http://deano.stumbleupon.com/)
I have been using Mozilla in one form or another since then. My current Mozilla of choice is:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030808 Mozilla Firebird/0.6.1
I use custom unofficial win32 -01 -06 builds from
http://pryan.org/firebird/#windows
with the phase 0.4 theme & custom user.js & userChrome.js configs.
Sure, Mozilla Firebird might not load as fast as IE and may take a little more CPU.. But it makes up for that with its powerful tab browsing feature, its handling of pop-ups, security, customability & support for web standards.
On my PC Firebird loads just as fast as IE
mozilla is faster on my PC, but i prefer IE because Mozilla seems to be ignoring some of my style sheet's properties.
Well Branille your CSS file seems valid but you have a lot of work to have valid XHTML on your site. Mozilla and Netscape are much less forgiving for invalid code than IE. IE almost encourages non-standard code.
Good review. I started using Mozilla (browser) and Thunderbird (e-mail) about 4 months ago - next to the pre-installed MS stuff. I am convinced: this is by far the best browser and mail client I have ever seen. Stable, fast, highly customisable and created with the user in mind (not dollars). Very, very good indeed.
Only thing is that novice users tend to find it a little complicated to install and configure.
Sure, Mozilla Firebird might not load as fast as IE and may take a little more CPU.. But it makes up for that with its powerful tab browsing feature, its handling of pop-ups, security, customability & support for web standards.
In real world use I have not noticed Firebird to be slower that IE and I still think that it is fast. The issue is that when firebird is running both IE and Firebird are in memory. When IE is "running" it is in memory because it never goes away.
I've been using Mozilla since I first discovered it, not very long before its 1.0 release. I always liked Netscape, and never really got into using IE at all, though I took a look at NS6/7. My favorite feature in the old Netscapes, which has been thankfully reincarnated (even more powerfully than before) was the simple, no-nonsense, but very handy HTML editor. It's invaluable in making my website, since I'm too lazy to do it the clean way.
I also use Mozilla for my everyday mail operations. I love the way the mail functions actually have decent spam filters, and having browser integration is a surprisingly large plus. The editor is also no-nonsense, simple, and very powerful.
In terms of browser functions, where (full) Mozilla and Firebird are the same, I also love it. The interface actually makes more sense than IE, and is pleasantly skinnable, too. The resistance to spyware is amazing coupled with the power of extensions; I *love* having advanced adblock (see any images on any site you don't like? Block them! Plus, you can be more specific than "block all images from this server;" simply specify a URL to block images from, which can include a wildcard and be as basic as "http://ads.*" or as complciated as "http://images.site-sx23459834/130498235/234098.gif"
The standards compliance is also very cool, and overall the interface is pleasing and convenient. I use Firebird anywhere where such things as HTML editors and mail programs are not really necessary, and Mozilla on my main computer, and I don't intend to go back to M$IE, ever.
I would pay for it if it were not free.
I have some issues with Mozilla 1.6 although I do love all the features. My main issue is speed. Is Firebird better and when will 1.0 be available?
Yes Firebird is much faster than Mozilla and I would say that it is faster than IE.
Version .8 will be out on Monday and
I would expect 1.0 sometime this summer ( http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firebird/roadmap.html )
Firefox is greate! But what about Opera?
Opera is lighter, has the "restore closed page" that mozilla does not