New Mozilla Releases
Along with the main Mozilla Suite 1.5 release (the suite featuring Navigator for browsing, Mail & Newsgroups, Composer, and various integrated bits, much like the old Netscape Communicator) come new versions of the increasingly popular (and highly recommended by many CoN staff and regulars) standalone applications based on Mozilla code: web browser Mozilla Firebird 0.7 and e-mail client Mozilla Thunderbird 0.3. While these are pre-release software, they have both been shown to be extremely reliable in the past, and this should be especially true of these releases, the first to be built from a release branch of the Mozilla code. Should you require the ultimate in stability, you might prefer Mozilla Suite 1.4.1, released earlier this week.
Not even remotely Final Fantasy or even gaming news, but it falls broadly under the umbrella of site news, since we've recommended Mozilla browsers for the best experience viewing the site (and browsing the Web in general) for some time now. Standards compliant, free and, especially in the case of Firebird and Thunderbird, light, fast, and user-friendly. What more do you want?
Download:
- Mozilla Firebird 0.7
- Mozilla Thunderbird 0.3
- Mozilla 1.5
- Mozilla 1.4.1
- Downloads via BitTorrent and builds optimised for specific CPU types or with varied feature sets can frequently be found at the MozillaZine forums.
Posted in: CoN Site News
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| Written by |
Tiddles |
| Site Developer | |
| Member Since: 2001-01-01 | |
| News articles posted: 23 | |
| More articles by Tiddles |
Comments
| SECProto | Comment 1: 2003-10-15 19:54 |
| yes! new firebird! I use it way more than IE, seems to open faster, plus it has tabs  *runs away and posts again in another month* | |
| Tidu-who | Comment 2: 2003-10-15 20:49 |
You've been posting for 166 months?  I've used Mozilla on and off ever since my computer crashed/got a virus (don't really know what happened). But I've never really found it to be that much better than IE, most probably because I don't have any time to tinker around or mess around with extras. Maybe I'm just too lazy, I'm not sure. | |
| Tiddles | Comment 3: 2003-10-15 22:00 |
| The fact that you don't get any popups is good enough for me. That and the fact that some of my standards-based design actually works without having to put stupid hacks in just to make it work for IE, after which it remains incapable of rendering the visual effects intended. So many people use IE that websites have to at least be usable in it, and many lazy and/or ignorant designers prefer to stick with their view of the Web circa 1998 and only design around IE and Netscape 4, when you can really make stuff look a lot more interesting (while degrading a lot better for non-graphical browser users, too) with modern CSS, which works in anything... except backwards, old Internet Explorer. You just won't see a lot of "this only works with a standards-compliant browser" unless more people use them. And let's not forget that there remain significant known, unpatched security problems in Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. Development is slow, and Microsoft have stated in the past that there will be no new downloadable Internet Explorer versions after 6. Want a new one? Buy a new operating system. I see it this way: you're doing yourself a favour blocking popups, and you're doing web standards (and hence designers) a favour by increasing the usage statistics of standards-compliant browsers while taking away market share from what is certainly the most insecure, feature-free and non-standard browser still in common usage. Maybe you haven't found it a lot better than IE so far, but it can't be any worse, in my opinion. And if you haven't tried Firebird yet, give that a go. It's a lot easier to get used to as an ex-IE user, tends to be faster, is certainly smaller and just feels nicer to use. | |
| Mr Thou | Comment 4: 2003-10-17 14:56 |
| I must say that Mozilla really is a " big, mean browsing machine"! I downloaded it a couple of days ago, and I haven't used IE since...it's exactly like Tids said. It's easy to get used to, the popup blocker works really good (better than the so-called Popup Blocker from the last release of Googl Toolbar), and the tabs system is great. Real improvement, for wich I must thank the CoN staff, and especially Tiddles. Thx, man  | |
| Zephir | Comment 5: 2003-10-18 07:53 |
| The single reason that I don't use Firebird as my default browser is that there aren't any Shockwave or Java plugins for it... ...That I've found, at least (not that I've actually looked), so if there're any out there, I'd appreciate some linkage... >_> <_< | |
| Tiddles | Comment 6: 2003-10-18 11:06 |
| All Netscape/Mozilla compatible plugins work perfectly well. The only problem is installing them, since Mozilla Firebird doesn't have an installer and doesn't create any registry entries to tell them it exists. If you use the [dohtml]<a href="http://seb.mozdev.org/firebird/">unofficial installer</a>[/dohtml] to install Firebird, it should be easier for plugins to recognise and install there. Otherwise, certainly in the case of Flash, you can install to some other NS/Moz installation and copy the relevant DLL from the plugins directory (npswf32.dll in the case of Flash). This is indeed something that needs work. | |
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©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.