So I was reading this thread in IMHO about Linux vs Windows, and in this thread many people recommended using a web browser called Mozilla Firebird, which was far superior to IE. Me being the type of person who always likes to be using the best (and to avoid MS software wherever possible), I went to www.mozilla.org to check out Mozilla Firebird.
Having gone to the mozilla webpage, I find that Mozilla looked almost identical to my current browser (Netscape 7.1).
Can someone tell what the difference between Netscape 7.1 and Mozilla Firebird is? I am aware of the fact that sometime ago, Netscape and Mozilla were one and the same company and that they decided to go open source on their browser. Is Mozilla Firebird and Netscape 7.1 just two different flavours of what is essentially the same core code? Which one’s better?
Netscape 7 is based on the older Mozilla codebase (AKA “seamonkey”). It is almost certainly the last version of the Netscape browser, since AOL liquidated that part of the company.
Mozilla Firebird, OTOH (which was previously Mozilla Phoenix and is now Mozilla Firefox), is the new-fangled version of the browser that the Mozilla coders are going to support in the long term. It’s not at 1.0 yet, but once it is, seamonkey development will probably wind down, since the focus is going to be on Firefox (and a few other programs, like the Thunderbird email client).
I’ve used them both, and I can’t really tell you practical differences. Mozilla seems to have more skins, if you look. Both use Mozilla mouse gestures, if you install them.
Firebird is a browser only, with no mail or composer abilities, and so takes up less RAM while running.
I go Firebird all the way, especially for the pop-up blocker. Come to think of it, it seems to do that better than Netscape.
Thanks for the replies all. Using FireFox 0.8 at the moment to test things out. Extremely similar to Netscape 7.1 for the most part. One thing I like about FireFox as compared to Netscape 7.1 is being able to again click the mouse-wheel and scroll in an unrestricted fashion.
With Firefox (formerly Firebird), you can have “extensions” to extend the capabilities of your browser. The code for it is actually interpreted instead of compiled, so bits of code can be added in fairly easily.
Take a look at the available extensions. One of my favorites is Flash Click to View. With this extension, anytime there is a Flash animation on a web page, I see instead a blank rectange with the words “Flash Click to View”. If I actually want to see the animation, I can simply click in the rectangle, but normally I can read my news headlines without having a car racing back and forth across the top of the window.