Mozilla Vs Firefox

Factual Questions
1

This came up in a discussion I was having in another online forum the other day. I mentioned to someone that since I had switched to Firefox, my problems with malware and spyware had decreased dramatically, and I opined that Firefox was a wonderful browser. Another poster chimed in and said that yes, Firefox was a vast improvement over IE, but even Firefox 1.0 had quite a few bugs, he recommended switching to Mozilla 1.7 as a much more stable platform. Now I have noticed that occasionally (maybe once every couple of days), Firefox just shuts down on me. It pops up it’s feedback agent error message and closes. I’ve never had any problem starting it right back up, but that, coupled with what the other guy said, has got me thinking.

#1. Is mozilla noticeably more stable than Firefox? I though Firefox was the Mozilla browser, just sheared of all the extra baggage.

#2. About that baggage. I’ve never used an email client. I use only web based email, and have never seen the need for one, although if it could monitor gmail, hotmail and 2 yahoo accounts from 1 place, that would be handy, I guess.

#3 IRC chat? I haven’t been on IRC in over a year. Unless it incorporates IM programs like Trillian, I won’t use it.

#4 What’s the HTML client do? I run one small webpage for games of Diplomacy I participate in, and have always just written the simple HTML that I need from scratch. Could this help me with that?

#5 Would my Firefox extensions work with Mozilla? I’m kinda attached to them.

#6, and I guess what this all boils down to, will I be getting a significant improvement over the Firefox browser which I am perfectly happy using right now, or will I just be adding a lot of bloat to my system for no real gain?

Any insights are greatly appreciated.

2

I can’t believe nobody has an answer. C’mon, I know there are tons of knowledgeable people here.

3

Can’t answer for all of these, but:

#1: It depends, but overall, I’d say Mozilla is still more stable than FireFox, with one major exception: FireFox seems to be more compliant than Mozilla, meaning there have always been a spate of web pages that Mozilla just chokes on, and they seem to have improved things with FireFox.

#2: You could try Thunderbird , FireFox’s sister application. I use it, and while it’s got a ways to go, I’ve gotten to like it. Mozilla has built-in email support, but I like Thunderbird better.

#3: Mozilla supports IRC; FireFox, unless I’m mistaken, does not. Mozilla works just as well as Trillian for me for IRC.

#6: Unless the IRC thing is a dealbreaker, sounds like you should stick with FireFox. I’ve always thought of Mozilla as more of a developer’s browser, anyway–FireFox is intended to be more “prime time,” if you will.

The thing to understand is that, going forward, more development effort will be put into FireFox. As a rule of thumb, no application is ever really very stable in its first release (FireFox is still v1.0). Mozilla, on the other hand, is much more mature (aged, even).

And note that there’s nothing wrong with having both. As far as applications that add a lot of bloat to your system, browsers aren’t usually the culprit (as long as you limit cached offline content). Plus, it’s nice to have more than one. Sometimes a page just won’t work in one, so I go to the other. And as an absolute last resort, I’ll even try it in IE :wink:

4

Firefox is a rewrite of the Mozilla browser component, designed to be smaller and friendlier.

Firefox has never had any stability issues for me, but I’m a Linux user, so my experiences may not apply to their Windows port. It may be possible that Flash or some other plug-in is causing Firefox to crash for you. You might try installing the Flashblock extension and seeing if that helps.

I would recommend sticking with Firefox. If you need an e-mail client, use Thunderbird. If you want Composer or the IRC client, there’s nothing stopping you from installing the Suite and just using those components.

5

I can answer #5: When I was running Mozilla, I had lots of trouble installing extensions, so likely many of your Firefox extensions will not run under Mozilla.

6

Composer is now Nvu, also available separately.

7

Well, i can’t really answer your questions about Mozilla, because i have Firefox and i don’t know all the ins and outs of the differences. But i generally have no problems with Firefox, and it’s been a long time since i’ve had it shut down and bring up the feedback agent. Recently, the only time i’ve had problems is with opening certain pdf files; from looking around on various message boards and such, it seems that this is still something the Firefox people are working on.

I recently switched over from MS Outlook to Thunderbird, and i really like the Thunderbird mail client. It will allow you to check your Gmail, but it won’t do you any good for Hotmail. I’m not sure aobut Yahoo accounts; you’ll have to check if Yahoo can do POP.

8

I think I’ll just stick with what I have now. Thanks everyone.

9

FYI, Outlook (and I believe Outlook Express) can be configured to pull messages from multiple email addresses and compile them into one interface. Mine pulls from hotmail, my ISP mail, and three or four other addresses I maintain for various things. I’d be surprised if Thunderbird doesn’t do the same.

10

Except that Hotmail does not support regular POP email functions; i believe that it can only be run from Microsoft mail clients like Outlook and Outlook Express.

Thunderbird can definitely handle multiple accounts, but their website FAQ says that they can’t handle Hotmail. Blame Microsoft for this, not the makers of Thunderbird.

Dave, if Firefox is giving you problems, it might be worth uninstalling and reinstalling it. Just remember to save your favorites.

11

I’ve gone the other way, switching from Mozilla to Firefox & Thunderbird. I’ve found Mozilla to be far more resource-greedy, particularly when Acrobat Reader is involved. I’ve also had stability issues with various releases of both browsers.

Extensions - I’ve found that Firefox versions are getting updated and created more frequently. It seems there’s simply more people working at them than at the Mozilla versions.

Email - yes, Thunderbird can direct stuff from various accounts into the Local Folders - in fact, you can pick & choose which accounts this applies to. The junk filter is also impressivly effective.
In any case, try installing Mozilla - it’ll work quite happily alongside Firefox without interfering.