have resuscitated a group of
In ternet tools built by
Netscape—whose spinoff,
Mozilla, brought
out the popular Firefox
Web browser. Renamed
SeaMonkey , version 1 of
this free open-source
suite integrates Web
browsing, e-mail, chat,
and an HTML editor
in a robust, easy-touse
package that works
well de spite a few bugs.
SeaMonkey’s Navigator has
standard browser features
such as tabbed browsing, popup
blocking, and cookie controls,
but it lacks many extensions
available for Internet
Explorer and Firefox. Some
useful Mozilla extensions
work with Navigator, such
as the NoScript program for
blocking JavaScripts and the
Googlebar toolbar, which is
similar to the Google Toolbar.
In our informal tests, browsing
with SeaMonkey was the
same as using IE or Firefox,
except the Back button was
bullet-fast. Several bugs re -
main, however: When we
specified our own font style
and size, for example, some
pages rendered incorrectly,
jumbling images with text.
E-MAIL, CHAT,
AND HTML
the seamonkey Messenger
e-mail and newsgroups program
looks like its Mozilla and
Netscape Messenger predecessors,
but adds modern features
such as a phishing-detection
tool and the ability to view and
access mail from several different
accounts in a single inbox.
Mozilla says that you
should be able to import mail
and address books from other
Messenger clients as well as
from Eudora, Outlook, and
Outlook Express. While this
held true for our Outlook
Express mail and folders, we
were unable to import mail
or addresses from Outlook in
three attempts.
To access Internet Relay
Chat in either Messenger
or Navigator, you open Chat-
Zilla, an open-source IRC
instant-messaging program.
For anyone accustomed to
AIM, MSN Messenger, or
Yahoo Messenger client software,
the switch to ChatZilla
will be jarring. Instead
of a tool enabled by colorful
buttons (and laden with
advertisements), ChatZilla
is less friendly; for example,
you join chats by entering
Web server addresses manually
(links to several popular
IRC networks, such as
Moznet and Quake net, are
provided). ChatZilla is clearly
designed for Web pros rather
than for average, everyday
users of chat.
As for the SeaMonkey
Composer HTML editor (the
old Netscape Composer),
think of it as a light version
of Microsoft FrontPage.
It looks much like a word
processor with big buttons
for such operations as Publish,
Link, Table, and Image,
and it lets you work with a
page’s HTML code.
D e s p i t e SeaMonkey’ s
rough edges, its bundling
of a browser, an e-mail utility,
and an HTML editor in
one package is appealing.
Though the suite isn’t likely
to convert many Firefox or
Internet Explorer users,
it will probably fi nd a home
with Web developers and
others who pine for the Netscape
era or who simply like
having all their Web tools in a
single wrapper.
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