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The ideal situation would be for a group of developers to fork Firefox 3.6.x, throw in some of the improvements from 4, and run with it.

No need for that. Just try SeaMonkey.

Try SeaMonkey (http://www.seamonkey-project.org/). Same technology, saner interface.

Opera 11: Email
There was a time when Mozilla combined the email program with the browser, but it stopped this integration long ago. That era is back again, this time on Opera.

Disclaimer: I haven't used Opera 11.

Even though it's not an "official" Mozilla project, you can nonetheless continue to use an integrated web browser and email suite in the form of SeaMonkey -- it's been around for years and years. Hard to see anyone else make grand claims about email functionality.

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

Surprisingly enough, Seamonkey is actually lighter and faster than Firefox. Give it a try.

It's called Seamonkey

I want a solid, fast browser that supports the great extensions that Mozilla didn't write, and continues to support developments in the core web standards space.

That sounds like SeaMonkey.

You can move tabs back on the bottom, restore the bookmarks bar, and change the Firefox button back to the menu bar. You can restore the statusbar with Status 4 Evar, and you can move and add any buttons you want with a simple right-click. All of these are very trivial to do, and if you don't like customizing your browser there's always Seamonkey, which is pretty much just Firefox without the shiny-ness and a more classic UI.

Posted from SeaMonkey. Personally I still like having an HTML editor, browser and email client all in one package.

This plugin is not yet compatible with SeaMonkey. Someone should fix that.

See http://www.seamonkey-project.org/doc/2.0/geolocation for a description of the how & why. In short, yes, the geolocation info comes from Google.

When you visit a location-aware website, SeaMonkey will ask you if you want to share your location.

If you consent, SeaMonkey gathers information about nearby wireless access points and your computer's IP address. Then SeaMonkey sends this information to the default geolocation service provider, Google Location Services, to get an estimate of your location. That location estimate is then shared with the requesting website.

If you say that you do not consent, SeaMonkey will not do anything.

That is still in production, just under a different name. http://wwww.seamonkey-project.org/

Netscape Communicator died for a reason. It was a slow, bloated...

Ironically, this is exactly why I recently dropped Firefox and went BACK. While Seamonkey has a larger memory footprint than Firefox on initial load, it doesn't leak memory like a sieve... after a hour's use on my machine, it's still under 100MB whereas Firefox takes up 300+MB (both using essentially the same list of plugins). Also, Seamonkey's start-up time is a FRACTION of either Firefox's or Thunderbird's.

Firefox has completely forgotten it's original mission statement, and fallen victim to scope creep and just all-around code bloat. If these are reasons that had you switching 5 years ago, it might be worth taking another look and running another side-by-side comparison of the two browsers and the paths they've taken. In addition to the regular install, you could play with a clean portable version as well.

I'm surprised that the twelve most commonly used browsers include several that I hadn't heard about (most of which are not that good, if one is to believe TFA) but do not include SeaMonkey. Perhaps it is too much like Firefox+Thunderbird for people to actually want to use it.

Well there is still Seamonkey, but since it is based on Firefox code eventually it will kill OSX 10.4 as well. It sounds like with SeaMonkey some 10.4 using developers need to get together and support either Firefox or SeaMonkey by backporting fixes. And can't Linux PPC code run on OSX? How about using the Linux PPC Firefox?

Isn't one of the big selling points of FOSS that someone else can fork if there is a need? Seems like there are more than enough 10.4 users out there for there to be a need. I still can't believe Apple drops support THAT quickly, man that just bites. One more reason I'm glad I'm using Windows, where the hardware usually gives up the ghost long before the OS is out of date. Hell I'd probably still be using my 1.1GHz Celery Win2K box if it didn't use one of those proprietary as hell HP PSUs that cost more than the box is worth to replace. I figure between the 1.8GHz Sempron netbox and the AMD quad I've got another 6-10 years of service easy, which they will then be handed down to relatives like my P4s were.

No need to find or create a fork. SeaMonkey is the project anyone leaving Firefox behind needs to look at, with most of the same bells and whistles, but without the dumbing down.

You do realise that one of the design goals of Firefox was to reduce options?

If you really want a full featured browser with the same rendering engine as Firefox you really need to look at Seamonkey, which was the old Mozilla Browser. Unfortunately version 2 that has all the functionality of Firefox 2 & 3 with out the artificial limitations is still in Beta.
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

Hi,
Firstly if you're looking for opensource app replacements you can always try www.osalt.com.

Personally I'd try:
Photoshop: GIMP or GIMPShop or Krita
Illustrator: Inkscape or XaraXtreme
InDesign: scribus
Dreamweaver: KompoZer or Aptana or seamonkey or Amaya or href="http://net2.com/nvu/">NVU

I also found this website which might help: www.thefreesuite.com

Here are the relevant OSalt links:
photoshop
illustrator
indesign
dreamweaver

Here you go:
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/

Run Firefox in one and Seamonkey in the other. Seamonkey the browser component is nothing but Firefox, and even many Firefox extensions work just fine with Seamonkey. You can choose browser only on install if you don't want/need the email, IRC chat, or HTML editor. Plus it is nice to have a "guest browser" for when you have.....guests.

Or if you are on Windows you also have the choices of Kmeleon or KmeleonCCFME. Both are superfast Win32 native gecko engine builds, but they don't have as many extensions due to not using XUL. Of the two Kmeleon is great if you want it installed, but I prefer KmeleonCCFME because it comes with ABP installed and is already portable. Just unzip to a flash and go.

This IMHO is one of the great things about Open Source software. if you think you have a better idea you are free to fork it your own way. I have found Seamonkey to be a very useful for getting my older clients away from Outlook Express/IE, and Kmeleon/CCFME is simply very fast on Windows.

>In similar vein, I'm also looking for pluck-outs from Firefox which is also bloated.

SeaMonkey

Which brings up why I love the way things are today: choice. I remember the bad old days when it was either IE or if you wanted to suffer the really crappy Netscape edition(4 IIRC) and now we all have so many more choices. In my family alone we have Seamonkey for my mom(who refuses to surf without her "blue bird"), we have Kmeleon for my sister(who loves its layout and speed), we have Opera for my oldest boy (who says anything after version 5 sucks and refuses to update) and we have Flock for the youngest(who loves social sites) and finally Firefox for me,because of Adblock+ and Noscript,along with FEBE and iMacros.

So IMHO it doesn't really matter who is the "best" as long as we have plenty of others to choose from. Because I can tell you that the way it was before really sucked the big wet titty. But thanks to free software and plenty of choices my family can each have their own browser that suits their personality and can stay the hell out of mine, which is always a good thing. That and the fact that I can have IE removed from the program list and blocked at the firewall and nobody in my family seems to care. So if any of the designers of the above browsers read this: Thank you. You have made my family very happy and made it easier for me to keep the peace. So thanks.

Especially since one of the PC entries is Maxthon, which is just IE with a whole bunch of crap added to it. For those looking for alternatives in the Windows realm I would suggest Seamonkey for those who want an "all in one" complete with HTML editor, IRC client and Email client. For those looking for speed, especially with older hardware(works well on as little as 400MHz with 128Mb of RAM) or simply want a quick, no frills web browser I would suggest Kmeleon. For those who like social sites such as delicious and flickr I would recommend Flock. And finally for those that would like a tiny browser, one that takes up almost no space and can simply be dropped on a flash drive I would point out OffByOne.

Any one of these IMHO would be better choices than the ones given for Windows in this article. And Maxthon is IMHO just too dangerous due to the fact that IE is still the #1 target out there for malware writers and in XP and below IE is too easy to hit to make it a safe browser for everyday use. But if anyone here hasn't tried the above browsers, give them a go. I have used all of them at one time or another and they each have their uses.

Have you tried Download Statusbar? I have mine set to clear the bar after 5 seconds, but you can probably set it to 0 if you just want them to go poof.

And as for the above poster who wonders why I don't just give the old folks a shortcut? Because with Seamonkey it really makes it easy to copy/paste that recipe they are sure that Mabel will like,LOL! But that is what I love about Firefox,all the diversity. I give Seamonkey to the older folks, Kmeleon to those with older PCs or who only care about speed,and Flock to those that are into the social sites. With the FF codebase I can give everyone something for them and still not have to worry about the latest IE bug. Oh and those who haven't given it a shot should try Songbird. I have been using it myself as well as handing it out to my customers and it is really gotten quite nice.

Well,I don't know about him but I prefer the versatility of Gecko myself. When a customer comes in with older hardware or they only care about speed I can give them Kmeleon,if they are into the social sites I can give them Flock,the old folks that still like to download their mail I give Seamonkey,and for the everyday Joes I give Firefox. I have also started giving out Songbird,which is also based on FF,thus the Gecko engine,and so far folks are really liking it. If Firefox wants to know where the next "Firefox killer" is going to come from,IMHO they just need to look in the mirror. Their engine is so easy to customize that I wouldn't be surprised if the next big thing ran Gecko under the hood.

I was really happy with Firefox pre 1.0, and have steadily gotten less happy. I still use it because I'd rather have my nuts crushed than go back to IE.

Then how about Seamonkey? It's got all the goodness of the Mozilla browser without the Windowsy handholding and lecturing that's crept into Firefox over the versions.

But you can always try for yourself -- there may still be some modern Seamonkey builds somewhere.

There certainly are, right here!

Use Seamonkey. You can download and use just the browser if you want to (look around their downloads). It works like you want it, type one letter, gives you the top listings you visited that start with that letter. Type one more letter, it matches and does the same, and so on. Plus, you have one big url bar, not two small ones.

Why FF went to two addy bars is beyond me, less space than anyone else, hides the full urls without hoop jumping meaning checking for a phishing scam is harder. Lame. One big addy bar, two small buttons, search or go, works just fine.

SeaMonkey, of course. :)

I made a Mozilla product name generator a half year back.

Release Date:, 2006-04-2

And on the topic of Netscape, IMHO they were dead when they released that horrible version that was so buggy and slow( I believe it was NS4). And let us not forget that Netscape was as bad as IE for using their own proprietary hooks which made it hard to render in other browsers. I am so glad that now we have so many choices like Firefox, Seamonkey, Safari, Opera, Kmeleon, etc. Instead of the "Coke VS Pepsi" that was NS VS IE.

And for those that want a "Netscape like" browser, there is always Seamonkey, which is much better and supports most Firefox extensions, including the important ones like noscript. It also makes a great browser for those older folks that are still stuck on older versions of IE and Outlook. I can't count the number of folks I've switched with Seamonkey due to the convenience of being able to check their mail just by clicking on a tab.

It is sad to see a once great come to the end, but IMHO it died a long time ago, and now they are simply pulling the life support. It does make me look back on the good old days, When Peter Norton made great tools and everyone had their own favorite DOS hacks. Now Get Off My Lawn!

Version 6 was a piece of shit. I was using 4.08 at that time. That was the last one I found to be stable until 7.1. I like the email and browser together... but I guess I'm gonna have to go the Firefox - Thunderbird route soon.

Actually, it sounds like you'd be more interested in SeaMonkey than Firefox+Thunderbird. It's a continuation of the Mozilla suite that was the basis for Netscape 7, and still has the combined browser & email. It's also still being developed as a Mozilla project, so it's current as far as capabilities & security fixes go.

IMHO,that is the great thing about the modern browser scene. I have FF,Opera,Kmeleon, and Seamonkey, and each have their strengths. I personally don't see why they just can't come to a compromise and just have 5 or 6 browsers offered through Windows Updates, with a link besides each so folks can look at each and choose whichever one that looks good to them. And if they are so lazy that they can't even click a link popped up by WU, then I for one hope they stick with IE.

Unfortunately, I think the damage to Firefox's reputation is already done. There are many people who have had negative experiences with Firefox who keep on harping about the "memory leaks" and I don't see how Mozilla devs can change this public perception.