Re: [MLUG] Mozilla versus firefox/thunderbird

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

>I think the thing that is confusing people is the name. Basically, as I
>understand it, Firefox is the new version of the Mozilla browser.
>Thunderbird, which was the mail part of Mozilla, has been decoupled from
>the browser. I don't think it's a completely new program, but more of a
>next generation of the Mozilla code. So don't think of it as changing
>browsers, but more like upgrading. It's kind of like changing from the
>older Netscape to the 7.0 version. It was derived from the old code but
>had so many improvements that it seamed like a completely different
>program.
>  
>
Firefox (and the related apps) are less new versions of Mozilla than 
they are a new variant of Mozilla. Eventually they'll probably 
completely replace the classic suite completely but they aren't really a 
newer version. Mozilla and Firebird are built from the same code tree 
and are mostly the same. The only real difference is that Firefox is 
lighter weight and therefore faster. Most of the nice UI work has been 
done towards Firefox lately too so Firefox seems more polished. 
Internally though the two are pretty much identical. The rendering 
engine should be the same as should most of the application-specific logic.

It's important to remember that it's really Gecko that defines what 
Mozilla is. Firefox, Thunderbird, and all the rest are just applications 
built on top of a common cross-platform engine. Most of these apps are 
actually written in XML, HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc. A lot of this 
application-specific code is shared too so you may as well say 
Thunderbird is a new version of Firefox as say that Firefox is a new 
version of the Suite.

<rant>
Someday I still want to write an entire desktop enviroment on top of 
Mozilla. Whouldn't it be fun if every part of your desktop could be 
edited as plain-text files based on common web standards most of us 
already know? I am amussed to be able to apply CSS to Mozilla-based apps 
so easily so I can only imagine what it could do for the desktop. :)
</rant>

-- 
Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>
http://kavlon.org

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