hidden preferenceI have heard about?
The Mozilla Organization is an independent, open-source organization. It is composed of hundreds of volunteers as well as employees of its many supporters.
mozilla.org was created in 1998 when Netscape released the Netscape Communicator source code to the public. The source code, however, was soon scrapped and a new browser and layout engine, Gecko, were created. The organization continued to operate under Netscape until the task was handed over to the Mozilla Foundation, an independent non-profit organization, on July 2003.
Mozilla the software is an advanced, standard-compliant Internet application suite built from ground up.
Mozilla is for everyone. And we mean everyone. Mozilla is open source, which means it is made possible by a large community of developers, supporters, and users like you. While you enjoy our software, please consider joining and contributing to the Mozilla community.
We also welcome anybody to freely alter and redistribute Mozilla under the terms of the Mozilla Public Licence.
Yes. Mozilla is free (as in freedom) software, and it can be downloaded and redistributed free of charge.
Unlike many other so-called free
programs, Mozilla has
no expiration date, no buy-me nag dialog, and no advertisement, and
it does not come with any spyware (trackware).
Mozilla is a feature-complete suite including a browser, mail and newsgroup client, Web page editor, and an IRC client. It has all the essential tools, including password and form manager, cookie manager, pop-up window control, junk mail control, multiple mail account support, spell check, and more.
Mozilla follows fast development, with milestone releases made according to the development roadmap. Starting from year 2003, Mozilla is released on a quarterly schedule.
Many of Mozilla releases are for testing and software preview only. These releases have alpha, beta, or release candidate in their names. If you are not interested in software testing, you should get a final version release.
Due to lack of interest among the developer community to maintain a version of Mozilla for Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9, mozilla.org has stopped releasing new version for these systems.
For best security and stability, you should use Mozilla 1.0.2. If you would like to get the latest features available for your Mac, try Harunaga Hirotoshi's unofficial 1.3.1 version, which is close to the official Mozilla 1.3.1 release. You may also try WaMCom, which is compiled from selected code in Mozilla 1.3.1 and some custom code.
You can get language packs and localized builds at the localization status page.
Netscape 7.1 is based on Mozilla 1.4. Both applications share almost the identical features, such as tabbed browsing, custom keywords, and Sidebar. Exceptions are additions of proprietary features such as the support for Netscape WebMail and AOL mail. In general, Netscape 7 and Mozilla will display Web pages and read mail the same.
Note the development of Netscape 7 browser suite has been stopped.
Users are encouraged to move to Mozilla. Read
Migrating from Netscape 6 or 7
in the Getting Started Guide.
Whereas Mozilla is a suite of browser, mail, and Web page editor programs, Firefox is a standalone browser. Firefox and Mozilla share the same layout engine, but they have different user interfaces.
In general, Mozilla is for people who prefer to have all their Internet needs met in one single package. Firefox, in contrast, is very configurable; it is for people who like to begin small and add features (via extensions) later to suit their needs.
First, uninstall Mozilla, as detailed for your operating system in the Release Notes:
Then install the new version. You should never install a new version of Mozilla over a previous one.
If your plug-ins folder is inside the Mozilla application folder, you may wish to save it elsewhere beforehand so as to restore it after reinstalling. You can also keep your plug-ins folder in your profile. Go to Help | About Plug-ins to see the locations of the plug-ins Mozilla is currently using.
Uninstalling Mozilla this way will leave your profile and your user preferences intact. You may lose access to some extensions and have to reinstall them.
If you have problems with a new installation of Mozilla, see the Troubleshooting Guide and the Getting Started Guide.
mozilla.org does not release patches. Mozilla releases are stable and typically secure, and they normally do not require updates. (In fact, Mozilla 1.0 only has two maintainance releases one year after release.)
Go to Mozilla Update for a list of extensions you can use.
You can see keyboard shortcuts in the on-screen Help (open the Help menu and select Help Contents).
In addition to the preferences found under Edit | Preferences (Mac OS X: Mozilla |
Preferences), the advanced user has fine control over a tremendous
number of Mozilla parameters. To access and modify these advanced preferences,
enter about:config
in the Location Bar.
Improper configuration may cause Mozilla to malfunction. Your preferences are stored in file prefs.js in your profile. Be sure to back up this file before you use about:config. Also read Customizing Mozilla, Hidden Mail Compose Prefs and Hidden Address Book Prefs.
You may also use the MozTweak or Preferential extension for a more user-friendly interface.
A crash recovery project is in development at http://recall.mozdev.org/.
AIM is a proprietary AOL product and is integrated only with Netscape. You can still use the standalone version of AIM, or the Java version (if you have the Java plug-in installed).
Mozilla uses plug-ins from the Netscape 4 plug-in folder if it is present (except on Mac OS X); uninstalling Netscape 4 may remove these plug-ins. You may need to copy your Netscape 4 plug-ins to the Mozilla plug-in folder before uninstalling Netscape 4. Open the Help menu and select About Plug-ins to see where plug-ins are stored.